Otrach Bladach City
by Alasdair McPherson
Genre: Humour
Swearwords: None.
Description: If Los Angeles can call itself LA, us Scots can do the same!
Swearwords: None.
Description: If Los Angeles can call itself LA, us Scots can do the same!
It’s almost exactly two years since we moved to O.B. City. Dad had actually moved in April to be the administrator in the city council and Mum had spent a lot of time there supervising the rascals that were building our new home. My sisters and I were left with Aunt Hetty at the old family farm to complete the school year. Uncle Ron had lost his job – again – and they were going to grow and sell gourmet vegetables.
We left them practically all the furniture; everything was new in our brand new house. It was like a palace compared to the old farmhouse with no creaky floors or dark corners that the sun didn’t reach. Polly and I had a bathroom shared between our two bedrooms. She was twelve at that time, the age I am now and I think I know how she must have felt, although I thought at the time that she was just being a diva.
Our older sister Emma was sixteen and she didn’t have much to do with Pol and me. Her bedroom was almost a separate house. The ground sloped at the back so we had a two storey house from the front and a three storey house from the back. She had a door from her bedroom opening onto the patio and swimming pool.
We had a pool at the farm but it had been made by Grandpa by damming the creek that ran through the property. Our new pool had a diving board and you could swim fifteen strokes without hitting the bottom. Emma spent most of her time on a lounger working on her tan while Pol and I bombed off the diving board to try to splash her.
We had been going to move two years earlier but Dad couldn’t reach the minimum Sunbeam Index of twenty-five. Mum and the girls had no problem although I was built like a stick. Not that it made much difference at first since our new home is almost as isolated as the farm. Pol and I were happy enough playing together although we both had school friends at our old place.
Emma was the first to really fall in love with O.B. City. She and Mum went shopping on the main street and came back loaded with stuff.
“I can’t believe the choice!” Emma yelled her excitement at Dad when they got back. “In our old place most shops didn’t stock above size twenty and even the ones that did only had old-fashioned, dreary clothes on the racks. Now I can get haute couture in my size, off the shelf!”
Polly was still in her tom-boy phase but she adopted the signature clothing of O.B. City with enthusiasm. Every pair of jeans, all her shorts and even her pjs had a smiley mojo across the bum; she certainly lived up to the town motto: ‘The wider the hips, the broader the smile’. In the last year in our old school she had been getting a lot of heavy teasing about her weight and it had been getting her down.
I was happy enough even after the new school year began and I found myself one of the thinnest in my class. It wasn’t too bad at first since there was another guy and three girls that were almost as emaciated as I am. By spring break there were only two of us left and I was significantly skinnier than kids two classes below me. It was at that time that the school called Mum and asked about my eating habits.
“His Dad was a slow developer,” she told the child psychologist. “We had to wait two years until he got his Sunbeam Index high enough to come to live in O.B. City.”
I was a bit surprised when she said that. It was true but she knew that it wasn’t the real reason I didn’t put on weight. The truth is that I just can’t eat as much as other folk. One starter, one main course and one pudding three times a day is as much as I can handle. Polly would help me out and so did Emma until she got too grown up to bother with her little brother so my plate was empty and we could all pretend that I’d eaten my fair share.
Around the farm, I’d drink water from the creek and I got into the habit, I suppose. I didn’t find that proper sugary drinks like coke quenched my thirst; a few minutes after drinking them my mouth felt dry and I had to have another drink. The only thing that stopped me feeling thirsty was a glass of tap water. By my second year at school in O.B. City, I was having to sneak down during the night to drink water. I knew that Mum and Dad were very concerned but I hated feeling thirsty all the time.
In the summer of that year I grew about six inches but I didn’t put on more than a few pounds in weight. I became the centre of attention at home. Emma was the first to have a go at me. According to her I was causing arguments between my parents.
“They could split up because of you,” she sobbed. “Mum and me can’t understand why you don’t eat like a normal person. Dad says you can’t help it but I think you do it just to get attention.”
Emma hadn’t bothered about me for years so I didn’t take her opinion seriously although I did watch Mum and Dad to see if I could spot any signs that they were fighting more than normal. They had always argued and I didn’t usually listen to what they were saying. Now I paid a bit more attention; it seemed to me that the big dispute was about how hard Dad was working. Mum said he was neglecting his family and that she was left to deal with all the problems. I suppose my lack of weight is one of the problems.
It wasn’t until spring break this year that I was struck a really hard blow. Polly and I had always been great friends. I had told her she was brilliant when she was called a fatty at our old school and she had helped when people were cruel about my skinniness. I had been called ‘Stick’ by my classmates almost from day one and Pol made me understand that it was their way of being friendly. In the family I was called ‘Runt’ because that’s what they call the smallest piglet in the litter.
It wasn’t an entirely loving nickname, you understand; ‘runt’ was what they called me when I did something that annoyed them. They were letting me know that I’d crossed a line but they still loved me. Then, about six weeks ago, the trend-setting kids in school started calling me runt, only there was nothing remotely friendly about the way they sneered it. Their taunts struck me with all the force of a physical blow.
The very worst thing was that they had learned the word from a member of my own family – my sister Polly, to be precise! After days of misery at school, I confronted her on Saturday morning when she was watching her favourite programme. I muted the sound and stood between her and the TV set.
I suppose I expected her to say she was sorry and that the name ‘runt’ just sort of slipped out when she was chatting to people she thought were friends. What I got was a fourteen year old fury, proudly boasting that she had done something long overdue.
“You’re a freak, and the sooner everyone in this family faces it the better we’ll be!”
Mum and Emma had been sunning themselves on the patio and they both rushed in to stop Polly hammering me with her chubby fists. I was sent to my room – not Pol who had been the aggressor, but me! About an hour later I was called to stand trial before mum and dad – she must have phoned him at work. The verdict was that I was to be sent to Fat Camp at the start of the summer holidays for three weeks of indoctrination.
I arrived here two days ago and I’m writing this in detention after I cheeked a Camp Counsellor – that’s what they called it. I’m locked in until morning but I reckon I’m skinny enough to get though the gap at the bottom of the window. I can’t wait for it to get dark!
* * *
I’ve died and gone to heaven! Well, not exactly, but I’m going to move in with Aunt Hetty in the ramshackle old farmhouse and I’ll go back to my old school after the summer. It will just be the two of us because Uncle Ron turned out to be as bad at growing vegetables as he was at everything else.
I got out the window of the cell block at the Fat Camp without difficulty. The huts are scattered amongst trees on the edge of a lake and all except the detention hut have wonderful views. My plan of escape was simply to turn my back to the lake and climb until I had crossed the ridge of the hills behind the campsite. The one great thing about Fat Camp is that the hut was filled with snacks and drinks that add weight.
There was a track going in the right direction but I lost my way as soon as I was out of range of the lights around the camp. The low point came when I stumbled into a shallow crater taking inches of skin off my elbow. I was tempted to go back but I remembered that Polly called me a freak; I’ll always love her however she looks. By good luck, the moon came up before I felt too sorry for myself.
I don’t know if you’ve ever walked in moonlight. There was plenty light for me to see the path but the shadows amongst the trees are very dark and they move as you walk past. I told myself that it was only the breeze stirring the branches but I was hard to convince. It was summer so there wouldn’t be any wolves but then I remembered that bears were more active in summer. I’ve since found out there are neither bears nor wolves near O.B. City; I just wish I’d known that at the time.
It took almost an hour before I climbed out of the woods onto a meadow that extended to the sharply outlined top of the hills. There was no path and the ground wasn’t as level as it looked so I fell down a few times. It didn’t matter; I could see that there was nothing else moving on the grassy slope I was crossing.
All that falling and getting back up must have been tiring, I suppose. When I reached the top of the ridge and could see another lake shining below me, I sat down in a sheltered hollow and ate a couple of chocolate bars. I only meant to rest for a minute but the next thing I knew, the sun was shining in my eyes. I was stiff and cold but I was free. I had escaped and reached my goal!
The Fat Camp, on the western side of the ridge was still in darkness and there was no sign of life – they probably didn’t even know I’d gone. Looking down on the lake I’d seen in the moonlight, I could see little columns of smoke rising into the clear morning air. I ate more chocolate and had a coke before I set off towards the lake and what I dearly hoped were camp fires.
If the Fat Counsellors had let me keep my mobile phone, I’d have called mum and dad but I was on my own. It was only when I found a clear trail going down that I admitted to myself that I had been very frightened. I had been walking for an hour and was back in the woods when I met my rescuers. Five girls about my age led by a woman about the same age as my sister Emma were coming up the path chattering to each other.
It wasn’t until we had all introduced ourselves that I really began to understand what I’d done. We could hardly speak because of the noise of helicopters buzzing overhead, for a start. Now I’d noticed them I realised that I’d been hearing them since I woke up. Someone in the fat Camp had checked my hut at about midnight, I was told, and they initiated a full-scale search.
The leader of the group that found me was told to make me lie down and they would send out a rescue team with a stretcher. She told them not to be silly and I set off down the trail with an escort of five girls and the young lady. One of the girls was a little plump but two of them were skinnier than I am!
Dad and mum had been brought to the camp by helicopter and were waiting when I arrived. Strangely enough they weren’t mad at me and Polly hugged me when we got home. Even Emma punched my shoulder and said ‘welcome back’. Pol and I spent the rest of the summer with Aunt Hetty and it was just like old times. We decided that love doesn’t have anything to do with your size: fat or skinny, plump or svelte, we’ll still be brother and sister.
Just one last word. When I was walking towards the chopper to leave the camp, one of the girls that had escorted me back came up and kissed me on the cheek, slipping a piece of paper into my hand at the same time. All the other girls hooted and cheered and I was blushing bright red when I stepped into the helicopter. I waited until I was alone in the back of the car before I looked at the note. It said:
‘Sadie and I think you’re gorgeous – please, please, please call us. Julie xx.’ There was a telephone number and I called it!
We left them practically all the furniture; everything was new in our brand new house. It was like a palace compared to the old farmhouse with no creaky floors or dark corners that the sun didn’t reach. Polly and I had a bathroom shared between our two bedrooms. She was twelve at that time, the age I am now and I think I know how she must have felt, although I thought at the time that she was just being a diva.
Our older sister Emma was sixteen and she didn’t have much to do with Pol and me. Her bedroom was almost a separate house. The ground sloped at the back so we had a two storey house from the front and a three storey house from the back. She had a door from her bedroom opening onto the patio and swimming pool.
We had a pool at the farm but it had been made by Grandpa by damming the creek that ran through the property. Our new pool had a diving board and you could swim fifteen strokes without hitting the bottom. Emma spent most of her time on a lounger working on her tan while Pol and I bombed off the diving board to try to splash her.
We had been going to move two years earlier but Dad couldn’t reach the minimum Sunbeam Index of twenty-five. Mum and the girls had no problem although I was built like a stick. Not that it made much difference at first since our new home is almost as isolated as the farm. Pol and I were happy enough playing together although we both had school friends at our old place.
Emma was the first to really fall in love with O.B. City. She and Mum went shopping on the main street and came back loaded with stuff.
“I can’t believe the choice!” Emma yelled her excitement at Dad when they got back. “In our old place most shops didn’t stock above size twenty and even the ones that did only had old-fashioned, dreary clothes on the racks. Now I can get haute couture in my size, off the shelf!”
Polly was still in her tom-boy phase but she adopted the signature clothing of O.B. City with enthusiasm. Every pair of jeans, all her shorts and even her pjs had a smiley mojo across the bum; she certainly lived up to the town motto: ‘The wider the hips, the broader the smile’. In the last year in our old school she had been getting a lot of heavy teasing about her weight and it had been getting her down.
I was happy enough even after the new school year began and I found myself one of the thinnest in my class. It wasn’t too bad at first since there was another guy and three girls that were almost as emaciated as I am. By spring break there were only two of us left and I was significantly skinnier than kids two classes below me. It was at that time that the school called Mum and asked about my eating habits.
“His Dad was a slow developer,” she told the child psychologist. “We had to wait two years until he got his Sunbeam Index high enough to come to live in O.B. City.”
I was a bit surprised when she said that. It was true but she knew that it wasn’t the real reason I didn’t put on weight. The truth is that I just can’t eat as much as other folk. One starter, one main course and one pudding three times a day is as much as I can handle. Polly would help me out and so did Emma until she got too grown up to bother with her little brother so my plate was empty and we could all pretend that I’d eaten my fair share.
Around the farm, I’d drink water from the creek and I got into the habit, I suppose. I didn’t find that proper sugary drinks like coke quenched my thirst; a few minutes after drinking them my mouth felt dry and I had to have another drink. The only thing that stopped me feeling thirsty was a glass of tap water. By my second year at school in O.B. City, I was having to sneak down during the night to drink water. I knew that Mum and Dad were very concerned but I hated feeling thirsty all the time.
In the summer of that year I grew about six inches but I didn’t put on more than a few pounds in weight. I became the centre of attention at home. Emma was the first to have a go at me. According to her I was causing arguments between my parents.
“They could split up because of you,” she sobbed. “Mum and me can’t understand why you don’t eat like a normal person. Dad says you can’t help it but I think you do it just to get attention.”
Emma hadn’t bothered about me for years so I didn’t take her opinion seriously although I did watch Mum and Dad to see if I could spot any signs that they were fighting more than normal. They had always argued and I didn’t usually listen to what they were saying. Now I paid a bit more attention; it seemed to me that the big dispute was about how hard Dad was working. Mum said he was neglecting his family and that she was left to deal with all the problems. I suppose my lack of weight is one of the problems.
It wasn’t until spring break this year that I was struck a really hard blow. Polly and I had always been great friends. I had told her she was brilliant when she was called a fatty at our old school and she had helped when people were cruel about my skinniness. I had been called ‘Stick’ by my classmates almost from day one and Pol made me understand that it was their way of being friendly. In the family I was called ‘Runt’ because that’s what they call the smallest piglet in the litter.
It wasn’t an entirely loving nickname, you understand; ‘runt’ was what they called me when I did something that annoyed them. They were letting me know that I’d crossed a line but they still loved me. Then, about six weeks ago, the trend-setting kids in school started calling me runt, only there was nothing remotely friendly about the way they sneered it. Their taunts struck me with all the force of a physical blow.
The very worst thing was that they had learned the word from a member of my own family – my sister Polly, to be precise! After days of misery at school, I confronted her on Saturday morning when she was watching her favourite programme. I muted the sound and stood between her and the TV set.
I suppose I expected her to say she was sorry and that the name ‘runt’ just sort of slipped out when she was chatting to people she thought were friends. What I got was a fourteen year old fury, proudly boasting that she had done something long overdue.
“You’re a freak, and the sooner everyone in this family faces it the better we’ll be!”
Mum and Emma had been sunning themselves on the patio and they both rushed in to stop Polly hammering me with her chubby fists. I was sent to my room – not Pol who had been the aggressor, but me! About an hour later I was called to stand trial before mum and dad – she must have phoned him at work. The verdict was that I was to be sent to Fat Camp at the start of the summer holidays for three weeks of indoctrination.
I arrived here two days ago and I’m writing this in detention after I cheeked a Camp Counsellor – that’s what they called it. I’m locked in until morning but I reckon I’m skinny enough to get though the gap at the bottom of the window. I can’t wait for it to get dark!
* * *
I’ve died and gone to heaven! Well, not exactly, but I’m going to move in with Aunt Hetty in the ramshackle old farmhouse and I’ll go back to my old school after the summer. It will just be the two of us because Uncle Ron turned out to be as bad at growing vegetables as he was at everything else.
I got out the window of the cell block at the Fat Camp without difficulty. The huts are scattered amongst trees on the edge of a lake and all except the detention hut have wonderful views. My plan of escape was simply to turn my back to the lake and climb until I had crossed the ridge of the hills behind the campsite. The one great thing about Fat Camp is that the hut was filled with snacks and drinks that add weight.
There was a track going in the right direction but I lost my way as soon as I was out of range of the lights around the camp. The low point came when I stumbled into a shallow crater taking inches of skin off my elbow. I was tempted to go back but I remembered that Polly called me a freak; I’ll always love her however she looks. By good luck, the moon came up before I felt too sorry for myself.
I don’t know if you’ve ever walked in moonlight. There was plenty light for me to see the path but the shadows amongst the trees are very dark and they move as you walk past. I told myself that it was only the breeze stirring the branches but I was hard to convince. It was summer so there wouldn’t be any wolves but then I remembered that bears were more active in summer. I’ve since found out there are neither bears nor wolves near O.B. City; I just wish I’d known that at the time.
It took almost an hour before I climbed out of the woods onto a meadow that extended to the sharply outlined top of the hills. There was no path and the ground wasn’t as level as it looked so I fell down a few times. It didn’t matter; I could see that there was nothing else moving on the grassy slope I was crossing.
All that falling and getting back up must have been tiring, I suppose. When I reached the top of the ridge and could see another lake shining below me, I sat down in a sheltered hollow and ate a couple of chocolate bars. I only meant to rest for a minute but the next thing I knew, the sun was shining in my eyes. I was stiff and cold but I was free. I had escaped and reached my goal!
The Fat Camp, on the western side of the ridge was still in darkness and there was no sign of life – they probably didn’t even know I’d gone. Looking down on the lake I’d seen in the moonlight, I could see little columns of smoke rising into the clear morning air. I ate more chocolate and had a coke before I set off towards the lake and what I dearly hoped were camp fires.
If the Fat Counsellors had let me keep my mobile phone, I’d have called mum and dad but I was on my own. It was only when I found a clear trail going down that I admitted to myself that I had been very frightened. I had been walking for an hour and was back in the woods when I met my rescuers. Five girls about my age led by a woman about the same age as my sister Emma were coming up the path chattering to each other.
It wasn’t until we had all introduced ourselves that I really began to understand what I’d done. We could hardly speak because of the noise of helicopters buzzing overhead, for a start. Now I’d noticed them I realised that I’d been hearing them since I woke up. Someone in the fat Camp had checked my hut at about midnight, I was told, and they initiated a full-scale search.
The leader of the group that found me was told to make me lie down and they would send out a rescue team with a stretcher. She told them not to be silly and I set off down the trail with an escort of five girls and the young lady. One of the girls was a little plump but two of them were skinnier than I am!
Dad and mum had been brought to the camp by helicopter and were waiting when I arrived. Strangely enough they weren’t mad at me and Polly hugged me when we got home. Even Emma punched my shoulder and said ‘welcome back’. Pol and I spent the rest of the summer with Aunt Hetty and it was just like old times. We decided that love doesn’t have anything to do with your size: fat or skinny, plump or svelte, we’ll still be brother and sister.
Just one last word. When I was walking towards the chopper to leave the camp, one of the girls that had escorted me back came up and kissed me on the cheek, slipping a piece of paper into my hand at the same time. All the other girls hooted and cheered and I was blushing bright red when I stepped into the helicopter. I waited until I was alone in the back of the car before I looked at the note. It said:
‘Sadie and I think you’re gorgeous – please, please, please call us. Julie xx.’ There was a telephone number and I called it!
About the Author
Originally from Dalmuir, Alasdair McPherson is now retired and living in exile in Lincolnshire.
He says he has always wanted to write, but life got in the way until recently. He has already penned thirteen novels and many short stories. His ten latest novels – The Island, Pilgrimage of Grace, Desert Ark, Swordsmiths, Loyalty, Killing Cousins, Damaged Lives, Patriotism, The Hobos' Union and Getting GOVAN out of the GIRLS – are all McStorytellers publications.
You can read Alasdair's full profile on McVoices.
He says he has always wanted to write, but life got in the way until recently. He has already penned thirteen novels and many short stories. His ten latest novels – The Island, Pilgrimage of Grace, Desert Ark, Swordsmiths, Loyalty, Killing Cousins, Damaged Lives, Patriotism, The Hobos' Union and Getting GOVAN out of the GIRLS – are all McStorytellers publications.
You can read Alasdair's full profile on McVoices.