It wasn’t a bill, which came as some relief, but he knew it couldn’t be good news either when he saw the name of Will’s school on the letterhead. Either Will was in trouble or the school wanted money for something. He quietly hoped that Will was in trouble.
“Another school trip?” he said, as much to himself as to Will. “Where to this time?”
Will continued to watch Top Gear while Danny continued to read.
“Stonehenge? You’ve already been there, with Mum, remember? It didn’t cost fifty quid neither. You don’t want to go again, do you?”
Will shrugged.
“I mean, it’s okay if you do,” said Danny. “It’s totally up to you. The place hasn’t changed since the last time you were there, it still looks exactly the same, but if you honestly think that you’re going to learn something from this trip that you didn’t learn last time, and I know you learned a lot last time, so much so that I distinctly remember thinking that this kid is literally an expert on Stonehenge now, and probably never needs to go again—if you really want to go all the way back there to look at the same old pile of rocks, then that’s absolutely fine with me, you just say the word. Or not. I mean, you don’t need to say anything. I just mean… you know what I mean.”
Will didn’t respond. Danny stared at the letter.
“Look,” he said. “I’ll tell you what. Why don’t we go sometime, just you and me? It’ll be fun, we can make a day of it, like you and Mum did. How’s that sound?”
Will shrugged again while somebody blathered on about horsepower in the background.
“Great,” said Danny, trying to ignore the lack of enthusiasm. “I’ll go get dinner on.”
Closing the kitchen door behind him, Danny scanned the letter again in the hope that a second read might reveal some previously overlooked detail that would exempt him from having to pay. Finding none, he slid the letter back into the envelope and tossed it into the bin.
* * *
The weather was bright and the park was full of retired people lounging in beach chairs, young parents pushing strollers, office workers eating their lunch or soaking up the sun, and groups of students chatting in circles on the grass.
Danny was sitting on a bench in the shade, his eyes fixed on his phone as he scrolled through endless pages of job advertisements.
“Experience required, experience required, experience required,” he muttered to himself as he made his way through the list. Every job he came across, no matter how menial or self-explanatory, seemed to require some level of experience. A shop assistant required experience. A bingo hall cleaner required experience. Even a dog walker required at least two years’ experience in walking progressively larger dogs “up to the level of Alaskan malamute,” according to the advert (Danny guessed the starting level was probably a Chihuahua or a shih tzu or something, although the advert didn’t specify).
He opened his e-mails to find two rejections waiting in his inbox and another one in his spam folder. He also had an e-mail from a woman called Svetlana who thought his Facebook profile was very attractive despite the fact that he didn’t have a Facebook profile.
Danny sighed and put his phone away before slowly making his way through the park. Noticing a crowd up ahead, he saw that people had gathered to watch the same street performers that he and Will had come across a couple of weeks previously. The man with the cat on his shoulder was there, performing for a group of people who were filming him on their phones. Another sizable crowd had gathered around the magician, and the nut juggler and the chicken man were also present, along with several other performers that Danny hadn’t seen before, including a mime, a one-man band, a violinist, and a human statue who was doing her best to ignore the children who were doing their best to piss her off.
Danny stood and watched for a while, marveling once again at their ability to earn what appeared to be good money by dressing up and making total fools of themselves. He could see why certain acts were popular, namely the ones that exhibited some kind of actual talent, such as the violinist, or the magician, but he couldn’t for the life of him figure out how even the worst performers were leaving the park with more money than they’d arrived with. The only music the one-man band seemed to be making was that of the purely accidental variety, randomly flapping and kicking and twitching in the hope that at least one of his limbs struck a corresponding chord, and the man dressed up like a squirrel spent more time picking his oversize nuts off the ground than he did trying to juggle them. Danny had lost count of the number of jobs he’d come across that morning alone that he wasn’t eligible for because he didn’t have enough experience—yet here were people who were making not just a living but a decent living when they clearly had no clue what they were doing.
And just like that, Danny had an idea.
CHAPTER 8
“I bid thee welcome, weary traveler!” said the man behind the counter at the costume shop. That, at least, was what Danny assumed he said, although it was difficult to know for sure because the man was dressed in a full suit of armor and his voice was muffled by his helmet. “Aha, you again,” he said, lifting his visor as Danny approached.
“Where’s Barry?” said Danny, looking around.
“Currently rented out to an elderly widower called Graham.”
“Never too old for a pirate party, I guess.”
“He didn’t hire the costume,” said the man. “Just Barry.”
“What—”
“I didn’t ask. We need the money.”
“Got it,” said Danny. “What’s the cheapest costume you have?”
“Allow me to cast an eye over yonder bargain rack and honor thy request, good sir,” said the man. He turned to the rack behind him and began to rifle through the hangers. “How’s about this one?” he said, taking a suit from the rack and draping it over the counter.
Danny frowned. “Is that… a Nazi uniform?”
“We prefer the term historically accurate military costume,” said the man.
“It’s a historically accurate Nazi uniform.”
“Well, if you want to get technical about it, then yeah.”
“Has anybody ever actually rented this?” said Danny.
“Prince Harry did once, I think.”
“Right. I was sort of looking for something a little less likely to get me beaten up, to be honest.”
The man flicked through the rack again and selected a three-piece suit with a blue tie attached. His other hand clutched a messy blond wig.
“Well?” he said.
“Well what?” said Danny.
“What do you think?”
“What is it?”
“A Boris Johnson costume, obviously.”
“I said I wanted something less likely to get me beaten up,” said Danny.
“So… that’s a no?”
“Yes, that’s a no. Who the hell wants to look like Boris Johnson?”
“Nobody,” said the man. “That’s why it’s cheap.”
“Give me something else.”
The man rummaged through the rack a third time. He found a black-and-white costume and placed it on the counter, along with a mask.