A Tale... The Uninvited Guest

I found myself outside Billy’s house. After ringing the bell, I stood and waited; uncertainly.
“Hi,” I said as the door was opened, “is Billy in?”
“Yes, I’ll just call him,” she replied. “Billy, someone’s at the door for you,” she called lightly up the stairs.
I saw Billy arriving at the top of the stairs, “Oh, hi. Well; come in.”

“I’m Roddy, I used to be in primary with Billy,” I said to his mother as I passed in the hall.
“Oh, okay, just go on up.”

I walked up the stairs to Billy’s room. It was a fairly tidy room with model planes hung from the ceiling on threads. Various older toys I recognised lay around under his bed and in open cupboards. An unfinished plane sat on a desk with open glue and paint; work in progress.

“How have you been?” He asked me sitting at his desk; I took the other available seat on his bed.
“Fine,” I replied, sitting with my coat on, “How are you finding Liberton High? You’ve got to wear a uniform haven’t you?”
“Yes. It’s okay.”
“You don’t find it a bit stuffy?”
“No, it’s okay - everybody wears it.”

Billy and myself were close friends in primary seven. Both of us were quantified as the mad ones who were always laughing and getting pulled up for messing around in the classroom. Trying to outdo each other in the scores for story writing; trying desperately to make it the funniest. Drawing the most ridiculous things we could imagine in art lessons; in my case usually pretty badly. Often, after school I’d walk down the road with him to his house before setting back off to mine; for me, it was simply a way of delaying the inevitable, but on the walk there would always be something to laugh about in our enclosed world.

“What’s the plane you’re building?” I asked him.
“It’s a Hurricane,” he said as he turned to it and started examining the pieces. I nodded my head and watched him carefully lining up a plain green piece of plastic against what he’d already built. I’d never really been a fan of building models, except with the suitcase of Lego that hid under my bed; but that had been years ago. I sat and watched him scrutinising the piece. He picked up the glue, hesitated then put it back down.

“Don’t you have a home to go to!” He said as he turned to me.

Not knowing how to deal with this, not knowing what to do, I sat there dumbly. I felt pulled away from everything I knew. I could feel myself getting up, searching for words.
“B-bye, then” and left unable to look back, around or anywhere but in front of me. Reaching the door, I opened it into the evening and closed it on everything behind me.