The Fish Killers

Five minutes to go! It's been ten and if the school bus is fifteen minutes late, you're allowed to assume it's not coming. No one know where that rules comes from and who set it down, but it's common knowledge, something to cling to as the minutes pass. Never in anyone's memory has the bus not eventually shown up. There's been moments of hope, but dependable as the bus drivers stink of stale sweat and old tobacco the ancient, grimy vehicle will creak to a halt and ferry it's cargo of lost souls of to another day of underfunded comprehensive education.

Four minutes. Three, two. Go go go! You scatter like windblown dust the very second your sentence is up.  The day is suddenly bursting with unexpected promise as you sprint with your friends down the dry stone walled lanes of this ancient village and you laugh as you reach the relative safety of a rusting children's play area.

Tommy points behind and shouts. There in the distance, just cresting a sunlit hill is the very dilapidated bus you all hoped to avoid. we agree that fifteen minutes is the rule and as the adult world sets such high regard for rule following, the bus can be safely ignored with a clean conscience. You all hide under slides and climbing equipment just in case.

The morning sun shines with a new freshness on the dewy grass as your three friends discuss the situation and how to best exploit it. You tilt your head back, eyes closed and watch the pink glow of the sun from behind your eyelids. You don't much care what happens so long as it can be outside and in the sun and far away from geography and chemistry and whatever god-awful thing you were expected to make in cookery. Last time it was tuna crumble and made you retch to even smell it, tuna lumps floating in milk under a sodden topsoil of wretched breadcrumbs.

James wants to race remote control cars, but Chris is complaining that if he goes home to fetch his his mum will be home and will drive him straight to school. You stretch out on the bottom of the rickety slide and tune out the sounds of bickering and listen to the sounds of the breeze in the branches above your head instead, savouring the sense of space the noise creates. The day is getting rapidly hotter, the dew already gone and replaced with a heaviness in the air that makes the light seem crystallised and solid.

Eventually the discussion moves onto fishing in the local streams and the conversation wanders about concerning who has the best kit and who can lend spares to those afflicted with mothers who stay home looking after babies, Then Tommy has an idea. A steely dangerous idea. His older brother has recently joined the army. A bulky and sullen youth he had bullied and threatened most of the smaller boys in the village at one point or another with his home made weapons and sadistic personality. Everyone, Tommy included, had breathed a sigh of relief when he shipped out to fulfil his dreams of ever bigger weapons and opportunities to spread misery in foreign fields.

Tommy's idea involves the detritus left behind in his brothers wake. Not the home made nunchucks made from old table legs. Not the Shuriken cut from mild steel. Not even Reader's Slags, a magazine so often a focus of curiosity amongst Tommy's friends. No. Tommy's' idea involves the old biscuit tin at the bottom of his brother's cupboard. The old biscuit tin containing firecrackers obtained on poorly supervised school trips to the continent. Combine firecrackers with fishing and get something schoolboys dream of. Dynamite Fishing!

You all agree to meet down by the old bridge with everything necessary and split up. Your mum works at the local supermarket in the nearby town and your dad hasn't been seen since he found out  she was pregnant with you so you feel confident you can get into your house and out without risk of disturbance. The sun is beating down on you by the time you reach home and you linger in the shade of the apple tree in your garden before you enter the stifling house and collect your fishing gear.
You are the first at the old bridge and you lean over the edge watching the patterns of green light on the stream bed for a while until the other three arrive. Tommy has a glint in his eye, a grin on his lips and is clutching the biscuit tin with a ferocious grip. James and Chris are almost hidden beneath bags and poles. James has decided that he doesn't believe the firecrakers will work underwater and doesn't want to traipse all the way to the fishing spot to return again in failure. Chris is whining about the chance of getting caught for playing truant and more importantly, trespass.

Chris is worried because the only decent fishing spot is on private land in a wood kept to raise grouse for hunting. The area is fenced off and can only be reached by wading down the shallow stream .

The water feels cool around you sodden trainers. It helps with the beating sun. Eventually you pass into woodland and the temperature drops appreciatively. You all sigh in relief and stop shielding your eyes against the glare. Screened by trees James uses a branch to hold up the electric fence strung over the stream and you struggle under on hands and knees, your chin just above the quick rushing water.

After continuing for about half an hour the the woods and the stream have thickened considerably, There's no sign of humanity and you feel like your group of friends could be the only people in the world today. Now you can walk along the bank through the thick vegetation along side the broadening stream. Here the water is slower and deeper, the bottom no longer visible. Eventually you reach the fishing spot. There an old wooden house here, overgrown with brambles and ivy, almost returned to the woods. This cabin is the source of many local horror stories amongst the teenagers in the area and challenges to stay the night here have resulted in grisly murders or absolutely nothing depending on who is telling the story.

There is a concrete jetty leading out over the deepest water and this is what makes the spot such good fishing. James starts to set up the poles and nets and bait while Tommy sparks his cheap lighter over and over in tense, gleeful anticipation. You want to appear cool in front of your peers and pretend to be only mildly interested, while inside you want Tommy's plan to work almost as he does.

While James looks on smugly from his collection of fishing equipment Tommy opens the biscuit tin  reverentially and brings out the first offering. A small cardboard tube, dyed a dirty yellow with a short fuse hanging out of one end. Chris and yourself take a sarcastic big step back, grinning as Tommy lights the fuse and flings it out into space over the water. It hangs suspended in a sunbeam before it hits the dark water with a small splash. You wait, anticipation knotted up inside you.

Nothing happens.

Nothing but the ripples spreading out from the impact point. You slump slightly. James barks a short  triumphant laugh and busies himself with exaggerated care over his fishing gear. Tommy looks furious and sits down sharply huddled over the biscuit tin. Eventually he looks up and expresses a theory that the fuses must be made shorter so the water doesn't have time to douse the fuse before it reaches the explosive. He sets to with a wickedly sharp penknife and produces the fishkiller5000 mrk2.

It sails over the still water and barely has time to break the surface before it ignites in a huge water plume. There is a shocked silence for a moment as the river water rains down on you and the local birds erupt from the trees and then the tension is broken by a fist punching whoop from Tommy and a  fit of laughing from Chris. Even James looks impressed and you grin from ear to ear like the top of head might fall off if someone touched it. Dead and dying fish float to the surface and you revel in their destruction. We are the fish killers.

The next few firecrackers are a mixed bag, some disappear without a trace into the water, some explode over the surface, barely rippling the water but make a sharp noise fit to burst eardrums. Tommy is getting better at judging the length to cut the fuses and lights the next danger to aquatic lifeforms when we hear shouts.

Adult, angry shouts. We freeze as the sound of striding boots can be heard through the thick undergrowth. Run. Scatter. Escape flash through your mind as you sprint in the opposite direction to the interlopers. You dimly see Chris running alongside you, then he is gone into the dappled green overgrowth. You hear a bang behind you but it seems unimportant in light of this new danger. On and on you run, struggling as the dense leaves tear at your clothes and hair. After ages unrecorded you reach a tumbledown drystone wall and beyond that a field and a road. There hasn't been any sounds of pursuit for quite awhile so you climb the wall and walk shaking to the road. After walking for a while you get your bearings and approach the outskirts of the village while affecting what you imagine is the innocent stroll of a boy on legitimate business out of school on a sunny afternoon.

At the cross roads James and Chris sit on a bench looking miserable. They thought you'd been caught trespassing and you all agree this is probably Tommy's fate. It's getting to be school letting out time and like all schoolboys in the face of authority you agree to go to your respective homes and deny everything if asked.

At dinner you're eating and watching tv with your mum. The sunset is painting crimson colours on the wall as the phone rings. You hunker down in your chair and  pretend extraordinary interest in your peas while your ears strain to hear the fleeting snatches of conversation. Your mother returns to the sitting room and asks if you have seen Tommy today. He's not been home and apparently he wasn't at school either. No mention is made of your absence so it seems you got away with the truancy.

In the days that follow police men ask questions at school and counselling is offered to any pupils who feel they need it. A sick weight seems to have settled in your stomach and the days seem grey. Chris is home sick and James is avoiding you. Even the weather has turned cold and summer seems a million miles away. At first you want to tell the police everything, but are too afraid. As the days pass it gets harder and harder as you imagine how angry everyone will be that you didn't just own up immediately.

Then a week later James finally approaches you. He says he needs to go back the fishing spot and see what if anything, there is to see and also get his fishing gear back if it's there. He says he can't go on his own and you can understand that.

At dusk you sneak out of you house. The distance to the old bridge seems much further than before and you consider turning back but then you see James' silhouette outlined against the dying light and know you must go through with it.

You wade through the water retracing your steps. It seems so much colder than it did before and you stumble several times on the uneven streambed.

At the electric fence the wires stand stark against the purple sky and you are very careful not to touch them as you duck underneath. There seem to be no conveniently sized sticks to raise it so you have to duck your head completely underwater to pass beneath. The current and the darkness make it hard to judge distances underwater and you get scared that you'll come up while still below the wires and electrocute yourself. As a consequence you struggle onwards until your lungs feel like bursting and dark spots appear before your eyes before you break surface gasping and coughing.
The overgrowth seems filled with hidden dangers and sticks to your wet clothes as you creep shivering towards the overgrown wooden ruin marking the fishing ground. James points silently ahead. His fishing gear lies undisturbed, lit by the rising moon it's a silver bundle of canvas and sticks. You both approach and as James begins to gather it he notices dry, dark stains are spotted all over it.

The dark stains seem to be spotted everywhere on the jetty as though it had rained down from a height. Suddenly a thought clicks in your head and you feel faint and the moonlit forest seems to spin. Your hand fumbles for James' shoulder and you explain your theory.

You find it downstream tangled in weeds and leaves. It looks smaller than you expected. Face down in the water the water moves it's hair as if in a strong wind and flows over the ragged stump of a pale forearm, the hand torn way by the explosion.