Writing for Fun
May 2015
Night Night, Nigel - Pete Norman
'I do believe in fairies – I do! I do! I do!'
Edward sat up in bed. 'Do you really, daddy?'
'Well, sweetheart, not exactly fairies, and we don't have them at the bottom of our garden, or anything like that. It's hard to explain; I have no idea what he was, really . . . but he was real, I swear it.'
'You know, I never was one as a child to have an imaginary friend; people think that is a crazy idea, but me? I am not so sure. You see, even if people sort of accept imaginary friends, whatever would they think of a slug?'
'A slug? Yeuk!' Edward retreated back under the security of the covers away from the prospect of slithering monsters.
'Well, no, he wasn't actually a slug, 'cause slugs are sort of grey and squidgy and they leave a slimy trail when they slither across the ground, but he was . . . he was sort of slug-like and he was almost transparent and hazy and he shimmered in all the colours of the rainbow.'
Edward's eyes opened wide at the revelation.
'I first saw him when I was five, just like you are now; I woke up in the middle of the night and there he was, alongside the leg of my bedside cabinet. He was only a couple of inches long then and about as thick as a pencil, but every time I tried to pick him up, my fingers would just slip right through him as if he wasn't really there. But he was there, he really was, and he truly was the strangest thing in the world, much too strange to ever tell anyone else about, of course, but it felt kind of nice just to know that he was there with me and it gave me someone to talk to. Of course, he never once talked back to me, but he did make a sound, as if he was trying to communicate, a sort of tinkly humming sound, so soft you had to listen really hard to hear it.'
Edward slipped the covers down and put his hand on my arm. 'Daddy how can it be tinkly and humming both at the same time?'
I smiled down at my young son. 'Well Teddy Edward, I'm afraid you will just have to take my word for it, that's the only way I can describe it, it was a tinkly humming sound.'
I eased myself back on the bed a little. 'Anyway, for a few weeks I would chat away to Nigel and Nigel would tinkly hum back at me . . .'
'Nigel?'
I giggled. 'Yes, well, I had to call him something, didn't I? And I couldn't bring myself to call him slug-thing, so I called him the very first thing that came into my mind . . . and that was Nigel.
I waited until Edward had settled back down again. 'Now after a while I noticed that Nigel was growing; ever so slowly, but he was definitely getting bigger. I had never seen him eat anything and I don't know whether he ever did eat, but I tried to feed him, you know, biscuits, cake, milk, fizzy pop, that sort of thing, but he never seemed at all interested in any of it . . . and yet somehow he seemed to keep on growing.
'It was nice to get home from school and rush up to the bedroom to see how he was and to tell him what sort of day I'd had and to share my secrets, and he always seemed to listen and understand. He was a really good friend . . . in a slug-like sort of way.
'And then, one day in the summer time I came home from school and raced upstairs and the bright sunlight was shining through a gap in the curtains and Nigel was lit up in some sort of bright aura, shining as if he was on fire – it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Now, I have always been quite good at painting, so I took out my paint box and did my best to capture him just as he was. It started off with him looking just like a shiny fat slug, but when I really started to get into it, it changed subtly into a caterpillar, and then to a butterfly with huge multicoloured glowing wings.
'Anyway, that's it really, I blue-tacked the picture to my bedroom wall and that's where it stayed for years as I grew up. And then one day, when I was in the big school, everything changed forever . . .'
I paused for a moment to find the right way to explain this to a five year old.
'I was quite lonely at school, I didn't have many friends, but then one day a new girl came into the class – Amanda; she was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen, she was tall and elegant and she had long blond hair that hung halfway down her back. I just knew that there was no chance that she would ever notice me amongst the sea of testosterone in the classroom, but then, one day, we had all sat down in the Chemistry lab and she was the last one to come in and the only stool left was the one next to me. My heart was beating out of control because she was so close to me . . .'
Edward gave a little giggle.
'Shush! This is serious stuff. Anyway, when we had to pair up to do an experiment, I was so nervous that I dropped the test tube on the floor and it smashed and everyone in the room laughed at my clumsiness. The worst thing was that Amanda was laughing with them and I must have gone bright red with embarrassment; I just wanted the ground to open up and swallow me whole . . . but then she helped me to pick up the pieces and set up the experiment again and I just let her finish it off. It went perfectly . . . she was just perfect . . .
'I thought I had completely blown any chance I might have had with her, but then at lunchtime, when there were plenty of spare chairs, she came over and sat beside me to eat her dinner. We talked lots and I really wanted to do something that would impress her, so in a crazy, mad moment I said to her, 'I've got something I'd like to show you; I've never shown it to anyone else before . . .'
'She agreed, she actually agreed, so after school we walked back to my house and I took her up to my bedroom. I stopped outside the door, really excited just wondering what she would think. I flung open the door and said, 'Amanda, I want you to meet my best friend, Nigel.'
As she walked into the room she was looking everywhere and she was looking puzzled. I couldn't believe it, for the first time in nearly eight years Nigel wasn't there; there was just a plain old piece of carpet in the spot where he always lay. I hunted in vain amongst the dust mites glimmering in the sunlight but he had gone and I started to go bright red again – she must have had all sorts of horrible thoughts about why I had brought her up to my room, but then, to my surprise she said, 'Oh, Martin, he's so beautiful!'
I spun around and there she was staring at my painting, on which I had written the name 'Nigel' in big black letters.
'This is so beautiful, did you paint it yourself?'
'I just nodded dumbly as she inspected the picture more closely. Then she said, 'I think we had better be going back downstairs now.' But as we reached the door she turned and gave me a very brief, fleeting kiss on the lips and said, 'That's a real talent you have, you know.'
'I was stunned . . . it was the first time I had ever been kissed – by someone who wasn't a parent, that is.' I leant forwards and gently kissed the top of his head. He wiped it off with the back of his hand.
'. . . and it was the very first time I had ever been kissed by your mummy.'
I stopped and looked down at my son, his eyes were closed and his breathing was heavy. I tucked the covers up under his chin and eased myself carefully up off the bed. A faint sleepy voice said, 'Daddy, where did Nigel go to?'
'I have no idea, sweetheart. He just vanished . . . and he took my childhood with him.'
At the door I turned to take one last look at my precious child and there, beside the leg of his bedside cabinet, in the thin sliver of moonlight creeping in through the crack of the curtains, was an almost transparent, hazy slug-like thing, shimmering in all the colours of the rainbow. He was only a couple of inches long and about as thick as a pencil.
I smiled. 'Night, night, Nigel . . . take good care of my boy.'