The Booby Trap and Other Bits and Boobs (14 page)

Except for the ticking clock on the wall.

Perfectly normal to draw a face on your

belly, then get your daughter to stand on

a chair and take your picture. Perfectly

normal.

Mooby Trap

Though there were, obviously, two of them and each had clearly defined voices – one deeper and harsher, the other lighter and more sneering – Stewart's breasts tended to speak to him as a collective ‘we'.

‘We wouldn't do that if we were you,' they'd say, usually when he was about to raise his hand in class or make a joke amongst the small group he hoped were his friends or when he was looking to try a tackle on Andy Jackson during a phys ed football game. ‘Too fat,' they'd say. ‘No one wants to hear from/laugh with/watch the fat boy run.'

‘I'm not fat,' Stewart would say to them.

‘Well, we all know
that's
a lie,' they'd say, sniggering. ‘We're hardly two bags of muscle, now are we?'

And Stewart would have to silently agree with them, which was unfortunate, because they could hear that, too.

‘Fat, fat, fatty fat,' they'd sing. In the shower at home. In the changing room at school. Under the shirts that had seemed to fit up until the moment his breasts started talking. Under the loose jerseys and coats Stewart wore almost exclusively now.

‘Boob boobity boob boob, boob boob.'

No one else seemed able to hear them, but somehow that didn't make it any better.

It had all started over the summer. Stewart's family had gone to Majorca to visit his nan and her third husband Archie. They did this every second year, and though Spain might have seemed objectively preferable to the odd-year summer trips they made to tropical Yorkshire to see his mum's family, in reality it was fifteen days of his nan drinking too many cocktails, Archie repeatedly slapping Stewart's inevitable sunburn, and Stewart's mum sighing so often a waiter once offered her his asthma inhaler.

‘Getting to be quite a big boy,' his nan had said as Stewart slipped off his T-shirt for a dip in the sea.

‘Oughta cut down on the chips,' Archie said, rubbing oil onto Stewart's nan's back. Sitting next to each other on their loungers, their skins were so loose and sun-browned they looked like two melted otters.

‘I've got a bikini top you can borrow,' his nan chortled into her fruity cocktail.

‘Mum, that's enough,' Stewart's father said from where he was blowing up waterwings for Stewart's completely accidental/‘delightful surprise' of a three-year-old brother Ned, who in his toddler purview had taken to the island like a dazed native.

‘They're bigger than yours, Ev,' Archie laughed, nodding at Stewart's chest.

‘I said, that's
enough
,' his dad snapped.

Stewart's nan and Archie both made
ooo
ing sounds and retreated to their drinks, though not before she said, ‘Like father, like son,' beneath her breath. Stewart glanced at his shirtless dad. A bit chunky, just like Stewart.

Moobs, just like Stewart.

Oh, my God
, Stewart thought.
I look like
that?

‘Who did you
think
we looked like?' his breasts had said, speaking up for the first time. ‘Cristiano Ronaldo?'

From her own sun lounger, Stewart's mother must have seen the look of horror on her son's face, because she said, ‘Don't listen to them, Stew.'

For one awful moment, Stewart thought she meant his breasts.

‘Why don't you take Ned down to the water, sweetheart?' she said, kindly. ‘How would you like that, Neddy?'

‘
Bueno
,' Ned said, dreamily. He slipped his hand into Stewart's and as their dad headed off to the cabana bar to take a very, very long time getting everyone refills and as Stewart's mum sighed and planted her earphones in so deep they were probably touching her brain and as Nan and Archie started sharing outrage about the idiocy of a friend of theirs no one here had ever met, Stewart walked his little brother down to the water, feeling like every other tanned face on the beach was watching his breasts bounce away in the sunshine.

‘They
are
watching us,' his breasts said. ‘Every eyeball here.'

Stewart's skin turned a steady bright red, and it wasn't all sunburn.

* * *

They named themselves. Colin and Barclay. Stewart never knew where the names had come from or, for that matter, which was Colin and which was Barclay; though really, what could it possibly have mattered? He would stare at them in the mirror, hating them, hating the way they sagged there, hating how ugly they were, hating the way they poked against his school uniform, no matter which way he wore it.

He really wasn't even all that fat.

‘Yeah,' they said, ‘you keep telling yourself that.'

He really wasn't even all that fat. Just sort of … big. If he'd been more coordinated, he could have been a plausible rugby player, if his school ever played rugby, which it most certainly did not. But there were definitely other guys in his year who were fatter than him.

‘They wear it differently,' his breasts said. ‘More compactly, more rounded. They look like bouncers. You look like a big fat baby.'

‘Shut up,' he said.

‘A big fat baby
girl
,' they sneered. ‘Amazing that what's so nice on a girl is so
hideous
on a boy.'

Perhaps unsurprisingly, they were particularly bad when he was in class. Week after week after week.

‘Who wants to read Romeo?' Mr Duffy asked.

‘We do! We do!' shouted Stewart's breasts as he sunk down into his seat, crossing his arms against them. Muffled, they still shouted. ‘Two Romeos right here!'

‘How about you, Stewart?' Mr Duffy said, and Stewart had a flash of terror so clear, he coughed, which Mr Duffy took as a yes. ‘Grand,' he said, setting the text on Stewart's desk. There was some muffled laughter at this. Stewart glanced up towards Juliet, already standing at the front of the class. Niamh Connelly, beautiful, tall, now looking anywhere in the room except in Stewart's direction.

‘You got bigger ones than
her
anyway,' his breasts said.

‘Shut
up
,' Stewart hissed under his breath.

‘I beg your pardon,' Mr Duffy said, suddenly stern. ‘Up at the front, Stewart. Now.'

‘Everyone's looking!' his breasts wailed as Stewart dragged his way to the front of the class. ‘They're looking at us! Hey, everyone!'

Stewart's face went red.

‘I think Stewart might be unwell, Mr Duffy,' Andy Jackson said from a desk as Stewart passed. ‘He's got some horrible rash all over his head.'

‘One more word, Andy,' Mr Duffy warned.

Why does being defended always make me go even redder?
Stewart thought as he reached the front. He kept his eyes firmly on the text in his hand.

‘They're all laughing,' his breasts said.

‘Or getting ready to laugh,' one of them added, in a rare solo moment.

‘This is going to be horrible!' they said, together again, gleefully.

‘In your own time, Stewart,' Mr Duffy said.

Stewart felt himself go even hotter, sweat dripping down the middle of his chest, making his shirt stick to his breasts. ‘Like a sauna in here!' they said.

‘
Romeo, Romeo,
' Stewart mumbled,
‘wherefore art thou, Romeo?
'

The laugh from the class, both so expected but also somehow surprising, made him look up. Andy Jackson was laughing openly, and everyone else seemed to be smirking, except for Sylvie Weeks, with her flaming red hair and face full of freckles, who sat in the desk just in front of Stewart, head down, apparently concentrating on her book so hard Stewart wondered for a moment if she was trying to light it on fire with her mind.

‘Try again,' Mr Duffy said.

Stewart didn't know what was going on. He looked over to Niamh, who was still staring furiously away from him, but now with a foot-tapping sense of the injustice she was being put through. He looked at the text again, the words dancing across the page like ants from a kicked nest.

‘
Romeo, Romeo
,' he read, ‘
wherefore art thou
–'

He stopped, realising his error, as the laughing of the class grew again.

‘That's
my
line,' Niamh breathed to him, angrily, too late to be of any help.

His breasts were tittering uncontrollably. ‘Curtain call for fat Juliet!' they crowed. ‘Hey! We could play the balcony!'

‘Niamh starts,' Mr Duffy said, also too late. ‘You're a few lines down, Stewart.'

‘Aw, Mr Duffy,' Andy Jackson said, ‘he's clearly meant to be Juliet. He's a right busty wench, isn't he?'

‘Yellow card, Andy,' Mr Duffy said, imposing the second highest classroom penalty on him.

But for a third time, too late to be of any use.

* * *

Stewart lay in bed, trying to calculate what kind of job he could get and how long minimum wage would take to add up to liposuction.

‘Just eat less!' his breasts berated him. ‘Do some exercise!'

‘Hey!' Colin or Barclay said to Barclay or Colin. ‘You trying to do us out of a job?'

‘It's never going to happen,' the other one said, ‘it never does.'

‘I could just cut you off myself,' Stewart said.

‘
Never going to happen
,' the breasts said again. ‘You're way too big of a baby.'

They're probably right
, Stewart thought, and his breasts agreed noisily.

‘You're ugly,' they said.

‘You're fat,' they said.

‘No one will ever want you,' they said.

‘You're right,' Stewart said. ‘You're right, you're right, you're right, you're right, you're right.'

‘Well, there's no need to
cry
about it,' his breasts said.

The next day – and probably for eternity – he became Juliet the Busty Wench at school. Sometimes just the Busty Wench, sometimes just Juliet, but it all added up to the same thing.

‘Shut up,' he'd mutter, not sure if he was talking to the person who'd called him the name or to his breasts for the delight they took in it.

‘Romeo, Romeo,' they'd shout to each other in a faux girly voice, ‘wherefore art thou, Romeo?'

‘Hey, Juliet,' Andy Jackson called to him from down the hall on his way to English class. ‘Think fast!'

He threw something. Instinctively, Stewart put his hand up to catch it, exactly one second before he realised what it was.

Too late, he was already holding it.

‘I thought maybe a C cup,' Andy said, fake sincerely, as the boys around him laughed and laughed.

‘Outrage!' Stewart's breasts screamed. ‘We're at least a D!'

Stewart said nothing, just flung the bra from himself as if it had caught fire. He turned his back on the laughter that was disappearing into the classroom. He faced the wall, his skin burning red, his fists pulled so tight he was in danger of cutting his palms with his fingernails.

‘Dude,' his breasts said, a little warily, ‘calm down. Can't you take a joke?'

Stewart raised his hands as if to strike them, as if to beat his chest flat, no matter how much it would hurt, no matter how impossible it was.

‘Steady on there, Stew,' his breasts said.

‘Shut up,' he hissed. ‘Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!'

He glanced around fast, suddenly aware of how loud he'd spoken.

But the hallway was empty. Class had started. Everyone had gone in except him. He was alone.

With himself.

English class awaited. More reading probably. More being ignored by Niamh. More
not
being ignored by Andy Jackson. More obliviousness from Mr Duffy.

‘Hey,' his breasts said. ‘Where are you going?'

Because he was already walking down the hallway in the opposite direction.

* * *

There was a large, circular building out on the grounds that the school insisted on calling ‘the cricket pavilion', despite no one having played cricket there in any recent century. Full of alcoves and shaded on one side by trees, it was a truant's dream, but it was also a Grade II listed building: the school couldn't do anything about it except occasionally make sweeps for the sixth formers who went there to smoke. Stewart rushed towards it, out of breath faster than he'd like to have been (‘You're hardly Mo Farah,' his breasts chuckled), and moved behind it, out of sight of the main school buildings, sitting down on one of the benches in the alcoves. He placed himself so he could avoid being seen by both the staff from the main office window and the groundsmen currently repainting the football pitch stripes.

It was only a matter of time, though; he'd certainly be caught, but for the moment, at least it wasn't English class.

‘We'll still be with you when you go back in, you know,' his breasts said. ‘There's no way out.'

‘You tell lies,' Stewart said to them.

‘Lies you believe,' they said, ‘which is kind of all we need, eh?'

‘Shut up,' he said. ‘Just shut up.'

To his surprise, for a moment, they did. He sighed like his mum on holiday and looked out across the green. He thought of going home, but that would mean having to give his dad a reason, as it was his day to work at home and watch Neddy. He could claim stomach illness, he thought, and there were worse ways to spend a day than watching cartoons with –

‘Shut up,' he heard.

‘I didn't
say
anything,' he said down to his chest.

‘Neither did we,' his breasts said.

But he heard it again. ‘Shut up.' He stood, almost involuntarily. ‘Shut up, shut up, shut up.'

There, to his left. He crept to the edge of the little alcove and looked around.

Sylvie Weeks was sitting on the next bench over.

‘Shut up,' she said.

‘Sorry,' Stewart said. Her head snapped up, her eyes wet with furious tears. ‘I didn't think there was anyone else here.'