Drystan crouched down and began swinging the stick at imaginary monsters. He said, in a retro-pulp TV-announcer voice: “And Dan Dare lands the Anastasia on northern Venus, surrounded by artificial tornadoes hatched by the Treens. He hunches down, gripping his Uranium Melt Sword.” Cuthbert squealed with laughter, showing his gappy baby-toothed smile. “Now Dan Dare begins slashing at horrible gangs of dinosauroid warriors, lopping off their scaled fingers, then bashing the bulbous head of the Mekon until the evil creature spins off on his Floating Disc.”
Cuthbert clapped his hands. Just turned six, he was beyond the patty-cake stage of entertainment, but Drystan could still charm him to no end with utter ease.
Drystan swung a few more times. Little hums came off the stick as the latex flapped in the air.
“Blasted,” said Drystan, in a normal voice. “It’s a noice stick.” He gave it back to Cuthbert. “Coppit good, Cuddy. We may need that.”
Dryst seemed to have braved himself up.
“Let’s conquer,” he said.
Then he remembered. Their granny had said “The Boogles ’as more full of nabs and tricks than Owd Nick. And by gum, thee canna be top’over-tail maskered* an’ confused at your age. Dunna stay late thar. The animals—the owd ancient animals, thay come out.”
The forest before them looked gorgeous and intimidating; Cuthbert felt pulled in. The sun had hit its zenith, and it wouldn’t be dark for hours. Drystan was generally protective of his younger brother, but he couldn’t help reciting a story Gran had told him the night before in Birmingham.
“Cuddy, you know Granny said something once before, she said ’er own old aunt, Millie—she’s dead now, roight, Cuddy?—well, she had come down off those hills where they’re all from, the Clees or Clays or what, and Aunt Millie and what ’ad got lost in the forest. For three days.”
“Liar,” said Cuddy. “You’re ’aving a go at me.” He whipped the condom stick through the air.
“I’m not. When Millie finally came out, Aunt Millie, Granny said, well she was doolally—off her head or what—and she never got any different. She sat in a birch wood chair, like, for thirty years, petting her white cat. It’s the truth.”
Cuthbert looked down at his stick and used his thumbnail to scrape off some of its thin, green bark.
Drystan continued, “Aunt Millie would sometimes say that she was looking for leftover charcoal from the charcoal makers, but what she found was the King of Night. The King of Night. Bloody hell—that’s all the reason I need to go in there. It must have been one of the prehistoric lions. Or that Welsh tiger.”
“Or them Boogles,” Cuthbert said sternly (his upper lip trembling).
“All right,” said Drystan. “Let’s nip along, then.”
But they didn’t move. For a while, they nervously kicked at a dead log and shouted nonsense words to hear their echoes and swatted at red damselflies and at each other.
“Googa maga waga maga!” yelled Drystan.
“Biggle flix!” screamed Cuthbert.
“Maga maga!”
“Shite!” said Cuthbert, with tingling boy-laughter ringing from him in tiny bright bells.
“Boogles!” Drystan said. Then, in a derisive, squeaky old-lady voice, he added: “Thee dunna want to hespel the Boogles.”
It was rare for Drystan to show disrespect for their gran, but a spectral excitement combined with a prepubescent wildness had momentarily gripped him. Cuthbert frowned at him.
“Well, let’s get on with it then!” said the older child a bit huffily, and started walking into the forest. “Fuck it all!”
“Wait up,” said Cuthbert. “Drystan! No!” But Drystan didn’t stop.
“Come on, tittybaby.”
“Shut.” Cuthbert didn’t like naughty words, but he never threatened to tattle on his brother. The consequences were too severe.
The younger boy trotted behind, still carrying his prophylactic branch.
For a while, they combed through a sunny, flat grove of Scots pines. All these softwoods were tall as streetlamps and planted in precise, bright gaps of twelve feet or so. They weren’t native to the forest but had been flash-planted in recent decades to counter vast losses of hardwoods and prevent flooding of the Severn. The smell of pine and rainy loam made Cuthbert feel secure. He and Drystan walked with sure steps over a homogeneous carpet of oranging pine needles, springing a little with each pace.
“A’ve had enough, Dryst,” said Cuthbert. “I wanna go back.” He tugged Drystan’s hand with hot slippy fingers. “I dunna want to see any—you know—them Boogles. I don’t need to see them.”
“Oh, come on, Cuddy,” said Drystan. “Just a little more. There ain’t no bloody Boogles.”
“Don’t say ‘bloody.’ You’ll get a smack from Mum.”
Drystan said, frowning sadly, “What could I get worse than what paerstins* I’ve already ’ad from the Devil himself? That bastard.”