This time we'll see what happens when Martin tries to spy on Luke. And Miles is going to get to know Twitch a lot better in this chapter, too.
Sunday April 27th
It started raining late this morning and has carried on all afternoon, so I didn’t manage to get back to the special place this afternoon after all. I really hope the weather is better next weekend. I’m going to ask if I can have lunch early next Saturday, or maybe even take a packed lunch, so I can get there really early. That should give me a chance to find a good place to hide, either in or right next to the bramble-bush I noticed yesterday.
Last night at bed-time Miles called me into his room and asked if I would like to sleep with him. I asked if there was a storm forecast – I’d missed the weather on TV – and he said no, he just thought it would be nice if we could sleep together for a change, since usually it only happens when I’m too scared to be able to talk normally. And I suppose that’s true, though I’d prefer it if Miles didn’t remind me about it, or use words like ‘scared’ (it’s true, but it makes me sound like a baby). Anyway, I thought it would be nice, too, so I said yes.
I wasn’t very surprised when he asked me to take off my pyjama trousers before getting into bed. I didn’t mind, either: over the last couple of weeks I’ve found that I like being bare and having Miles touch me. He actually took his own jacket off, too, because he said it would feel good if we cuddled up like that, and he was right: it was nice feeling his bare chest against mine. He kept his trousers on, though, and when I suggested that he should take them off to make it fair between us, he said that he didn’t have to be fair, and that his personal places were going to stay personal. Mine, of course, didn’t stay personal, and he made my penis go hard almost as soon as he turned the light out, and then he stroked me all over for quite a while before we settled down to go to sleep.
I’ve decided I like sleeping naked, at least when it isn’t too cold outside: it feels right, somehow, and so I’m going to try it for the rest of this week, even when I’m sleeping alone in my own bed.
Anyway, when we woke up this morning Miles and I cuddled for a while. We didn’t talk much, but we didn’t need to: it just felt nice being close to him. I’d never admit it to him, but I really love my brother, even when he teases me. He stroked my bottom for a while, and then stroked my penis and testicles, and it made me feel nice. When Mother called to say we should get up Miles threw the bedclothes off, sat on the bed and got me to stand in front of him so that he could look at my penis while he was stroking it. He did it for a minute or so and then sent me back to my own room to get dressed. It would have been nice if he could have gone on touching me, but we had to get to breakfast or Mother would have come looking for us.
The shed is being delivered this week, but I won’t be able to use it for a while because my dad is going to have to run power cables to it from the house, and we’re going to have to sort out a bottled gas supply for my Bunsen burners. But at least it’ll be there and I’ll be able to start planning where I want to put everything…
Graham was back from his weekend trip and so was able to ride to school with Miles on the Monday morning (by which time the rain clouds had disappeared).
“Sorry I wasn’t around at the weekend,” he said. “One of my cousins was getting married in Nottingham and my parents decided to stay overnight. It was really boring. So what did you do while I was away?”
“We played football. Even Kevin turned up, so we had enough for a decent game. We didn’t play strip penalties, though – it wouldn’t have been as good without you there for us all to laugh at.”
“I wouldn’t have lost,” said Graham. “I’m far too skilled. Probably Kevin would have lost again, because he’s crap at penalties.”
“He probably wouldn’t have agreed to take part, seeing that Robyn was there.”
“You’re probably right. We’ll have to make him strip playing crib instead. Maybe we should form a sort of crib league, in teams of two. Bottom team in the league after we’ve all played each other gets naked forfeits.”
“Or we could play that the losers of every game get forfeits – that way we’d get to see loads more people naked. Extra bad forfeits for whichever team finishes bottom of the league.”
“That could be fun. We’ll have to try to persuade everyone to join in. I know Rob will play, and I’m ready to bet Jamie will. And we’ll talk the others into it somehow. Perhaps we can have a proper tournament at half term.”
The week rolled by. By now Miles had settled in completely and had got to know most of the other boys in his class, and some of the girls – the ones that were friends with Robyn, anyway. And everyone seemed to think he was okay. And so he decided that he was going to spend a little more time with Twitch, who was as friendly as ever, even though Miles had declined a couple of invitations to eat lunch with him. So he started going back to the classroom a little before the end of break (Twitch usually stayed inside during the breaks and read a book), or not rushing off to the playground at the end of lessons but staying and talking to Twitch instead. That way he was able to spend a little more time with him without disregarding Graham’s advice not to be seen with him outside the classroom.
Twitch had a good repertoire of jokes, several of which were aimed at himself. For example, he told Miles that his mother never had to worry if their washing-machine broke down – all she had to do was to put the dirty clothes in a bath full of water, add some soap powder, and then flash a bright light in Twitch’s face and shove him in the bath. He was, he said, far better at swishing the clothes about and he didn’t use any electricity, either. Miles wondered for a moment if he could possibly be serious, and when he hesitantly asked the question Twitch cracked up.
“Of course not, idiot,” he said. “You don’t seriously think my parents would intentionally make me have a fit, do you? If that really happened I’d probably drown – I don’t have any control of anything while it’s happening to me, so if my head was under water I wouldn’t be able to lift it above the surface. Actually, I wouldn’t even be aware it was under water, so I’d just try breathing water until I drowned. Or I’d crack my head open on the bath. If I ever have a big fit in front of you you’ll see what I mean.”
And on the Thursday Miles did get to see what he meant. A couple of the teachers were away from school sick and so there was a supply teacher taking some of the lessons, and of course it was that afternoon that the starter on one of the neon lights in their classroom decided to go on the blink. The result was that the light started to come on and off, quite rapidly. If any of the usual teachers had been there it wouldn't have caused a problem, because they would have known to turn the light off straight away, but this supply teacher hadn't taught them before. It didn't help either that he was of the old school persuasion: he'd told them to read a passage in their books quietly, and when Twitch put his hand up the teacher just said, almost without looking up, that all he had to do was read and that any questions could wait until everyone had finished.
“But, Sir,” tried Twitch, and was just told to shut up.
“Can't you close your eyes?” asked Miles.
“I can try, but you can still see a flashing light through your eyelids.”
“Then get up and go. You won't get into trouble, because the head knows about you, doesn't she?”
“Well, yes... okay, I suppose you're... oranges!”
“What?”
“Oranges – I can smell oranges... damn, it's too late. Can you try to keep my head still...”
Twitch half jumped and half fell onto the floor, landing on his side. Miles was a bit slow to react, and at first he thought nothing was happening because Twitch just seemed to go completely still; but then he started thrashing about, and at that point Miles dropped to his knees and tried to keep his friend's head from flopping about too much.
“What on earth do you think...” began the teacher, but then he realised what was happening. He couldn't do very much, though, except to tell the rest of the class to face the front.
Twitch's body kept moving about for a couple of minutes, and part-way through Miles's nose told him that his friend had lost control of his bodily functions. At last the convulsions stopped, though Twitch just lay on the floor, apparently completely out of it, for a couple more minutes, until Miles was getting worried.
“He's not moving, Sir,” he said. “Is that normal?”
“I don't really know,” admitted the teacher.
“Yes, it's what happened last time,” said a girl called Vanessa, who sat just across the aisle from Miles and Twitch. “He shook about for a bit and then just lay there for three or four minutes. Miss Steadman said it was normal and we should just wait till he woke up.”
“Thank you,” said the teacher. “Alright, you – it's Miles, isn't it? You stay with him; the rest of you, we're going to read from the top of page thirteen. Emily, could you start reading, please?”
The rest of the class tried to concentrate, not very effectively, on the lesson, while Miles knelt beside Twitch's head and hoped Vanessa knew what she was talking about. And apparently she did, because a few seconds later Twitch groaned and tried to stand up. Miles helped him and supported him until he could stand on his own.
“Please Sir, I need to go and clean up,” Twitch said;
“Of course. Miles, go with him in case anything happens.”
“Don't worry, Sir, it never happens twice in a row.”
“I still want someone with you,” insisted the teacher. “And when you've finished you should go to the office and get Miss Jordan to phone your parents.”
Twitch nodded, grabbed his bag and headed for the door. Miles trailed along after him, not knowing what to say – obvious comments like 'So that was a fit, then?' and 'Do you know you've soiled yourself?' didn't seem to be sensible things to say...
Twitch led him to the boys' toilet, went into one of the cubicles and closed the door, while Miles hung around outside, not knowing what to do. A couple of minutes passed and then he heard Twitch swear and then start to cry.
'Are you all right?' would have been a really stupid question, so instead he said, “Open the door, Noel.”
He wasn't sure that Twitch would so it, but after ten seconds he heard the bolt slide back. He pushed the door open. Twitch was sitting on the toilet, his head down, with his soiled underwear and wet trousers on a heap on the floor. He'd had to take his shoes off to get the trousers off, and they were on the floor on the other side of the cubicle.
“There’s no more paper,” he managed to say. “And it wasn't really getting me clean, anyway... oh, shit, Miles, I hate this so much...” and he trailed off into sobs again.
“Come on,” said Miles, pulling him to his feet. “It'll be easier with a little warm water. And the bell doesn't go for another twenty-five minutes, so nobody's going to come in.”
He helped Twitch out to the wash-room, ran some water into one of the basins, grabbed a handful of paper towels from one of the dispensers, got Twitch to bend over the adjacent basin and spread his legs, and then moistened a couple of the towels and started to clean Twitch's bottom. It took a bit of work because the excrement was smeared all over the place, but gradually he got it washed off. When it had all been removed he used a couple of clean paper towels to dry his friend off.
“Wash your front,” he advised him. “And then if I tie my jacket around your waist nobody will realise you're bare underneath.”
“It's okay, I carry a change of pants and a pair of shorts in my bag,” Twitch told him. “Just in case.”
“Okay, I'll get your bag.” And Miles went back into the toilet, picked up Twitch's bag and shoes in one hand and, very carefully, his soiled trousers and pants in the other and took them out to the wash-room. Twitch was wiping down his groin, keeping his back towards Miles. Miles would have liked to see what his friend was washing, but he controlled himself, put Twitch's stuff down beside him and went and waited by the door.
Twitch got dressed in his clean pants and a pair of PE shorts, carefully rolled up his dirty clothes and put them into the plastic bag his clean clothes had been in, put on his shoes, picked up his bag and walked to the door.
“Now we'd better go and call your parents,” said Miles.
“I suppose so. There's no point, really, because I know I'll be okay now, but I'd better do it anyway. Look, Miles...”
“What?”
“No, it doesn't matter. Come on.”
They went to the office and Miles waited while Twitch reported to the headmistress and got the secretary to let him call home, and then he came out to where Miles was waiting.
“It's not worth hurrying, because the bell goes in five minutes,” he said. “Come with me.”
He led Miles to the main hall, which was of course empty at this time of day, and closed the door behind them.
“Thanks,” he said. “I can't imagine anyone else in the school helping me clean up like that. You're a real friend... which makes me feel a bit bad, because I was thinking you'd been avoiding me lately. I thought you didn't want to be friends any more. Now I know I was wrong. Mind you, now you've seen me in action, I won't blame you if you want to sit on the other side of the classroom from now on.”
Now it was Miles's turn to feel bad. “I'd like to stay next to you,” he said. “If you don't mind, that is... because... well, you were right: I have been avoiding you, at least outside the classroom. And it was stupid of me, because I shouldn't care what other people think... except...”
“You mean that people will laugh at you if you hang around with me?”
“Well, sort of. I'm really sorry, Noel.”
“You can call me Twitch, you know. Everyone else does.”
“I don't want to be like everyone else. I like you, Noel – you're funny, and you tell good jokes... it's just...”
“I know. I just wish my life wasn't so completely shit all the time. I mean, look at me: I've got a face that makes a warthog look beautiful and a body that goes on strike every now and again and makes me mess myself in public. It would be good if just once something nice would happen... “
Twitch started to cry again, and this time Miles did what he would have done if it had been his brother standing in front of him: he put his arms round him and hugged him hard.
“Well, you’ve got a friend now,” said Miles. “I don’t know if that counts as ‘something nice’ but it’s the best I can do. So… do you want to come to my house at the weekend?”
He made the offer without stopping to think first, but then he decided that it would be too bad if the family had anything planned: Twitch needed cheering up, and that was more important.
Twitch look at him. “Do you mean that?” he asked.
“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t.”
“Then… I’d like that. Except… could you come to my house instead? It’s just that my parents would probably like to meet you and give you the ‘What to do if Twitch goes all wobbly’ lecture before they let me come to yours.”
“Okay. But your family don’t actually call you ‘Twitch’, do they?”
“Well, no, that’s just what I call their sermon. Though I seriously don’t mind being called ‘Twitch’ – I think it’s quite a cool name, actually. I mean, I’m only called Noel because I was born on Christmas Eve – and that’s another thing that’s wrong with my life, of course: three hundred and sixty-four days between presents.”
“In that case I’ll give you a present on my birthday,” promised Miles. “It’s in July, so you won’t have quite so long to wait. And I’ll definitely come round to yours if you like. Saturday afternoon okay?”
“Probably – I’ll let you know tomorrow. Thanks, Miles – I haven’t had anyone round to visit for ages.”
The bell went and they headed back to the classroom for the last lesson of the day. But Miles had decided that from now on he was going to be friends with Twitch, and if the other kids in his class didn’t like it… well, okay, he really hoped the other kids wouldn’t do or say anything, because although right now he felt ready to stick up for Twitch, he wasn’t sure he would go on feeling like that if Graham and his other friends gave him a hard time about it. Oh, well, he thought, I’ll worry about that if it happens…
Saturday May 3rd
I suppose I’m lucky I’m still here to be able to make this entry….
I went to the special place as soon as we finished lunch. I made my way to the dip from the same direction as last time, just in case, but when I got there the angry boy was nowhere in sight. So I went to the bramble-bush, had a proper look at it and then took the secateurs I’d borrowed from home and started to snip my way into it, starting on the opposite side from the branch. It took a while, but eventually I’d made a sort of tunnel into the middle of the bush. I cleared out all the snippets of bramble so that I wouldn’t end up lying on them and then crawled into the bush, pushing my bag in front of me – it’s green and brown, so it gave me a little more camouflage. >From inside I could see the branch quite well, as well as the area around it, so I was happy with my hide.
I’d brought a book to read, because I thought I might have to wait a while. I’d brought my CD player, too, but I decided that it wouldn’t be a good idea to listen to music while I was waiting in case I didn’t hear him coming. Reading was okay because I would still hear when the angry boy arrived.
So I read my book for an hour and a half. By then I was getting uncomfortable from just lying in the bush for so long, and I was starting to think that he might not come today anyway. I was thinking about giving up and going home when I heard a noise, and then I saw him coming into the dip from the same end as last time. So I kept still – I closed my book but I didn’t dare try to put it back into the bag in case he heard me moving.
He went to the place where the branches grow out of the bank and got undressed, and when he was bare he went and sat on the branch for a bit. He had his back to me, so I couldn’t see very much, just that he was quite thin and that he had quite long fair hair that covered his ears.
He sat for quite a while, and I was starting to get quite uncomfortable again – and worse, I needed to urinate. I must have drunk too much orange juice at lunch-time. But I didn’t dare move, so I waited.
Eventually he got up, went and untied the string that keeps his rope up in the branches and lowered it down, and then he started swinging and jumping again. I still couldn’t make out too much, because when he was on the rope he went past me too quickly, and when he was on the way back to the top of the bank he had his back to me.
He went and fetched his spear, and I thought that maybe if he went and practised in the same place as last time I’d be able to risk moving a little, but he chose a tree much closer to the bramble bush to set up his target. I still didn’t dare move, and I thought that if he didn’t go a bit further away soon I was going to wet myself, but he kept throwing his spear. He seems to be really good at it, too, always hitting the target even when he went and stood further back.
But at least he was close enough for me to see him a bit better now. He doesn’t look quite so thin from the front – in fact he has some nice muscles. There seem to some scars around his left shoulder, and there’s a mark on his face which might be a scar, too – maybe that’s what I sort of half-noticed last time. His personal places look about the same as mine, though he doesn’t have Monkey Disease, of course. So he looks human, which is good, because it means that the people on the other side of the portal are basically the same as me.
But when he bent down to pick up his spear on the one occasion that it didn’t stay stuck into the tree his hair fell forward and I caught a glimpse of something behind his ear. It looked a bit like one of those Bluetooth phone things like my dad has, but this one didn’t seem to have a microphone. I thought that maybe it was a sort of radio implant, and if it was I’d have to be really careful, because it would mean that he could call for help straight away - and if the portal was close by I could find myself in real trouble.
After a while he put the spear down and went and climbed into the tree. And now I really had to urinate if I didn’t want to wet my pants, so I rolled carefully onto my side, undid my jeans, took out my penis and started to urinate. It made only a very faint sound, so I thought I would be okay, but I hadn’t realised that the bush I was in wasn’t as thick from above as it was from the side: he suddenly gave a yell, making it obvious he could see me. I was still urinating, so I tried to finish really quickly and then grabbed at my bag and started to wriggle out of the bush feet first. But my bag got hooked up in the brambles and I couldn’t pull it free.
The angry boy started climbing down the rope, and he was moving far too quickly, so I let go of the bag, finished working my way out of the bush, pushed my penis back into my jeans and started to back away without waiting to do my zip up. By now the boy had reached the ground, so I ran back to the overgrown end of the dip where he wouldn’t be able to follow me in bare feet. But instead he picked up his spear and started moving towards me, and I was so scared that I urinated a little more in my jeans, because I knew how accurate he was with his spear and how far he could throw it. I turned and ran away as fast as I could and didn’t stop until I was three fields away and could see that he wasn’t following me.
I waited for an hour, because I was fairly sure he’d have gone back through the portal by then – he would probably have been a bit embarrassed about being seen undressed and would probably have wanted to go straight home, but I wanted to wait long enough to make sure he hadn’t just gone to get some friends to help him chase after me.
I’ve just thought that maybe they don’t wear clothes in his world – after all, in a warm climate where the weather is controlled you don’t really need clothes. So perhaps he wasn’t embarrassed, just angry, and the only reason he didn’t chase me on his own is that in our world there are lots of brambles and thistles and thorns and things that make it hard to run far in bare feet.
But after an hour had gone by I was fairly sure he wasn’t going to chase me, either on his own or with friends, so I carefully made my way back to the dip. And I found it empty: he had obviously gone home. I felt relieved about that: it meant it would be safe for me to go and get my bag back.
But when I got back to the bush I found my bag had gone, and so had my book: the bush was empty. I looked around to see if it had just been moved, but it looked as if he had taken it with him when he left. But then I saw something: there was a piece of paper stuck to one of the twin branches, and when I got close enough I found that it had my full name on it, even my middle name. At first I didn’t understand how he could possibly know that, unless that radio thing on his ear was actually something to help him to read minds. But then I remembered I’d left a tag in the bag with my name, address and phone number on. Fortunately I hadn’t changed it since we moved, so it still had my old London address and phone number on, and that at least meant that the angry boy couldn’t come to my house to beat me up.
The paper was tucked behind a bit of bark, so I pulled it out, opened it up and read it. And it said ‘If you want your bag back, be here tomorrow afternoon at three o’clock. Come alone. If you don’t turn up, you don’t get it back.’
I can’t just abandon it. I mean, the bag isn’t that special, and I could always buy another copy of the book, but my CD player was in it, and so were three or four CDs, and it would be expensive to replace them, especially the player. And my parents would be sure to want to know what had happened to it.
So I think I’ll have to go back tomorrow. I suppose I shouldn’t complain, because I wanted to meet him and talk to him anyway, but I’m scared he’ll think I was spying on him just because I wanted to see him without his clothes on, and that could make him very angry. I just hope he gives me a chance to explain…
While Martin was on his way to the dip, Miles was on his bike heading for Twitch’s house. Graham had asked him to come round to help teach Jamie how to play crib, but Miles had said he couldn’t because he was going out, but that he would be free on Sunday. Graham had agreed to try to get Jamie to come round on Sunday instead.
Miles had put some decent clothes on as he wanted to make a good impression on Twitch’s parents, and he had even combed his hair, though the breeze and the bike ride had undone some of his good work by the time he arrived.
Twitch’s parents greeted him warmly. “Noel says you helped him when he had his seizure on Thursday,” his mother said. “That was very kind. A lot of the children are scared of getting anywhere close to him. They seem to think it’s contagious.”
“That’s just silly,” said Miles. “Obviously something like epilepsy isn’t contagious. I think it’s more that they find it weird. Of course, I hadn’t seen it happen before, but it didn’t really bother me. I’ll be quicker to know what to do next time.”
“You can’t really do very much. It’s best if you can find something soft to put under his head – I’m thinking of asking his teachers if we can leave a pillow next to his desk. If we can, all you need to do is get him onto his side with his head on the pillow and stand back. It’s afterwards he really needs a friend, because he usually feels a bit confused, and sometimes he has a bad headache afterwards, and sometimes… well, you saw what happened on Thursday. That’s when the other children can be cruel about it, and it was really nice of you to help him instead.”
“Maybe if they understood it a bit better they’d be nicer about it,” suggested Miles. “Do you think we could ask Miss Steadman or one of the other teachers to explain what causes it? If they understand that it’s not Twi… Noel’s fault, maybe they won’t make fun of him so much.”
“That’s a good idea. Maybe we’ll ask. Anyway, I’m sure Noel wants to show you his room, so go upstairs and play, both of you. I’ll call you when it’s time for tea.”
“I think they like you,” said Twitch, once they were in his room with the door shut. “And this is nice, too – I’m not allowed to have the door shut when I’m in here on my own, just in case. And don’t touch that cord by the bed – it rings a bell in my parents’ bedroom and downstairs. I’m supposed to use it if I have a seizure in the night. So – what would you like to do?”
“It’s up to you. I mean, you’re in charge. Except… wow, Twitch, I didn’t think you’d be allowed to have a computer!”
“I can only use it to look things up, really. I can’t play games on it, because most PC games flash a lot. But it’s useful if I want to find out stuff – like if we get a geography homework where we have to find out what’s the capital of Hungary, for example. And I can use it to play chess. And solitaire.”
“Can I see?”
So Twitch turned the computer on and they played solitaire for a bit, and then Twitch opened his chess program. Miles didn’t know how to play chess – at least, he knew how each piece moved, but that was all. He watched Twitch play for a bit, and then he had a thought.
“Have you got any cards?” he asked.
“Yes, but I don’t know many games.”
“Can you play crib?”
“No. What’s that?”
“I’ll teach you. Get your cards out.”
So they spent most of the first part of the afternoon playing crib. Twitch seemed to pick it up fairly quickly, and he won more games than Miles did. Miles didn’t want to get on to a strip game today because he thought it quite possible that Twitch’s parents would look in now and again to make sure he was all right, but he was confident that he’d be able to do that if Twitch came over to his house instead. So once he was sure Twitch had mastered the game he asked him what other stuff he had, and Twitch took him up into the attic and showed him a large model railway, up on trestles that took up about two-thirds of the roof space.
“Wow, Twitch, this is amazing!” exclaimed Miles, who had never seen a layout that large before. “It must have taken ages to build it!”
“My dad started it off years ago, and I usually get extra bits for my birthday and Christmas. Some of the trains just belong to me, and the others belong to me and my dad, because he still really enjoys using the layout. We can run four trains at once, as long as one of them uses the overhead power system. When we get a bit more overhead stuff we’ll be able to run two trains on both the main lines. You have to be really careful not to crash if you do that, though. Do you want to see?”
“Bloody hell, yes!”
So they spent the rest of the afternoon playing trains, though really, Twitch said, it wasn’t really ‘playing’, more like ‘operating’. Miles didn’t care what you called it – he just thought it was fun. Twitch ‘owned’ two passenger trains and a goods train, and he ran both his passenger trains on the same track to demonstrate how the overhead power system worked.
“Dad wants to set up a proper signalling system,” Twitch said. “He says we can set it up so that everything will run automatically: the trains will stop at red lights and go on green ones without us having to touch the controllers. Although actually I like doing it myself. It might be interesting, though.”
They went on playing until they were called down to tea, and when Miles went home afterwards he thought maybe he’d have to start building his own model railway. And he’d obviously made a good impression on Twitch’s parents, because when he invited Twitch to come and visit him the following weekend they said yes straight away.
When he got home he phoned Graham and found that he hadn’t been able to rearrange his session with Jamie, who had been there until ten minutes previously.
“He likes playing crib, though,” Graham told him. “We didn’t actually play the special version today…” (by which Miles guessed that Graham’s parents could hear his end of the conversation) “…but he said he likes the idea of doubles games, like we spoke about. So tomorrow I’m going over to his house and he’s going to invite Tom to come round, and Kevin, if he’s free, so we can teach them. That’ll just leave Jack, and maybe one of us can teach him next week. Then we’ll be able to start our league. I’m really looking forward to that – I’m starting to think of some good stuff to do afterwards, if you know what I mean.”
Miles definitely knew what he meant, and he found his penis growing hard at the thought of it, because he had a few good ideas for forfeits himself, especially if there were two losers: making them do stuff to each other seemed to him to offer a really entertaining set of possibilities.
And now that he knew that Graham wasn’t going to be available the following afternoon he got on the phone again and called Twitch, and Twitch’s parents said they’d be happy for him to come over the next day. They’d bring him over after lunch – would half-past two be okay? Miles checked with his parents and then replied that half-past two would be fine, and that they would bring Twitch home afterwards.
Twitch arrived the following afternoon dressed as if he was going to be meeting the Queen, in a smart navy blue suit, cream shirt, blue tie and shoes polished to an incredible shine. As soon as his parents had disappeared Twitch wasted no time in removing the tie and the shoes.
“Sorry about the outfit,” he told Miles. “I said we'd just be playing quietly in your room, but they seemed to think I had to dress as if we were getting married, or something. Perhaps they thought your parents would be so dazzled by the suit that they wouldn't notice my face.”
“If you keep going on about how ugly you are I'll have to hit your face with a cricket bat. Mind you, that might improve it...”
Twitch grinned widely. “Now you're getting the hang of it,” he said. “Bet I can think of better insults than you can, though: I've got eleven years' experience, and you've only known me about a month.”
“Yes, but I have to look at you every day, whereas you never see yourself at all, unless you've finally found a shatter-proof mirror.”
“That just proves you're mad – after all, you have to look at me at school, but you volunteered to look at me on Saturday and Sunday this week.”
“You're probably right. Madness runs in the family. Come and meet my brother the alien.”
He took Twitch upstairs, knocked on Martin's door, got no answer and went in anyway. Martin had his earphones on and was listening to the Cradle of Filth album Thornography.
“Hey, Mars!” yelled Miles, finally managing to attract his brother's attention. Martin took the headphones off.
“What's the matter, Miles?” Martin asked.
“Nothing. I just want you to meet my friend, that's all. Twitch, this is Mars, the weird alien. Mars, this is Twitch, the human washing machine.”
“What do you mean?” asked Martin.
“He means I have epilepsy,” said Twitch. “Hi, Mars.”
“I don't think you should make jokes about that,” Martin said to his brother. “It's a serious condition.”
“That's why we make jokes about it,” Twitch told him. “Otherwise we'd be walking about with a face like a yard of wet tripe. Well, I would, anyway.”
“Oh. I don't really understand humour. I can never tell when someone is being serious and when they're telling a joke.”
“If people laugh, it's probably a joke,” Miles said. “Anyway, I just wanted you two to say hello to each other, because Twitch is likely to be coming over quite a bit.”
“Really?” said Twitch, his face lighting up. “In that case, hello again, Mars. Now you have to say hello.”
“Hello,” said Martin, obediently.
“There you are, now we've said hello to each other,” Twitch said. “Is there anything else we have to do, Miles?”
“Not really. Come and see my room. See you later, Mars.”
They went into Miles's room and closed the door.
“Your brother seems nice,” Twitch observed. “And not really very alien. What's alien about him?”
“His brain. He doesn't think like a normal person. He's mega-brainy, too, but, like he said, there are a lot of things he doesn't get. Jokes are one of them.”
“Well, I like him. So – what are we going to do? I see you haven't got a computer.”
“We're not allowed. My mother thinks we'll use it to download rude pictures or, in Mars' case, to learn how to build a nuclear bomb in his bedroom. I'm saving up for an Xbox, but it'll take me ages. I haven't got a train set either, but I think I'm going to get one. I've got loads of soldiers, though, so later we can have a battle. But first let's see if you can remember to play crib.”
“Of course I can – I remember beating you quite often yesterday.”
“That was just luck.”
“That was pure skill.”
“Okay then, in that case I challenge you: whoever loses this game has to take all his clothes off and play the next game naked.”
That made Twitch stop and think.
“Unless you're scared, of course,” Miles went on.
“I'm not scared. It's just that now we're friends I don't want to upset you by shrieking with laughter when I see you bare.”
“There's nothing to laugh at. I look good naked.”
“Well, if you insist on playing this game, we're going to find out. Can you lock your door?”
“No, but if it's closed nobody will come in without knocking. And just to make sure I'll do something Graham taught me.” And he wedged his chair under the door handle.
They started playing, and Miles scored twelve for his first hand and eight in the box, while Twitch scored two, and that made Miles get a bit cocky.
“I think we should play that whoever loses has to spend one minute naked for every point he loses by,” he suggested.
“Okay. We've only played one hand so far, remember – you can't expect to keep getting lucky cards.”
“It's not luck, it's skill.”
“You think so, do you? Okay, we'll see.”
Twitch then dealt himself two eights and two sevens and then cut up a six.
“Twenty-four,” he said, grinning, when the time came to lay down his cards. “Oh, and look: a six, a three and two nines in the box. I think that's another fourteen, isn't it?”
That rather took the wind out of Miles's sails, and as the game went on Twitch got further and further ahead, until finally he won by a mammoth thirty-seven points.
“Good thing we're not playing outdoors,” commented Twitch. “Maybe we should, next time. Or we could play at school in the lunch break if you like. That'd give you a chance to show everyone how good you look naked. Come on, then, I'm waiting.”
With a sigh Miles checked that the chair was still properly wedged and then began to get undressed, but Twitch stopped him when he got down to his pants.
“It's okay,” he said. “You don't need to take them off really. Let’s play another game.”
Miles stared at him. “Of course I need to,” he said. “We had a deal, and I don't back out of things, especially when I've agreed something with a friend. I always keep my word, Twitch. So, my thirty-seven minutes start... now.”
He pulled his pants off and then hit the stopwatch button on his watch. Twitch looked at him, and Miles moved his hands out of the way so that he could see properly. And as Twitch looked at it Miles felt himself becoming erect.
“Wow!” commented Twitch as it grew before his eyes.
“What do you mean by 'wow'?”
“Just 'Wow', I suppose. As in, 'Wow, that's getting really hard'.”
“Does yours get like this?”
“Sometimes. If you win the next game you might even find out. It's your deal, isn't it?”
Miles thought that that sounded promising, so he grabbed the cards, shuffled them, put them down so that Twitch could cut and then dealt six each. For quite a while he was behind, and he was afraid he wouldn't get to see Twitch naked after all, but then Twitch hit a run of really bad hands and Miles was able to catch up and pass him. He eventually won by eight points.
“I'm still going to be dressed before you,” Twitch pointed out. “You've still got eleven minutes to go.”
“I don't care. Strip.”
Twitch stood up and took off his shirt, then his trousers and his socks, and finally his briefs.
“Prepare to be amazed,” he said, and he stood in front of Miles and took his hands away from his groin.
Miles found himself looking at a penis that was still soft and so wasn't very big. Like the rest of Twitch's body it was very pale, but what made it interesting was that the skin didn't quite cover the tip, and so there was a little bit of the head of the penis visible. Twitch's balls looked about the same size as Miles's own, though the left one seemed to hang a little lower than the right one. And there was a scar on Twitch's abdomen between his belly button and his right hip-bone.
“Appendicitis,” he explained when Miles touched the scar lightly. “Typical Twitch: my body keeps trying to kill me. Maybe that's another good reason to stop looking in mirrors: if the rest of me doesn't keep getting reminded what my face looks like it won't keep trying to commit suicide. That happened last summer. Fortunately my parents got me to hospital in time.”
Miles wasn't sure what to say to that, so he turned his attention a little lower once more. “I think we ought to see what happens when that goes stiff, don't you?” he commented.
“Well... okay, I suppose so, seeing that yours seems to be getting that way again,” said Twitch, and he took hold of himself and squeezed a little, and soon it was sticking up nicely. It was about the same size as Graham's, but it looked different because the skin rolled back as it got hard, leaving the whole of the head exposed.
“It looks interesting like that,” said Miles.
“What, stiff, you mean?”
“Well, yes, that too. But I meant the way the end isn't covered in skin.”
“Oh. Apparently they decided there was a problem with it – the hole in the end of the skin was too small, so they had to cut a bit off. Sometimes I think they threw the wrong bit away.”
“Oh, shut up, Twitch. You look okay.”
“Well, there's one way in which I'm better off than you, anyway.”
“What's that?”
“I get to look at you while you have to look at me. You look good, Miles – you've got nice muscles, and a big you-know-what... You were right: you do look good naked. So, we've got another five minutes before I can get dressed, so... do you know how to make your thingy feel nice?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you take hold of it like this, and then you sort of... wait a moment, I'll show you. Turn round.”
So Miles turned his back and Twitch came and stood close behind him and then reached round and took hold of his erection, squeezed it and started to rub it.
“Now try it yourself,” he said, after a few seconds, and so Miles did.
“That feels nice,” he said. “But it was more interesting when you did it to me. Do you want to do it some more?”
“Really? I mean, I've never done this with someone else before – well, that's obvious, I suppose: who could look at me undressed without vomiting, except you? Would you like to try to do it to me, so I can find out what it feels like when someone else does it? If you want you can put on some gloves first, just to make sure you don't catch Twitchitis...”
“I think I'll risk it,” said Miles, and he spun Twitch round so that he was standing with his back to him and then reached round, took hold of his friend's erection and started to rub it gently.
“Hey, you're right,” said Twitch. “That does feel nice. Hold me a little bit more firmly and rub a little faster... yes, like that. That feels brilliant.”
Miles went on rubbing it for a while, and then Twitch started to… well, twitch a bit. Miles stopped what he was doing.
“Are you okay?” he said, afraid that a seizure was imminent.
“Yes – just don’t stop, please!”
So Miles started again, and after a little longer Twitch gasped and wriggled and then went tense, and Miles was seriously afraid that he was about to have a fit. But instead Twitch relaxed, took a deep breath and said, “Thanks, Miles, that was really good. You can let go now.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine. Look, lie on the bed and I’ll do it to you, and then you’ll see what happens.”
Miles obediently lay on the bed and Twitch sat down next to him, took hold of his erection and began to rub it steadily. Miles thought it felt really nice, and it got nicer and nicer… and then…
“Hey, Twitch, it’s starting to feel strange.”
“Good. It’s supposed to.”
“But it feels as if…”
“You won’t. Trust me.”
“Are you sure?”
“Certain. Just hold it in.”
So Miles struggled to hold it in. He was sure he was going to pee on himself… and then the feeling suddenly got even better, and he realised why Twitch had been wriggling about. Finally it got too much for him and he arched his back and thrust up against Twitch’s hand…
“Bloody hell, Twitch, that’s incredible,” he said, when he got his breath back. “What makes it feel like that?”
“I’ve no idea. But it’s nice, isn’t it?”
“God, yes. Thanks for showing me… do you think we can do that again sometimes?”
“Of course – whenever we visit each other, if you like.”
“Brilliant! Okay, let’s get dressed and I’ll get my soldiers out.”
So they put their clothes back on and had a war game across the bedroom floor until it was time for tea, and after tea Miles’s mother drove Twitch home. Miles went along for the ride.
“Thanks for asking me,” Twitch said as he got out of the car. “I had a lot of fun.”
“Me, too. Can you come again next week?”
“Probably. I’ll tell you at school tomorrow.”
“Great! Bye, Twitch!”
Well, Miles thought on his way back home, that was really interesting. I wonder if Twitch knows any other stuff like that…
It's fairly clear now that Miles is starting to like Twitch a lot, so much so that he's going to be playing a major part in the forthcoming cribbage league. Also in the next chapter we'll see what happens when Martin and Luke actually talk to each other...
By now you should have something to say about how this story is going, so if you haven't written already – or even if you have – send a message to gothmog@nyms.net and tell me what you think. I always reply to to the messages I receive!
Copyright 2009: all rights reserved. Please do not reprint, repost or otherwise reproduce this or any part of it anywhere without my written permission.
David Clarke