Meanwhile (in a sense)…

  Elsewhere…

  Thrimp

  Wiltshire

  United Kingdom

  Earth

  -Lee-

  It was more than an hour later, during a deep and intense battle with three giant warcrabs, that Lee’s quest for armour ingredients was interrupted by the resentful little sparkly noise that meant someone real had something to say to him.

  Reluctantly he paused, just as his screen flashed red to register a hit from a fourth crab that had snuck up behind him.

  They were admirably strategic.

  He unlocked the phone.

  It was Mr. Upstairs.

  I AVAILABLE FOR HAVE A FUN

  Lee was still mentally translating this when the next message appeared below the first:

  THIS NOW IS APPROPRIATE

  followed shortly afterwards by:

  ?

  Mr. Upstairs’s idea of A FUN was hurling a frisbee around in the park while Lee ran after it.

  He sighed.

  It had all started a few weeks ago, just before the start of the holidays, when the man had moved in…

  During a quiet moment over dinner, Lee and his mum had been startled by a wall-rattling thump from upstairs.

  They had been aware that someone had moved in, but had given no thought to the possibility of noise. The upstairs flat had been empty ever since Mr. Shufta had died, and they’d never heard so much as a peep from him in the years he’d lived there.

  At a second tremorous thump, she had exclaimed that this sort of thing had to be addressed before it got out of hand and proceeded out into the hallway that they shared with the upstairs flat. Lee had followed behind, suddenly panicking in case he was called upon to be confrontational.

  The hallway was a fittingly liminal shade of yellow, with an inexplicably high ceiling and three doors: the big, sturdy front door of the building that gave out onto the steps down to the street (which Lee never used, preferring the narrow outdoor stone steps that led directly down to the basement he inhabited) and two internal doors, one of which led to his and his mother’s duplex flat consisting of ground floor and basement, and one that guarded the staircase to the upstairs flat, and whatever mysteries lay within.

  His mum had knocked on the latter—in eight sharp raps, Lee counted, suggesting that she wasn’t taking the matter lightly—and stood waiting with hands on hips.

  Lee was wondering whether it would be appropriate to ask the man whether he wanted either of the abandoned bikes that had haunted the hallway since before he was born when a voice came from the other side of the door.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Hello, we’re from downstairs,’ his mum had said in her assertive voice.

  This elicited no response.

  ‘Would you open the door please?’

  After a tense moment, the door had then opened to reveal a figure—one of the largest humans Lee had ever seen—blocking the doorway even more effectively than the door had. The figure was dressed in an oversized button-up shirt in the particular shade of faded green that can only be achieved through years of cheap washing powder and hot washes followed by more years on a charity-shop rail, distressingly tucked into a pair of grey jogging bottoms. It was capped by an orang-utan-coloured beard in which a mouth presumably dwelt but was presently lost to sight—though the hard little eyes suggested that, wherever the mouth was, it was not smiling. The facial hair joined with a short, thin ponytail in matching orange, which suited the great cuboid head so poorly that Lee could’ve believed it was a wig, if it weren’t for the fact that no one would make a wig in such a conspicuous colour.

  ‘Hello,’ said his mum, clearly taken aback. Lee held up one hand and gave an apologetic little wave. The man took this in.

  ‘I live in this house,’ he said, in a not-unfriendly manner. Then he exhaled through his nose.

  ‘Yes,’ said Lee’s mum. ‘And we-’

  ‘You live in that house,’ he said, pointing to Lee and his mum’s door.

  ‘That’s right,’ she replied.

  ‘You are—’ the man interrupted, then paused. ‘One minute,’ he said, raising an index finger on one hand and extracting a small white smartphone from the pocket of his trousers with the other. It was tethered to something in his pocket a length of cheap-looking cable—a battery pack, Lee supposed. It seemed odd that he would be using that to charge the phone whilst at home, but then everything else about him seemed odd so, in a way, it didn’t. He thumbed busily at the screen, frowning.

  ‘I’ve come to talk about the noise?’

  ‘One minute,’ repeated the man, his index finger still raised.

  ‘About the banging we just heard?’ she went on. ‘There was a very l-’

  ‘Neighbour,’ said the neighbour.

  ‘Yes, w-… pardon?’

  ‘Neighbour,’ said the neighbour.

  ‘Er. Yes,’ said Lee’s mum.

  ‘Nearby resident. Local… acquaintance.’ He looked up from the smartphone expectantly.

  ‘Mm…’ she paused, uncertain, but quickly resumed course. ‘Yes, and we’ve just heard a lot of banging from up there.’ She pointed up into his flat.

  The neighbour grinned. ‘Welcome,’ he said.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Welcome, the neighbour.’

  He held out a big freckled hand.

  ‘Oh.’

  There was a fraught moment in which two trajectories of conversation pulled in opposite directions.

  The neighbour, with confidence and a big smile on his side, won.

  ‘Visit my house,’ he said loudly as Lee’s mum shook the hand.

  ‘Oh, no, thank you,’ she said. ‘Perhaps another time.’

  The neighbour turned and began to walk up the narrow staircase back up into his flat. ‘Go to my house,’ he rumbled warmly as he went. ‘Have a tea and a food.’

  Lee’s mum looked at Lee, who shrugged.

  ‘He doesn’t seem dangerous,’ he said.

  She raised her eyebrows.

  ‘I’d rather be friends with him than enemies,’ he added.

  ‘Um. No, no I don’t think it would be appropriate…’ she tailed off.

  Lee shrugged again.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she called up the stairs. ‘Excuse me, Mr… sorry, could you come back down please?’ but there was no reply.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she called again, louder. ‘Excuse me! Hello?’

  There came another tremendous crashing thump from above, louder in the echo of the hallway, and the sound of an alarmed cat.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Lee’s mum, looking apprehensively up the stairs. ‘What should— alright look you stay here and—’

  ‘Come on,’ said Lee, stepping past her. ‘Let’s just go up.’

  ‘Bradley!’ she hissed. ‘Come back down here, now!’

  ‘Come on,’ he said as he trotted up the stairs. ‘It’s fine. He’s got a cat.’

  As he ascended in the gloom, the staircase caused Lee to question his evaluation. It was cramped, uncarpeted, and sounded suspiciously hollow. He had to lean to one side as he ascended to avoid hitting his head on a bulbless brown-glass lightshade on a crooked, yellow old wire.

  Brown glass, he thought to himself. I didn’t know that existed. Who deliberately made brown glass? And why?

  The neighbour, he reflected, did in fact have all the hallmarks of someone quite dangerous. In fact, it now dawned on him, the man couldn’t have done much more to appear unstable if he had tried.

  But then, just as apprehension began to blossom into fear, the space opened—as it does with so many city flats—from a horror-film stairwell to an incomprehensibly bright, spacious, and pleasant, if somewhat sparse, interior.

  ‘I think you like cake,’ the neighbour said sternly, emerging from the kitchen.

  *******

  The conversation had been unconventional but not unenjoyable, Lee felt. It had tended not to follow what might be called normal patterns, especially of grammar, but then normal patterns often led to quite boring conversations.

  His mum’s rapidly-spoken assertions that they weren’t staying and just wanted to quickly talk about the noise were met with mugs of tea large enough to wash your hands in and bowls containing what appeared to be portions of supermarket birthday cake, not sliced but lifted from the centre of the cake with a dessert spoon. This hypothesis was confirmed by the neighbour’s own spoon, which was already smeared with cake before he joined them at the table and began to eat. Lee prodded at the cake with his own spoon, which was clean, thinking that eating birthday cake with a spoon at nine o’clock in the evening seemed like a very cheerful thing to do.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’

  They ate, Lee and the neighbour with notably more gusto.

  ‘Mother,’ said the neighbour, pointing at Lee’s mum.

  ‘Erm,’ she said. ‘I’m Trisha, and this is Bradley.’

  Stolen novel; please report.

  ‘Lee,’ said Lee.

  ‘Lee?’ said the neighbour, lengthening the vowel quizzically.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Lee.

  A nod, seemingly of acceptance and approval. ‘Name say, easy.’

  ‘Mmm,’ said Lee, eating cake.

  They chewed.

  ‘Tishla.’ The neighbour suddenly turned to look at the woman.

  She blinked. ‘Trisha.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Oh. And what’s-’

  ‘This name, say.’ He sucked air in through his teeth like an unscrupulous mechanic. ‘Difficult,’ he finished.

  ‘Um. Well, you can call me Pat if it’s easier. And what’s your name?’

  ‘Pat??’ His face contorted in sudden alarm.

  ‘Yes, it’s short f-’

  ‘What is Pat?’

  ‘It’s short f-’

  ‘You are the Tishla?’ he interrupted.

  ‘Trisha. Yes, but-’

  ‘Not Pat.’ He pronounced the single syllable with what sounded like disgust, as though uncovering a lie.

  ‘They’re both short for Patricia. Pat, Trisha.’ She demonstrated by bringing her two hands together. ‘Pat-trisha.’

  The neighbour looked at Lee.

  ‘Pat the Tishla.’

  ‘Probably just Pat is best,’ said Lee.

  ‘You are the Tishla, you are name is the… the Pat, I think, is - one minute,’ he said, bringing out his smartphone again.

  A moment passed in which Lee ate some more cake. Trisha looked at the cake, then ate a small piece in order to be doing something other than waiting for the neighbour to finish prodding at his phone.

  ‘Sobriquet,’ he said accusingly.

  ‘Sorry?’ she said.

  ‘Um,’ said Lee.

  ‘Sou-bri-quet,’ he said. He looked back at his phone. ‘Nickname. Moniker.’ He looked up again. ‘Pat are the sobriquet.’

  ‘Oh. Well,’ she said. ‘Um. A nickname, yes. If you like.’

  ‘Hm.’

  ‘And what are you called?’

  ‘Pat,’ he said, with an air of grudging acceptance.

  ‘No,’ she said pointing at him. ‘What are you called?’

  He raised his eyebrows at this, then removed the white smartphone again and offered it to her. It strained at the cable anchoring it to the man’s pocket until he removed the portable battery pack. It was cheap white plastic, scratched and faded, with a picture of a dinosaur on it.

  ‘Call?’ he asked.

  Trisha’s eyebrows rose in return. ‘Mmm?’ she said.

  ‘What’s your name?’ said Lee.

  ‘Ah.’ he said, returning the phone and battery pack to his pocket and shooting a reproachful glance at Trisha. ‘I am—’

  What he pronounced next contained at least two sounds that Lee knew he couldn’t make, and one that he hadn’t realised that anyone could. Some of it sounded like it was pronounced while breathing inwards.

  ‘Um,’ he said.

  ‘Er. One more time?’ said Trisha.

  He said it again.

  ‘Mu-’ she began, squinting.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh, sorry. Again?’

  He said it again.

  ‘Mri-’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Um-’

  ‘Your name is difficult,’ said Lee.

  ‘Yes,’ said the neighbour proudly.

  ‘Well, what’s your surname?’ asked Trisha.

  ‘What?’ He pronounced the h, Lee noticed.

  ‘What should we call you? Mister…?’

  ‘Mister?’

  ‘Yes, Mister what?’

  ‘Ah,’ he said in tones of disappointment, and sat back in his chair.

  A peculiar moment followed, in which no one seemed certain whether to tidy up the conversational mess or just sit in it and pretend everything was fine.

  Uncharacteristically it was Lee, who habitually sat in messes, who came to the fore, metaphorical broom in hand.

  ‘We want to know what your second name is,’ said Lee. ‘Like, I’m Lee Bennett. Bennett is my second name.’

  ‘Ah,’ said the neighbour again, revealing nothing.

  ‘So she’s Patricia Bennett, because she’s my mum.’

  ‘Lee the Bennett, Pat the Tishla the Bennett.’

  ‘Yeah!’

  ‘Is same!’

  ‘Yeah!’

  ‘Bennett because family, is two.’

  ‘Yeah…’

  ‘Bennett is family name.’

  ‘Yeah!’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘So what’s your family name?’

  Understanding seemed to dawn.

  ‘One minute,’ he said, bringing the smartphone back out.

  The glow illuminated his creased forehead.

  ‘Red’ he said eventually.

  ‘Red?’

  ‘Red… Protrusion.’

  ‘Eh?’ said Lee.

  ‘Red protrusion.’

  ‘Red protrusion?’

  ‘Red… One minute. Promontory. Headland.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Lee, which seemed to be a reliably ambiguous conversational move in the circumstances.

  ‘What?’ said Trisha.

  ‘My name the English word.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘My family name is say English word is red… this word… protrusion.’

  Following another awkward moment in which they all considered giving up, the sun of understanding suddenly found another tiny crack in the thick, dark layer of linguistic cloud, peeked tentatively out, and winked at Lee.

  ‘He’s translated it,’ said Lee. ‘He’s put his surname into the dictionary.’

  ‘Oh. Well, um. I’m not sure we can call you Mr. Red… Protrusion. Um.’ Lee was flabbergasted to see that she was blushing.

  ‘No. That… doesn’t work very well in English. Er. Do you have a short version of your name?’ he asked hurriedly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Like Pat.’

  ‘Pat.’ He pointed to Trisha.

  ‘No, you.’

  He pointed to himself. ‘Pat?’

  ‘Er. No. Do you have a nickname?’

  ‘Nick?’

  ‘Er. What’s your sobriquet?’ asked Lee.

  ‘My?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Ah! My sobriquet!’

  ‘Yeah!’

  ‘How to say, a woman.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘One minute… Freeholder, innkeeper, proprietor.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘This home, the give the money, this woman.’

  Lee and Trisha looked at one another.

  ‘I…’ he slowed down. ‘I give a money this woman because… I live this house.’

  ‘The landlady?’ said Lee.

  ‘This woman lady, same like you,’ he continued. ‘She is say to me, you name is the difficult, say you, I say, name, say the, the John.’

  ‘Oh! Okay. So shall we call you J-’

  ‘She is say I the John I don’t like John.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I am not John.’ He pronounced ‘John’ like most people pronounce ‘paedophile’.

  ‘Right. No.’

  ‘No,’ he said, nodding.

  ‘So what is your… sobriquet?’ asked Trisha.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied.

  At this point a sleek orange cat jumped onto the table and startled her, causing her to clatter her spoon in the bowl and say ‘oh!’ It stood in the centre of the table staring wide-eyed at Lee, as though suddenly recognising him from a ‘wanted for cat-murder’ poster.

  ‘Hello,’ said Lee, and reached towards it. It leaned back, going cross-eyed staring at the approaching hand but remaining rooted to its spot. Its mouth opened slowly.

  ‘Don’t touch that,’ said the neighbour.

  ‘I like cats,’ said Lee, reluctantly halting his hand.

  ‘Not cat,’ said the neighbour. ‘Is Pushkin.’

  ‘Pushkin!’ Lee grinned. ‘That’s a good name for a cat.’

  ‘Pushkin the Russian name,’ said the neighbour.

  ‘Ah, you’re Russian?’ said Trisha. ‘I’d been wondering.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh.’

  The conversation proceeded in this fashion, the participants deftly changing course to avoid frequent roadblocks in understanding with the result that the conversation had no discernible direction or destination but, importantly, kept going.

  Eventually, exhausted by the acrobatics of politeness, Trisha announced that she was tired, which took Lee by surprise as he himself was heavily suffused with the enthusiasm imparted by cake and strong tea, and having a lovely time. She announced their departure and Lee had to fight back a childish urge to protest.

  ‘And do please try not to make any loud noises,’ she said. ‘The sound goes right through these floors.’

  ‘I know. Thank you.’

  ‘Well, you must come to visit us next time,’ she said in an automatic sort of way as she stood.

  The neighbour beamed at this. ‘I think tomorrow don’t busy day,’ he said. ‘Maybe visit to your house.’

  ‘Oh, no, erm, tomorrow’s probably not the best day,’ backpedalled Trisha. ‘I’ve got work and-’

  ‘I’m in,’ said Lee.

  His mum looked at him with the same horrified expression as Pushkin.

  ‘You?’ said the neighbour.

  ‘Yeah. Come round if you get bored or anything, I’ve got loads of games.’

  The big man frowned. ‘Games?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What games?’

  ‘Pretty much everything.’ He shrugged. ‘I just download them. If there’s anything you-’

  ‘You play this game - one minute -’

  ‘Yeah?’ said Lee.

  A moment of quiet descended as the smartphone was summoned.

  ‘Flying disc.’

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘Fly-ing dis-c.’

  ‘Um. Don’t think so. Is it-’

  ‘One minute.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘I think you could show him your games another time, couldn’t you, Bradley?’

  ‘A gliding toy made from a concave disc of moulded plastic.’

  ‘What?’ said Lee.

  ‘A gli-ding-’

  ‘Yeah no I heard you. Do you mean- are you talking about a computer game?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A computer game.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your flying disc. Is it… do you mean like, a computer one?’ Lee mimed playing a computer game.

  ‘What is?’ said Mr. Upstairs quizically. ‘Do like this.’ He mimed throwing a frisbee.

  ‘Um. It sounds like you’re talking about a frisbee.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Frisbee.’

  Lee mimed a frisbee.

  ‘This!’ The neighbour pointed at Lee, nodding enthusiastically. ‘Very my good game!’

  ‘Oh. Right, yeah but I meant computer games,’ said Lee.

  ‘What?’

  Some moments later, when they were back in their own flat, Trisha closed the door behind her and leaned her back against it as though to make sure.

  ‘Well that was extremely strange, to say the least,’ she said, eyebrows raised so high as to almost integrate with her hair.

  ‘Definitely strange,’ said Lee. ‘Nice though. Do you want a cup of tea?’

  ‘Tea?? No I do not, I’ve had enough tea to keep me up weeing all night as it is.’

  ‘Ur,’ said Lee.

  ‘You’re not going to have a cup of tea, are you?’

  ‘Might do,’ said Lee nonchalantly. ‘I’m not going to bed for a bit.’

  ‘Oh. You’re not going to stay up too late are you?.’

  ‘No, I’ll go to bed in a bit.’

  ‘Good. And what do you mean, nice?’

  ‘He just seems nice, I mean.’

  ‘Do you think so? He’s very… bizarre.’

  ‘Yeah, no doubt, but he’s not horrible or anything, is he.’

  ‘I think horrible might actually be the perfect word for him, Bradley.’

  ‘What? No, come on. He gave us tea and invited us round and everything.’

  ‘And the experience was not a pleasant one!’

  ‘Well no, but he’s not horrible, is he.’

  ‘Well perhaps not entirely horrible, just, you know what I mean, he’s not exactly the ideal neighbour.’

  ‘I dunno,’ said Lee, shrugging. ‘He’s friendly, and funny. What else do you want from a neighbour?’

  ‘Not behaving like he’s just landed from planet Zog would be a start.’

  ‘Oh come on now, don’t be racist.’

  ‘Oh that is not what I meant and you know it.’

  ‘No I know but I think you’re being a bit hard on him just ’cause his English is a bit… different.’

  ‘My objection to him is entirely based on the fact that he is mad and frightening, and nothing to do with where he comes from, or the way he speaks. Besides which, that would be xenophobia, Bradley, not racism.’

  ‘What? Why?’

  ‘I think racism is more objecting to a specific ethnicity, rather than just objecting to foreign people in general.’

  ‘Oh. Well we don’t even know where he comes from anyway.’

  ‘We don’t even know his name, Bradley! And yet you seemed very keen to invite him into our house.’

  ‘Yeah, no I didn’t really mean to do that.’

  ‘A very odd, possibly dangerous stranger.’

  ‘He’s not dangerous, he’s just… he’s just odd. A bit.’

  ‘You don’t know that Bradley, you don’t know anything about him.’

  ‘I know he’s got a cat.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That means he’s got a caring side.’

  ‘Now you’re just being silly. Just, play with him outside, please, where people can see you.’

  ‘What? Wait, what do you mean, where people can see?? What do you think he’s going to do?’

  ‘Just be responsible please, Bradley! You’re too old for me to have to tell you to be careful of strangers, for god’s sake.’

  ‘Exactly!’

  ‘Don’t be na?ve! You mustn’t go around thinking that the world is perfectly safe just because you’re not a child anymore. There are all sorts of… oddballs and villains around and I don’t want you thinking they can’t get you just because you’re not small.’

  ‘Oddballs and villains?’ chuckled Lee. ‘Might there be hoodlums and ne’er-do-wells too? Shall I take a blunderbuss?’

  ‘Don’t be facetious, please! You know perfectly well what I mean. Look, just, I just don’t want you and Mr. Whatever-his-name-is upstairs playing frisbee in my house, thank you.’

  ‘Mr. Whatever-his-name-is upstairs? Well if that’s not racist I don’t know what is.’

  ‘Xenophobic.’

  ‘Fine, xenophobic. Well done, you’ve used the right word for how awful you are.’

  ‘Hm. It does sound a little off-colour, doesn’t it?’

  ‘A bit.’

  ‘No, you’re right, I’m not comfortable calling him Mr. Whatever-his-name-is-upstairs, that’s not friendly. Perhaps we could call him…’

  Trisha’s face creased with concentration and, Lee suspected, political-correctness anxiety.

  ‘I think just… Mr. Upstairs would probably be less bad.’

  ‘Well, no frisbee in the house with Mr. Upstairs then please.’

  ‘Wait what? Why would anyone play frisbee in the house?’

  ‘I don’t know Bradley, I have no idea what sort of thing people get up to.’

  ‘It doesn’t even make sense, there’s no space, you’d just be… passing it to each other.’

  ‘The man eats cake with a spoon, Bradley, I don’t know what he considers normal.’

  ‘Well obviously we’re not going to play frisbee in the house. I haven’t even got a frisbee.’

  ‘I actually think there might be one in the cupboard under the stairs, with all the old toys.’

  ‘Oh. Good.’

  ‘Go and have a look.’

  ‘I’ll get it tomorrow.’

  ‘Now please, Bradley.’

  ‘What? Why?’

  ‘Because if we haven’t got one, you’ll have to go and buy one in the morning before your friend comes round to play.’

  ‘What? You don’t even want me to play with him, why do you care if there’s a frisbee or not?’

  ‘Because you’ve invited him now, and there’s such a thing as manners.’

  Lee had snorted his reluctance and gone to find the frisbee.

  This had been five weeks ago.

  Lee had indulged him in frisbee sessions on a few occasions since then, partially out of charitable neighbourliness and partially because of the vows of eternal loyalty he regularly swore—usually following a cold shower—to outdoor exercise.

  It wasn’t that Lee disliked playing frisbee; in fact he enjoyed the challenge of getting the curve just right and the satisfaction of a long, straight drive well-thrown, followed by the admiring nod of the catcher.

  The problem was Mr. Upstairs.

  Due to the unavoidable power differential and Mr. Upstairs’s low prioritisation of mechanical factors such as wind, angle, and Lee’s position in spacetime relative to his own, frisbee had been largely a throwing exercise for him and a running exercise for Lee. The man somehow combined the ballistic throwing power of a truck-mounted missile launcher with the accuracy of a nervous man in a train toilet; the result was that Lee’s role in the game consisted mainly of chasing after the abused projectile, fishing it out of trees and bushes and occasionally apologising to startled picnickers.

  Lee had only invested a minimum of effort into trying to show the enormous man how to gently float the frisbee forwards with a flick of the wrist. He simply wasn’t interested. He seemed to derive as much satisfaction from a loud frisbee-to-earth collision and a good long roll as he did from a long, arcing flight towards the horizon, and so Lee had wisely stopped bringing along good-quality frisbees—which had flown too far, taken Lee too long to retrieve, and endangered the public—and instead purchased a cheap, chew-resistant dog frisbee that didn’t fly properly, especially once Lee had deliberately bent it. Lee was able to compensate for its uneven shape by throwing it at a carefully-calculated angle, while under the high force of Mr, Upstairs’s throws it lost aerodynamicity and immediately sought ground, limiting the radius of its trajectory to the local area.

  By happy coincidence, hobbled by his own ballistic incompetence, Mr. Upstairs could generally send the cheap frisbees about the same distance as Lee could, albeit Mr. Upstairs’ throws mostly travelled in a curving sideways roll along the ground in an unpredictable direction while Lee’s were, increasingly, straight and accurate.

  He looked out of the window. It was an absurdly nice day. And he had, mere hours before, resolved to change his life forever by getting out in the fresh air and exercising.

  All his possible reasons to say no withered and crumbled as he stared at the messages printed expectantly on his phone screen.

  Come on then. I’ll meet you in the hall.

  he typed, and paused his game.