Danny Yates Must Die

‘I’m sorry?’ asked Annette.

‘You shall see.’

‘But how can a pedicure save us all?’

‘How many over the aeons have asked us that? Always it comes down to feet.’

‘Then I’ll go and get them seen to.’ She didn’t know what was going on. Since first appearing, the legs had talked in nothing but riddles. Where were they from? Who did they work for? They wouldn’t say. But clearly, they worked for a higher power. Magic’s twelfth rule was that only the very highest powers could leave disembodied legs beneath your bed.

Grabbing her blackest coat, adopting her most earnest face, she headed for the door. ‘C’mon, Ribbons. We’re going.’

‘Wait,’ said the legs.

She stopped at the door, held the handle and looked to the bed.

‘You may not go yet. And there is one particular pedicurist you must visit.’

‘There is?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘Reasons.’

‘What reasons?’

‘Reasons reasons.’

‘So,’ she sighed, ‘who is this pedicurist?’

‘Watch the wall.’ She did.

And across the far wall, blood red letters began to appear forming the words:

MADAM FIFI’S LATE NIGHT PEDICURES

ten (#ulink_af09d194-686d-5885-9bda-cfa974a70832)

Sullen-faced, curled almost into a ball, the prickliest of hedgehogs, Danny sat on the Mission’s front step, watching the world fail to go by; no passers by, no wildlife, no points of interest. No weeds grew between the cracks in Tolly Street’s paving. Across the empty road, the sun was setting behind a shut-down multi-storey car park by a shut-down industrial unit by a shut-down burger bar by a shut-down bus stop. Each reflected a shut-down life back on itself.

Just two hundred yards away, the town’s main shopping street would be bustling with activity. But from here, in the city centre’s dog end, you’d never know it.

His feet were bare, Lucy having claimed his trainers as payment for him wasting her taxi time. She’d again worn her, ‘Don’t argue with me,’ look.

So he’d be stuck here forever, with the singing nun and her song of hats. Verse 155 drifted out from somewhere within the building, rhyming, ‘Architeuthis,’ with, ‘Truth is,’ with ‘Toothies.’

He stared at the pavement, trying to make it wither. It ignored him. He tried to wither the car park. It ignored him. They wouldn’t have ignored Lucy.

Rumble rumble rumble.

?

Rumble.

?

Rumble.

?

Rumble rumble.

He looked to the street’s far end. A tall fridge was climbing the slope, toward him. It clattered, rattled and jolted over bad paving join after bad paving join.

He rose to his feet, mouth drying in anticipation.

He’d noticed the tangerine, with yellow polka dot, dreadlocks bobbing along behind it.

‘Erm, hello?’ Danny walked along beside Teena Rama, sideways so he faced her while talking.

‘Hello.’ She concentrated on pushing her fridge; five feet eight, slightly too tall for her weight, Albert Einstein T-shirt, red (with white polka dot) skirt. Long bare legs. Small bare feet.

He watched his own small, bare, girl’s feet. He and she had a thing in common.

‘Am I bothering you?’ he asked.

‘Are you trying to?’ Her teeth were gripping the thin end of a wooden door wedge.

‘No. I’m not.’

She continued pushing the fridge, not looking at him. ‘Then you’re not bothering me.’

‘Do you remember me?’

‘Jog my memory; I meet too many people.’

‘I was in the shop.’

‘Which shop?’

‘The comic shop.’

‘Which comic shop?’

‘The one that collapsed.’

‘Two collapsed,’ she said.