"The Holy Day" by Malcolm Dixon
Billy Craggy’s sister’s baby was born with a head on it the size of a beach ball. Late one hot summer’s night last year Big Davy Cliffo had slipped Craggy’s sister a length on the park swings (for us all to see) and the result was something that should never have been allowed to happen - an abomination against nature that combined the generically weedy Craggy body and Big D’s own monster-sized head. Poor Big Davy, he was only a year or so older than the rest of us but already he’d had to leave school and get a job in the Metal Box Factory, stacking mountains of empty tobacco tins for imported fine loose leaf cut. No more sunny school holidays for him. At fifteen, all his days off were behind him. Shame, really. Still, it couldn’t have happened to a nicer bloke, if you know what I mean.
At least, this was just what all the rumours going around the estate had been saying for months without end. It wasn’t until we – me, Cuey, and Dirty Dobbo, that is – clapped eyes on the wee balloon-headed beastie, fast asleep in its pram in the Craggy’s hallway, all innocent-like – well, Christ alive, man, we all knew then, for sure, that the horror stories were true. Cuey had just made an innocent crack about it looking like the Mighty Mekon of Mekonta, which frankly was wasted on Craggy, when the proud mother of the aforementioned Mighty M. of M. came clumping elephant-footed if super-fast down the stairs in a scruffy pink bathrobe and with her tatty bleached hair all wrapped up on the top of her head in a wet towel. No doubt she must have heard Cuey’s wisecrack because her face, in its extreme redness and generally pained demeanour, resembled even more of a slapped arse than usual.
“What did you just say, you frigging cheeky little get?” she demanded.
We all stood stock-still for a second in the hallway.
“What?” Cuey said, colouring.
“You heard me? What did you just say, you cheeky little bastard, you?”
“Well, I just said it looks like the Mighty Mekon of Mekonta,” Cuey said. “No offence.”
A pause, a beat. Then, she lunged all in a rage at Cuey but he was too fast for her. Dirty Dobbo, being a cousin of the Craggys and well-used to their family interaction, must have had a feeling about what was likely to happen, as he had the good sense to open the front door fast, and the three of us scrambled out into the street.
© 2008 Malcolm Dixon. All Rights Reserved.
