text: 'He doesn't go out to play football anymore...' Taylor's mum was talking about him over the phone. 'I think he's had a fight with one of his friends, or he's being bullied, or something. I don't know what it is, but something's definitely happened.' Taylor was already in the upstairs toilet when his mum stepped outside to talk. Through the open window he could hear her voice. He could smell her cigarette smoke. There were long pauses when his Auntie Iris rambled back at her. 'I know,' his mother sounded close to tears now. 'I just wish I knew what it was. Why can't he talk to me? I'm his mum.' Taylor felt guilty, he wanted her to know, but he could never tell her. His mum's tone suddenly changed, 'Would you? Aw really? Yeah he'd love that. Thank you, Sis. Thank you so much.' The door opened and slammed. 'TAYLS...' from the door. 'TAYLS...' from the bottom of the stairs. Standing outside the bathroom at the top of the stairs, Taylor held the door open as though he were just going in, rather than just rushing out, 'two minutes mum.' He said and went inside, 'COME DOWNSTAIRS AFTERWARDS,' his mum shouted before talking in a quieter tone down the phone. 'I'll ring you later then, shall I?...Thanks sis...love you.' Taylor flushed the toilet, washed his hands, rubbed cold water into his face then went downstairs. The kettle was on. 'That was Auntie Iris.' His mum said. 'She reckons she can get you on Danny's camping trip.' 'I'm not even in the Scouts mum.' 'Well so. She's gonna have a word with the Scout Leader. She says he's great. He'll probably let you go if you join. You remember how much Danny went on about the last trip. You could go, make some new friends, have a laugh. Aw please say you'll go Tayls.' 'It does sound quite cool.' As Taylor lied he remembered something his mum had once said about his dad, 'The trick to lying, is to believe your own bullshit.' Auntie Iris picked him up the night before the trip. After trying on pieces of his cousin Danny's spare Scout uniform, brown combat shorts, a cream shirt and a blue cravat, he ate pizza, watched a film, and then sat at the computer watching things on Youtube until eleven. In the morning, Auntie Iris waited with them outside until the mini-bus picked them up. She saw them inside before asking the Scout Leader, Mr Crawley, for a private chat. Walking only a few steps away, they were clearly talking about Taylor. He could tell by the occasional joined glances they made. Seeing the conversation, most of the kids were intuitive enough to understand its meaning without the key ingredient of words. They figured; this new kid, Taylor, had been allowed to come along because of some exceptional circumstances. To the credit of the group, they made extra effort to make him feel welcome. Docker (Brad Dockerby) showed him and Danny a video on his phone of a crowded bus. 'Watch the old woman.' He said to them. Taylor tried not to cringe. He thought the frail old lady was going to fall over, hurt herself horribly and he would be expected to laugh about it. Instead, when the bus jerks, she grabs the penis of the man standing next to her, mistaking it for the safety railing. The video then goes into slow motion. The man's eyes bulge. He looks at the woman in complete surprise. The speed became normal again, and a clock appears. It counts ten seconds while the molested man stirs at the unknowing woman in silence. Taylor and Danny laugh at the man's reaction. The other boys on the mini-bus laugh at their reaction. For the first time in two weeks Taylor forgets about what happened at the park, near the bushes. As he experiences perfect laughter he thinks about his mum, who was right, he was going to have fun. Taylor had never realised how cool Scouts could be. He had expected it to be like school but outside. In reality it was far more fun. After arriving at the woods, they followed a trail to a cave, which they had to crawl through on their bellies. Mr Crawley was waiting for them in an underground chamber. Grabbing Taylor's hand in one hand, his upper arm with the other hand, he helped him to his feet. The gesture reassured Taylor, it made him feel welcome, it said, 'You're with me. You're one of my lads.' Once everyone was inside, they turned their torches off and the chamber became completely black. Shouting and hooting, everybody played with their echoes. Taylor made the cock-crow noise his dad often made. Danny howled like a wolf. After the cave, they ate sandwiches and drank juice. Changing into water proofs and waders, they waded into a long, thin, still water passage. Rock walls rose up on both sides of them. The water came to his lower chest. The plastic of his waders felt cold against his skin. It was exciting. In the mid-afternoon, they returned to the mini-bus. It took twenty minutes to drive to a farmer's field. From where they set up camp, they could see the farmer's house and the woods they had just left, but the view was mostly fields filled with sheep that varied in size in relation to how far away they were. 'Tayls, you're with me and Jake.' Danny said. They pitched their tent in a cowpat clear patch of long grass. Jake pointed to a badge on his sleeve that had a tepee like tent on it, and said, 'We have these because we can put up a tent by ourselves.' Taylor smiled. He wanted a badge like everyone else. Only in his mind's eye his badge has a football on it. 'Are you having fun Taylor?' 'Call him Tayls.' Danny corrects Jake. 'Are you having fun, Tayls?' 'Yeah.' After keeping such a big secret it felt nice to tell such an easy truth. 'Yeah, I'm glad I was allowed to join...Thanks.' 'How come you never joined before?' Because I thought it was for geeks, Taylor thinks, but says, 'I didn't realise how cool it is.' With the tent erected, they laid out their sleeping bags. Combat coloured, Taylor's looked like it had come from the Army. It was new. The late summer's day sun beat onto the tent's plastic and heated its inside to a hot temperature that suited the musty smell which was caught within. Instead of bringing a barbeque, Mr Crawly, Mr Dockerby (Brad's dad) and Mr Thompson, whose son Adam was a Scout, burnt a heap of charcoal. They hung a metal grill over it. Taylor liked how boyish the parents were. They were more like older kids than adults and were very easy to get along with. It was this which later encouraged him to tell his secret at the camp fire. After the barbeque, they played a game of touch rugby. Taylor again laughed and enjoyed himself. As dusk tones swept across the cloudless sky, Docker's dad started the bonfire. It quickly became dark. The twelve, eleven year old boys and three men sat on logs in front of a bonfire which reflected the shape on Danny's camping badge better than their tent did. A bag of marshmallows, monstrous things that would take six bites to finish, were passed along the line. 'Two each lads.' Mr Crawley called. Long sticks were also handed out. 'You toast them on the fire.' Danny said. Taylor had seen a thousand films where kids did this, but he nodded anyway. Danny was always telling him things he already knew. The boys had to stand up and approach the fire to toast their marshmallows. As they all stood around, three, extra-long branches held marshmallows near to the fire. They turned see to the three adults, sat together on the left side of the log seating. Leaning back, with pieces of long grass in their mouths, they held there extra-long branches like fishing rods. The boys laughed. This was Taylor's first traditional camp fire. Where Christmas had its carols, presents and turkey dinner, Halloween had fancy dress and trick or treating, Guy Fawkes' night had bonfires and fireworks, Scout camp fires had marshmallows and scary stories. The adults each told a scary story. Mr Crawley told one about a murderer in the back seat of a car. Docker's dad told everyone about his nightmares. How he was running away from a dog that each night got closer to biting him. He drew everyone in by saying it eventually caught him. But when he went to show the bite marks he barked and snapped instead, making everyone jump. Mr Thompson told a story about his cousin, who was getting phone calls from a murderer while she was babysitting. Afterwards there was silence. Then groups of twos and threes started talking to each other. Danny and Jake looked into the fire. Seeing Mr Dockerby yawn, Taylor thought he wants to go to bed soon. The day had been brilliant. Everyone had been so friendly and welcoming that Taylor did not want it to end. 'I have a story.' He said standing up. Everyone looked at him. 'It's not a ghost story. But it's scary, and it's real.' The adults said nothing, only looked encouraging, like good for you for trying. 'It was on Tessdon field. On my Nana's birthday. Two weeks ago. I'd been playing football all morning. But when Josh Ticky came, I let him take my place and walked home to get changed. I was walking across the field, bouncing my ball like it was a basketball, and I heard this noise. Like a whimpering or something...well it didn't sound right. It was only dinner time, there were cars passing on the road outside the park. All my mates were on the back of the field, I thought ''nothing's gonna happen'', so I went over to the bushes.' 'Wo, wait there-' Mr Thompson interrupted. He then talked to Mr Crawley, not Taylor, 'Do you think we should let him continue? This sounds like it could get quite bad, quite quickly.' 'He's okay.' Mr Crawley insisted. Taylor felt like running across and hugging the Scout Leader because he knew this was his only opportunity to get it all out. Depending on how everyone responded, he might ask Mr Crawley if he would sit with him as he told his mum what had happened. 'Carry on Taylor. Just go slowly. Take your time. Tell us everything. Tell us details. Talk carefully.' 'I was bouncing the ball.' Taylor's hand moved as it had that day on the field. 'I heard this sound. It was like a whimpering or something. It was really not nice. I couldn't understand what was making the sound so I walked over to the bushes, calling ''Hello.'', ''I have my phone,'' His mum never let him go out alone without it. 'I can call for an ambulance.' I got really close. Ten steps away, maybe less. Then I saw someone inside the bushes. I saw his eyes looking at me. It was weird because I could see it was a man and he was angry but his face was hidden. I dropped my football. I think I wanted to grab my phone but I froze. I just stood still, staring at this guy. Then I heard the whimpering again. The man looked away. There was another cry. It sounded like the noise itself, not the thing making it, had been kicked, if you know what I mean? I should have done something. Rung somebody, gone into the bushes to help, but I couldn't. I couldn't move.' 'You did the right thing.' Mr Dockerby said. It was only by being interrupted that Taylor looked around at the scouts and adults, his now captivated audience. 'Carry on mate.' Mr Crawley spoke for everyone. 'After the noise the man came out of the bushes. He was wearing normal clothes, jeans and a black t-shirt, but he had a mask covering his face.' 'What kind of mask?' Mr Thompson asked. 'It was like a woolly hat that had been pulled down. There were holes cut out where his eyes and mouth where.' 'A balaclava...' Mr Crawley asked, 'like what bank robbers wear?' 'Yeah, that's it, one of them.' Taylor was now seeing the memory clearer than the fire. 'He stepped out of the bushes.' 'What did you do?' Danny asked him. 'I legged it.' Everyone understood the term, 'legged it', to mean, he ran as fast as humanly possible. That he ran faster than a kid could normally run. Ran with the superpower every kid knew could only be summoned when their life was in danger. 'I would have kicked him in the balls.' One of the boys said. The others laughed. Dickhead Taylor thought. By being asked what he did, Taylor had missed out an element of his story. While he had stood, frozen with fear, the man had spoken to him. 'What've you been looking at?' Harsh, aggressive, the voice spat out each word like they were swear words. 'Nothing.' Taylor had pleaded, 'I haven't seen nothing.' 'You can't fucking kid a kidder, Kid.' The man had started towards him. That was when Taylor had abandoned the football his dad had bought him on their trip to their holy ground, Spring Park, Wessford United's football stadium, and ran. Mostly white, with Wessford United emblems on some of the badges, the football had accumulated thousands of hours of foot time. It was practically his pet. 'Did you get away?' Jake asked. 'Of course he did.' Danny said. 'What did the man do?' Mr Dockerby asked. 'He just stood there, watching me.' When Taylor got home his mum had ushered him to the bathroom, to get showered and changed. Though distracted by the family party for his Nana, he had continued to think about what had happened. Later that night, sleeping under his Wess U covers, in his Wessford United decorated room, he had come to realise that the man had not chased him because he had wanted to get back to the bushes. 'Taylor.' Mr Crawley was the furthest away at the end of the log bench. Leaning as far forward as he could, half of his face became shaded. 'Be honest now. Did you go back to those bushes?' 'I went back the next morning' Taylor admitted. He did not mention that he had stayed awake all of the previous night questioning what he should have done and what he should do next. Should he have called the police? Should he have told his mum? When he decided to go back, he told himself, if there is something in the bushes, I'll take my phone and ring the police. I'll say I was looking for my football and just came across whatever's there. 'I was looking for my football.' He had lied so much lately, that this one slipped out naturally. He had gone back to the bushes to get another opportunity to do the right thing. 'Did you find it?' Jake asked. Taylor paused. Mr Crawley appeared to understand that the question had come too early, that there was another piece of the story to tell. 'What happened in the bushes?' The Scout Leader asked, 'what was in there?' 'This time I walked from the road.' Taylor felt a reprise of the experience wake in his stomach. Like an infection, it made his insides feel uncomfortably unbalanced. 'I looked in all of the other bushes first, so it would seem like I was searching for my football, just in case anyone was watching. But when I was two bushes away, I heard this meowing.' 'Like a...' Someone was about to ask a question, but a loud 'SHhhh!' stopped them. 'I headed towards the sound. It was getting louder and louder the closer I got to the bush. Then I saw it, through the same gap as the day before. It was a kitten, hung by its tail.' Taylor lost his breath as he visualised the black kitten. If felt like he had fallen into cold water and could not breathe. He tried to stay calm but he could not. He broke any boy's biggest taboo. He started to cry. 'It was just hanging there, screeching.' 'I went into the bushes.' He said wiping his eyes. 'When I got closer to it, it started to hiss at me.' Taylor took a moment to try and collect himself. Everybody was looking at him, but none of them in a bad way. Taylor saw again the inside of the bushes. Grown around a tree, the bush branches and leaves were mostly an outer shell. The clearing inside was what any local kid would call a 'den'. It was a place usually reserved for the innocent imagination of young kids' games, or later at night, a place for teenagers to smoke, drink and experiment with their urges. 'I don't get why someone would do that in the park?' Jake asked, 'Surely they know they'll get caught.' 'Maybe that's part of the excitement for him.' Mr Crawley said. That's it. Taylor realised. 'What did you do about the cat?' Danny asked. 'I couldn't untie it by its tail.' Taylor said. 'The rope had dug into it. It was bleeding and meowing so badly. I traced the rope up to the branch it was attached to. And do you know what was there? My football. The man, who had hung up the rope, had propped it next to it. I looked around for a branch to knock it free but there wasn't one. I looked around to see if anyone could help, but there was no one anywhere. So I climbed the tree, not high at first, about as high as Danny's shed.' 'Tayls is the best at climbing trees.' Danny said to the group. 'I had to lean across the branch.' Taylor continued. 'I was gonna try and untie the cat first but then I saw something written on my ball. I thought it had been balanced strangely. What he had done was stab it with a knife and stuck the hole around a bit of branch.' Taylor nearly broke up again. He got angry instead. His dad had bought him that ball on the best day of his life. 'He'd written across it, 'YOU'RE DEAD', in blood. That's when I heard branches breaking. The man rushed into the bushes. He was fast, he ran and jumped up at me. I scrambled higher up the tree. I felt his fingers touch my trainers. He nearly got me. 'I F-ing told ya!' he shouted at me. I was shacking. I nearly fell. He was pointing this Rambo knife at me. He was really angry. He grabbed a load of stones off the ground and slung them at me. Some of them really hurt. I had some change in my pocket so I threw that back at him. He backed off and stood looking at me. Then he said, 'I'm gonna cut this cat's tail off, then I'm gonna cut yours off! Only I'm gonna shove yours up your arse!' The group gasped. 'Did he?' one kid asked. 'Did he cut its' tail off?' another kid asked. 'He did!' Taylor said. Passionately nodding to replace details, he turned away for a moment. 'He pointed the bloody knife at me.' He said turning to face the group again, 'I screamed for help, but no one could hear me. The cat ran off. A trail of blood was following it. Its screeching set off hundreds of dogs which I could hear all around me. A rock hit my arm. A proper big one. It really hurt. I think he wanted knock me down. I got my phone out of my pocket. I shouted at him, 'I'm gonna call the F-ing police.' I called him an F-ing B. I was trying to scare him off, but he threw another rock. Because I moved out of the way, I didn't see him start to climb the tree. When he grabbed for me, I threw my football down at his face. His knife nearly stabbed me. To get out of its way, I jumped over him. I hit the ground hard, it really hurt, but I didn't stop. I ran straight out of there. I knew he was chasing me because he was calling me an F-ing C. There was an old man on the far side of the field, walking his dog, near the bike exit. I thought he would help me, so I legged it towards him. Kris Farret is the fastest kid in my class, and I'm telling ya, I would have left him for dead.' 'What did the other man, the old one, walking his dog, do?', Mr Dockerby asked. 'Did he help you?' 'No,' Taylor was angry again. 'He thought I was running away from the knifeman because I'd done something wrong. He shouted at me 'stop right there!' 'I know who you are!' I was out of breath, but when I got close, I started shouting at him, 'That man has a knife. He has a knife.' He wasn't listening, he moved across to block the bike passage out of the park. He kept shouting, 'Stop.' As I got close he held out his hand like he was Gandalf or summat. I was shouting 'Move. Move.' But he just stood there. Then I heard the knifeman's voice shouting, 'Stop him!' 'Stop him!' Thief' 'What did you do?' 'I tried to get past, but I couldn't. The old man tackled me. We both fell to the floor. I heard him groan. I kept saying 'he has a knife'. Trying to explain, but he grabbed hold of me. His dog bit my ankle. That really hurt. I could hear the knifeman screaming, 'keep a hold of him!' I'm really sorry for what I did... I was gonna get stabbed... I...I...I punched the old man.' One of the other kids laughed. 'James!' one of the adults corrected him. A silence followed. 'What happened next?' Mr Dockerby asked. 'The old man let go of me.' Taylor heard the shame in his voice. 'I had to kick his dog lose too because it was ragging at my trackie trouses. But now the knifeman had caught up. He was reaching out for me. I ducked and ran. I think he stumbled over the old man. But as I sprinted along the passage, I could hear him just behind me. I'll never run like that again in my life. I just wanted to get home to my mum. When I got out of the passage I ran across the road without looking.' Taylor heard one of the other kid's gasp. He found that surprisingly funny. 'A bus nearly hit me.' he said with an air of boasting. 'The man was still chasing me. So I ran past my street, then I turned down Cooke Street, the one past ours. There's a back alley which runs between the houses on both streets. I took that. I kept looking back but I couldn't see him. Before I went through our gate, I checked again but couldn't see him. When I got into our house, I shut the door softly then ran upstairs. I went to my room and I peeked out onto the road from behind my curtains. After a couple of minutes, I watched him go past my house. He was looking around, trying to find me. For a minute he even looked up at my bedroom, but then a man from down the road approached him. I think he asked the knifeman about his mask, because he ran away. Since then, I haven't been on Tessden field and I ignore my mates when they call. I'm scared because of the guy, but truthfully, I don't want to see the old man either.' As Taylor took a deep breath, he felt how tired he was. It was a pleasant feeling. The activities of the day had worked out the rust his body had accumulated over two weeks of not playing football. By telling his story, his mind had accomplished a similar, cleansing result. Taylor looked down at Danny. His cousin smiled at him in a way that said I bet you feel better now. He did. 'Taylor?' Mr Crawley said. He was frowning. 'Be honest with me. On the first day, when the man didn't chase you, were you wearing the football kit of the team you support?' 'I don't know. I don't think so.' He truly was not sure. Mr Crawley seemed to see this, so he asked another question. 'Your football then, does it have anything with your team on it?' Taylor knew it did, but he was scared by the question, so he lied. 'It's plain white.' He said. 'Are you sure?' Everyone was looking at him. He knew, they knew, he was lying. 'It's just that the man who chased you, might have seen your football, might have seen who you support, then, when he was chasing you, he might have seen a bedroom on your street, decorated with curtains of the same team, and he might have realised that you live there. So I'll ask once again, are you sure there was no way he could know who you support? Think about it.' 'I am sure.' Taylor became increasingly scared as he looked at Mr Crawley, who looking back at him, seemed to be making his mind up about something. Then the dark half of the Scout Leader's mouth smiled, and he said, 'Come on, you can't kid a kidder, kid.