Truth & Dare (30 page)

“To walk,” I mumbled, without meeting her stare.

“Along with all those other saddos who wear long woolly socks and hats and stupid clothes and
really
big unsexy boots and carry maps and smile at each other all the time like they’re in one great big la-la club together?” asked Trace.

“There’s no compulsory dress code,” I said. “You can wear what you like.”

“Good, ’cos
I
want to walk up them hills, too,” said Trace. “And you’ll have to come with me, Freako, so I don’t get lost.”

“What, hold on, you can’t do that Trace. Not with
him
!” groaned Ed. “Say someone sees you?”

Trace ignored him and continued to stare at me. I naturally assumed that she was taunting me again, but my heart beat loudly as I hoped beyond all hope that she really meant it, that she really wanted to be with me—just me—up in the hills. I started fantasizing about making egg sandwiches. I’d never met anyone out of school on a Saturday before, let alone Trace, and I felt a stirring in my trousers again, which pulled at the taped-up testicle.

“Ten o’clock in the car park, at the sign to the moors—and don’t be late,” she added sharply. “And that goes for you too,”
she ordered Ed, bursting my bubble, virtual egg sandwiches flying out from my thoughts in an instant.

At ten to ten the next morning I was waiting with my case (containing three egg and cress sandwiches, among other things—yes, I did make them after all, even for Ed), near the signpost pointing the way to the moorland path.

It was a bright but slightly chilly day, and it had rained overnight so I had taken the precaution of wearing my walking boots and an anorak with my shorts, but left the woolly bobble-hat at home in case it offended Trace. At five to ten Ed appeared, wearing over-white squeaky trainers, jeans, and an Alpine fleece. He grunted to me. We shuffled from foot to foot in embarrassment, as we had nothing to say to each other and wished the other one wasn’t there. The shuffling went on for some time with each of us looking at his watch at intervals but not saying anything. Ten o’clock arrived and went and then ten past and twenty past. Perhaps Trace had no intention of coming and was just winding us up for a laugh, I thought. At half past, Ed was hopping mad and his shuffling had turned into a primitive kicking dance with some added backward and forward steps and some grunts thrown in.

“Where the hell is she?” he muttered crossly, glaring and looking round. I think he was checking that no one he knew could see him with me. He jabbed out a message on his mobile but got no reply.

Two minutes later a four-wheel drive with darkened windows swerved into the car park and a back door opened. A long, shapely, tanned leg appeared, followed by another one. Trace jumped out, her high blonde ponytail swishing behind her. She was wearing the tiniest pair of white shorts, a low-cut black T-shirt showing a perfect cleavage, and a little pair of slip-on shoes. Ed and I both stared at the cleavage. “Hi!” she waved. In her hand was a pink cord that was
attached from her hand to something in the back of the car. She gave a little pull and a small creature with four tiny legs, a sparkly collar, and a ridiculous pink waistcoat appeared on the other end. She scooped it up and slammed the door. The car roared off in a cloud of dust.

“Oh my God, what the hell is
that
?” asked Ed.

“I think it is a diminutive dog,” I answered.

Trace skipped toward us. “Meet Froufrou,” she said.

“What the hell d’you bring that thing with you for?” asked Ed.

“’Cos it’s a dog and dogs are s’posed to go outside, right? So I’m taking her outside. Froufrou’s never had a walk before, she’s—like—delicate, so you’d better carry her. Right?” Trace thrust Froufrou into one of Ed’s large hands.

“Weirdo, I like the sexy white knees!” she said to me, staring at my thin white legs. “D’you like my tan?”

“It’s great,” I stammered, looking at the evenly colored golden cleavage.

“Out of a bottle, of course,” she laughed, and bounded off up the path like a mountain goat.

“It’s really nice up here,” sighed Trace. She danced around with the delight of a small child and effortlessly climbed higher up the rocky path toward the crag on her long tanned legs. “Aaah, I love those cute little sheep, they look really cuddly,” she said, pointing to the woolly black-faced moorland sheep who were staring at us warily. “And look at all them teeny little purple flowers like bells!”

“That’s heather,” I said.

“Heather’s lucky, isn’t it? We must all have some of this, then we’ll always be lucky!” She bent down and picked little bunches of heather and stuck one enticingly down her cleavage.

“For you, Freako, so you can have a long and weird life,”
she said solemnly, pushing another sprig through my buttonhole. Then she ran back to Ed and Froufrou who were lagging behind. Ed was sulking at being left with the dog. “Look what I got!” she sang. She stuck some in Froufrou’s collar. “Who’s my gorgeous? You’re my gorgeous, of course, Froufrou! And now you’re gonna live a long time too, ’cos you’ve got your very own lucky heather,” she announced while stroking the little dog’s head.

“Here, Eddie, babe, this is for you so we’ll have a lucky life together, just you and me—and, of course, little Froufrou.” Trace laughed and tickled Froufrou under the chin, then stuck a sprig of heather through Ed’s zip pull. “Look a bit happier about it,” she pouted at him, stroking his face.

Ed ripped the heather out and chucked it down on the ground, before grabbing hers from her chest and chucking that down too.

“That’s not very nice,” said Trace, putting on a whiny little girl’s voice. “Don’t you want us to be lucky together?”

“Bloody superstition! I don’t need no stupid lucky heather and nor do you!” he said angrily and stomped along in his
too-white
trainers, which by now had gathered large splotches of mud.

Ed looked foolish and cross at having to carry Froufrou, who in turn looked up adoringly at him with saucer eyes. He scowled back at her. Passing walkers stared at Ed, said hello politely, and then laughed at him behind his back.

“Even the really weirdo ones are staring at me, damn them—no, especially the weirdo ones—the saddos with beards and woolly hats and compasses. It’s humiliating. I’m a footballer, for God’s sake, not an effing pansy!” he muttered through gritted teeth.

We plodded on in silence on a narrow path alongside the edge of the crag. I was just wondering when we should stop
and have the egg and cress sandwiches from my suitcase, when Ed suddenly exploded with anger.

“This rat-thing is meant to be a dog, right? And dogs are meant to walk, right?” he announced, looking like a thundercloud. “Okay, so let’s see if it
can
walk. Right!”

He threw Froufrou down on the path in front of him. Froufrou propelled herself forward in a frenzy of excitement at her first taste of freedom, racing at full speed on her ridiculous tiny legs. As she’d never walked anywhere before in her life, she was unaware that if a path goes round a bend you have to go round with it. So Froufrou carried straight on instead.

Then Froufrou disappeared.

“You idiot!” Trace shrieked at Ed. “What’ve you done to my little Froufrou?”

“You take a look for me, Freako, I caaan’t,” she wailed at me.

I put my case down and looked over the edge. Something was hanging from a sparkly collar hooked over a branch like a Christmas decoration. Its legs were whirring like a tin toy’s. The branch was several feet below the edge of the cliff, growing from a gnarled tree clinging on to the almost sheer rock face. Apart from a thin ledge a few feet below that, there was nothing but a long drop down to the ground below.

I would have liked to measure the distances accurately but unfortunately I didn’t have the correct measuring equipment in my suitcase. I thought, I must remember to carry a plumb line in future, or perhaps I could throw pebbles down and count the seconds.

“It’s sort of okay, she’s still alive. You can look,” I called to Trace.

Trace rushed to my side and peered down. “Froufrou, my baby, my little one, don’t go away, we’ll get you, I promise,
babes,” she shouted. Froufrou clearly couldn’t go away even if she wanted to and she looked up at Trace with bulgy eyes—her throat constricted by the collar—and set up an eerie howl.

Ed joined us to look over the edge and let out uncontrollable guffaws. “Oh, man! God, that’s the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. I must get this or no one’s gonna believe it!” he said, crying with laughter and getting out his mobile. He snapped photos wildly. The wind started blowing and Froufrou slowly revolved half a circle one way and then half a circle back again. Round and back, round and back.

“Wow, thanks for showing me every angle, rat-thing,” Ed called down. “I’ll make a video too.”

“How DARE you! You’re
sick
! That’s my bloody dog, my little baby!” screeched Trace. “And it’s all
your
fault. You go and get her
now
. You put her down and you’re the one who’s meant to have the muscles. Well, use them!”

Ed laughed. “Whoa! You crazy or what?” he said. “No way! I’m not risking my life for that! It’s only some dumb rat-dog! Just leave it. It’ll die soon, then I’ll come back and take some pics of its skeleton and we can have a laugh over them. Oh, wow, I’ve got a really great idea! We can put before and after pics up on the net—maybe even make some money or get famous from it.”

“I hate you,” she shrieked. “We’re finished, you’re dumped, get it? I’d rather go out with Freako than you!”

I knew I was probably grasping at straws, but I thought I could see an opportunity.

“I’ll get her for you, Trace,” I said.

“How the hell are
you
going to do that, Mr. White-kneed, skinny, I-so-don’t-think-so superman?” she demanded, a little unnecessarily I thought, but I made allowances for her agitated state.

I snapped opened my suitcase and produced a short piece of jute rope.

“What the hell? You some kinda bloody perv carrying a piece of rope round with you in that case?” asked Trace. We all stared at the rope and could see that it clearly wasn’t long enough to do anything with—except perhaps throttle someone, which Trace clearly wanted to do.

“It’s just in case,” I said, not meaning to make a pun.

“That’s good, that is. I like that. Just in case,” said Ed, but he didn’t sound as if he liked it. He eyed it suspiciously.

Froufrou’s howl had gone up an octave.

“You stupid bloody useless ignorant males,” said Trace looking exasperated, “I’m ringing nine-nine-nine.”

But there was no signal.

Trace began to cry.

“Run down and get help, Ed,
please
! You can run the fastest,” she pleaded.

“After what you said to me? No
way
,” he said decisively. “Remember, you dumped me.”

“You’re a disgusting, heartless, weirdo-sicko coward!” screamed Trace.

Froufrou’s howl turned into a thin wail.

“I’ll go,” I said, hoping to redeem myself in Trace’s eyes. I moved toward my case to close it before setting off when suddenly Trace pounced at it and grabbed one of my seven super-sharp pencils.

She jabbed hard at Ed with it. Jab, jab, jab. “Coward, coward, coward,” she chanted.

“No one calls me a coward!” shouted Ed, taking a step backward to avoid her and trying to grab the pencil at the same time, but Trace was quicker. I stood transfixed, staring at my pencil.

She took a step forward. “Oh (jab) yes (jab) you (jab) are,”
she jabbed. How dare she use my pencil like that? I thought. I could see where they were heading so I rushed to the rescue and lunged forward.

I was aware of two things as I sat up on the edge of the path where I’d slipped over. The first was that I had been successful in my rescue: the pencil was safely in my hand and it was still in one piece—only the outer bit of the lead was broken off so I would be able to sharpen it.

The second thing I noticed, apart from the crows cawing as they circled round like vultures overhead, was the silence. Froufrou’s wailing had completely stopped.

I got up slowly and replaced my pencil and the rope in my case and snapped it shut. Perhaps I ought to peer over the edge, I thought. Trace was lying on the ledge, face up. Her eyes were wide open with an unblinking expression of surprise. One tiny leg belonging to Froufrou was visible from underneath Trace. One of Trace’s hands held a bunch of leaves, as if she’d been picking them for us like the lucky heather, and there was a long red scratch up her forearm. Up above her the branch, where the tin toy Froufrou had hung, was snapped in two. She must’ve tried to grab it, or Froufrou, on the way down.

My eyes traveled further down the rock face to a gully way below. I could see a shape that could be Ed but I couldn’t be sure so I went back to my suitcase and got out the binoculars. I wiped the lenses with a cleaning cloth and carefully adjusted them to focus on the ground below. I didn’t dwell long on the shape that had been Ed, as he looked a mess, which wasn’t very pleasant. I replaced the binoculars and took out all three egg and cress sandwiches—the walk had given me an appetite—and snapped the suitcase shut again. Then I strode briskly down the path, munching the sandwiches and enjoying the clean air and the freedom of the great British outside.

When I reached the bottom I called the mountain rescue service from the public call box, although it didn’t escape my notice that there was a certain irony in calling the “rescue service.” Does one “rescue” a corpse or simply pick it up? I mused.

The police officer looked at me and gave a long sigh.

“Well, it’s not quite normal, is it? Most people don’t go round carrying measuring equipment, callipers, an engineer’s square, and a short length of rope and so many sharp pencils when they walk up hills, do they? They carry sandwiches, water, maps, a compass, and the like in a rucksack.”

“I’d already eaten my sandwiches and I am not like most people, Officer. ‘Most people’ are not going to be famous mathematicians, Officer, like
I
am,” I answered.

“Slightly odd one in here, but I think he’s telling the truth. There were no other witnesses to the incident—but I don’t think this one’s capable of making anything up—just a bit weird. And I wish he’d stop calling me ‘Officer.’ It’s not bloody natural in a teenager,” I overheard him say to another policeman outside the room.