Authors: Anne-Marie Hart
On the bus home, Toby sat with Alice, because he made sure he reserved her a seat, and Alice felt like she couldn't refuse.
'Did you have a good day?' Toby asked her.
'I think so', Alice said, and then: 'Who's your best friend at the school?'
'I don't know', Toby said. 'Maybe Mark or Daniel I suppose.'
'Do they have a lot of friends too?' Alice said.
'I think so', Toby said. 'Really my best friend is Miro, but he doesn't go to school.'
***
Over the coming weeks, as Alice settled into her new routine, she worked out a lot more about the different groups in the school, and how people felt about each other in general. Toby became her best friend both in the school and out of it, and she couldn't care less about what people thought of her for it. The girls that had approached her on the first day, decided that she wasn't worthy of their group after all, and when they'd decided to reject her, they began to call her names.
'Bookworm', was their favourite because Alice liked books. Also 'four eyes' was one that they used from time to time, and then they started a rumour that Alice had aids as well, even though she was convinced that none of the girls telling her that really knew what it meant.
Toby wasn't the most popular boy at school by a long stretch. He hung around with a few people, mostly so he could fight with them, and everyone said he smelled funny and didn't even clean himself because he lived in a barn. It was true that Toby smelled a bit, but he definitely didn't live in a barn. Alice had been over to his house for dinner a few times, and to watch cartoons after school until her brother came back to look after her, and it definitely wasn't a barn. He lived in a smaller house than her own, but it was a house just the same. Alice didn't know if they were or not, but even if his parents were Gypsies, it didn't mean they were worse than anyone else. She didn't even really know what being a gypsy meant anyway.
School became difficult because she was bullied by and excluded from the popular group of kids, which meant she was also bullied by everyone else who wasn't popular and didn't want to be unpopular. Her group of friends became Katy, Toby, Roy and another boy called David, who had learning difficulties, wore glasses as thick as milk bottles and broke his arm falling from the climbing frame two days after Alice arrived. He spent the next two months in a cast and sling that everyone wrote their names on, and Daniel and Casper covered in swear words.
Toby could see it was difficult for Alice, so he encouraged her to make friends away from his lame group, so she could avoid being bullied. Alice appreciated the concern, but just couldn't do it. Even though she was unpopular, and had to endure a fair bit of name calling, nobody in the school got bullied worst than Toby and she felt like she had to stick up for him. People would say things behind his back, and then pretend to be friends with him in front of the teachers, so they didn't know what was going on. She'd seen people get bullied in her school in London, herself included, but nothing they'd ever done there was as systematic or as mean as what people would do here to Toby.
Toby wasn't bothered by it though. It had gone on for so long, it wasn't anything that he hadn't got himself used to. She admired that about him, even from such a young age. That Toby didn't get angry, he just accepted it. If people wanted to say horrible things to him, he just let them get on with it, and made a joke out of it instead of getting upset. It worked too, in a way. Sometimes they'd get bored and leave him alone for a week or two, and then they'd suddenly remember, or something would happen to trigger it, and they'd be all over him again.
Toby wasn't the brightest or most academic student, but he knew more about the environment than anyone else, and he could paint and draw like a professional artist. Even the teachers had to admit that. Alice had never ever seen anything like it before, and reckoned some of his work was better than the stuff she'd seen hanging in the museums in London. He regularly gave Alice pictures he'd drawn, and she either hung them on her wall like awards, or kept them in her journal like precious jewels.
Outside of school, Alice played with Katy because she was a girl and in the same village, her older brother Richard from time to time, and Toby. It was Toby that showed her the church, the short cut through the woods to get to the village on the other side, the apple tree in the orchard that was perfect for climbing, the secret tree house in the blue bell woods, the red well that had water that looked like blood because of a high iron content in the rocks, the lake and how to fish in it, the reed beds where you could feel like you were walking on water, the trails, the bramble bushes and the abandoned house that was all boarded up at the front, but could be accessed via a panel in the back, and most importantly, how to forget about stupid people at school and have a good time outside of it.
Alice wrote in her diary one day, 'Toby is my best friend. When we grow up, I want to marry him. Everyone at school says he smells. Everyone at school is a stupid plonker, especially Daniel and Mark, because they pretend to be his friends and say things behind his back.'
Her parents weren't so convinced of the benefits of their friendship however, and looked upon Toby as suspiciously as everyone at school seemed to. They told her she should be hanging around with girls and not boys, as though it would be unhealthy for her if she didn't, and kept trying to convince her not to waste her time in his company. James was equally as cruel. He laughed at Toby whenever he was allowed to come round, constantly told him he had nits, and teased him that his trousers didn't reach his ankles.
Alice forgot about London soon enough. She hated people at school, but she just did what Toby did and ignored them. Sometimes it was hard, because sometimes what people said to her really hurt, but other times it was easy. She enjoyed being in the country, she liked what she was learning, and even though she hated her for the rest of her life because of making her stand up in front of the class on the first day, she grew quite fond of Mrs Bond and her cobweb hair.
The seasons came and went. School stopped for Christmas, started up for Spring and stopped again for the Summer. The house, new to her only so recently, immediately became her home. Her friends loved visiting, no one more so than Toby of course, because they had a huge house and massive garden to explore, much bigger than anyone else's, and a TV that had so many channels on it, it took five whole minutes to flick through them all.
James even settled in. He made new friends, became popular at school through his natural ability with sports, and joined a local football and cricket team. Soon enough he'd moved on from his old friends in London, had forgotten entirely about his love of Rugby, and referred to his old life quite categorically as the past in sentences like, 'oh I used to like that in the past', turning the edge of his mouth up when he said it, as though smelling off milk.
Out of all of Alice's friends, Alice's parents were most worried about Toby being a bad influence. They considered the boy to be polite and well behaved, but knew he was prone to mischief. He'd dug up part of their garden one afternoon, looking for old Roman coins, and they were worried that their daughter's grades would drop if she spent too much time with him. They always worried she was becoming less of a lady and more of a layabout, after the umpteenth time she came in with muddy trousers after an afternoons fishing session at the lake.
They found a ouija board in amongst her things one day, that her and Toby had planned to do at the church, and it frightened them enough to ban her from seeing him for a month. Obviously they couldn't stop them seeing each other at school, but at least in an educational environment they reasoned, there were other people for their daughter to socialise with.
Toby introduced Alice to a lot of things she'd never have found on her own at that age. She caught her first fish with Toby, picked her first blackberry, climbed her first tree, blew up her first cow pat with bangers Toby's cousin had brought in for him from a school trip to France, listened to her first gangster rap song, and smoked her first cigarette.
Toby's mum smoked like a train, and one afternoon after school, when Alice and Toby were in their last year of primary school, and ready after the summer to go onto high school, they were hanging out by the lake talking about what they were going to do when they grew up, and Toby produced a squashed cigarette from his pocket.
'I was going to smoke it before, but I wanted to save it so we could do it together', Toby said.
Alice took hold of it, treating the object carefully, as though like a stick of dynamite, it might blow up in their hands immediately.
'How do we do it?' Alice said. 'I don't know if we should.'
'Why not?' Toby said. 'Everyone does it. My mum smokes loads.'
'My parents say it's really bad for you.'
'All the more reason to do it', Toby said with a huge smile.
'Alright', Alice said.
They lit the cigarette with matches Toby had liberated from his parents house, and Toby took the first drag, before coughing so much his eyes filled up with tears. He passed the cigarette over to Alice, and Alice carefully put it to her lips, closed them around it and pulled. It was so disgusting, she threw the cigarette onto the ground, coughed heavily and nearly puked. Toby couldn't stop laughing.
'It's horrible', Alice said, already feeling dizzy.
'I know, right?' Toby said, picking up the cigarette for another go. He pulled deeply on it, managed to control his body this time and wheezed out a thick stream of smoke.
'Wow', he said. 'I feel dizzy.'
Alice took one more drag, coughed it out and then gave the rest to Toby. She lay back on the grass and watched the clouds above her spinning in dizzying circles. Toby dared himself to take one more drag, which he held in his lungs until his face went red, then put the cigarette out, and put the rest back in his pocket. He lay back on the grass next to Alice.
'Do you ever think about the future?' Alice said.
'About school?' Toby asked.
'Not just that', Alice said. 'About where you'll be, or about who you'll be with?'
'Not really', Toby said. 'It's a long way away, and we've got to get through five more years of school yet.'
Miro yawned and lay down at their feet. They stayed like that, side by side, dreaming and looking up into the clouds until Alice's mum came over to tell her that her dinner was ready. It shocked Alice, and she was worried for a while her mum might have been able to detect the smell, although she didn't say anything immediately. Toby was much calmer. He seemed to have a way of appearing nerveless, even if the opposite was true.
'Hello Mrs Cartright', Toby said when he saw her.
'Hello Toby', Pam said.
'Do you want to come and eat with us?', Alice said.
'Alice I don't know', Pam said. 'With Miro and everything.'
'Mum', Alice protested.
'It's ok', Toby said. 'I'll have to get back anyway, mum'll be expecting me.'
***
At some point over the summer, between primary school ending and secondary school starting, when the days were long and hot and sticky, and Alice and Toby spent whole days lying in the grass and making shapes out of clouds, there was an evening conversation in hushed tones that went like this, that Alice heard from a secluded position on the balcony outside her room, several hours after she had been tucked up in bed:
'He's been in trouble with the police a number of times already', Pam said.
'In the past', Peter said. 'There's nothing to say.'
'James saw Toby smoking, down by the lake', Pam said.
'Are you sure?' Peter said.
'I just don't think. I mean, what do they do? They're sat at home all day, watching TV, I mean how is that contributing to society. And Toby?'
'That's a little over the top isn't it?'
'Not according to Greg and Daphne it's not. It's their lawn that Miro goes and shits on every day.'
'Look, Alice's grades are good, she's not in trouble, and she likes this boy. I mean they've been pretty much inseparable since we got here. He's been a better friend to her than anyone else has, even if he is a bit grubby.'
'A bit grubby?' Pam said. 'He practically ruined our sofa last year. That took months to clean, and it cost a lot of money. Who's to say he won't follow in his father's footsteps as soon as he gets old enough to do so.'
'Well I'll guess we'll have to wait and see, won't we', Peter said.
'Will we?'
'What do you want to do Pam?' Peter said. 'Ban them from seeing each other? They are best friends for Christ sake. Has Toby ever actually done anything bad as far as you can tell?'
'Apart from smoking?'
'Every one experiments from time to time', Peter said.
'Well don't say I didn't warn you.'
On the last day of summer, at the secret tree house in the middle of the blue bell forests, with nothing around them but the gentle sound of trees swaying in the afternoon breeze, Toby and Alice became blood friends forever. It was Toby's idea of course, and he was the one who knew how to do it right. It was perfect for the mission that they had awaiting for them, which they would approach together as a team, no matter how much Alice's mum wanted Alice to distance herself away from her best friend.