"I FLY" - Prologue and first three chapters

 

 

 

 

 

“I FLY”

by

Andrew Hawcroft

 

 

 

 

 For Mary and David Hawcroft. 

                               In loving memory of Elizabeth and Leonard Hawcroft.  

In loving memory of Basillis Nikolakos.  A great

friend when I needed one.

                       

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

00.14

The potential of a single day...

 

As far as the birth of Jamie Cramer was concerned, only one thing occurred that was considered strange by those present.

    

The decrepit Jaston General Hospital had been constructed during the reign of Queen Victoria.  Not enough modernization had occurred thereafter.  Not quite.  Certainly not in the Maternity Ward, which rang (too) often with the cries of angry, sweating Jaston women undergoing violent reactions, contractions and manifestations. Often (hardly mandatory in Jaston though) some sort of male sat alongside. Grumbling, low-voiced, dull-eyed husband or boyfriend (usually boyfriend.)   These men would rub their heads hard enough for it to hurt, and stare at their scuffed trainers or scratched workboots, as their partner in this parental crime would rage at their incompetence in all departments, with all the unguarded, open-hearted emotion that the time of birthing can bring.  The Maternity Ward at Jaston General has been a marriage-ender in itself. 

 

 The ward itself was painted a mercifully rare variant of pale green, which perhaps might have been chosen to be soothing, but more likely was the only colour available to the decorators on the budget allowed. The sickly hue of it hit a perfect bullseye of bad taste.  It created a bilious reaction that was complimented perfectly by the humming fluorescent strip lights, the cracked plastic covers for which contained, not months, but years of quite, quite dead flies.

 

The halls outside the ward vibrated with a joyless carcophany of echoing curses, complaints, demands, commands and pleas for various persons to be contacted to come and see them.  The building shuddered from the scent of some bulk-buy industrial-strength cleaning chemical that surely crossed some line in a safety manual someplace, and then didn’t look back. Nevertheless, it failed to hide the iron-clad atmosphere of largely unplanned couples trying their middling-best to welcome largely unplanned children into their strip-lighted corner of the world, knowing all-too-well that what was soon to arrive could not be given the life it deserved, for it had been born in Jaston, and Jaston, almost by design,  meant the required resources to do so would not be there.  The tumbled dice of Fate had, it seemed to those there, fallen onto the foul felt of the shabbiest casino table.

 

 

The doctors and nurses of Jaston General moved with stiff, jerky movements, born of a life that required too much coffee over adequate sleep.  They usually had their heads down, and worked quickly, especially here in Maternity, as to linger would be to feel the wrath of one or more Jaston woman. The causes of their anger would vary; too hot, too cold, no attention, no privacy, bad food, bad neighbours, the government, the fact that doctors didn‘t know anything anyway, and not enough drugs were available.  All complaints came from the same place inside them though; a personal lead-lined crate of fear they’d been carrying inside for nine months.   The Maternity Ward was a flat-out place of despair and fury, and the rusting metal beds and sickening walls absorbed absolutely none of it. 

 

Shauna Cramer, seventeen, had the ugly honour of being, for that day at least, the worst mother-to-be on the ward by far.  Her faded pink t-shirt, just visible beneath her hospital smock, had once matched the remaining pink edges of her mud-coloured hair, hair that now failed in its duty to mask her face.  Perhaps just to dampen the sound.

The place was “A HOLE!”  The useless ****** that put her here was just another ******* like all the other ******* men out there, and she wasn’t fooled, oh no! The doctors might have white coats but they were still ******* men like all the rest.  She knew what they said about her behind her back too. Oh, she knew! Yes!  Ha ha, yeah!

 When wearily repeated requests to calm down were repelled with vocal violence by Shauna, Doctor Simon Johns, the unfortunate man who had today’s shift and hadn’t slept more than ten hours across three days, seriously thought about tranquilising her. After she had grumbled something under her breath that rhymed with clucking banker, he had left the ward and taken three hard steps toward the pharmacology department before he stopped himself. If there were an allergic reaction and the shot was later deemed indulgent by a Board Of Inquiry....

He sighed.  Quicker to shoot her.

 He reached out a hand and leant against the wall for a second, wondering how he had come to be someone who thought things like that.  It was horrible thing to think! Horrible or not though, it couldn’t be denied that such thoughts were a daily occurrence now, and it genuinely scared him that they were losing the power to dismay him. He looked around him.   Another year, he thought, and such thoughts won’t bother me at all.  He swallowed hard at that. Hard enough that it made a sound.

I’ve got to get out of here. 

 He made himself go back to Maternity.  Made himself. 

 

As he continued his rounds on the other side of the ward, suddenly Shauna’s waters broke, and then, a moment later, it all went to hell in a blue plastic Lo-Pryce handcart.  It took four nurses to keep her in her bed, as she was apparently going to ******* leave this ******* hole, and anyone who tried to stop her...etc, etc.

 

 After the casual verbal abuse she had cast around, the argument that the Universe is all about balance was certainly backed up by Shauna’s following period of labour, which was particularly long, troublesome and painful one for her. She initially ‘helped’ herself only by utterly unrestrained, glass-shattering screaming. She soon ran out of the required calories for that though, and now lay helpless on the bed, pale and occasionally sobbing, muttering for somebody called Jacque.    The name seemed to cause her a lot of pain, and various emotional reactions to it came hard and frequently. 

On and on the labour went, as it was discovered the baby (for Shauna had not cared to know if it was a boy or a girl) had gotten turned around inside her, and the attending doctor and midwife had no easy task guiding it out head first. 

 

The sun sunk from the sky outside the frosted windows in their peeling frames, and the only light around now was man-made and less good for the soul.   Shadows lengthened in the reeking, slippery corridors, and more and more voices died as the unhappy population of the building fell asleep or succumbed to medication.

 

In the last few seconds before the birth, Shauna seemed to wake up, regain some steel  in her spirit and become her old self, meaning Jacque was now a ******* and this was his fault, and there would be a reckoning.  She also hated ‘it’ and just knew that 'it'’ that it would be a boy, a boy that would grow up to become like him, because they were all the same.

 

When the baby was finally pulled free, bloodied, intact but silent, Shauna collapsed back on the pillows, tearing the worn bed sheets with her clenched, pink-painted fingernails and hissing breathless, broken words to herself that most of the nurses present were glad they could not hear.  A braver one came in and dabbed a wet cloth on her forehead. That nurse unfortunately did hear what Shauna said, and it caused her to have a sharp intake of breath.  Her free hand, which dangled out of sight, clenched into a whitening fist.   Then she walked away on hard steps.

 

When the doctor announced with a cautious, forced attempt at joy, that the baby was, indeed, a boy, Shauna did nothing for a moment.   She stared into space unblinking, unmoving.  Then, as if electrified, she suddenly jerked upright, and gave a kind of high-band kak sound, that could have been laughter.  The midwife jumped like a scalded cat, and then bowed her head a moment later, keeping under control her very personal reactions to this woman, because that’s what good nurses do.  She denied herself even the thoughts of the language she would like to use, because it was the ugliest language, and she didn’t want that stuff inside her.  One bell-clear question came to her heart though.  How many prospective mothers out there would now be tearfully thanking a deity?  Then came the second; What kind of life was this infant going to have? 

Sometimes it’s just better not to know she thought. Sometimes it’s just better.

 

Then the placenta was removed, and umbilical cord was cut and, after a nervous few moments, the baby boy cut the air with his first gurgled cries.

 

And all the lights went out.

 

The midwife, despite twenty-seven years in the profession, gave a little shriek and Doctor Johns used stored-up language that was quite inappropriate. The delivery room was in total darkness except for the faint glow of the digital screens and the glittering LED’s on the equipment nearby.

“Oh my God!” said the midwife.

The baby carried on crying.

Doctor Johns waited and waited, breathing hard.  Then;

“Come on!  Where’s the back-up?  We have a…” 

Suddenly, the lights were back on.  What was unusual is that they didn’t flicker back on like these fluorescent strip lights usually did.  No. Instead they slowly gleamed back to life, in a way they had never done before and wouldn’t ever do again.  Slow and steadily.  Back to luminous life. Back to bulb-business as usual.

 

The midwife and Doctor Johns looked at each other, breathed out in perfect unison, and then, with cast-iron professionalism, went on with procedure.  Questions could be left for later.

“THIS ******* PLACE!” screamed Shauna so loud it tingled their ears, and then it was nicely crash-bang back into  Jaston -reality for both of them.

While the doctor warned her again (less gently this time) to calm down, the midwife picked up the baby to take it away for cleaning. 

“KEEP IT!  GO ON!  I’M DONE WITH IT. KEEP THE ******* THING!” 

 

 As the midwife made the familiar journey down the hall, she looked down at the baby, as it had suddenly stopped crying.  It seemed to have a curiously calm expression on its face, regarding her with steady, focused blue eyes.

If this midwife has ever been given to flights of fancy, that part of her had been left in an over-flowing medical waste bin many years ago.  All the same, a curious flutter of something went through her body, as though she had crossed briefly into a better...or at least stranger place in the world...during that last eight feet of hallway or so.   No, it could not be put into words, so she didn’t try, but it was a good feeling, and she hung onto it for as long as she possibly could (which regrettably was only another eight feet or so,) because she was a kind, good human being, and today, she needed it.

“That wasn’t you that did that thing with the lights was it?” she whispered through a valiant but tight half-smile. 

The baby coughed up spit and she quickly, gently, wiped its mouth.

Then, unashamed, she quite openly thought;

I hope it was.  I hope you grow up to be someone very special, because you’re going to need to be, aren’t you? You’re going to need all the help you can get….

 

And she was right.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

00.13

 

Jamie couldn’t for the life of him clarify when he had first heard the song ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ by Elton John.  It seemed to have always just been there, playing on loop in the back of his mind, but he had only collected enough coins from various places to buy that scratched CD Walkman about a month ago.  The Walkman had sat in the dirty-glassed Oldman Electronics since the mid-Nineties (probably.)   As if by the design of humdrum celestial mechanics, a certain CD sat alongside it on top of a stack; all priced at fifty pence each. (Black marker, scrap of fluorescent green card.)  The CD was called ‘The Great British Songwriters’ and the song in question had been number seven on the faded track list.

 He had once told his mother about the song, and how it was his favourite, even humming a bar or three to showcase it.  Her reaction regarding the song and about Elton himself had made him wearily angry again, so he didn't play it around her anymore in case the music crept out of the headphones. He didn’t want anybody spoiling ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’.  

Now he played the song at least once a day.  It was comforting.  God knows why, but it was.  Like being hugged or something….  Hugged by a stranger, but a friendly stranger, and that can be enough some days.

 

*   *   *

 

Jamie Cramer discovered he could fly at exactly 1.45am on the morning of November 28th.  This time and date would be forever carved in his memory, because when it happened, his eyes had locked hysterically upon the glowing green digits of the microwave’s clock as he ascended three inches off that kitchen linoleum that so badly needed brushing.

 

The day before had been the 27th of course, and it seemed in hindsight as if it should have been filled with subtle warnings and portents of what the following day was to bring. Such a stupendous day should surely have come with something?

 It should have if Jamie’s life was a film.   It wasn’t though, and never had been.  In all his thirteen years of life, Jamie had never known any other place than this slowly browning, decaying council flat on the thirteenth floor of Maycliff Towers, in the crushing, industrial town of Jaston.   All his life, he had seen the same furnace chimneys for the iron smelting factory outside of the kitchen window. All his life, he had woken each day to the interminable grind of honking traffic going nowhere of the A49B that hedged the south corner of Maycliff Towers.

 It once, quite recently, occurred to Jamie that it was odd that his life should seem so dull and lifeless to him. As compared to what?  He had known no other existence, yet it still all felt wrong, still felt like somebody else’s life had replaced his own, and it was a wretchedly ill-fit.

His mother, Shauna, was a young mother, only seventeen years older than him, but she looked older in a way that went far beyond the physical. Cigarettes, liquid courage and anger had helped with that.  They had carved oaken lines on her face that became more pronounced when she narrowed her eyes, which she did a lot, and no make-up, no matter how thickly applied, could now completely hide them, although, to be fair, she didn’t mean it to.  The hair was permanently black through chemical means and would stay that way.   She had found a grey hair the year earlier, and had smashed something in the bathroom.  He forgot what, even though he had brushed up the fragments, but he had heard her crying in the toilet later.   She had left the flat ten minutes after that and by evening her hair was crow-black.  Rightly or wrongly, it suited her, though her natural colour was brown.

She seemed angry or edgy all day, right from the moment she woke, and come evening it would still be there. On the 27th, she crashed in through the fractured red, graffiti-covered door to the council flat , smashing the plastic carrier bags down upon the cracked Formica table.

“******** Lo-Pryce!  I’ll be ****** if I shop there again!  ****** Margery!”

 

Who Margery was and what she had done was unknown to Jamie and it didn’t seem to matter. If it wasn’t Margery, it would be someone else tomorrow.  His mother had long ago decided the world was against her and acted accordingly.

“Council woman‘s coming tomorrow, Bloody typical the day after I get my dole!  Still, I’ll have words for her if she gives me any **** about rent.  It’s my money, I’ll spend it how and when I like,” she had burned into the air on nicotine-breath.  “What am I, a ******* child?”

He wondered then if she was even really talking to him.  Did she talk like this when she was alone?  There was something really awful about that thought, and he let it go out of his mind a moment after it came in.  He’d learnt that trick, yes.

She then said something ugly about putting the shopping away later, and walked in her trainers, still wet from the frost, into the living room.  A second later, the TV would blink to life and a chat show presenter would be loudly blaring inanities as though a gun was being held on him off-camera. It was as predictable as breathing, and Shauna Cramer always seemed to watch chat shows where the guests ended up screaming at each other.  When this happened, she would often turn the volume up.  Sometimes he would hear her laughing or commenting on this from his bedroom. That laugh penetrated everything, no matter where he went.

The shopping would stay there all day and probably be there a good part of tomorrow.     Jamie now barely noticed the torn black bin bags full of beer cans that were piled in the corner of the kitchen.   They seemed to have just…stayed.  The ashes had to be spilling onto the coffee-table before the ashtrays were emptied.  He hardly acknowledged the permanent rows of wine bottles lined up across the back of the kitchen counter and around the bin.  

He barely noticed….  He hardly acknowledged…  Apart from when he did.  Then he played ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.’

 

At times like this, Jamie would sit on his neat and tidy bed which he always made himself,  hands wrapped around his knees and look out of his window at the sky. Entirely the sky, which required effort.  Why he would do this was anyone’s guess, since Jaston wasn’t blessed with a particularly attractive sky.   Like the landscape below it, it was varying shades of grey, with the occasional tinge of white, brown or black on particularly stormy days.    Jaston seemed cursed sometimes, receiving the worst weather England had to offer, with cases of floodings and destruction of property by high winds not uncommon.

It was however, cheap to live there, which drew a certain kind of population.  A limited, careless, or desperate kind.

 

 Jamie and Shauna did not talk about Jamie’s father.   She would not tell him his name even after thirteen years.  She had only once said that she had met him when she had been ‘young and stupid’.  She said this in a way that always sounded like she had come on a great deal since then.

 Jamie had long ago learned the futility of asking her for help with his homework.  She knew nothing about anything, it seemed; not Geography, Maths, Science, English Literature, Grammar or History.  She had not known the date World War Two ended, the square route of forty-nine, what a measurement of electricity was, who wrote ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ or whether ‘running’ was a verb, noun or adjective.  More and more lately, she made less and less attempts to show any interest, full stop. Too busy fighting something or somebody, occasionally herself, if other enemies were lacking.

She did not ask him at all now how he got on at school, her cutting words always full of dark stuff for somebody who had done her wrong that day, usually part of the Government in some way but anyone was fair game.  If Jamie did not occasionally volunteer information, he wondered how long he could play truant before his mother would notice.  If she did. 

The school could not ring her because she had deliberately given them the wrong phone number.

“I’m not getting pestered to do anything for them!  That‘s their job!  They get paid for it." She had been painting her fingernails coal black as she told him.

 

But Jamie did go to school, not because he liked it, but because he needed it.  He saw that clearly.  He needed it to prevent himself from ending up like Shauna (yes, he thought of her as ‘Shauna’ more than ‘Mum’.)   She had not worked for two years since losing her job as a checkout ‘girl’ at the Lo-Pryce supermarket.  She had had some screaming argument and hit another member of staff, a girl, and been instantly dismissed.  Since then, life revolved around the casual arrival of the dole cheque, along with various other little sums of money that came in from the government, which he didn’t understand.  There was never enough money to buy good food, always the cheap crap that Lo-Pryce peddled.  Jamie even resented the name. Lo-Pryce.  It made you feel dumb, just shopping there.

Jamie had once mentioned angrily (aged ten) that she would save money if she didn’t spend buy cigarettes each day, but that had started something that eventually escalated to screaming.  Not shouting.  Screaming.  He didn’t want to end up somebody who screamed, so he had walked to his room.  He’d done that a lot in this little council flat.  What else could he do?  There was absolutely nowhere else to go.

 

School (Jaston Secondary Modern) was alright. Not great, but alright.  He was a quiet lad, he knew this and had no problem with it, though other kids remarked upon it occasionally in the sensitive, gentle way that thirteen year-old boys and girls remark upon anything.  He was a hard-working student, having little in the way of serious friends to distract him.    Despite this quiet nature, he had an oddly persistent spirit which dissuaded most bullies (except Gordon Straight; what was his problem?) and allowed him to do okay in sports.   He got on alright with the people in his classes, but ate lunch alone.   He did reasonably well in all subjects but excelled in none.  No obvious talent emerged, but he had no great failing either, except perhaps a lack of aptitude for Maths and a notable lack of passion for anything in particular. This lack of any direction or talent did not sit well with him. Sometimes he wondered if it would be him sitting behind a checkout at Lo-Pryce in three years.  Sometimes he would have given his right arm to get an F in one subject if only to get an A in another.  Something to distinguish him and give him a path.  

He did not feel like a thirteen year-old, or at least how he imagined a thirteen year-old should feel.   He looked after himself a lot, made his own breakfast most days, prepared his own packed lunches for school. His mother had accepted the idea easily, presumably relieved at the idea of not having to cut sandwiches anymore, particularly those made of Lo-Pryce bread.  He had lately started repairing his own clothes, gently biting his lip as he struggled with the needle and black thread he had bought himself.  His mother had long since fallen into the habit of sleepily claiming to do such things ‘later’.  This meant she would forget it until reminded a second or occasionally third time, when she would do it whilst watching a chat show, her brow furrowed, a swear word seemingly always about to burst from his lips and do no better job of it than he.  His very dark brown hair he often trimmed himself with kitchen scissors, since his mother never offered to take him, and he knew seven pounds-fifty for a haircut would not go down well. Another mine in the minefield to step over.  It wasn’t so hard to do if you wet it first and used a mirror.  They were lucky to have such sharp, stainless steel scissors. 

No, Jamie Cramer did not feel like a young boy.  He felt like he was a stranger in a strange land.  He didn’t use that phrase exactly, but that was how he felt.  Perhaps he had been swapped at birth with someone else? An honest accident.  That happened a lot, he’d read once.  Jamie read a lot.  Not worthy, intellectual books; he openly accepted he wasn’t a closet genius.  He read comics because they were cheap and he liked looking at the pictures rather than just reading words. He had quite a collection now; horror comics, funny comics, superhero comics, action-adventure comics.   He read his collection over and over again because it distracted him from things, and also kept him in his room in the evenings, keeping him out of (harm’s) his mother’s way.   She didn’t actually hit him, Jamie’s mother, but she often acted like she wanted to, and that…that was a bad thing to feel.  And you could feel it at such times, feel it in the air like ugly heat.

Lately, it was getting worse too.

 

Jamie’s thirteenth birthday party had been an awful occasion, partly because he had no one he wanted to invite, partly because most of those he did invite did not turn up, leaving his mother to curse the money she had spent on Lo-Pryce own-brand crisps and some obscure species of cola drink with Polish writing on the side.  It was also because Shauna had actually demanded  he have this party when drunk a few nights before.  She had staggered in with another man called Billy, who talked too loudly and too confidently while in their flat, and had made Jamie uncomfortable. She had proudly proclaimed she would give her ‘little ***** beauty’ a proper little party like Billy’s lad had received earlier that day.   He had wanted a birthday party, and when she sobered up, he had not asked her to cancel. Why?  Perhaps he wanted to see her doing motherly things.  Perhaps he wanted her to feel motherly doing birthday things.  Whatever, it was been bad, and from that day, she had treated him almost like an adult, the last vestiges of childhood were apparently not supposed to survive the thirteenth-year mark in the Cramer household. 

Since then, there had been no effort at all to curb the bad language (if there had ever been. )  Not just bad language but sometimes the worst language the English has to offer, and he instinctively closed his ears to it.    These days he took himself to his room very quickly, often going days only speaking to his mother at the dinner table, or, more occasionally now, at the breakfast table.

Lately she had been smoking something other than regular cigarettes too.  They smelt funny, and although he had no reference, Jamie guessed it must be something you didn’t buy at Lo-Pryce, at least not openly.   It seemed to slow her reactions, blunt the knife edge for a while, so he was all for it.  She could get a little too slow sometimes.  Jamie had gone into the lounge once to find one of these strange-smelling, self-rolled cigarettes on top of the sofa arm, slowly burning a spreading black mark into the material before he yanked it off and spat on the burn, hearing it hiss.   He didn’t mention this to her, only placed it on the edge of an ashtray and placed that on the sofa arm.  Hopefully she would get the message without him having to say anything.  It would be difficult to do so without it sounding like a criticism, and Shauna Cramer didn’t do criticism.    He would wonder how much the stuff in these special cigarettes cost from time to time, but let the thought move out of his mind because it simply didn’t matter.  The money would come from whatever magic cauldron of money provided all the other stuff she needed to get through the stress-filled days of doing nothing. Just let it go.  It was out of his little hands, that’s for sure.

She did get pangs of guilt every now and again it seemed, getting up early to make him a decent breakfast and actually kissing him on the head goodbye. On such days she would appear to be almost a different person entirely, physically and emotionally.  Her face would be pale, free of make-up and her eyes wide and sorrowful.   Something inside her had been either caged or set free for a while depending on how you looked at it.  It hadn’t passed him by that these periods of ‘niceness’ coincided with the lack of a fresh empty beer can or bottle on the counter.   Other than that, he had no real idea what brought on such changes but they were gone by the evening.  That was a given.

 

On November the 27th, Jamie Cramer got a C on a Biology test and successfully tackled the school’s star football striker.  He had completed a rubbish sci-fi comic called ‘The Nightlight Man’, and had managed to hit his head on the door of a kitchen cabinet his mother left open.   He had sworn quietly, rubbed it hard and gone to bed.  It was only nine o’clock but it was either that or watch a wild-eyed husband and father of eight put on an over-sized nappy and roll around in a paddling pool filled with jam in front of a shrieking, clapping audience in order to win a holiday in Miami.

 

 So Jamie had sat in bed and looked up at the black night sky through his window, hands wrapped around his knees.   He looked up and wondered what he had done wrong to deserve this.

He was still wondering that when he fell asleep an hour later…

 

 

Jamie woke up.  He didn’t wake up frantically from a nightmare, as could happen. He simply realised he was no longer asleep and therefore opened his eyes.  He looked at the plaster ceiling, finding it the same.  There was winter-clear moonlight coming through the window (he never drew his curtains, it made the room a prison cell) painting the room the palest blue.   He turned his eyes a little to look at his alarm clock.  1.42am.

 Weird, he thought.

 Weird because he didn’t feel remotely sleepy now. He felt like he might do sitting in English class at 10.30 in the morning and that was all wrong for 1.42am.  He looked around him again, (what for?) and breathed out an irritated breath.  He didn’t want to be awake in the middle of the night.  He saw enough of this room and this flat as it was.  Every evening he looked forward to the blissful ignorance of sleep.  His precious, precious time off from it all.

He was hungry.

Damn.

When he got hungry like this, there would be no going back to sleep, none at all, until he got something to eat, experience had proven that.   Nevertheless, as people always do, he initially shoved aside this feeling and turned over, shaking his body a little, trying to settle.

His stomach actually gurgled.

Apparently frozen peas, a single dollop of instant mash, and two fish fingers would not see him through this night.  He was going to have to get up.

 

His breath froze as he thought this, and he faintly muttered one the bad words, although not one of the very bad ones   He slipped out of bed in his dark blue pyjamas with a gruffling effort-grunt and put his feet in his moccasin slippers.  He moved through his dark blue room to grab the towel dressing gown on the back of the door and shrugged it on.

Brrrr!

He stopped a second, his hand resting upon the handle of the door.    Was everything alright?

He waited, though for what he couldn’t say.

No sounds, nothing out of place in his bedroom.  Everything seemed fine.  What had stopped him?  Nothing.  Get food.

 He stood for a moment longer, thinking what an alien world the Earth was at night; quiet, dark, peaceful.  How much nicer it would be to live in if it were always like this.  But no, the morning would come soon enough and…

What’s wrong with me?

This thought jarred him, bringing him back to his bedroom with a bang.    He had been feeling squirrelly since he woke up and now he was freezing his behind off, standing there gormlessly staring into space.

The sad thing was, nothing was different, that was the truth, and he realised this a moment later.  Everything was as it always was, and so was he.  

 

 He padded into the kitchen, not worrying about waking Shauna.  She slept very heavily, and waking her for emergencies was a laborious process.  There was often a short brown plastic bottle with writing on the side by her bed, which he assumed had something to do with that.  

 

Jamie shuffled to the cabinet where the cereal was kept.  Lo-Pryce’s own brand Flakes of Corn.  Why they couldn’t call them cornflakes, he didn’t know.  They weren’t fooling anybody.

He found a bowl and poured.   He turned to go to the fridge for milk and stopped.

Wow!

 Here on the thirteenth floor of Maycliff Towers, you did at least get a great view of the night sky when it was frosty like this, and the mostly-full moon was beaming pale pure moon-light, like a torch with a white silken cotton hankerchief over it.   It lit up those rare and faint cloud-whisps immediately around it in varying hues of blue.

It seemed as if the moon were perfectly positioned to hold him, Jamie Cramer, in the centre of its spotlight.   That was lovely crap of course, but he held onto the idea for a moment longer because he liked it. He felt special.  He’d deal with reality tomorrow.  Party-Sized pack of that waiting tomorrow.  He looked at it for a few seconds more, the moon just hanging here, beaming moon stuff, surrounded by an aluminium window frame and a self-sufficient potted cactus on the window sill.

 

He went to the fridge, got milk, sat at the kitchen table while he ate Lo-Pryce Flakes of Corn, looking at the moon.    Maybe this was why he woke up.  He’d read something somewhere about how the moon affected people because it also affected the tides.  He hadn’t understood why, had retained nothing more from the article, but the idea found him now. 

He finished his cereal a little sadly and walked to the window, putting the bowl in the sink after rinsing it. He stepped back from the sink a little, regarding that moon.

 How great to be up there, he thought.  How great that would be.

 

Something made him look down, though it took a while to realise what.  He discovered the cactus before him seemed to be lower down than he remembered, which was slightly odd. 

 

It took perhaps eight seconds more before Jamie Cramer really understood he was floating three inches off the kitchen linoleum. In fact, he had to point his toes down before touching the floor…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

00.12

 

When you are bluntly confronted with the impossible, (and impossible is an endangered description these days,) it takes a body just a little while to truly accept it. 

 

He stared dumbly at his feet again, and then at the floor three inches below them. The gap was so obvious now, that was the thing.  He pointed his feet down again, touched the floor, then pulled them back up as though standing flat on his feet, which he sort of actually was. Except he was standing on nothing.

He pointed and straightened again...and again….and then continuously for a few seconds in a kind of gently hysterical motion as his chest grew steadily tighter and his breathing began to come in hard, panicky breaths, sucking in the chill night air like petrol engine running out of petrol,  blowing it out in bursts of living cloud into the pale light from that unusually bright moon.

It’s important to understand there was no sense of anything out of place physically.  His body didn’t suddenly feel light as a feather, nor did he hear angelic or demonic voices chanting in the air. Physically he felt nothing but the same cold as before.  And fear.  Fear like wet flames, spreading up the curtains in the window of an occupied house.

“Arrrgh….” or something like it came out of Jamie’s mouth.  He tried to move his feet sideways, as if to step off whatever invisible object he had apparently stepped on to. Nothing happened, although perhaps, (his racing mind couldn’t be sure) his feet tingled slightly.

He looked again, pleadingly now, at the floor beneath his feet, rich, full-blooded panic in his heart and suddenly, without warning, he slowly, and with absolute smoothness, descended.  His feet touched the linoleum, his knees buckled in surprise and he slumped onto his backside, knocking a kitchen chair over with a clatter.

Back to normal.

 Jamie sat there for a while, but even in his frightened stupor he did not fear the sound of Shauna’s footsteps.  She would not be awakened by…by….

What...........the hell?!

 

 For all his love of sci-fi and horror, Jamie was not a dreamer, an air-headed, impressionable youth.  All his childhood’s naiveté had gone by the age of eight or nine.   He was a boy that had washed neighbours' cars in the past to help pay for new school clothes.   This….thing that had happened was not imaginary.  Impossible, yes. A deception, a trick of the light, hopefully, but he had not imagined it.  He would not wake up in his bed any second now.   Even so, he pinched himself in that clichéd way to make sure because…

 Because he wanted it to be true.

Why was a question for later, but all of sudden, little Jamie Cramer clung to what had happened (had appeared to happen) like a drowning man in a raging sea clings to a floating chunk of his ship’s mast. Jamie, perhaps for the first time in his meaningless, purposeless, directionless life, actually yearned for something.  He yearned for what he thought had just happened, as ridiculous as it was, to be true. If it did happen, if it was true…he was special, and special in a way that no one could damage.

“Bull****!”

Jamie laughed out loud, not caring if he woke his mother.

 Poor little lamb!  (The words seem to come from outside of him, though they were his thoughts.)  Is this what you’ve come to? 

Yes I have, Jamie fired back.  I don’t care if it’s sensible or not.  I’ve had enough of sensible.  I want this to be true.  If it didn’t happen, then what have I lost? 

 

Jamie slowly stood up and his heart was in his mouth. Not for fear of what he thought happened before happening again, but from dread that it wouldn’t.  That here in this kitchen in the purest hours of the morning, a sad and lonely thirteen year-old had looked at that moon and floated off the ground.

Tingling in his feet?

 

 Jamie’s body wavered entirely of its own accord and adrenaline pounded, his blood rushing through his body .  What happened there?  What did I do?

I want to rise, he thought.

Nothing.

Don’t let it be over.

What was different?   Was the moon still there?  He looked up and saw it, bright and clear, and was struck again with the thought of how close it seemed, how lovely and vast the night sky looked....how goddamned great it would be to be up there.

“Gargh!”  His cry came out too loud. Just too loud.

More quickly than last time, though just as smoothly, Jamie had abruptly risen three inches, then slowed down, ascending perhaps another full inch before panic welled in his heart and Jamie clenched his fists.  He came to a halt, arms stretched out as if wanting to hug the moon in front of him, though his expression was far from welcoming.

Sheer undeniable joy, tainted with a dose of shock washed through him as Jamie Cramer floated, steady as a rock, four inches off the floor of the kitchen of 134A Maycliff Towers.

Not happening....think....I’ll....should.....I’m.....not happening..... 

 Jamie looked down and immediately felt less steady.  Looking at the ground seemed to affect this….thing, and there was an odd watery feeling in his stomach.  He looked nevertheless at the linoleum beneath his feet, pointing his toes down to check.  He suddenly experienced a queasy feeling. 

So how do I get down again?

Despite his hands shaking, and that growing watery feeling in his stomach, Jamie Cramer had the strength of character to think the following;

I did this. I’m in control of this. I got myself up, I can go down.  Down slowly.  Down slowly…

Nothing.

Down.  I want to go down.

Nothing. 

Now.

Thump.  Was that his mother…?!! Oh ****!

“Down!” he whispered, hurting his throat, but his voice had become a pathetic thing in that room, and carried no weight.

A thump.  Definitely a door opening.

Jamie closed his eyes and pictured himself going downwards.  A moment later his feet in their slippers pressed hard and clear against the ground as the kitchen door opened like an personal attack.

“What the hell?!”

Shauna’s hair was a mess, plastered over half her face,  she wore a T-shirt that needed washing, and grey jogging bottoms that dragged along the floor.  She reached out and flicked on the switch, making a hard snap sound, and her squinting, red-rimmed eyes rebelled at the light.

“Jesus Christ! What…. what are you doing?”

Jamie looked her dead in the eye, heart pounding, taking a cool moment to control his voice.

“I was hungry, I got some cornflakes.  I was just going to bed.”

“Eh?  What…what are you standing there like a gorm for?”

“I was looking at the moon.”

“Eh!?”   Shauna squinted out at the moon now, now an inconsequential thing under the fluorescent strip lights. She’d even managed to destroy the moon.

“Look at what?”

“It’s nearly a full moon tonight.  It’s nice.  Can’t you sleep?”

“Eh? No, I bloody can’t.   No wonder I’m bloody knackered all day.”

“So? It’s not as if you’ve got anything to do tomorrow.”

Her face went cold.  Or colder.

“And what’s that mean?”

“Nothing.”

“Don’t ‘nothing’ me.  What do you mean by that?  You calling me a layabout?”

Yes.

“No.  I have to go to school.  I better go to bed now.”

“Ooooh, laddie, I wish I had your problems!” she snarled as he moved past.  “I just ****ing wish!”

 

 Jamie rushed silently to his room, not so much as touching the walls,  and dropped himself into bed, his knees pulled up high, protectively, staring into space.  What appeared to have just happened could not be possible. It had just happened though, so….that made it possible. Cold hard fact.   He, Jamie Cramer, had just floated four inches off the ground.

 He had….in fact.....flown.

When that word entered his head, something far greater than mere shock filled his system.  Something like the light of wonder rushed through his being, as, in an instant, the word opened up a whole new world of....something.  

He had flown.  A human being, a nothing human being like himself had flown.  Man’s great fantasy. The stuff of a million sky-watching daydreams.

 

Hold on, he said to himself. Get a grip, and he suddenly felt himself calming, followed by the unpleasant sensation of doubt. 

What if it’s gone by morning?  What if….what if it’s a passing thing?  A crazy passing thing to do with that moon, all big and bright and clear?   I couldn’t bare it if it was taken away. I couldn’t bare it if something so wonderful was given to me and then taken away.  That would be a thousand times worse.  To do something incredible, to know I’m incredible, then to have it taken away.... No.  Just no!  Please!

 

With a head and heart of whirling thoughts and emotions, Jamie Cramer tried to sleep and wait for the dawn, when his world would either be changed forever or…it wouldn’t be.

 

The dawn came.

 Jamie, like everybody, awoke to sounds and feelings first, long before opening his eyes.  The distant rumble of grinding heavy goods lorries, punctuated by car horns played out in the background like some disjointed, slightly drunken symphony.  He took it all in for thirty seconds or more, his mind filled with;

 Maths class today….gotta test….don’t understand trigonometry enough…gonna go bad…..PE class….need new trainers really…fat chance…er….

Jamie snapped open his eyes.

 

Floating off the kitchen floor, bathed in pale moonlight.  What was this image in his head?

A dream.

It had all been a dream.  Ah! That’s it. Of course!   He had dreamt it.  Just....frigging....dreamt it.

 

 The disappointment…no, the awfulness that filled him was….was indescribable. It had been a dream.  No goddamn doubt.  He awoke with the same sleepy, cold numbness that he greeted all winter mornings in this council flat, and the stuff of last night seemed as real as the animated Disney movie, ‘Dumbo’, which he had watched not so long ago on telly.  Similar theme even. Probably inspired it all.

 He snorted a laugh and then his eyes turned a little watery.  What was wrong with him?   What was really happening to him that he should have such dreams and be affected by them?  How could his mind be so cruel to him, play such tricks on him, especially during sleep, his very last refuge?

Why should his subconscious be vicious enough to give him such hope that he, against all odds, against all expectation, was special?  What really was wrong with him?

His mother shuffled past his door, muttering to herself. She opened the kitchen door too hard and it cracked off the wall like it did whenever she got up in time to make his breakfast.  (Four days out of ten now)   The cupboard doors blew open on complaining hinges and slammed shut hard a second later.

“JAMIE!”

 But Jamie lay there a second longer, as if unwilling to leave the place where he had enjoyed such hope and excitement.  To get up would acknowledge that it was over and time to get back to the real world, so Jamie lay there for a few seconds longer, until his eyes drifted to the alarm clock.

7.45am.

He was SO LATE!

He exploded out of bed.  By now he should have breakfasted and be pulling on his shoes, ready to leave the house and walk the mile and a half to school!  He was so, so late! Surprising, as he could not remember the last time he had overslept.

 Jamie hurried into the kitchen, hoping his mother had poured him cereal.  She had not.  She had poured herself some and was leaning wearily against the sink eating mechanically.

“I’m late!” cried Jamie. 

“Well then, get up earlier,” mumbled his mother.  “You haven’t got time for breakfast now!”

“Why didn’t you wake me if you were already up?” said Jamie, opening the fridge and pulling out the orange juice carton, only to find it empty.

“I’m not a ****ing mind reader am I?” said his mother.  “I thought you were up and away already.”

“There’s no orange juice!”

“Drank it all last night.”

“Then why did you put the carton back?!” snapped Jamie.  He was just plain angry now, and, rare for him, had no problem with showing it.  Shauna, screwed up her face, her brow furrowed.

“’Cause I’m not at my cleverest at two o’clock in the morning, that’s why, Mr Smart Alec!”

Jamie turned to walk hard to his bedroom when his mother’s words hacked through the air.

“Don’t get ****** at me because you’re up half the night staring at the moon and then oversleep. Don’t you dare, dearie!”

Jamie whirled.  “Do you have to swear all the time?  Why don’t you try broadening your vocabulary or something! Try a new word once a year!”  His feet were apart, his own brow furrowed in a younger expression of his mother’s, and the feeling sickened him

“WHAT did you say, you little ******!?” spat his mother, wide-eyed under straggled hair.

“I said….” and Jamie’s words died on his lips.

“Oh no, no, no!” said Shauna advancing on him in a faded red towel robe, hair at sharp contrasting angles. “If you think I’m a moron, sonny dearie, let’s hear it!” 

Jamie stared for a second, still dealing with something his mother had just said.

“Was I was awake last night?  In here?”  He watched her with bated breath.

“Don’t try and creep out of it! I’m a moron, am I?  AM I?”

Shauna smashed her bowl down into the sink so hard it shattered. Pottery, milk and cereal bloomed and then fell to the metal and linoleum.

“GET THE **** OUT OF MY SIGHT!”

Jamie could have said “glad to,” very easily.  Nearly did, except suddenly Shauna didn’t matter anymore.  Something had deftly, silently and efficiently replaced her in the world.  A tiny ray of something called hope. No, a shield of hope, and Shauna’s voice couldn’t penetrate it.

 

 Jamie was washed and dressed and out of the door in five minutes, while his mother repeatedly banged the closet door in her bedroom, even after he was gone, spitting nearly-hissed words at somebody who just wasn’t there anymore.

 

 

 

 

 

 

00.11

 

It can’t be true. It can’t be true.

These words seemed to take up permanent residence inside his head as Jamie walked very briskly to school.  Here, surrounded by Langdon’s Ironworks, Smithy’s biscuit factory, the disused Frobishers Plastics warehouse (went down last year, now an unofficial graffiti art gallery,) it all seemed laughable, though not the hearty kind.   His mother had not been in a chatting mood, otherwise school or no school, Jamie would have pressed her for more details regarding the night before.   Wait, perhaps it was all still a joke on him.  Perhaps he had been sleepwalking.  Oh no!

When in a fragile emotional state, it is human nature to accept the worst possible outcome of a scenario as probable, and as unrealistic as sleepwalking seemed (as compared to floating in his kitchen,) it quickly became a horrible possibility to Jamie.  He didn’t know much about sleepwalking but it sort of made sense the more he gloomily thought on it.   He obviously had gone into the kitchen last night, and according to his mother he was staring at the moon.   Might the flying be the dream part of sleepwalking?  It felt depressingly like a possibility, and Jamie’s initial lively pace slowed to a trudge as he walked on.

 The walk to Jaston Secondary Modern took him on what he thought of as the ‘scenic’ route through Jaston’s crummier districts.  Every third factory seemed to have been closed for a long time, and the huge-girthed, unshaven, woolly-hatted workers that stood outside those businesses that were open, smoked like a scuba diver breathes air.

The sky was dark white, so to speak, with grey streaks and a brownish tinge from Langdon’s, the largest factory in this part of the Jaston jungle.

He walked on, over weeds in the pavement, around a pool of shattered beer bottle glass, a telling circle of recent human vomit, and over some flyers for a nightclub that had evidently been abandoned by their distributor.  Oakley’s nightclub, by the look of it.  A neon dive of a pit, three streets away.

 

Most locals felt the fall of Jaston could (wrongly) be blamed upon one man.   Garth Barretta had been the ‘big man’ of Jaston during its small and humble Golden Age (more like brass) fifteen years ago.

Garth Barretta was a property developer, a businessman, and an industrialist, whatever that last one meant. (Jamie had read of him in a newspaper article only a month ago.)

He had been the owner of a lot of the bigger industrial, office and commercial buildings in Jaston, renting them out to businesses, and taking a healthy percentage.  Jaston had no Mayor anymore, (after the private life of the last Mayor was brought to light eight years ago, the title carried a stigma upon it,) but Garth Barretta had become the closest thing the city had.

Jamie had seen the photograph that had accompanied the article. Garth was a fit-looking man in his fifties, with silver hair that had been slicked back, a really prominent jaw and pronounced muscles in his cheeks, like a man who must clench his teeth a lot.   He had been smiling at the photographer, but Jamie remembered the article had not been a nice one.  The journalist had been reporting (rather gleefully) on how many of Mr Barretta’s businesses had collapsed in the last year, how many residential and commercial properties he owned were not being rented out, and how the ‘self-styled Richard Branson of Jaston’ was facing increasing financial problems.  Jamie didn’t know who Richard Branson was, but he felt sorry for this Mr Barretta.  He looked like a nice man, had a nice smile and friendly eyes.  Maybe he was just a good actor, or maybe the photo used was from older times, but still...   A nice face is a nice face, and Jamie hoped things would get better for him. Even now, as Jamie walked to school, he had passed a couple of derelict buildings with the distinctive, (though faded) green ‘Barretta Properties’ signs attached to the outside.   Both buildings had dusty and/or broken windows, and litter had leapt over the locked chain-link fences surrounding them, collecting in four foot-high piles on a far corner on one of them.   If buildings can ever actually die, these would be feeling the first shovel of grave-dirt. There would be no grand funeral either. They would die where they stood and nobody would tend the graves.

Is it better to always have nothing, than to have everything and lose it?  It seemed so.   Funny to think there was an upside to Jamie’s life.   Some upside, he thought!  He didn’t bloody feel lucky.  People were always saying on TV chat shows, be grateful for what you have.  Jamie had tried to be grateful, and he knew people were starving to death in Africa, and that must be horrible, and far far worse than the boredom of having to eat fish finger and peas every dinner.  He tried to feel lucky quite often, but it felt like pushing an elephant uphill.  Maybe he was spoilt and didn’t know it.  Didn’t feel it though.  Didn’t feel spoilt at all, but then spoilt people might naturally feel that way.  Because they were spoilt.

 

Snap out of it!  He shrugged his shoulders to get rid of thoughts like this and walked on.  

The cold wind blew hard, the tips of his ears going faint blue.   His thin hoodie had a hole in the front somewhere.  He could feel the cold air against his school shirt.  Better get out the needle and thread under his bed when he got home.

 

The boys and girls in school uniform were gathering around him now as the school approached, a distant red-bricked angular shape on the top of a gentle sloping road.   Lots of cars with rust problems were parked all around it.  Teachers’ cars.

 

 Jamie had Maths first, then Chemistry, then English.  Get them out of the way.  Get to lunchtime and then think this thing through.  He was sleepy.  Hadn’t the energy to get his hopes up this early.

 

Maths came and went, the test not as bad as he thought, perhaps because he was not remotely nervous, with other thoughts occupying his mind, try as he did to avoid them. He wasn’t even nervous when Mr Watkins, the Maths teacher had paused on his stroll around the silent class to peer over Jamie’s shoulder.

Chemistry went okay as well, surprising himself and Mr Donald with the facts he had retained without being aware of them.   Some of them regarding the Periodic Table he had more guessed than remembered, but he had guessed right, guessed with that strange, comforting sense of security you sometimes get with guesses. The facts must have been in slumming it in his brain somewhere.   Mr Donald gave a rare comment, singling out Jamie, something this hunched, unbrushed teacher rarely did.   Jamie didn’t mind it.  Didn’t mind what the other kids thought. Hadn't much cared for a while in fact.

What the hell.   It was an unusually ballsy state of mind for him.  He really didn’t care today what anyone thought of him, and it was liberating.  Perhaps he should sleepwalk more often.  Surprisingly, the thought made him smile. Smiling felt flat-out strange.

Then English with Mrs Capel, whom he liked a lot. Thirty-five perhaps, she was pretty for a teacher, at least in a tired sort of way, with long black hair and a nice voice. She wore a dark green outfit today that suited her eyes and hair.  She really seemed to care, that was the thing that made her stand out, although some days, the joy in her job seemed more obviously hard to find for her.  She could keep a class in order unlike some of the others.   He had got an answer right in her class too, and she had not said a word, but had nodded to him, seeming pleased nonetheless.

 

Then lunchtime came and Jamie walked out into the larger playground to the rear of the Humanities Block.  This building bordered the playing fields, and the bicycle sheds, (which were never used, kids in Jaston weren’t that dumb,) and a series of three long and locked concrete utility sheds housing sports equipment, outdated science apparatus, etc, standing off to the left.

He took a moment to look at some boys playing football on the playing field, a few girls holding their coats.  The game, a daily routine.   There, tackling the ball hard, was Gordon Straight.  Better not go anywhere near him.  Jamie could see his short blonde hair on top of a bullnecked body from here.  Gordon just didn’t like Jamie, and for no obvious reason at all.  Perhaps it wasn’t about a reason.  Perhaps he just intimidated Jamie because he could.  Perhaps he needed to. Perhaps he had to go after somebody, because that’s what no-necked piledriver-types just do.

 

 He was halfway to the bicycle sheds when Vanessa Clipton crossed his path, probably heading for the cafeteria, having come from the Sports Hall.

Vanessa was in his Maths class, and she was the only girl Jamie remotely fancied.  She was shorter than him by a couple of inches, with wavy platinum blonde hair and big green eyes.  She really was gorgeous, like a model, and she had a figure that could distract you from thoughts of trying to float off the ground behind bicycle sheds.  She must have money in her family, because she was posh by Jaston standards. Good clothes, nice perfume, jewellery that didn't come from a Christmas cracker. She hadn't been born here, at least he thought someone nearby in the dinner queue had said that once.   She could be rough and ready enough though. Fierce when called for. All this made her Princess of the Playground.   She had to be deaf and blind to not to be aware of it, and she was neither. When she got old enough though, she would be gone from Jaston so fast she would leave a cartoon ghost of herself hanging in the air for a second.  Vanessa was somebody who was going to have choices in life.

They’d spoken once before in the last year.  He had, with dry throat, asked her the time, and she’d deftly pointed out he was wearing a watch.  That had been the end of that, he’d figured.

 Now she stopped though and squinted at him as if trying to read badly spelt graffiti on the wall.

“Getting better at the Maths, aren’t you, Jason?”

Fine.  “It’s Jamie.  Not really, just lucky today.”

“Where you off to on your lonesome?”

“Lunch.  I’ve got sandwiches in…well, in my bag.”

“Wouldn’t have thought you keep them in your pockets.”

“No.”

“On your own?”

 Right then, Jamie forgot about everything in the universe as his heart started fluttering in a quite wonderful way.   He then became horribly aware he hadn’t washed or brushed his hair this morning, so he probably looked like an electrified scarecrow that had been dragged through a ****ing hedge backwards.

“Uh yeah, probably going to sit over there where it’s quiet.  You?”

“Cafeteria, with my friends.”

Something quietly gave up then and there in Jamie as regards to Vanessa Clipton.  The way she’d said that line was subtle but not subtle enough.  With my friends.

“Right.  I like things quiet.  You know, think about stuff, put the world to rights.” He was tired of the charade now, the effort.  He was a gurning fool, a dancing bear, and she didn’t fancy him. Not at all.

“You’re weird,” she said, looking him up and down. She turned to walk away.

“Thanks,” he said, and then, with timing and inspiration that had never been present in his life before, he added;  “You’re very normal.”

She stopped walking away then looked back at him.  Unable to decide  if this was an insult or not, she did nothing for a moment, squinting again.  Then she turned and walked away.

 

Jamie stood still and let it all the disappointment flood out of his body.  Then he attempted to forget all about it...and quickly succeeded...as he looked back at the bicycle sheds. They consisted of side-by-side wooden framed structures with a solid backing, filled with iron railings to secure absolutely nobody’s bike, ever.

A moment later he was standing in front of them, appraising the environment, a growing nervousness inside.

It was madness to think a human being could fly, or at least float four inches off the ground.  He was a fool to even consider doing what he planned to do.  A flat-iron fool.

Better get started.

Of course he always knew in his heart he was going to try and float again today, that was a given.  He could never make it the whole day without at least trying, and he simply had to know, one way or the other. In daylight, under a bleak white-grey sky, outside the Humanities Block of a crappy under-funded, under-staffed school, surrounded by kids talking excitedly about reality TV shows and football, could he float again?

But the best place to try it?  It’s not the easiest thing to be alone in an overcrowded school during lunch hour. Perhaps he should leave it until tonight.

 Not a chance.  Yes, behind the bicycle sheds would have to do.  It’s not as if anything else was likely to happen for him there, he thought glumly.

 Jamie hurried over to the second structure,  as it stood furthest away from the playground, and slipped quickly behind to find….

Two Year Fourteen kids kissing each other, hands in places that some educational films say they shouldn’t be.

Jamie did a silent spin on his heel and zipped away unnoticed.

“Damn,” he said quietly at a safe distance.  Okay then, between the utility sheds. Preferably the third one. Furthest away of the lot.

 Jamie was there a moment later and found the muddy, littered five-foot gap to be free of over-friendly students. 

 He was suddenly hit with a wave of feeling utterly stupid, like a kid who’s come to school wearing his Superman pyjamas under his uniform, and is about to proudly cast off his outer garb and leap off a dustbin, shouting something epic.

 Jamie coughed and looked about him.  Get it over with.  Get it out of your system and get back to normality, or at least get away from all this frigging litter. He had no second pair of school shoes, that was for sure.

Float, he thought.

Not a dickybird.  Not a Scooby-Doo.  A crisp packet blew against his leg on an edged wind, and he shivered.  He bowed his head before he could stop himself.  Hugged himself without realising he’d done so. No, give it a chance. Did his arms need to be out?  He seemed to remember doing that.

 Looking about him again, he quickly held out his arms.

 Float damn it, before I’m seen and ridiculed forever!

Nothing.  Heavy as lead.

Someone coming?  No.

He breathed out, thinking hard.   What could he remember from last night?  How had he….?

Then part of it refreshed in his mind.  His mother coming to the door.  The frantic willing of himself to go down, rather than thinking it.

Okay, he’d give it a go, and then get the hell out of here.

He lowered his arms by his sides and closed his eyes. He tried to will himself to float off the ground.

Nothing.   He felt nothing at all. 

Eyes still closed, he tried harder.  

“**** it!” he hissed through his teeth, feeling childish and humiliated and desperate.  A wave of sadness went through him.  Seriously, was he so desperate for his life to change that he would do things as disturbing as this? (And it was rapidly becoming disturbing to him.) Worse, was there something really…wrong with him?  Was he…in fact...'troubled'?

 He opened blurry eyes, wiping hard at….

Oh ….!

 

Jamie’s head was level with the roof of the utilities building. Just above it in fact, because he could see the Maths and Science building.

 Jamie was five feet off the ground.  And he had felt nothing at all as it happened.

As he stared in shock, Mrs Capel, black hair held in a pony tail against the wind, still dressed in that dark green outfit, perfectly met his eyes fifty feet away as she walked across the playground.

Her point of view would offer her the decidedly odd sight of the top of Jamie’s head looking directly at her over a flat tar roof nearly eleven feet high.

 Of course, from Jamie’s point of view, things were a hell of a lot odder.

Mrs Capel frowned and stopped in her walk.  She began walking over.

SHE BEGAN WALKING OVER!

 

Jamie felt injectable ice-terror like nothing he had ever known, and he looked down at the filthy earth beneath his feet.  This was a hell of a difference from four inches!

DOWN! DOWN! DOWN!  The intensity of his thoughts actually hurt his brain.

Nothing.  He hung there, steady as a rock, perhaps that slightest tingle in his feet again, but otherwise he could be standing on the deck of an oil rig, so secure was his body in the air.

Twenty feet away, Mrs Capel came on, eyes fixed firmly on his, a combination of confusion and anger on her face, rapidly favouring the latter.

Jamie, despite every instinct to keep his eyes fixed on her, closed them again, and willed himself to go down. 

Again, there was no sensation of anything special occurring.  Jamie was afraid if he opened his eyes, the process wouldn’t work (if indeed it was working now,) and gave himself up to a kind of horrid, dreadful acceptance of all things.  If she saw him hanging in mid-air, so be it.

His right trainer pressed into hard mud again, his left coming down upon a Ribena carton.

Mrs Capel appeared sharply around the corner less than a clear second later. She looked mildly annoyed.  Nay, perturbed.

“Jamie? What are you doing?”

God help me, I haven’t a clue.

“What do you mean?” he said, trying to look surprised, nay, intrigued.

“Were you just climbing up the side of this shed, trying to get on the roof?”

 She said this with a voice that lacked conviction, because by now, she had looked at the smooth concrete wall of the shed, covered as it was with graffiti, and it was clear there was no way to climb it.   Not so much as a nail stuck out from its surface to provide a foothold. Not a chip or flaw in the white-painted breeze blocks provided a handhold.

She looked up and down it again as it looking for an answer.

“Oh, I was trying to see if a football was up there. Ian French said he’d kicked it up there and there was a quid for anyone who could get it down.”

IDIOT!  Why’d you give a name?  She can ask him if it’s true!

“I see,” said Mrs Capel, darkly.  “And how did you get up there?”

Jamie ignored the punch of fear in his belly. He tried the world’s worst watery smile.

“Trade secret, Miss.”

“Is it indeed?”  But he thought he saw the slightest twitch at the corner of her mouth.  Could it be there breathed a teacher in Jaston who still had a funny bone?

“Is it up there?” she said.

“What?”

“Ian French’s football.”

“No.  It’s not. (That was true at least.)  Wind probably blew it off.  It went up there quite a while ago.  He probably doesn’t even remember asking for it back now.”

“Convenient,” said Mrs Capel, looking right at him, and subsequently right through him.  Jamie Cramer was a lousy liar to people he liked.

Jamie swallowed.  “Could have used that quid, too.”

“Couldn’t we all?” said Mrs Capel, blinking and looking away, human again.  “Well done in class today, Jamie,” she said abruptly and walked back towards the playground.

Jamie fell weakly against the side of the shed, heart beating, adrenaline pumping through him.

 

Perhaps forty seconds passed before he overcame his shock and replaced it with a growing sense of wonder and amazement.  A sense that grew and grew and grew and grew until Jamie was standing tall, staring into space, taking in the enormity, the EARTH-SHATTERING ENORMITY of what had actually happened, for real, right there, and what it meant to him.

It wasn’t a dream.

He could fly.

Jamie Cramer could fly.