Thursday 28 July 2011

Chapter eight

The cold breeze slapped against Gladys' skin like a suplex. Her muscles were losing the definition that they'd kept long into her sixties and sometimes she looked like she was wrapped in flash coloured crepe paper, but at seventy five she really didn't give a shit. She could walk, she could run, she could, apparently, kick neo Nazi ass and that was good enough for her.


Windmilling in the park had been a vital part of her routine. She liked to herald the seasons. She liked to curl her toes around grass and, most importantly, she liked to remind the posing masses that old age was coming, and it wouldn't be pretty.

Gladys had been waiting for her eighties. No one liked a scary old lady and the ex wrestler was champing at the bit to scare them all to death. She wanted to gibber and piss herself in public, she wanted to gum sausage rolls in up-market cafes and push into the front of Post Office queues, hearing nothing but sharp intakes of breath in her wake.


One of six girls she'd been raised to be tough in the Alabama countryside, scrapping amongst themselves for dibs on the local boys, wrestling at county fairs for pocket money. She'd graduated with a cauliflower ear and a face that looked like two pugs playfighting. And she'd travelled the world kicking ass until she fell in love and settled down to the quiet life as a lion tamer in England.

It wasn't until after he had died, he who had never managed to break one of her headlocks but had unlaced her boots, rubbed her feet and loved her for exactly who she was, it was after the son of a bitch died that she'd formed the group. In memory of a man who would have made an amazing old git had his crappy heart not got in the way.

SABTY had expanded like a lotto winner's waist line, filling up on grumpy olds from Twickenham to Timbuktu. The Society for the Abolition of the Tyranny of Youth was Gladys' kick in the nuts of the striplings with their overdressed brats in three wheeler buggies; the tottering tramps with plastic hair and the oceans of angry suits who hated giving up their rat piss covered railway seats.


They'd started small, a good grass roots organisation with some old fashioned vandalism. Breaking antique shop mirrors, fleeing justice with displays of senility; holding mid pavement meetings, forcing yummy mummies into the road and blocking roads with the strategic movements of tartan bags on wheels. The WI was shitting itself.


But she'd still enjoyed her solo activities. Windmilling, shuffling, fighting, rescuing younger activists from misadventure involving cake.


The two cake girls were curled up on her sofa under a patchwork blanket, sleeping off the first bit of running that they'd probably done since kindergarten. There wasn't a drop of stamina between the pair of them but, despite being more of a liver and onions gal than a cake one, Gladys liked the cut of their gib. She had visited that park every day for the last year and it was the first act of real generosity that had presented itself before her. They were the first people who had given her faith in young people.

And following yesterday's ruckuss it looked like the newspapers knew something was in the air as well. It looked like a link up between their two organisations could kick start something. Whatever that might be.

Wednesday 20 July 2011

Chapter seven and a half

Kat had been too busy debating the finer points of butter crème with a passing stranger to notice the oddness as it crept into the park, but the buff shiny people dispersed as if it had been raining Cilit Bang. Once more our heroines had missed the memo to leave. Assholes were coming.

Crazy Lady's dance shifted from celebratory hustle to a fearful mashed potato as Natasha suddenly found herself shoulder to shoulder with an angry mob in bomber jackets.

Neo Nazi's weren't pretty, neither were they sinister Mr Bronson types like in Indiana Jones or full on Triumph of the Will / eat your beating heart in front of your eyes scary. These were more Jeremy Kyle, all flob and shitoos and spewing forth hate because they were too angry to realise that their lives weren't bad because of the existence of brown people.

Kat had disappeared into the ether and Natasha was considering breaking into a gentle trot when the chanting started.

"E….E….EDL"

Natasha hadn't felt so sick since the time she'd eaten a stick of butter.She tiptoed back trying her hardest to see above the mob for a telltale glimpse of black ratty ponytail. Kat couldn't be eaten by Nazis, on top of her not wanting to lose the only person on the planet who had been optimistic enough to believe the online rantings of one lonely foodaholic, her cakes were too good to be lost forever. Cake would never forgive her, it would curse her name and taste bad in spite forever. She couldn't do that to cake.

It was downright unfair - she thought to herself as she backed out of the crowd and attempted to circle them, all she'd been trying to do was spread a bit of peace and love and now cake, and Kat were going to hate her forever. And her feet hurt. And she was having a hard time balancing all of those cake boxes by herself.

Natasha was very keen on making sure that her Tupperware was okay. She was very satisfied with her Tupperware situation and didn't want it being interrupted by people who thought that Nick Griffin was an actual person.

She tippy toed to the other side of the crowd, fearing that any minute a human skull would be hoisted aloft. If they killed Kat then she'd have to re-brand the entire campaign, from cakes to some kind of anti Nazi death revenge pact involving swords and pain. She'd probably have to do some exercise to enable her to kick more ass. Natasha hated exercise.

The crowd shouted and shifted, waiting for a grown up to whip them into a frenzy when Kat's head finally appeared through the crowd, talking to a stocky guy in a rumpled suit who was standing on a box.

Natasha would have pushed her way through but for the fact that the woman in front of her was whirring like a Terminator, plus Kat seemed to be okay. She was breathing. She was handing the stocky guy a cake. He was stuffing the cake into his mouth.

He didn't seem too keen on chewing.

He seemed to be struggling to breath.

Kat was backing away…..

Natasha talk half a step forward as the man turned purple and a henchman slapped him on the back. She watched as Brigitte Neilson grabbed cat by the shoulders. Kat struggled and tried her best donkey kick but the stocky guy kept choking and Brigitte's stranglehold held firm. Soon Natasha would probably have to get involved.

The grabby hands were grabbing, the kicky feet were kicking. Someone slapped Kat across the face and she let out a little gothic gulp.

Until suddenly Crazy Lady appeared like a saggy tighted Flash Gordon. Smacking bluntly, left and right with her manky crazy lady handbag. She shoved her way through until she faced Neilson - who had Kat in a headlock and was cruelly tweaking her ponytail, and headbutted her full in the face.

Neilson stepped back in shock whilst Crazy Lady grabbed Kat by the arms, dragging her off whilst stocky man coughed the bad luck penny into the eyes of a regular commenter on the Daily Mail's website.  

Then they were gone. Natasha screamed after them and was finally forced to run after them and out of the park.

Friday 15 July 2011

Chapter Seven

Sunny days brought them all out. Natasha swore as she struggled under the mountain of cake boxes, weaving after a delirious Kat through the crowd of deliberately slow moving, deliberately loud talking, air kissing faux happy people, flaunting themselves like grinning skinny tarts in the parks of London.


"First there's Simone" panted the fat goth, apparently unchoked by the dangerous level of smugness in the air. "She used to be anorexic, but now she only eats twiglets and the insides of sofa cushions. She's such a laugh."


Kat didn't seem to mind that her white makeup was dripping and she looked like a rubbish candle version of The Crow. She hadn't stopped jabbering excitedly about their new internet following, their new family who they were off to meet, since they'd left north London.


"And there's Bill" she continued, "He's great. He's going to bring everyone chocolate cake, not that he can eat it himself. Since the operation he can only stomach mashed hotdogs."


Natasha really wanted to punch someone in the head. Bill would be as good a victim as anyone. Kat was practically skipping down the road by now, she must have been sugar powered. It was a little terrifying and possibly a bit wrong. Shouldn't she have been directing all that energy towards more normal teenage pursuits like sniffing glue or drug running?


"I've put a twenty pee piece in one of the fruit cakes" she babbled like an emo brook "for good luck." This made sense. It sounded like some of their new friends could use a bit of luck. 


They arrived at Speaker's Corner and Natasha crashed down upon the grass, making herself a little nest of cardboard cake boxes whilst flailing at a cloud of gnats. Kat's energy converted to nerves.


"How do you find people you've never seen before in a really crowded place?"


"I'm sure they'll find me." Said Natasha. "I am the chosen one after all."

She plucked some grass and threw it into the air, the air kicked the grass back into her face.

A crazy lady walked over and stood a little too near them, hair sticking out, be-kittened jumper, mildly stained slacks. "Maybe that's one of them." Natasha offered, as she stretched out. Uncertainly Kat sidled over.

"Excuse me….." she squeaked. "are you…."


"ARRRRGGGGHHHHHHH"

Crazy Lady leapt at the terrified teenager like a disgruntled hamster of death.


Maybe not. Natasha was starting to enjoy herself as Kat scampered away and Crazy Lady danced like James Brown's aunty at a wedding.


************************************************************************


An hour later and there had been no sighting of the cushion eater or the chocolate cake desperado, clearly Natasha's cult leader status had been diminished by the daylight. It would have been vaguely amusing but for the broken teen on the grass beside her made it more like Watership Down in 30 degree heat.

Kat carried out a horrible impression of someone who didn't give a shit that her internet friends didn't really exist. Would she try and do herself in on Natasha's watch? She'd seen this kind of thing on Hollyoaks and it never ended well. Natasha needed to act fast, she was the only one allowed to be a grumpy cow in this relationship.


"Okay let's start changing the world!"


Like a red coat whose spinny bow tie had caught in her jaunty neckerchief and was slowly throttling her to death.

Natasha dragged herself up and opened a cake box before walking into the path and up to the nearest happy Arian couple. "Would you like some free cake?" she beamed and was promptly ignored. It was like Jesus all over again.

 
Natasha approached three young women and offered her wares. Finally they accepted happily and Natasha talked through the finer points of there mission whilst Kat dragged herself to her feet.


An hour later and Hyde park was hopped up on sugar, either they'd been spiked with acid or there was just a tiny bit more love in the air.