Robert Rankin - Web Site Story

Mr Lovegrove hauled him out by the ear and flung him into the street.

Small Bob sat himself carefully down upon a bench in the memorial park. He would dearly have loved a pint and also a cigarette. His head was spinning, his ears were red and his backside smarted dreadfully.

'Woe unto me,' whispered Small Bob to himself. 'Woe unto Small Bob, helpless in a world of cruel and brutal adults. I never knew that being a child was really as awful as this. I'm sure I remember it being sunshine and coach trips to the seaside. Well at least the sun is shining, which is something. But was childhood really this ghastly? Surely not. Or perhaps it was, but we just took it for granted. Made the best of it and only remember those best bits when we grow up.

'What a dismal happenstance. But no. Holdest thou on there, Small Bobby Boy. This doesn't have to be a torment. Anything but. Surely this is everybody's dream. To be young again. But knowing all the things that you wish you'd known then. You'd be one step ahead of everybody else. Two steps. Ten steps. And you could get rich. Play the stock market, knowing what shares to buy. Invent some invention that was everyday •when you were grown-up but didn't exist when you were a child.'

Small Bob grinned and now began to rack away at his brains. What did he know, that no-one in this time knew about yet? There had to be something, and something he could profit from. Something that could make him somebody in this world.

But slowly the grin began to fade away from his small and hopeful face. He didn't know anything. He didn't know anything about stocks and shares. And how would he go about inventing some piece of advanced technology that was everyday in the world he'd just come from? He had no idea whatsoever.

'Well well well.'

Bob looked up and Trevor Alvy looked down.

'You bunked off school,' said Trevor. 'You're in real big trouble.'

'Go away thou foolish child,' said Bob. 'Thou art a bullying little buffoon. You will be sent to approved school when you're twelve and, by the time you're seventeen, to prison for stealing a Ford Fiesta. Dost thou wish this future for thyself? Come, I bear thee no malice. I understand now why thou behavest as thou dost. Rage and frustration. I understand well. Let us speak of these things. And… Oww!'

Trevor Alvy had him in a headlock. He dragged Bob down to the dust, grinding his face and squeezing his neck. Bob squealed and struggled to no avail. And Bob remembered well. It had been Alvy's torments that had made him train when a teenager. Go to the gym, lift weights, work out, learn the martial arts. Bully no man, but let no man ever bully him.

Trevor Alvy poked him in the eye. 'That to you loony boy,' he cried. And then he jumped up, kicked Bob in the ribs and ran away.

Small Bob lay there weeping. That was it. That was enough. That was all he was prepared to stand. He was going to get out of here. Run away to sea. Sign on as a cabin boy. Get away. Run. Run away.

Children were pouring into the park now. Laughing happy children. Children who were making the best of being children. Children who didn't know anything else except that they were children and this was the way things were.

Bob huddled there in a very tight ball, his fists pushed into his eyes.

'Bobby,' said a little squeaky voice. 'Bobby, are you all right?'

Bob peered up through his fingers. It was Phyllis Livingstone. The little dark Glaswegian girl smiled down at him. She had a front tooth missing and orange-juice stains at the corners of her mouth. And even from where Bob lay, or perhaps because of where Bob lay, he could smell her. Phyllis Livingstone smelled of wee wee. She didn't smell nice at all.

In fact, as Bob looked up at her, he could see most clearly now that she really didn't look very nice at all, either. Gawky, that was the word. All out of proportion. Children aren't miniature adults, their heads are far too big. If an adult had a head as big as that in proportion to its body, it would be a freak.

Bob thought of Periwig Tombs. Perhaps his head had just kept on growing along with his body.

'Are you all right, Bobby?' asked Phyllis again.

'You smell of wee wee,' said Small Bob. 'And your head is too big and I'm sick of this world and I want to go back to my own and… oh… ouch!'

Phyllis Livingstone kicked him. And she kicked him very hard.

And then, with tears in her little dark eyes, she turned and ran away.

Small Bob wept a bit more and then he dragged himself to his feet. He really had had enough. He ached all over. He was sore and he was angry. He wanted to go home. No, he didn't want to go home. He just wanted out. Out of this and back to his real self.

He shuffled to the playground and pressed his face against the wire fence. The children, happy, laughing, played upon the swings and on the climbing frame. A fat boy named Neville sat in one of the swingboats. Ann Green, little yellow-haired girl, pushed the swingboat forward. Up and back, she caught the swingboat, pushed it forward, up and back.

Small Bob watched her. He felt listless, hopeless, angry, wretched.

Up the swingboat went, forward up, then down and back again.

'There must be something,' said Small Bob bitterly under his breath. 'Something that will let me out of here. How didst it go in that damn programme Quantum Leap? The hero had to change something. Save someone. Put something right. That's how it worked. And then he was free. Well, free to leap somewhere else, into some other time the next week. But that was how it worked.'

Small Bob watched Ann Green pushing the swing-boat.

Forward, up, then down and back again.

'Look at her,' said Bob to himself. 'Silly little girl, pushing that swingboat. She doesn't know. Alvy will end up in prison and she'll end up dead from that swing-boat. And she doesn't know…'

'Oh.' Small Bob's jaw dropped open. Quantum Leap. Saving someone. That was how it worked. Ann Green would die, hit in the throat by that swingboat. And only he, Big Bob, Small Bob knew that it would happen.

'Thou brain-dead buffoonican!' Small Bob shouted at himself. 'That's the answer.'

Up went the swingboat, up and forward, down and back. Up and forward, down and back and up and forward and…

'Ann!' shouted Bob. 'Ann, get away from the swing-boat.'

'What?' The little girl caught at the polished metal as the swingboat swung towards her once again. Caught the metal bar and pushed it forward.

'Ann, get away. Get away Ann. Please do it.'

'Who's calling me?' The little girl turned her head. 'Who's calling me?'

Small Bob saw the swingboat coming down.

'Ann!' he shouted. 'Duck! Duck!'

The little girl's mouth was open. Wet, with orange-juice stains at the corners. Her eyes were blue. Her hair a yellow swag.

'No!' cried Bob.

The swingboat sailing down caught the little girl in the throat. It knocked her backwards, sent her staggering, but she didn't fall.

Bob saw the face. The eyes. The mouth. The golden hair. He saw her expression. Puzzled.

Up went the swingboat, forward, up then back and down again.

As Small Bob watched, it hit her in the forehead.

Blood upon yellow hair, the blue eyes staring.

Ann Green toppled sideways and lay dead.

Crackle and thump, "went the paddles.

Big Bob's body jumped and shook.

'Any heartbeat?' asked the ambulance man.

There was a pause.

'No, give him another jolt.'

Crackle and thump and his body shook again.

'Any now?'

'No, do it once more, then we quit.'

And crackle and thump once again.

'Has he gone?'

'No. He's beating again. He's alive.'

'Well, he wasn't.'

'Well, he is alive now, let's get him onto the stretcher.'