Forever After (a dark and funny fantasy novel) (32 page)

             
I ran to the first cage and ducked my head down, frightening the black rabbit inside. ‘Good morning Blackie,’ I cried, sending it running into the sleeping quarters where a slab of wood blocked it from my view. I sighed and shifted along to the other cage. A tame white albino rabbit greeted me, excited.

             
‘Morning Snowy,’ the rabbit looked genuinely pleased to see me and allowed me to stroke it through the mesh on the cage. If I had tried that with Blackie she would have bitten my fingers off.

             
My brother had brought the two rabbits home from school a month ago, a teacher had been giving away a new litter and he had managed to trick her into believing that he had our parents’ permission to bring home two. A good way to trick parents who refused to have pets in the house was to show up on the doorstep with two tiny rabbits and an innocent smile.

             
‘But why two?’ Mum had pleaded.

             
‘I didn’t want David to feel left out,’ Graham had announced.

             
As brothers who were separated by a mere year and a half we were always close, even if that did mean countless arguments and fights, destroying the house and our mothers’ nerves.

             
I picked the black rabbit straight away. We were told they were both females so we kept them in the same cage for a while, but then they started to fight -- or at least my parents told me they were fighting. In later years I would learn that my mother and her bewildered friends considered the possibility that the rabbits were lesbians before they concluded that the white one was male.

             
‘I can’t let you out,’ I told Snowy. ‘I’m letting Blackie out and I don’t want you two fighting again. Mum says to
never
let you fight ever again.’ I walked across to Blackie and opened the door to the sleeping compartment, she looked at me with something resembling fear and disgust as she hid in the corner of the hay-filled room.

             
‘Come on,’ I said meekly, trying to usher her out. She snapped her head forward, ears lowered, and tried to bite me. I quickly pulled my hand away, ‘Ha-ha!’ I pointed at her, teasing her with my unbitten fingers. ‘I’m too quick for you.’

             
‘David!’ my mother was shouting at me. I turned to the open door to see her walk into view. ‘What are you doing?’.

             
‘Playing with Blackie.’

             
‘She’ll bite you and scratch you again,’ she warned. ‘She’s made a mess of your arms.’

             
She was right. It was summer and I always wore a T-shirt. Whenever I picked her up she kicked, flipped and bit until she drew blood or dug her claws into my skin. My arms were a testament to bunny abuse.

             
‘But if I don’t let her out she won’t be able to play.’

             
‘And how are you going to get her back in?’

             
I smiled a cheeky smile. ‘With your help?’

             
‘Okay,’ she nodded, falling to my manipulation. ‘But you’re picking her up,’

             
I tried to smile, victorious, but the rabbit had flesh in her sights.

             
‘Ow!’ I screamed, yanking my hand out of the cage and holding it to my chest. ‘She bit me!’

             
My mother smiled, her face said, ‘I told you so.’

             
I looked into the cage as the rabbit finally moved, jumping out now that I was out of the way. As she scurried past my feet I was sure I saw a glint of satisfaction in her eyes.

             
‘Get washed and ready when you’re finished,’ my mother had drifted back into the kitchen. ‘You’re leaving for the safari park in four hours,’ she called.

             
I smiled, a small torrent of excitement crept up in me. I felt giddy and then:

             
Sniff Sniff.

             
I ignored the sniffing and looked at the rabbit who was currently weighing up the options of leaping from the deck and onto the grass, a fall of about five inches. ‘I’m going to see some more animals later--’ I told her, pausing.

             
Sniff Sniff Sniff-if-if-if.

             
‘--Ones even more vicious than you.’

             
The rabbit leapt down and ran away. After breakfast I would be forced to chase her around the garden and try to usher her into my arms, using my mother as a sheepdog and bracing myself for a world of pain.

              We made the short journey to Christine’s later in the day. Fresh marks adorned my wrists which were covered by a light jacket, it was a hot day but my mother wasn’t going to let me out of the house without a jacket for its entirety.

             
I walked side by side with my brother, a few seconds passed before we began exchanging blows. Throwing soft side-punches, hidden from the view of our mother.

             
‘You two will behave when you’re with Christine now won’t you?’ she warned.

             
‘Sure,’ Graham said.

             
‘
Yeah,
’ I said, slightly thrown off as a punch landed on my thigh.

             
‘If I hear that you’ve been getting into any trouble I’ll ground you both for a week,’ she continued, fearful of leaving us alone with the single mother of an only child.

             
‘Fair enough,’ Graham said before landing a shot on my arm. ‘I’ll look after David, don’t worry.’

             
I looked at him suspiciously.

             
‘They do have lions there don’t they?’ he asked sarcastically.

             
‘What are you planning?’ I stopped to ask.

             
He held up his hands defensively.

             
‘Boys! Not now!’

             
‘But he’s going to throw me to the lions,’ I pleaded.

             
‘I never said that.’

             
‘Both of you shut up,’ she began to walk away and urged us to follow. I rushed to walk by her side.

             
‘Git,’ I whispered to my brother.

             
‘Play nice with Rob,’ our mother continued to dish out her warnings.

             
‘Will do,’ Graham assured, kicking me gently on the shins just to annoy me as we walked. ‘How long does it--’ he paused, yelped, flew forward, stumbled and then correct himself. ‘
He kicked me!
’ he accused loudly, straightening up.

             
I stood with a smirk which was quickly wiped off my face by my mothers angry stare, her eyes cut through my soul and said more than a lecture could.

             
‘In my defence,’ I began, ‘he started it.’

             
‘And as usual you took it too far,’ Graham argued.

             
He was right and he lived by those words on a weekly basis as small fights and arguments often ended with me losing my temper and reaching for a weapon or fighting dirty. He was a good older brother, we did fight and it wasn’t all me, but no matter what, he would protect me and he never took things too far. Which often meant that he couldn’t fight back after I
had
taken things too far.

             
Our mother pulled us both close and bent down, she was a short woman and would soon be outgrown, but for now she needed to bend down to get to our eye level. ‘If you do anything to embarrass me on this trip then so help me God I will kill you both,’ she warned.

             
Sniff Sniff.

             
‘Christine has offered to take you and is paying for it.’ She paused to look us both in the eyes. ‘Be good.’

             
‘We will,’ we said simultaneously.

             
Sniff Sniff.

             
She looked at me questionably as she rose to a standing position again, ‘You still have the sniffles?’ she asked.

             
I shrugged my shoulders, my head held low after being told off.

             
She felt my forehead and shrugged it off. ‘You’ll be fine.’

             
We made it to Christine’s in one piece and after she shared a coffee with her neighbour and friend, Mum gave us both a kiss and a quiet word of warning, and then walked back across the street to our house. We were in the car and on our way to the safari park within minutes.

              As the car rolled out of the cul-de-sac and began the journey to the safari park I asked how far away it was and received an answer that I wasn’t too pleased with. The park was in Merseyside and we lived in West Yorkshire, we were travelling the breadth of the country and it wasn’t going to be a quick ride.

             
‘I also have to stop off at my cousins house,’ Christine told us from the drivers seat.

             
I smiled as politely as I could, but I wasn’t smiling on the inside.

             
‘She lives a little out of the way but it shouldn’t take that long,’ she explained.

             
‘How long’s “not that long?’” I wondered.

             
Christine smiled at the inquisitive child in the back of her car. ‘Just a few hours.’

             
My jaw nearly hit the floor. When she said a long trip I was thinking an hour max, three hours just wasn’t going to do.

             
I looked across the backseat to see if the other passengers were as outraged as me. Sat in a line, with me on the right, was my brother and Christine’s son Rob, they were watching the road and seemed oblivious to the fact that we were going to be on it for a very long time. I thought about nudging them to tell them, maybe they hadn’t heard, but a desire overcame me and my concentration shifted.

             
Sniff Sniff.

             
The urge was starting again and this time it wasn’t just a passing sensation. It was burrowing into my mind and taking away my focus.

             
Sniff Sniff.

             
I tried to get it right.

             
Sniff Sniff Sniff.

             
Three didn’t seem right. I tried for four, but that wasn’t satisfying the urge either.

             
‘Do you kids want to listen to some music?’ Christine called from the front seat.

             
‘Yes,’ I shouted back quickly, eager to drown out the noise of my sniffing.

             
She switched on the radio and turned it up.

             
Sniff Sniff.

             
Exhalation was working. I tried some quick intakes of breath but the urge persisted and wasn’t going away. It felt like an itch that needed to be scratched, except an itch can be left untouched and is easy to ignore. This was certainly not easy to ignore.

             
Sniff Sniff-if-if-if-if.

             
I finished, breathless. What was wrong with me? I looked across to see that Rob and Graham had engaged in conversation and weren’t paying attention to me. I did my best to exclude myself from any questions that might lure me into their dialogue. In the drivers seat Christine seemed out of earshot, the music sure to drown out my sniffing, but she was looking at me oddly.

             
I decided to let it out -- or rather suck it in -- and I snorted until the top of my nose hurt. Finishing off with some small sniffs. The radio was then turned down and I looked up, worried.

             
‘You coming down with a cold, David?’ Christine asked.

             
I nodded and smiled. Was that really it? Did a cold really feel like this? I had almost forgotten how it felt to have a cold or how it felt when you needed to blow your nose, there was certainly some sort of urge but that was surely down to the feeling that loose phlegm was trickling down your nose and looking for an exit. What else could it be? It had to be a cold, I had probably caught something.

             
Sniff-Snort-Sniff.

             
The urge came again and this time it didn’t seem to want to leave no matter how hard I tried. I received another odd look from Christine, who, unlike the pair by my side, wasn’t blessed with the ignorance of youth and had a nicotine addiction -- that she wasn’t going to relieve in a car full of children -- and a very stressful morning to deal with.