She was making enough of a drama for Kem to have noticed too. I looked at him and rolled my eyes – she must be a tourist, because everyone round here knows the trick that place pulls. You pay your quid to get in, and the first part of the “museum” is all these exhibits of supposedly weird things – big bell jars containing mermaids in formaldehyde, fake taxidermy, including a pushmi-pullyu from Doctor Dolittle – I mean, please. It’s all dark in there, and they play creepy music, so it sort of gets you in the mood a bit. And then there’s this door with a sign on which reads: Behold the fearsome gorilla-men – half human, half gorilla. Enter only if you dare!
Well, first of all, I was always pretty sure that gorillas shared most of our DNA anyway, so they essentially probably are half human, but that aside, what you get beyond that door is what looks like two stuffed life-sized gorillas with human masks taped to their faces. Proper crap, right? Except when you walk past, one of them stands up and grabs you, and asks for a banana. You’re not expecting it, and props to the guy in the costume for staying so still, but it’s full-on naff, and most people just walk out smiling.
Anyway, I’d just put another couple of coins into the machine when I heard another scream. I looked up and there was this eight-year-old boy who’d just run out of the museum, and he looked like he was crying. And then his mum walked over and hissed, “Oscar, have you wet yourself?”
And Oscar shook his head, denying everything, even though he’d blatantly got this massive wet patch all over the front of his shorts, and now, now I was intrigued. Whenever I’d come here in the past, people would come out of that place laughing. I’d never seen anyone leave screaming, or having pissed themselves.
I stuffed another handful of candyfloss in my mouth and strolled over to the entrance of the museum. “One ticket, please,” I said to the girl manning it. She was pale as a vampire, and looked just as friendly. Tragic, black and heavy eye make-up. Dark purple lips.
“There’s no tickets, you just cross my palm with gold and you may enter,” she said.
I figured by “gold” she just meant a regular pound coin, so I gave her my last and she lazily gestured to the door like I’d totally ruined her day. I pushed my way through into the darkened room, with everything just as I remembered. I nosed around, reminding myself about all the crap exhibits: some old photos that purported to show the Loch Ness Monster (but could just as easily have been an old tyre floating in a reservoir); the skeleton of a unicorn (pretty hard to verify, but sure); some creatures that are apparently imps, stuffed and mounted (although to me they looked suspiciously like spray-painted gerbils with horns stuck on their heads); and the crappiest thing of all, this creature in a cage, also dead and stuffed, that is supposedly the Kludde – a malicious spirit from a desolate part of the Flemish countryside, which takes the form of a winged black dog. Now, I’m not pointing fingers, but the owner of this place used to have a big, black Labrador called Sally, which sadly died two years ago, just a few weeks before the Kludde appeared, so you form your own judgement on that.
I could have bought another bag of candyfloss with my last pound, instead of wasting it on this massive disappointment. I shook my head, beating myself up about how Wonderland gets you every single time, like everyone who walks in has “sucker” written on their foreheads.
I pushed through the door to the gorilla-men and walked directly up to the one sitting down, who promptly stood up. “Got a banana?” he said. I did my best attempt at a scowl, shook my head and turned towards the—
“AAAAAAAAAAAAARGHHH!” There in my face, that face! Haunted! Gaunt! It’s the SCREAM face from SCREAM, the movie SCREAM, I was SCREAMING, it was SCREAMING, who the
Adrenaline splintered and surged
Jerking away
Running towards
Slipping
The floor … wet…
Piss! I’m slipping in kiddie piss!
And then
I’m falling, flying, forward, backwards? Towards … and—
CHAPTER SIX
“Lemons… Lemonade…”
The focus started to come back, the haze became shapes…
“Lemon Boy…”
And the shapes became more solid…
A face. Looming over me.
A girl. A short girl. A short black girl, Afro pushed back with a hairband.
And ping! I was back in the room. Only on my back, on the floor, with a killer headache, but I was back.
“I literally thought you might be dead,” she said.
“I’m not,” I replied.
I tried to shift myself up, but she pushed me back down. “Chill. You banged your head. Ben’s coming with a wet flannel and some paracetamol.”
I closed my eyes, partly because of the throbbing, and partly because I seriously wondered if this day, and life in general, could get much worse. I was pretty sure I was lying in the piss too. Something felt damp.
“Stay with me,” the girl insisted. “Keep your eyes open.”
“I’m just resting,” I told her.
“Open!” she demanded. “I saw it on Netflix. I gotta keep talking to you, stop you slipping away, until the ambulance gets here. Well … not that we’ve called an ambulance, but until you’re recovered, anyway.”
I snapped my eyes open. “You haven’t called an ambulance?”
“We were going to. If you didn’t wake up within a minute. Do you want an ambulance?”
“I dunno. Does it seem serious?”
“You just kinda … ran at the door, kinda slipped, and kinda banged your head on it.” She chuckled, like this was actually amusing. “Never seen a reaction like that! That was pretty special! Ha!”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “Was it you in the Scream mask?”
She reached behind her and put the damn thing in front of her face. “Boo!” she said. “You proper pissed yourself.”
A grim thought crossed my mind. “I didn’t though, did I?”
“I don’t think so. Did you?”
I sighed and closed my eyes again. “That’s why I slipped. Kid before me did.”
I heard the door push open and glanced over as a boy my age walked in, dressed in a furry gorilla outfit, except for the head part, which he had under his arm, along with a mound of soggy toilet roll in one hand. “No flannel – got loo roll instead,” he said. “Oh, is he awake?” The boy peered down at me, like I was an exhibit in the stupid Curiosity Museum. “Hey.” He smiled.
“Hey,” I said. He looked a bit hot and sweaty, with flushed red cheeks, but he had kind eyes and dark hair, short around the back and sides and slightly longer on top, that if it wasn’t for the fact he’d been wearing a gorilla head for god knows how long, would probably not be sticking up at random angles.
“I’m Ben,” he said.
“Alex.”
He smiled again. He had dimples. Bloody hell.
“Do you want some wet toilet roll on your head?” He extended the dripping mound towards me.
“Not massively,” I said.
“Do as you’re told,” the girl said, grabbing the toilet roll from Ben and pressing it against my forehead. “Take the swelling down.”