my head. Amundsen paws at the door. I decide to find out if chatrooms still exist. Adult sex ones. The ones I used to play on in ICT lessons at school when there was nothing else to do. Ones filled with people bored of work and of sitting at home and of being alone. Where people don’t really say anything, they just type because what else.
They still exist.
There’s one called chatworld.
There’s one called adultchatlife.
There’s one called battychat.
Battychat doesn’t sound like something I would be interested in. I click on adultchatlife and select the ‘adult chat’ category. Lines of words and emoticons and laughter flash and scroll up as quickly as numbers in a matrix. If people laughed and smiled that often in real life then real life would be markedly more bearable. If the whole of real life was one big chatroom then everyone would have to be honest with everyone else and no one would secretly sort of fuck Aaron Mathews and no one would be alone. I think, don’t think about that. I give myself the name Herman441.
Missyeti: lol @ Sammy
Overandouty: frog = Corinne
Stud40: frog would be too small
Corin19: fuck off over
Macyl: lol cor
Sweetballs: anyone ever fuked a animal
Biggybigbig: lol
Homealone002: lol
Mistymale: haha
I don’t understand. I scroll up and there’s a link to a video. I click. The video is of a chimp sat on a flat, dirty island of straw in its zoo enclosure. It’s holding a frog in its hands and raping the frog’s mouth. Me and Alice watched this video two years ago. It was Alice’s fourth favourite, after zombie prank, haunted toaster and 24-hour Nyan Cat.
Entropy: how u make dog suck ur dick
Sweetballs: put sugar on
77ACE77: this vid is sick
I try to think of a joke that will endear me to the group. A simple, bad joke that will make a woman think I’m the kind of person worth pressing her tits against a camera for.
Herman441: froggy style
Stud40: lol
Corin19: haha
Macy1: hahahahahaha
Missyeti: skullfuck
Macy1: I am laughing
I type more things and other people type more things. We talk about sexual positions and types of porn and types of tea and how to record audio from YouTube videos. We are bored people with nowhere to be and nothing to do. It is fun and it means I don’t have to think. I play Gold Panda in the background to make myself go calm. Alice sends me a text and I turn off my phone.
Macy1: Herman I’m pming you my gmail
Tinybearo: does anyone got legit zooey deschanel nudes is that exist
Stud40: macy add me I’m [email protected] Herman441: okay
Macy1 to Herman441: my gmail is [email protected] add me so we can chat properly. I think you’re funny.
Herman441 to Macy1: You’re nice too. I’m at work right now and I have some stuff to do. I’ll add you when I get home so we can chat. Hi.
Amundsen’s still pawing at the door, so I open it and let him in. He bounds in circles around the room, comes to a stop and tries to make me stroke him by assaulting my hand with his face. He wants to go for a walk. The rain has almost stopped. There are only tiny flecks of water settling on my window now. Leaving the house is scary. I’m worried the sky will get too heavy and I’ll fall over. I think about Aaron Mathews pumping his hand backwards and forwards inside of Alice’s vag. I think about Alice’s mouth being open as wide as a mouth can be open, so wide that it cracks and splits at the corners. I think about her asking him to choke her.
I should go for a walk.
People like walks.
I don’t like walks.
We go downstairs and I attach Amundsen’s lead. I put on Mum’s purple waterproof, Dad’s bucket hat, and my old wellies. I look like a paedophile.
6
The field opposite our house is a collection of rugby pitches surrounded by lanky, coniferous bushes. There’s an oak tree in one corner where boys with bicycles sit to smoke weed and punch each other in the head. Mostly people walk their dogs in laps around the edge. When it snows this is where everyone comes. When it snows this is the battlefield, but today it’s almost empty.
I let Amundsen off the lead and he immediately runs to a coke can, sniffs it, and shits on it. He looks back at me and wags his tail and grins. I tell him he’s done a great job. The only other person in the field is a tall man in a felt coat walking an orange terrier on the lead. The terrier keeps running ahead and the man doesn’t, so it gets pulled up on its back legs like a drawbridge.
We walk slowly.
The sky is pink and the moon is a ghost. Amundsen examines condoms and carrier bags while I think about Alice. I try not to think about Alice, which means that I am thinking about Alice. I think about jumping off a tall building and leaving a note behind that says ‘Alice Calloway murdered me’. I probably shouldn’t do that. I definitely won’t do that. If I did that then I would be dead and Alice would be upset so it is a lose/lose. Do I want Alice to be unhappy? I don’t want Alice to be unhappy. I want Alice to go back in time and be unfingered by Aaron Mathews.
The wind hums.
It starts to rain. It crescendos. We’re halfway around the field. I don’t want to run. I’ll fall over if I try. I’ll fall over and I won’t want to stand up and I’ll lie in the grass and sad dogs will eat my body. Maybe I should do that. It might be fun. I clip on Amundsen’s lead and we climb in between two of the bushes and sit on a muddy bank behind them, facing the back of a black garden fence. The rain gathers pace and tumbles down louder. It makes the ground hiss and the air smell like wet soil. Drops of water drip from the ends of branches. I shiver. I press my nose against Amundsen’s nose. I feel like I’m going to fall into the ground.
‘Room at the inn?’ I look to my left. A miniature woman in a yellow raincoat has appeared. She’s holding a small dog. Wet, white curls of hair are stuck down against her forehead. Her face is dappled like bruised banana skin.
‘Um.’
‘This is cosy,’ the woman says. She pushes the bushes aside and climbs in and sits down. ‘You did good. Cats and dogs. It’ll be fish next. You wait.’ She smiles at Amundsen and strokes him with both hands. ‘Who do we have here?’
‘Amundsen.’
‘Amundsen, that’s a name. Who gave him that?’
‘I did,’ I say. ‘After Roald Amundsen. The first man to reach the South Pole. He got hungry and ate his dogs.’
‘Big shoes. I’m sure you’ll manage. Won’t you? This one’s called Mushroom. After mushrooms. Love them. Absolutely love them.’ I laugh. Mushroom climbs over Amundsen and arranges himself in my lap. He’s the size of a shoebox. ‘He likes you.’
‘Oh.’
‘I’m Mabel.’
‘Etgar.’ We shake hands. Mabel’s palm feels like car tyres.
‘You’re at school?’
‘St Catherine’s.’
‘Good. That’s a good place. How old does that make you?’
‘Fifteen.’
‘You’re