Freaks
The weirdest stories you will ever read.A bizarre collection of short stories, each featuring a character with an unusual superpower.Meet The Photocopier, a woman who can reproduce herself at will and who attempts to teach her daughter to do the same.Or the zombie hairdresser who is able to reanimate every time she dies.And the man who can break his way into his lover’s dream.Over fifty freaks and misfits feature in this unforgettable book, and each is illustrated by comic book artist Darren Craske.This book contains some text-based images that are optimised for tablet devices.
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Caroline Smailes and Nik Perring
Freaks!
Illustrated by Darren Craske
Dedication
To all who, if only for a moment,
felt that they didn’t belong.
Epigraph
‘But Lord! to see the absurd nature of Englishmen, that cannot forbear laughing and jeering at everything that looks strange’
SAMUEL PEPYS (1633–1703)
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
My Lover’s Shoes Don’t Fit Me (Any More)
I Want You to Ride Me Like a Pony
Acknowledgements
About the Authors
Other Books by Caroline Smailes, Nik Perring and Darren Craske
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
THE FREAKS:
Some of these stories have been written by Nik. Some of these stories have been written by Caroline. Some we’ve written together. But in the true spirit of superheroes, we couldn’t possibly reveal our identities.
THE STORIES:
The Photocopier. Statuesque. Charlie and the Bees. The Six Days of Stetson. She Sees Too. The Freak Show. Clipped Wings. In Her Basket. Fifty Per Cent (1). Fifty Per Cent (2). Invisible. Sixteen. Faulty Baby. Dancing With Annie. Soup. The Boner. Hello. One Day. Zombie Bangers. Getting the Girl. They Are There to Listen. Weight. Molly. Dear You. Control. No Sudden Movements. Dream Lover (1). Dream Lover (2). Once I Caught a Fish Alive. Before I Lost You. The Plastic Boy. Translated. The Girl Who Made People Glad. My Boss. My Lover’s Shoes Don’t Fit Me (Any More). Skinny Bitch. The Watermelon King. Dolly’s Magic Sweater. Jimmy Swift. Damaged. My Dad’s Boyfriend. Betty. I Want You to Ride Me Like a Pony. Magic Beans. Boy. What He Said. Wish You Were Here (1). Wish You Were Here (2). Beauty. Maman, Flying.
The day after me thirteenth birthday me mum said she had something massive to tell me. At first I reckoned she was going to say that me dad wasn’t me dad or that she was pregnant with Bill from next door’s sperm, but instead she just stood up and started spinning on the spot. At first I reckoned she’d lost the plot but then she started exploding.
And five other mums shot out of her.
I swear to Christ it was the freakiest thing I’ve ever seen. There was me with wee in me knickers, with six of me mums standing there smiling at me like nutters. Me Main Mum said that the reason she was showing me her true self was ’cause she reckoned that I was a photocopier like her and that we’d know for sure in a couple of months.
I reckon I spent most of that year spinning on the spot in the front room with me six mums cheering me on, and me Main Mum telling me to spin faster or that I wasn’t trying me hardest or that I needed to want it more. Course I never went
It was just me getting dizzy and trying not to throw up on me mums’ carpet. But still, every day, I kept practising me spinning, faster and faster on that very same spot, hoping to Christ that one day me mums’d say I’d done good.
After that year me six mums sat me down and me Main Mum told me that they reckoned it was time I gave up me spinning. She said they’d been talking, her and me other mums, and that they’d figured that I’d never be like them. Me Main Mum said they reckoned that it was about time I concentrated on being ordinary.
I remember when I first asked Hestia about her fingers. She’d been shy about it which surprised me. I mean it’s not like she’d ever tried to hide them from anyone: her fingernails were stone – it was obvious.
She told me it had started when she was little. She’d wanted a hug from her dad and he’d said no, he’d told her to stop acting like a baby.
‘I felt it in my fingers and inside,’ she said. ‘It was cold and hard. And when I woke up next morning, this had happened.’
She held out her fingers to me and I wrapped my hands around them. They were rough against my skin and they were cold too.
Hestia’s ankles were stone as well. When she was eight she’d not been invited to her best friend’s birthday party. She was so sad, she said, that she’d cried from the moment she’d walked out of the school gates to when she’d fallen asleep deep into the night. She told me that, the morning after, when she’d gone to pull her socks on, she’d found that her ankles were exactly the same as her fingernails. Cold and rough and not really alive. She said she’d have cried if she’d had been able to, but she was dry.
To be honest I found her limp cute at the beginning, when we first met, when I told her it wasn’t a problem, that we’d work something out. I think I have a thing for girls like that; in imperfection lies beauty, or something.
And I think that’s why I like Amy. It’s the braces and her lisp – I’ve always been a sucker for speech impediments.
