The red ghost

As the days were getting shorter, little Tommy noticed that it was starting to get dark outside before his daddy came home from work. He sat at the kitchen window of their flat, looking down at the streets, waiting for his daddy.

It was a particularly rainy day, and his mummy was stirring the sauce for the chili sin carne. As their little kitchen didn’t feature an extraction fan, the windows were steamed up and the whole flat smelled of feel-good food.

Little Tommy had used his sleeve to wipe a part of the window and had his nose pressed against the surface. His mummy was humming a pop song, when Tommy suddenly turned round to her, his eyes wide with shock.

“What is it?” Tommy’s mummy asked.

“ I saw a ghost,” little Tommy whispered. “A Red Ghost.”

His mummy put her spoon down and walked over to the window. “Where is it?”

“He’s gone,” little Tommy said, “he was on a bicycle.”

“Well, if he’s gone, we don’t need to worry about him, do we?” his mummy said. She picked some rosemary, which was growing in a terracotta pot in the windowsill, and returned to the cooker.

As Tommy’s father was waiting for the lift to get up to the third floor, he took off his red poncho. In the lift, he rolled up the poncho and put it in a bag.

“Daddy, daddy,” little Tommy ran up to his daddy and hugged his legs. “Did you see the ghost too?”

“A ghost?” his daddy lifted an eyebrow and kissed his wife

“Tommy saw a red ghost on a bicycle, just before you arrived.”

“Why are you home so late, daddy? Was the ghost chasing you? Are you okay?”

The daddy smiled, lifted Tommy on his lap and confessed that yes, he had seen the red ghost. And yes, the ghost had been chasing him, but little Tommy needn’t worry, as daddy was so much faster the ghost would never be able to catch him.

As it was autumn, the next day was equally rainy. Tommy had opened the window and was leaning out so that he would be able to spot his daddy sooner.

“Mummy, mummy, come quickly,” he begged.

His mummy rushed over. “What is it, darling?”

“It’s the red ghost again,” Tommy said, pointing at his daddy’s poncho. “And I don’t see daddy anywhere!”

Relieved, his mummy started laughing. “Don’t worry, silly,” she said, “you know your daddy is quicker than the ghost! He’ll be here any minute, I promise.”

Tommy couldn’t understand why his parents weren’t worried about the imminent threat of the red ghost. When it rained yet again a third day, Tommy positioned himself at the window even before his mummy started cooking. Tommy was waiting and waiting, and feared that the ghost had caught up with his daddy. When he spotted the red ghost, he leaned out of the window even further, and recognized his daddy’s bicycle – but there was no sign of daddy. Little Tommy decided there was no time to call for his mummy. He reached for the terracotta pot with the rosemary plant and dashed it, with all his might, at the red ghost down below.

The rosemary hit the ghost right on the head.
But Tommy’s daddy never came home again.

The wishing well

Once upon a time in a country far, far away, there was a magic wishing well on a green hill. Every time the princess passed the well, she took a gold coin from her purse and dropped it into the well. While the money travelled to the mystical depths, the princess whispered a wish.

From the dark shrubbery, two gleaming eyes watched the princess lean over the edge of the well. It was a greedy goblin who wanted to marry the princess so that he could rule over her father’s kingdom. Two times now, the goblin had proposed to the princess. The first time, he had offered her a set of silver handcuffs on a velvet cushion. The second time, he had appeared at her palace with golden handcuffs on a cushion of silk and down. Both times, the princess had turned him down gently. “Sorry,” she had said, “but I am not in love with you.”

The angry goblin had wagged his bony finger at her. “The third time,” he’d said, “I will make you an offer you cannot decline.”

From that moment onwards, the goblin started following the princess wherever she went. He followed her to charity dinners, to car shows and, eventually, to the wishing well. He hid in the thicket and watched her take a coin from her clutch.

“I wish that all stray dogs in the country will find a loving home,” the princess said. “I hope that their families will feed them and children will cuddle them, and all they have to do in return is protect their home.”

The following days, the goblin noticed less and less stray dogs in the streets and, soon, he read in the national newspaper that the number of burglaries had gone down drastically now that all homes were protected by dogs.

The second time the princess and the goblin passed the well, it hadn’t rained for weeks. The drought was threatening the livelihood of thousands of farmers. As the princess flipped a coin into the well, she asked for rain.

Before the princess reached her castle, rain started coming down in thick sheets. She saw all the farmers dance on the land, letting the rain soak their clothes and thanking the clouds for saving the crops.

“So the well really works,” the goblin said to himself. He spurred his horse to return to the wishing well, emptied his wallet into the well and wished for the princess to fall in love with him.

When he appeared at the court for a third time, the goblin offered the princess a set of rusty hand cuffs. “Majesty,” he said, “now that you have lost your heart to me, will you marry me?”

“Why, no,” she responded. “What makes you think my feelings have changed?”

“I paid the well to make you fall in love with me!”

“You silly thing,” the princess said. “Isn’t it obvious when you compare your wish to mine? The wishing well doesn’t understand selfish requests. It can only make good wishes come true.”

Of mice and kittens: dealing with friends that don't make sense

Raised by foster pigeons, worried by a creaky branch, our fluffy Baby Owl set out on a quest for wisdom.
“But where do I start looking?” asked a squeaky voice.
Baby Owl stopped and dropped mid-air. What was that?
Just before she hit the ground, she flapped her wings and started flying circles around the spot where she'd heard the voice. It wasn't me, she wondered, was it? Am I hearing voices?
She almost started to doubt herself, when she saw a field mouse scuttle away. “Where is it?” the mouse muttered.
I'm not alone! Baby Owl thought. She landed on a bush near the mouse, flattened her feathers and hooted: “You know you've really lost something when you don't even know where to start looking.”
She was trying to sound a lot smarter than she was - what she really meant to say was: We could be friends and search together!
“Oh hello there, wise young Owl,” squeaked the mouse. “You don't happen to know the way to kittencamp do you?”
“To kittencamp?” Baby Owl asked. “Do you need some help killing kittens?”
“Oh no! It's a meetup of geeks.”
If Owls could frown, Baby Owl certainly would be have been frowning now. For want of eyebrows, a face of wide eyed surprise sufficed. “Why is it called kittencamp?”
“Because everyone loves cats,” squeaked the mouse.

It must have been quite a sight: in a wide field of long yellow grass, perched a scrawny bush, an owl hooting at a tiny mouse. The sun was setting when the mouse admitted that he'd never met a real cat.
“It is my dream to make a puss purr.” The mouse made a purring sound. “That is the one thing I really want to achieve in my life.”
“Why don't you join me on my quest for wisdom?” said Baby Owl. “By the sounds of it, you could do with some.”
“In the words of the great Kanye West: I don’t take offense to anything anybody says about me at this point.”
“The great who?”
“School spirit motherfuckers!” The mouse jumped up on his hind legs and performed a funny dance. “Alpha, step. Omega, step. Kappa, step. Sigma, step. Gangstas walk, pimps gon' talk. Oooh hecky now that boy is raw!”
“Oh,” said Baby Owl, “Of course. Either way, I don't understand how I managed to lose my wisdom. It must have escaped through the first crack in the egg.”
“But why would you want to be wise,” asked the mouse, “when you can be cute like a kitten?”

Owl Is Out To Trick You - 2

“What are you doing?” The biggest pigeon cooed surprised, so that the worm he had been holding dropped all the way back to the ground.

Perched on the edge of the nest, flapping her little wings to maintain balance, baby owl hooted: “What does it look like I'm doing?”

“You're not flying out yet, are you?”

“Less then two days ago, you were still an egg!”

Baby owl had contemplated telling them the truth, but when she saw how the worms had dropped from their silly beaks when they tried to speak, she changed her mind. Instead, she decided she would come back to share her wealth with them once she'd found the treasure.

“Cooing won't help,” Baby owl said to them. “I have to go.”

“But where are you going?” asked her mother.

“You wouldn't understand,” she said. “I'm not like you.”

“Don't you dare speak to your mother like that,” said papa pigeon, and with his beak he pushed baby owl back into the nest.

This was more than the little owl could take. “Maybe you're right, maybe you would understand. I am going out to look for my wisdom. Seeing that neither of you have any, you might understand what it's like to search for it. But the difference between you and me is that you failed, horribly. And I will succeed.”

“Your wisdom?” Her mother cooed.

“What do you think you are,” papa pigeon said, “an owl or something?”

Baby owl bitterly climbed back onto the rim of the nest. She was puffing with effort and anger, and her whole body seemed to inflate, deflate, inflate, deflate at a high rate.

“Fools,” she hooted when she reached the top. Her head turned round to her foster pigeons one last time. Then she spread her little wings and stepped over the edge.

As the wind caught under her wings, all sorts of thoughts flew into her feathers. She suddenly knew she would never see her parents again. She wouldn't come back to share her wisdom with anybody. The creaky branch had been right. Owls are lonesome creatures. They don't love anybody.  

Owl Is Out To Trick You - 1

It took the baby owl a whole day, a night and a morning to figure out what was wrong with her. From the moment she hatched, the feeding birds looked at her with disbelief, astonishment and expectation. They brought her worms, brought her flies, brought her bits of peanut and watched. With their silly big eyes, they looked at her as if any moment she would fly. They'd even decided that watching baby owl eat, sleep and grow was more important than looking after the other eggs in the nest. Baby owl felt embarrassed and didn't know how to react to their attention.

“What is wrong with me?” she wondered. “Why are they looking at me like that?”

It was a creaky branch that broke the news to baby owl.

“Hey,” the branch creaked. “Aren't you supposed to be one of the most intelligent birds in the sky?”

“Am I?” baby ow hooted.

“Listen to yourself!” the branch said. “Your voice was made for wisdom, yet all you utter is stupidity! Your mother should have know better than to lay her egg in a pigeon's nest.”

“What do you mean?”

“Pigeons make rubbish parents.”

“They are... pigeons? But... but I love them!”

“Madness!” the branch creaked. “Owls don't love anybody.”

Baby owl wanted to know how the branch knew so much about her real parents, but he wind settled and the branch refused to creak again. Baby owl rubbed her feathers against the shell of one of her siblings until the egg became so shiny that baby owl could see herself in the reflection. A flat face with a crooked little beak stared back.

“I look nothing like my pigeon parents,” the baby owl thought, “so it is true. My real parents just dumped me here. They didn't even stick around to see me fly. Why didn't they love me?”

“Because you are an idiot,” a branch on another tree croaked. “Idiot!”

“Idiot!”

“Idiot!”

“That's enough,” baby owl shrieked. “If I have lost my wisdom, I shall go out and find it!”

Trophy 19 - I read the news today, oh boy

Bunny fluf on my duvet is tickling my nose, my feet are freezing, but what's keeping me awake is a headline I read in Metro this morning: “Woman who posed as 'perfect boy' given 30-month custodial sentence.” Twenty-year-old Gemma Barker has been jailed for 2.5 years for dating girls who were at most 4 years younger than her - while in drag.

Shocking story, people say on Twitter.

It shocked me too. But not as much as the host of hateful tweets about Gemma.

As as boy, Gemma seduced two of her own friends, who fell hook, line and sinker for her disguise. Of course Gemma had quite a lot to hide – so the relationships couldn't advance much further than kissing, cuddling and a bit of one-sided groping. The girls even introduced their new boyfriends to their parents. They had no issue at all with the levels of intimacy, until one of the two began to suspect that her boyfriend might be the same guy as her friend's boyfriend (but still didn't recognize their friend Gemma). To my surprise, that's when they decided to get the police involved. I can imagine it's not great to find out your partner has been two-timing you with your friend, but that doesn't make it a case to get the police involved, does it?

It does, of course, when the heartbroken girlfriend is 15 years old – because she hasn't reached the age of consent yet. So the cheating boyfriend was arrested, and that's when his true identity was discovered. Now, the girls feel disgusted, sick and suicidal. Though they were attracted to Gemma in drag at the time, in retrospect, the cuddling and sexual touching has become assault.

I wonder whether a “real” boy would've received the same sentence for two-timing Gemma's friends. I hope so. I really do.

Stilll, the story scares me. I know it's got nothing to do with me – I'm not sexually active at all, nor am I attracted to kids. But I worry about all the people who know me as a man. Would my colleagues, clients and friends be disgusted with me if they saw on my passport that officially, I am a woman? Would they take me to court for misleading them? When is the right time to tell someone? Is there ever? Could I end up in prison for going on a date with Angel, pretending to be a guy? Or should I wear a badge that says “freak of nature” to make sure she knows what to expect?

Trophy 14 - Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you'll never see him again.

“I'd like to slap him with a large trout,” says Gary when the waiter is gone. “So this fish cake you were talking about, what's her name again?”

“Elaine.”

“Beautiful name. As you were saying – you haven't had her yet, so she's on your to do list. Am I right?”

“Whatever.” I can't hold it against him that Gary's not a good listener. That's why we're such good friends. Maybe I'll get through to him some day, but not today. I don't even know what I was gonna say about Elaine. “Yeah. Top of the list.”

“That's why it hasn't happened yet, man. Never prioritise women. They're like dogs, they can smell it when you're desperate. They run a mile from you when they know how badly you want it.”

“Right.”

Trophy 10 - Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you'll never see him again.

Though I've never seen Gary with a rod, I would in every respect describe him as a fisherman. It's not just the bragging about size that does it. For Gary, there's always other fish in the sea. And somehow, they all fall hook line and sinker for him. We're at this all you can eat sushi bar in Soho, filling ourselves to the gills, when I look for a way to broach the subject that has been bugging me for the last few days.

“This is how I learned to go down on girls,” Gary says, “got to eat sushi before you eat pussy.”

I raise one eyebrow while dipping my ocean fresh sashimi in soy sauce.

“It's the smell,” he says, “raw fish kinda prepares you for it.”

“What are you carping about, man?” I say, “giving head is a privilege, you should be grateful you're welcome down there.”

Trophy 9 - Christmas is when you get homesick. Even when you're home.

Well, and maybe Santa's. He's stretched out on the carpet, eyeing up a life size statue that resembles Milo's Venus. The great difference is that this figure is not wearing a cloth round its hips, thus revealing the genitals one would expect on a naked Cupid: small, perfect and male.

Santa doesn't seem to be disturbed by my androgynous statue, but I'm not to keen on a second opinion. While I wait for my desktop to start up, I stroke Santa's ears.

“Hey buddy,” I say. “Did I ever tell you about Elaine?”

Trophy 6 - The Job Centre is never greener on the other side.

When mum and I reach her house, she asks me to unpack the shopping bags while she gets something from upstairs. I inspect the content of her fridge and notice that she's put cling film over the plate of cauliflower cheese that I didn't finish yesterday. I wonder why – it wasn't that great. The bottle of wine that was still half full when I left is nowhere to be seen. For some reason, I check the bin and find the box of Magnum Minis that I'd brought as a treat. She catches me with the box in my hands.

There's an awkward silence as we stare at each other. I turn my gaze to the content of the box to find that it's not empty – there are four melted ice creams in there – and put it back in the bin.

“I've got a present for you,” she says. “I should have done this long ago, but it wasn't finished yet. As a matter of fact, I think I've got to add one more line.”

She opens a ring binder to the last page, licks her ballpoint and writes a short message. Then she hands the binder to me and explains that over the last couple of years, she's collected random facts, quotes and other fragments of wisdom for me.

“One at the top of each page. But there's a pack of blank sheets to go with it, so you can insert as many as you like between the headed pages.”

“What's it for?”

“It's like a diary,” she says, “or you can use it to write letters to me, your father or even Elaine. Letters that you don't have to send. To clear your head.”

I breath in sharply and squint like a stoner.

“Sometimes it helps to write down how you feel,” she says. “Sometimes it works better than talking to other people. Because you don't have to worry that you might hurt them.”

“You mean you don't ever want to have a meaningful conversation with me again?”

“I just think it's good for you if you can straighten yourself out on your own. It's helped me a lot, you know. A lot more than therapy.”

Technically, this is cheating. All throughout my secondary school and college, we've separately been seeing the same therapist. When I changed primary schools, social services got involved and they decided that I needed counselling. There's no denying that I was a difficult child, and I told my mother that I would only go if she did too because she needed it as much as I did.

I accept the album and start flicking through it. By the looks of things, she's cut bits out of magazines and letters. On the first page, she has written “The Job Centre is never greener on the other side.” with a fountain pen. Trust mum to give me a diary and use it to force her opinions upon me. I want to make a remark about it, but she puts her hand on mine and says: “Don't read them all at once. Deal with them when it's their turn, let them inspire you when you try to express your feelings.”

-----

Go to the opening scene of Trophy.

Trophy 5 - The Job Centre is never greener on the other side.

She wasn't always like this. My mother, who didn't want to know the baby's sex when she was expecting me, “because it doesn't matter. I'll love the child either way.” My mother, who had to tell her friends and parents the same thing after I was born. She didn't see my ambiguous genitals as a disorder and she didn't blame herself for enjoying almost every drug under the sun before she found out she was two months pregnant. No, to her, I was a miraculous gift from Mother Nature. A perfect, mythical being. A true hermaphrodite.

Of course, the doctor who did the delivery didn't quite see it that way. The diagnosis was a severe case of clitomegaly with a misplaced urethral opening. Which is why, according to my passport, I'm a woman. An hour after giving birth, with the blood still on her thighs, wearing nothing but my father's trench coat and a pair of slippers, my mother abducted her baby from the hospital. Because the doctor, sitting on the edge of the bed, had kindly suggested plastic surgery to remove superfluous tissue.

She never used to avoid the subject, though. She was proud of her decision and even told my teachers about it when I went to primary school, even though it was none of their business. I was a tomboy, but I wouldn't be the first girl with a bowl cut that liked to climb trees and play football. After mum told them, we received a letter from the headmaster that said it would be better for me and the other children if I were to be treated the same as the other girls.

I was seated next to Elaine because she was the most girlish girl of all, and our teacher hoped we would even each other out. For two and a half years, we did. We took our Barbies with us when breaking into scrap yards and put lipstick on before playing football. Until halfway third grade, when I was over at her place, and her mother walked in on me whilst I was in the bathroom and saw me wee like a boy. Natasha Johnson was infuriated that nobody had told her that her little princess was playing with a boy. She grabbed me by the collar, pushed me into her car and drove me home without saying a word. After that, she called our teacher to complain. The teacher tried to soothe her by saying that I was both a girl and a boy, which infuriated Elaine's mother even more.

“How dare you seat my daughter next to a freak!” she shouted. When my mother rang to ask why I'd come home crying, she replied that she was a bad mother because she hadn't opted for surgery.

The next day, I had to swap chairs with Diane, who used to sit alone in the back row, and Elaine ignored me during the break. When I tried to join other girls, they bluntly said they didn't play with boys, and when I asked the boys whether I could play football with them, they asked whether I was a boy or a girl.

“What does it matter?” I said.

“If you don't answer you can't play with us.”

“Why, are you too stupid to see for yourself what I am?”

“You're so stupid that you don't even know whether you're a boy or a girl!”

I stared at them and for the first time in my life I experienced that words wouldn't come. I didn't understand why this had suddenly become an issue and didn't know how to deal with the bullying. One afternoon after school, I greeted Elaine's mother who was waiting in the school yard. She gave me a look of contempt and said: “You need help.”

When I jumped off the roof of the school, half a year after the bullying had began, I shattered my left ankle, lost consciousness and woke up in hospital with a concussion. Because my mother feared doctors would want to perform female circumcision on me, I'd never been to a hospital before. They kept me for ten days, three of which I spent in the psychiatric ward. The other seven they supposedly took care of my injuries, but they also discovered that I wasn't just suffering from an interesting form of epispadias that made it possible for me to piss through the top of my massive clit. A MRI-scan showed that I had a fully formed womb with an ovary to the right and an undescended testicle to the left.

When I got home from the hospital, my mother asked me whether I wanted to be a boy or a girl. I said I was a boy. The next day, she asked me whether I would rather get married in a suit or a wedding gown. I said suit. The day after that, she asked me to choose between pig tails and a shaved head. I said 'shave it all off, I'm a boy.”

As far as I understood, I had lost my best friend because someone thought I was a boy. If I were to make new friends, I didn't want the same thing to happen, so I decided I would be better off being a boy all together.

To my mother, this was a relief because Natasha Johnson had warned her that I would grow up to be a bearded lady. This was when my mother learned to hide her thoughts and feelings, because she didn't want me to know how Natasha's remark had made her worry. She forgot to consider that I might develop voluptuous bosoms like herself. Life as boy would be rather odd with double DD.

Luckily, I take after my father's family, where the women are almost as flat chested as the men. All it takes to hide my cup A or B is an hour a day in the gym, two sports bras and a loose fitting suit or hoodie.

-----

Go to the opening scene of Trophy.

Trophy 4 - The Job Centre is never greener on the other side.

We walk to her house together and she doesn't ask. Instead, she says: “We'll need to stop at Tesco's to get some more cider. And maybe another packet of bacon. I'm thinking of penne with leek and bacon, but I had two rashers for breakfast already this morning.”

This is why we haven't had a serious conversation since I did my GCSE's. Mum's made an art of avoiding the subject. As if she can sense what's on my mind, her defence mechanisms automatically switch on. Suddenly, I feel I've been waiting for this talk for five years and I'm running out of patience.

She chatters on about five-a-days and how she's gone off Delia Smith lately, when I finally lose my patience at the booze isle.

“You'll never guess who was at my desk today.”

“Who?”

“Elaine Johnson.”

She sighs. “Can we talk about this when we get home?”

“You don't even know what I want to say yet.”

She puts a bottle of Strongbow into her basket and says: “Let's get the groceries first and discuss this over supper, okay?”

I know she'll give me “not whilst I'm cooking” and “can we do this after dinner? It's giving me indigestion” later, but I shrug and shut up anyway. There's no point in making a scene in the supermarket. I don't even know what I want to say, let alone what I want to hear from her.

-----

Go to the opening scene of Trophy.

Trophy 3 - The Job Centre is never greener on the other side.

At five thirty, I go up to the first floor to pick mum up.

“You're mother is a very lucky woman,” Inga says when she sees me, “I'd be happy if I saw my boy once a month.”

Jeanette, who is a foot taller than Inga but no more than half Inga's bodyweight, winks at me. “I'd go insane if I had to see my children every day.”

“So would they, trust me,” says my mum.

“You don't mind if I join you for dinner tonight, do you?” I ask. Her eyebrows twitch, but other than that, she manages to hide her surprise perfectly well from her colleagues. I normally eat with her on Mondays and Wednesdays, but today's meeting with Elaine has been messing with my head. I'm not sure whether I want to talk to someone, but I know for a fact that I don't want to be alone.

-----

Go to the opening scene of Trophy.

Trophy 2 - The Job Centre is never greener on the other side.

She crosses her legs when sitting down at my desk, stuffs her hands between them and hangs her head. According to her CV, she's an actress. She isn't very good at the role of eager jobseeker, though.

“I really tried to find work, but there isn't much out there, you know. Especially not in my line of work.” Her voice is whiny and apologetic, but not genuinely so. She seems to think she has to beg for allowance, as if we're paying her for the show. I'm very conscious of her eyes, which are fixed on the name tag on my lapel, but she shows no sign of recognition. Playing with my father's wedding ring, I pretend to read what she's done to get a job.

“I'm sorry,” I say, “I can't read what it says here.”

She takes the form from me and reads out: “I emailed Christian Bale.”

I raise one eyebrow and brush the hair out of my face.

“I met him two years ago at a party in Shoreditch,” she explains, “and we had a lot to talk about, both being Welsh and such. So he gave me his private email address.”

“And why is that on your list?”

“It's called networking.”

“So your next step would be...”

“Wait till he gets back to me.”

“I see.”

She crosses her arms and says: “You have to be very careful when it comes to approaching famous people, you know. You don't want to ruin your chances by making it too obvious that you want to use them. But I'm working on it. Trust me.”

“Of course, but next time, perhaps you could include some more direct actions.”

She nods, I sign her card and that's it.

“I'll see you in two weeks from now, miss Johnson. Would Thursday morning suit you again, 11 o'clock?”

“That's fine.” She looks up from my name tag and says: “I'll see you then, Terry.”

-----

Go to the opening scene of Trophy.

Trophy 1 - The Job Centre is never greener on the other side.

Elaine Johnson is one of the people I hoped never to see again after I jumped off the roof of my first primary school, aged nine and encouraged to do so by half of my classmates. Sixteen years later, at the wrong side of a Job Centre desk, Elaine looks nowhere near as intimidating. She's wearing leggings and a long blazer in a colour that reminds me of winter skies; a fortune's worth of make up to create a natural look and a straggly blonde ponytail on the top of her head. Though she's been waiting for over twenty minutes already, she doesn't sit down and seems to be hugging herself, as if she's trying to keep out the artificial cheerfulness of this utterly depressing place.

According to my mum, who got me this job in customer care as soon as I graduated, there are three types of people claiming JSA: the ones that want a job, the ones that don't care, and the ones that don't want to work. “The first,” she explained, “are just like us. They're working people, except they happen to be unemployed. They'll try hard to find and keep a job, and usually succeed sooner than they expected. Members of the second category will occasionally find work, but they often lose their jobs and come back to us. They're the ones that sometimes 'forget' to cancel their claim when they've found something temporary. They're also the regulars you'll end up bonding with, because they're much more agreeable than the parasites that don't want to work. Parasites are lazy, arrogant and they look down on us, even though they've got nothing to be proud of. Like your father – who rejected one job because he couldn't use his creativity and the next because it would drain his creativity. They're full of lies and damn hard to get rid off.”

It's obvious that Elaine has grown up to be a member of the last group. Her file is next in my tray and I'm running behind on schedule already because I tried to stretch the interview with one of the regulars. I've had twenty minutes to prepare myself for the confrontation but I'm still not ready. The name Elaine has been on my lips while waking up from nightmares for sixteen years but now that she's here, in my territory, I'm not even sure whether she remembers me.

Illustrate my stories & WIN!

"Most people think there are only seven Canarian Islands,” says the old fisherman, “but they are wrong. There are eight.”

That's how The Ghost Island starts, one of the stories I wrote for Fly Thomas Cook Kids Club. I'm well chuffed about being published by Thomas Cook, and guess what - they're running a drawing competition to promote them!

Let one of my travel stories inspire you, upload your artwork onto your own blog and post a link to it on Red Ted's Art Blog and who knows, your illustration might be published alongside my story!

Apart from world fame, you can also win a Kid’s Travel Kit including a VTech Kidizoom Plus Multimedia Digital Camera, a Trunki Tiger suitcase, Kidz Gear Wired Headphones for Kids, a quality doodle book, Crayola shark fin case, sunscreen and goggles!

Here's my attempt to draw one of the crucial scenes from The Magic Mirror. Don't worry - I won't quit my day job ;)

Terms & Conditions

1) Open to UK entrants only

2) All entrants must link to their post on http://www.redtedart.com/2011/07/11/get-crafty-and-win/ by Thursday 28th July, 8pm British Summer Time

3) All blog posts must include information about the Thomas Cook site and the competition, as well as a craft relating to one of the Thomas Cook Stories

4) The reserves the right to select a winner and their decision is final

5) Thomas Cook reserves to right to use any images of your crafts or drawings in their promotional materials (even if you did not win)- should your craft or drawing be selected your child’s name and age will be credited.

GOOD LUCK!

Kit Killroy Returns - part 1

Chased from my studio by the taunting idleness of brushes, by cans of unmixed paint stacked neatly on shelves on walls that no longer keep out the cold, by chaste canvasses, so frigid an unwilling that the pores from which I used to sweat creativity seem to have shrivelled and closed up for good...

Repulsed by what was once the warm womb of my imagination and a temple for the Great Kit Killroy...

Rejected, I roam the snowy streets of Soho with no intent of ever returning to a life of art. Correction: with no hope ever being allowed back in.

I enter a pub and buy a Jaegermeister to warm my cockles, but the burning sensation in my gullet doesn't spread through my body like it used to do. Throughout the years of creative block, I have absorbed so much wintriness that the alcoholic fire is soon smothered. I slump down on the pavement with my back against the gate around Soho Square, and stare at my hands in my lap.

These hands have brought me so much in life, so much more than I ever expected or even wished for. The smooth skin and hard nails are real life advertisement for Herôme hand cream, which I started rubbing into them twice a day when the Muse left me. She didn't leave me because I was turning into a snob – I started taking care of myself when there was no inspiration to deal with anymore.

Imitating the Buddha, I close my eyes and put my hands on my knees, the palms facing upwards in a gesture of receiving. She keeps me waiting for over an hour. I know this, because I hear church bells announce first ten a'clock and then eleven. My bum goes stiff with cold and by eleven I can't even feel my legs ache anymore. Though I'm sick of waiting, I have nowhere else to go, nothing else to do, so I stay put.

When finally a slight breath of warm air brushes over my left hand, I don't even dare to open my eyes. Is it really Her? I can hardly believe it. Warm wet flesh drags over my chilled palm. A trace of moist remains on my skin as She moves over to my right hand. Has She really come back? This time more real, more tangible than ever before? Is She no longer an abstract idea of which I am vaguely aware, but now a warm woman with body heat and fluids, willing to rub her humid antifreeze onto my hands, and melt my inner block of artists' ice? A shiver runs through my body when She licks me again. Starting from my right hand, it spreads in every direction and switches on every body part it passes on its way. It makes my stomach churn, sparks a swallowing reflex, tugs at the crotch of my Savile Row suit trousers and snaps open my eyelids almost simultaneously.

But what I see looming over me is not Her. It's an ordinary girl in a camel coloured duffel coat and matching pilot hat. A combination based on colour, not on style. Years ago, I would have been infuriated by her decision to finish the whole fashion crime off with cognac coloured cowboy boots. But not now. I hardly even register her footwear. Because it is not this girl that the Muse has sent me. It is her puppy.
“Come on, Roxy,” she says. Without even acknowledging me, she tries to drag the Golden Retriever pup away from me. Something I cannot allow her to do. This is my miracle, my first breath of air, true inspiration, after years of suffocation. The soft snout, the shiny black eyes, the floppy ears and the oversized paws are so beautiful it hurts. I have to examine this gift of the Muse. I stretch my hand out to stroke its head while the girl pulls its leash.

The moment my fingers touch the silken fur, images flash into vision so bright the night around me disappears. I see the puppy in my studio. I am stroking its soft belly and turn it onto its back. It playfully tries to bite and lick my arm, but the moment its tongue appears, I grab hold of the thin strip of flesh, press both my thumbs into it as hard as I can, and pull. If I ever wish to paint again, I need to consume the antifreeze that the Muse has brought to me. Fry it to a crisp like bacon, roast it in the oven or put it in a stew. It doesn't matter how, as long as I ingest this stretch of heavenly inspirational skin.
With my foot on the dog's chest, I pull and pull while the puppy screams in shocked agony and tries to bite off its own tongue because it hurts too much in the back of its throat. Its agony and terror settle in my soul, clashing together with the dark tidal wave of guilt that rises up when the flesh gives way under predator teeth. I take my foot off its chest and the pup turns to its stomach, whining and spilling blood out of its mouth all over the wooden floor in my studio. A blood offering in my temple will bring back to life the God, and deep, disturbing inspiration will last as long as the brushes I will make of its fur and the paint I will mix with its ground bones...

The visionary bloodshed makes me shudder as the night around me returns. The puppy follows the girl but looks around to see me, its own tail, or both. I scramble to my knees, not minding my expensive suit, because my only saviour is walking away from me, wagging its tail.

“Wait,” I call out to the girl.
She halts and looks over her shoulder.
“I'm Kit Killroy.” I brush the snow off my cold buttocks and gesture towards the spot where Roxy had found me. “This was an artistic experiment, but I couldn't let you walk by like that. Let me offer you a drink.”
She looks at my suit and the white scarf that I'm wearing, and I can tell she knows I'm not a bum. Can it be that she hasn't heard of me? Perhaps she's too young, or not into art?
“You mean The Kit Killroy?” she asks. She's got a thick Polish accent but I can still hear disbelief in her voice. “Of Flying Daisies and Mask 101?”
“That's me.” I'm suddenly proud again, though it is over twelve years ago that I finished the Mask series, and Flying Daisies was from even before that. “So how about a drink? My treat, of course.”
“Sorry,” she bends her head towards Roxy, “they won't let me take her into any pubs, I think.”
“That's all right, I've got an excellent bottle of Merlot at my studio, only five minutes from here.”

Scene 1 #De_InNoWriMo

She's still there, isn't she? I can feel her presence in my word choice, in the emptiness of my dreams and the bleakness of the world around me. Descriptions aren't exactly her speciality, are they? Let me give her a hand. I wouldn't want to be found dead in a badly written story.
I'm in the old library of my grandma's house – it's a big old mansion by the seaside, with creaking floorboards, exceptionally high ceilings full of cobwebs and the mixed smells of oriental incense and dust. After I broke up with Joel, I gave grandma a call and asked if I could stay with her for the summer. She was surprised as I hadn't seen her for, like two years, but I was more than welcome to. I promised I would paint all the woodwork in return. It's about ten o'clock p.m., and from the library window, I can see the setting sun colouring the sky pink and orange. There, that's what I call setting. Now let's move on with this story so that this girl in her pyjamas can leave me alone. What can I do to satisfy her? I know – get back together with Joel. I'll give him a call and ask if he wants to come up. I'm sure he will – he loves the sea.

Prologue #De_InNoWriMo

This is going to be one of those “they were meant to be together” novels. I tell you what: I don't like that dumb bitch that has taken' it into her empty skull to write about me one bit. The way she sits behind her netbook in her silky pyjama bottoms and oversized purple hoodie, with a cup of warm chocolate milk and a pack of digestives within reach, makes me want to vomit right out of the webcam into her face.

So Joel and I have been together for as long as I can remember. We went to the same nursery school, where we played “I'll show you mine if you show me yours” like most other boys and girls. But we went to the same primary school as well, and stayed together. He has seen every stage of the development of my tits, he was the first to know when I had my first period – everyone assumed we were gonna get married when we grew up, but now we've broken up and that doesn't mean we're gonna get back together. We've split up in order to have mindblowing sex with loads of other people, and we will. End of story.

What part exactly of “go the fuck away” does she not understand? Stop following me!

*De_InNoWriMo stands for December, International Novella Writing Month. The fact that I came up with it doesn't make it any more likely that I'll succeed than my participation to NaNoWriMo would. I only came up with it because I didn't have a title yet.

Deep Blue Connection

“There's a connection between us, I can feel it.”
The girl looks as Londonish as she sounds, which surprises me. I've been travelling by tube for over 10 years, and this is the first time a stranger addresses me. She meets my gaze, which quickly makes me look away. What to do in a case like this? Perhaps if I pretend I didn't hear her, she'll pretend she didn't say anything.
“Don't you feel it?” She's starting to sound belligerent now. “For starters, we're breathing the same air, even though there isn't much of it down here.”
I look around to see if she could be talking to someone else. Though luck. There are more people waiting for the tube, but she's standing very close to me, as if we belong together.
“We're waiting for the same train. Are you going to Shoreditch too?”
I am. Surprise surprise. I don't want to nod because I don't want her to be right. Perhaps I should wait for the next train to get rid of her.
“Just look at you. You're all resistance. Fighting everything that tries to come near you. What's wrong with you?”
“What's wrong with you?” I didn't mean to say that. I didn't mean to talk to her at all. But she knew what buttons to push.
She folds her arms and starts checking when the next train will arrive.
“Well?” I repeat. “Oh, that's great, so now you're ignoring me.”
She was. Totally. As if I wasn't there. As if she'd hadn't been talking to me in the first place. As if I'm the crazy one that start talking to strangers.
While the train rolls into the station, I fold my arms too and turn my back to her. This is too awkward. I'll wait for the next train.
The last passengers are leaving the platform when I notice she's still here. Fuck.
“How bizarre was that!”
I sigh. “What?”
“We both decided not to look at each other and wait for the next train, and now we're the only ones here!”
“You're joking.” My voice sounds as humorous as a thirsty vacuum cleaner.
“Am not. I told you...” She spreads her hands in front of her flowery skirt – my flowery skirt! The skirt I made myself! It's meant to be unique - I used grandma's curtains for it! I look down at my lap to confirm that I am wearing this specific skirt today. I am. And so is she! “I told you, we've got something in common.”