Spike
Spike is a young adult short story, with a twist in its tale. I wrote this when challenged to write a short story about a particular character, but the tale had to include references to soup, diamonds, and being naked! We meet the young man in question playing truant, and spraying graffiti on an underpass, but what happens when one of his teachers comes along?
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Spike was shaking as he wrote his nickname on the underpass wall. No one came here, not at this time of the day. Well, that’s what the girls from over the road had said, defying him to do something naughty. Not that Mum cared if he was in or out. The canal just sat there, like a putrid soup – the sort he remembered from school, in the days when his mum forced him to go. But since she’d got depression when he was in Year 8, she was more worried about Dad finding them. ‘Would he turn up tomorrow?’ was the constant question. Not that Spike knew the answer: his dad’s mind was a mystery to him. The last believer in Arthur Scargill. He’d gone to find a proper man’s job, so sod England and her Tory government (which somehow included Tony Blair’s New Labour). Someone said he’d gone to Australia, but Spike couldn’t remember who.
Spike looped the final ‘e’ back to join the capital ‘S,’ so all the letters ran into each other. He blended the colours as he worked, squinting in the half-light. He was fed up of being Mum’s extension – her little boy – he knew he hadn’t grown as much as some of the others. What was he to do about it? Even as he worked, he kept glancing around. His fear was tangible, a lump in the back of his throat: but he had to get out sometimes. At home, mum was asleep. He’d watched as she’d taken her tablets: four of them as she’d forgotten last night’s dose. It had happened before. She’d sleep all day and through the night. Then, when she woke, she’d be so groggy she’d have no idea who he was. At least here, he could say who he was. He could write it down: Spike White was here. Even if here was nowhere special: a canal underpass, muggy, without a breath of wind. No one in sight. A wild thought: should he go naked, dance in front of his graffiti? That would show everyone what he had! Didn’t old Mr Brown at school talk of something like that? Some play? ‘If they'd let me come on naked, I could have shown you something of my own’ – yes, that was it! ‘A Man for All Seasons.’ But how would he, or any of them, ever rise so high to act on telly? Or even be someone who’d be taken seriously by a king?
A light, like a diamond on the pathway, winked at him. Paralysed him. He could not be caught and yet he dithered. He thought about putting the spray cans back in the plastic bag, but failed to move. The hesitation was fatal. The bike, lights flashing in the murk, came careering along the towpath and screeched to a halt beside him, scattering ash from beneath its wheels in all directions.
‘Hello, Paul!’
‘It’s “Spike,” sir.’ Dammit, why did he have to say ‘sir’?
‘Either way, should you be here?’
‘Free country.’ Phew! He managed not to say ‘sir,’ but the man in the shadows pretended not to notice. Instead, he carefully propped his bike up against the underpass wall, detached his front light, and brought it towards the graffiti. Spike moved to block Mr Colman’s view, but Sir merely shone the light over his shoulder at his efforts. The resin, painted on the wall to stop him and people like him – vandals – from despoiling the pristine concrete, glistened in the lamplight as the beam played over his work. Spike, full of guilt, moved aside. No point in running. Mum would be mortified. The teacher took his fancy new phone out to take a photo as proof.
‘This is good, Spike. I’m going to show Mrs Stevens.’
‘Art! Dad would kill me!’
‘Your dad might wish you could spend your life chewing coal-dust, but you’ve got talent, lad. You should use it.’
Mr Colman remounted his bike, and rode away. Spike was left to admire his work, and drift home in his own time. He never even thought to wonder what the hell his teacher was doing cycling along the towpath on a school afternoon.