Slenderman, Slenderman Read online

  Now that struck Claire as a very strange comment. But it was quickly put out of her mind when she noticed the whole class staring at her, mouths agape. She checked herself and guessed it was probably her dishevelled appearance - her shirt had become untucked when she had been running, and her hairband had come off. One sock was pulled up, the other had fallen down to her ankle. Yes, that would be it - she normally took such pride in the way she looked that everyone must be shocked that she’d let her standards slip!

  The other truly strange thing that Claire noticed in the lesson was that whenever she spoke - to give an answer to something Mr Gordon asked perhaps (Claire was sure he asked her more than normal, probably as a punishment for being late) - everyone was completely silent, as if they were hanging on her every word. When he’d asked what the capital of Portugal was, Claire had realised she didn’t actually know, and had said “Madrid”. She thought she heard a boy from the back of the class say “Wow, I didn’t know that.”, and Mr Gordon had said “Probably, probably” which was unusual, as she was sure she’d been wrong.

  After the lesson, Claire started to tell Sally about her experience that morning.

  “I reckon it was some kind of attempted mugging - you know, a group of people in on it, maybe thought I had something expensive in my bag?”

  “Don’t be silly,” Sally said, “It was because they just wanted to know more about you!”

  “Why would they want that?”

  “Everyone does. You can’t blame them for it.”

  Just then, a boy from the year below interrupted them, and asked Claire to sign a bit of paper he was holding.

  “What’s it for, some kind of petition?” she asked - there had been a number of student petitions lately, mostly about getting better nets for the football pitches, or asking for a change to a more casual uniform, none of which ever came to anything.

  “Uhhh, something like that” the boy said, although the paper was completely blank of course.

  VIII

  At lunchtime, Claire chose the salad, and placed it on her tray, along with a can of diet cola and an apple (she was still thinking about her figure).

  “You can sit here if you want!” said one boy who Claire didn’t even recognise.

  “Claire, over here!” said a girl from the year above.

  “No, the best place is next to us!” yelled another boy.

  Eventually, after being asked to join every table on her way through the dining hall, she found Sally and Bethany, and sat down next to them with a sigh.

  “What is going on?” said Claire.

  “Well, you have to expect it really; I don’t know why you still come to school anyway, you don’t really need to...”

  “What?!”

  “Well, you’re set up for life, aren’t you? World famous model, the it girl that everyone’s talking about...”

  “I’m not...”

  But Sally just got a magazine out of her bag, and put it on the table. On the front were the words Claire Delaney walking to school: We have the exclusive pictures, and the photograph adorning the cover was the one she remembered the old lady taking earlier on that day.

  Claire picked up the magazine and flicked through it. Every single one of the sixty or so pages featured photographs of her - some that morning from different angles, others taken from her Facecool page. On the fifth page was the headline Light Blue is this season’s colour, and showed a number of appropriately coloured handbags you could buy in your local fashion emporium.

  “I’m... famous...?” asked Claire.

  “Of course, silly!” said Bethany.

  “But... when...?”

  “I don’t really know; it seems like everyone’s been talking about you forever. In break this morning I heard a phone-in competition on the radio to win a hairband you had once owned. I tried calling three times before the bell went, but the lines were too busy.”

  “Bethany, if you really want, you can have my spare hairband, but-“

  “WOW! Thanks! Have you got it now?”

  “Ummmm... OK...” and Claire reached into her bag, took out her spare and gave it to her.

  “What is the capital of Portugal, anyway?” she asked.

  “I think it’s Madrid.” said Sally.

  “No, no, I’m pretty sure it’s not”

  “But that’s what you said, and I don’t think you’d be wrong - look, it’s even there in the magazine!”

  Madrid is Capital of Portugal said the article.

  Claire sat thoughtfully for a minute. OK, so let’s catch up on events. Number one, I’m famous now. That explains what happened this morning. Number two, people are just saying and printing things because I’m saying them, they’re not even checking the facts. So...

  You’d think that any normal person - having realised what was happening - would be worried. But Claire’s subconscious was having a bit of a battle. One part of it was saying This shouldn’t be happening, something’s afoot here. But the other part, which was winning over, was saying Don’t question this, it’s what you’ve always wanted. Don’t look deeper into it, just enjoy it!

  So she did.

  IX

  After they’d eaten, the girls walked to the fields, and took up their normal spot, sitting down next to the biggest oak tree in the line at the edge of the playing fields. It wasn’t long before a few other students came up to Claire and asked her to sign their books, folders - and in one case even a boy’s leg!

  Claire, having accepted her situation, was happy to do this.

  For a while.

  Soon, there seemed to be a queue of about fifty people (including two teachers) all holding out their pens, shouting “me next!” and Claire realised she was not going to be able to please everyone before the end of her lunchbreak.

  She shouted to everyone “Please! I can’t sign everything! You can take photos though.”

  And with this she launched fully into what she expected of a celebrity - she struck a pose, pouted, and was ecstatic when everyone got their phones out to take their own personal photos of the wonderful Miss Delaney.

  As the clicks from the phones continued, Claire, with a beaming expression, looked across to Sally, but she didn’t seem quite as happy as herself. In fact, she was sure she saw a scowl on her face, but when Sally realised Claire was looking at her, it brightened back into a broad smile.

  The bell went, and the girls packed up their things. A few stragglers continued to take photos, but most people realised the show was over and also started heading back for the main building.

  “Wasn’t that amazing!” Claire said, but all Sally could reply was “I guess.” And they walked to their afternoon lessons in silence.

  X

  The afternoon passed in much the same vein, autographs, photos and the like. But Sally seemed a little distant with her. Claire decided to say something to Bethany about it when Sally had gone to the ladies’ room after the last class of the day.

  “What’s wrong with Sally?”

  “Nothing really, but I think she’s a bit upset with you.”

  “With me? Why?”

  “Well, she loves chatting to you about fashion and gossip - but today all that you’ve talked about it yourself. But I guess that’s what the magazine said; the fame was always going to go to your head.”

  “Did it? That’s ridiculous! I’ll talk to her when she’s back.”

  When Sally returned, Claire apologised for not being more thoughtful, and Sally seemed to accept this; she suggested they go to the park for an hour and Claire agreed - although she’d enjoyed the attention, it would be nice just to have some time with her friends. Although a few people started to amble behind them, Claire walked quite briskly, and as far as they could tell, by the time they got to the park they had lost any ‘fans’ that
had been following.

  Claire put the radio on her phone, and with some relief found that they were playing one of her favourite songs.

  “So, tell us about the real you then” said Sally.

  “You know the real me! You’ve known me for ten years!”

  “Yeah, but I mean the real you.

  “What does that mean?”

  “Well, you know, the magazines always say Find out about the real such and such - I just thought, you know, seeing as we’re best friends, you could tell me about the real you..”

  “That doesn’t even make sense! And why would you want to know more about me anyway? We pretty much know everything about each other!”

  “There’s no need to get funny about it, Claire. I suppose if you’ve got skeletons in the closet, you wouldn’t want to talk about them anyway.”

  “Skeletons in the closet?”

  “Well, all celebrities do, don’t they? I mean, when you were normal, I’m pretty sure I knew everything about you, but now you’re a celeb, well, there’s gotta be something you’re not talking about. Do you have a secret love-child? Have you had plastic surgery?”

  Claire was becoming quite upset now. She’d wanted just to have a normal chat with her friends, and now it was turning into an argument.

  “Look, I haven’t had any plastic surgery, I haven’t got a secret love-child; the worst thing I’ve ever done was steal a mars bar from the papershop - and I felt so bad I went back the next day to pay for it!”

  Before Sally could reply however, Claire realised that the group who had been following them had not in fact been outwitted, but had caught up with them already.

  “Hey, Claire, would you go on a date with me?” said one lad.

  “Sorry” said Claire “but I don’t even know you!”

  “Hey, Claire, can I take a picture of you?” said a girl.

  “No, please, I just want some time with my friends.” But the girl took a picture anyway.

  Then suddenly from around the corner, what seemed like hundreds of people appeared, all with phones, cameras, pens, paper, all pointed at - or held out towards Claire.

  “Please!” she shouted, “GO AWAY!”

  But the crowd didn’t listen, they just continued their advance.

  Bethany noticed a panic in Claire’s eyes, and - always the grounded one - said “I think you’d better make a run for it.”

  Claire didn’t need telling twice, and quick as a flash she grabbed her bag and phone, turning towards the gate. She was sure as she threw the phone into the bag that she caught a snippet of the news... “We interrupt this song to bring you a breaking story, with Claire Delaney in a total temper tantrum with her loyal fans...”

  XI

  Claire ran out of the gate, and took a look over her shoulder. She appeared to be losing the crowd and turned back to face the direction in which she was running...

  ...running almost right into a man who was holding a weapon.

  As she skidded to a halt, the man said “Claire Delaney?” and her heart almost stopped.

  It took her a few seconds to realise that it wasn’t actually a weapon however, but a microphone. As she took in the scene, she realised there was an entire TV news crew around the man, who then said “What do you say about the rumours you lost your rag with a group of fans?”

  “Look, I really think there’s been some mistake! I’m just a schoolgirl!” Claire said - for the first time allowing a voice to that more reasonable part of her subconscious.

  The man turned to the camera and said “And with true humility, Miss Delaney quashes any suggestion she lost her temper, announcing that she was just a schoolgirl, much in the same way Marilyn Monroe once said she was just an American girl. This is live news on...”

  But Claire didn’t stick around to listen to which channel the man was from, she just turned and started running home again, desperate to escape from this madness.

  As she rounded the next corner, she heard the distinctive sound of helicopter blades, looked up and saw a chopper that was so low she could see the side door open, and the man hanging out of the side pointing a TV camera at her.

  She continued to run, for a moment the helicopter out of view, and bumped into a young man jogging.

  “I’m so sorry” she said.

  “That’s OK, Claire” smiled the man.

  “How does everyone know who I am?” she asked.

  “Everyone knows Claire Delaney!” he said with some surprise. “I’d put money on there not being a single person in the world who wouldn’t recognise you right now. Can I ask, while you’re here, could you sign...”

  But that was it for Claire. Starting to cry, she just dropped her bag, not caring it had her phone, books and keys in it. She ran as fast as she could, she ran for her life. She didn’t take any notice of which direction she was running in, which turns she was taking; all she wanted to do was to get to somewhere quiet and just think.

  She ran past a newsagents, and caught a glimpse of a headline on an advertising board sitting outside the front door - Delany is kleptomaniac: Ex-best-friend tells all!

  As she was running, now even more upset that Sally seemed to have betrayed her trust, all she could think was I wish no-one would recognise me at all., a mantra which she kept repeating to take her mind off the argument with her friends, the helicopter, the camera crew and the huge crowd which was no doubt just a few steps behind her. She thought that out of the corner of her eye she saw the huge form of a man she had first seen this morning, when everything had started to get weird.

  Her vision fuzzy through her tears, she made a turn into an alleyway. She leant against the wall to catch her breath, and noticed that everything was silent.

  XII

  Having rested for a few minutes, and with no-one following her into the alleyway, she started to breathe a little more easily. She finally summed up the courage to step back on the main street, and when she did, she was faced with a pretty normal scene.

  A woman was walking her dog; two builders were chatting noisily to each other; a couple of teenagers were kicking a can down the path.

  Claire approached the woman, and said “Excuse me, which street am I on?”

  “This is Ambrose Way, love. Are you lost?”

  “How do I get to Mulberry Street?”

  “Simple, just turn left at the traffic lights, then take the third right.”

  “Thank you. One other thing; do you recognise me?”

  “Can’t say I do. Should I?”

  Claire shook her head, said “Thank you” again and started walking towards the traffic lights. No-one else came up to her, no-one asked to pose with her for a picture. For some reason, everything - on this road at least - seemed back to normal.

  What a strange day this had been! Although she’d enjoyed the attention at first, it had quickly become extremely annoying, and she had fallen out with her friends over it. She somehow felt better about everything though now that for some reason no-one was disturbing her, and with a positive outlook on things she was sure she could patch things up with Sally. She still didn’t know the capital of Portugal though - how strange it was that no-one dared correct her! She’d look it up on her phone when...

  Damn! She’d lost her bag. Just when she thought things were looking up, she remembered dropping it to escape the TV crew. Well, she wasn’t going to go back there and search for it, she just wanted to get home and try to figure everything out.

  She now realised her surroundings were familiar, and sure enough the third right was the street on which she lived. As thoughts of her mum giving her a nice hug came to mind, a lump welled up inside her throat, and a tear came to her eye again. At least mum will know what to do she thought as she took the final few steps up to her front door.

  Realising she had n
o key, the tears came back fully now, and she rang the bell. Her mum opened the door and Claire put her arms round her as she cried.

  “Mum, I’ve had the worst day, you wouldn’t believe it.”

  But all she heard in reply was “I’m sorry... who are you?”

  Winston Katubu, Professor of Voodoo

  Winston Katubu, Professor of Voodoo

  knows everything you do

  and a whole lot more.

  His underground Cavern is a mystical Tavern

  full of potions and poisons

  and a crocodile claw.

  So be wary of Winston, and think

  “What have I done to warrant his interest in me?”

  As one foot out of line,

  you will feel your spine

  as it shivers, and then you will see

  that this Voodoo professor is not an aggressor -

  he is good, not a word of a lie!

  But if you’re ever evil,

  I guarantee he will

  have known, through his all-seeing eye.

  As you walk through the park,

  it seems awfully dark,

  you’ve been naughty, but you try to push

  those thoughts to the back of your mind,

  but - hold on!

  What was that sound from the bush?

  Is that the professor? The soul-reposseser?

  Is it my unlucky day?

  Well you brought these events on yourself

  my young friend,

  and now it is your time to pay!

  You may try to explain

  you won’t do it again,

  but it just takes a single bad deed

  for your name to be added

  into his black book -

  a fact that is quite guaranteed.

  Oh, there’s no point in running,

  as Winston is cunning -

  he already knows where you live.

  And cry all you want,