Jack Tumor by Anthony McGowan Read Free Book Online Page A

the piss-taking and banter when we were all together,but when it was just the two of us he became more serious. And the thing he was most serious about was girls.
    As a gang we didn’t talk much about girls—I mean, real girls as opposed to, for example, Hawkgirl. It wasn’t that we didn’t think about them, but just that, well, too much was at stake. You couldn’t say that you fancied so-and-so, because it was pathetic, given that we were all no-hopers, and our chance of being fancied back was as close to zero as you can get without actually dipping into the negative numbers. A few of the other boys in the year—the cool, the bold, the persevering—had girlfriends, but that wasn’t for us, and we coped with that fact in our own different ways. Stan clammed up. Gonad lusted graphically. I joked. But I think the one who suffered the most was Smurf, partly because he was such a romantic, which meant that he was usually in some kind of love with a girl (I mean the whole girl, too, and not just some bit of her like, for example, her breasts) and partly because of all of us, he was the one most subjected to ridicule, on account of the lips. It was a tragic combination.
    And right now I could tell that not everything was well in the gentle heart of Simon Murphy. He was slumped in the corner, staring at his feet. Smurf was a very bendy person, and sometimes looked like he had no bones at all.
    Â 
ME :
Whassup, Smurf?
SMURF :
(
He looks up, his big brown eyes full of love-misery. He shakes his head.
) Nothing. Nah, nothing.
ME :
Who is it this time?
SMURF :
No one.
ME :
Come on. It’s either some girl, or you’ve just heard that an asteroid is going to vaporize us in ten minutes.
SMURF :
(
Pause. Then another pause.
) Yeah, well. I was just thinking. So who do you think is the most . . . the one with the best . . . the . . . I mean, who do you fancy?
ME :
You mean, Hawkgirl or Buffy?
SMURF :
You know I don’t mean that. I mean, just in general. In our year.
ME :
Look, Smurf, just tell me who you’re talking about.
SMURF :
(
Mumbling
.) It’s mad. I haven’t got a chance.
JACK :
HE’S RIGHT THERE, WHOEVER IT IS. UNLESS IT’S MONGA FROM PLANET UGLY .
ME :
Shhhh—I mean, do you want me to guess? Is it that little rodenty thing in chemistry? The one who asked you if she could share your test tube? I’m sure she stores food in cheek pouches, like a gerbil.
SMURF :
No, it’s not her. And it was my burner, not my test tube.
ME :
Aha! So you admit it’s someone in particular, and not someone in general?
SMURF :
(
Noncommittal shrug.
)
JACK :
IT’S PROBABLY AN INTERNET PORN STAR. I BET HE’S GETTING THROUGH TEN PACKS OF COMPUTER-SCREEN WIPES A NIGHT .
ME :
Dawn Elkington, then? She’s not bad. You know. For a girl. I suppose it depends on where you stand on the issue of plantar warts.
SMURF :
How do you know she’s got plantar warts?
ME :
Keeps her socks on for gymnastics.
SMURF :
Oh yeah. Good deduction. No, not her. But not ‘cause of the warts. I wouldn’t let warts stand in the way. Not on their own. I’m not that superficial.
ME :
Moira Pennington?
SMURF :
No, not her either. Look, do you swear you won’t tell the others?
ME :
Of course I won’t.
SMURF :
Oh, Jesus, I can’t even say it. Have another guess.
ME :
I’m getting bored now. Okay, Uma Upshaw, then.
    Â 
    I said it without thinking, not supposing for a second that Smurf would be mad enough to fancy someone like her. It was like the story of the mouse who lusts after a she-elephant. One day, when the elephant is having a drink in the river, the mouse sees his chance and leaps on her back and starts to, er, make passionate love to her. At that moment a crocodile grabs hold of the elephant’s trunk, and the elephant starts thrashing around and trumpeting, and the mouse thinks that she’s having a big elephanty orgasm and he squeaks