After school, I went straight home, of course. Mum wasn't there, she had a staff meeting, so that should keep her out of trouble for a couple of hours. Gran was well gone, she'd be halfway to the Coast by then.
I let Jimmy off the chain. He had it in a terrible tangle - dumb dog! I straightened up and turned around. Denise was standing there, looking at me.
"Umm. Hi Denise. Did you want something?"
"Hey Virgil. I want to talk to you. Can we go inside where everyone's not looking at us? The show is over for today."
What the hell did he mean by that? I looked back over at the school and, yes, there were people standing there, staring at us.
"You want to come inside? Yeah, let's do that. Come on in."
I led the way into the house. Jimmy was being a bit strange. He wasn't dancing around my legs like he usually did, instead, he was just hanging around Denise. Something told me that Jimmy liked Denise. You can just tell sometimes.
In the kitchen, I flicked the electric kettle on.
"Can I get you a drink or something, Denise?" I think there's beer in the fridge, if Gran hasn't knicked it."
"No. No beer. I never drink the vile stuff. A coffee would be good, thank you. Black and two sugars. Don't call me Denise. My name is Dennis."
Dennis, not Denise? What was going on here? He was like a different person.
"Okay, sure. Dennis it is then, but it's been Denise all day at school today."
"It has, but that was at school. I told you, the show's over for today."
"The show? So it was all an act then? The Denise thing, I mean."
"Denise is a thing, isn't she? Yes, of course it's an act. The campy queen is my defence against the ignorant bullies. Now we have to find a defence for you as well."
"For me?"
"Yes, for you. They've been giving you a hard time and making your life a misery. That's got to stop and it's going to, as soon as we figure out how to deal with it. Are you gay?"
"Am I gay? Do you know, that's the first time anyone's asked me that?
"That doesn't surprise me at all. They're all just a pack of small-town, small-minded hicks. So, are you? Not that it matters a lot, but it would be useful to know."
"Well, yeah, I am, I think. Are you gay?"
'Shit! I never thought I'd be asking Denise that!'
"No, I'm not gay. I did wonder for a while, but it turns out that I'm not."
"You're not?" ('Damm. How many surprises can one day bring?') "Why do you keep up the act then?"
"Because it works, and I'm kind-of type-cast now. Maybe you could try the same thing. Bat your eyes at them, squeal and flutter your hands around and they back-off at 100k's an hour."
"You really think that would work?"
"Sure it would. It works for me. We could have fun with this. Imagine 2 Denises in the same room! They'd be shivering in their shoes."
"Fun? That's something that's been missing lately."
"So I'm told. So, do you want to try it? Or we could try something else. You should know that if you come across as a campy queen, no-one's going to want to be alone with you. You'll never get a boyfriend around here."
"I wouldn't want to be friends with any of that lot anyway. You're the first decent person I've met around here. Well, I guess Joel's okay, sometimes."
"Joel Stafford? No, he's a lost cause. He's a closet queer if ever there was one."
"You think so? I have, sort of, wondered."
"Of course he is, Daaarling!" He fluttered. "Denise knows!"
"I think you're right. What the hell, let's shock 'em."
"That's the story. Illegitimus non carborundum."
"Ille what? What does that mean?"
"It's pig-latin, Kid. Illegitimus non carborundum means 'don't let the bastards grind you down'. Makes a good motto for life, I think."
"I think you're right. So, how do we go about this?"
"We just have to make you Fabulous, Darling!" Denise answered.
"Umm, Dennis? Can you not do that? When we're alone, I'd rather talk to Dennis, not Denise."
"You've got it, my friend. I get tired of Denise too."
"Thanks. How do we make me fabulous?"
"Easy. You can't wear make-up to school. That's in the uniform code and they get really uptight about it. However, you can be as campy and outrageous as you like, the more the better. Flame throwers work best on a 'high' setting.
The school has signed up for an anti-discrimination policy, so they can't shut you down. Just follow my lead, gush all over everybody and call them 'Darling'. We'll make a great double-act. It'll be fun."
"Yeah! It will be. Thanks for helping me. You're a good guy. I hope we're going to be friends."
"I'm sure we will. But friends is as far as it goes - I'm not gay, remember. Now, where's this drink? Then, I want to hear your life story; I want to know all about Virgil Cain. I think that you'd better feed man's best friend here too. I think he's hungry."
"Jimmy's always hungry. I think that he thinks he's a teenager."
I took care of business and then we sat and talked. I told him all about me and learned some things about him. His parents had split. Dad lived up north with his new family and Mum was in Fiji with her boyfriend. Dennis lived with his grandparents. His Granddad had the cartage and contracting business down the road, opposite the pub.
His grandparents didn't know what to make of him, but they loved him anyway. No, he didn't want to swap grandmothers with me - but my one sounded like fun. I supposed she was really, in a trippy kind of way.
It was hard to believe, but he was still only 13. He seemed like he was much older. Dennis really was a bright kid. Maybe he was a genius or something? People said that I was 'old for my years', I still felt like a kid next to him.
Mum arrived home, Dennis switched off and Denise came back. Well, I supposed that Mum was a teacher, so she was the enemy, kind-of. Denise didn't do manual classes. Some girls did, but not her.
"Fingernails, Darling! All those nasty machines just waiting to munch them up! I don't think so!"
Denise left shortly after. She had to go and dazzle the town, or something. Mum wanted to talk. She was concerned about my being around Denise. That would only make things worse for me, wouldn't it?
"No Mum, it won't. Trust me on this. Dennis is a good guy and he's going to help me."
"I just don't see how."
"Believe me, he's not what he seems and he knows what he's doing."
"I hope you're right, Honey. They do say that he's very bright."
"He is and he's a good friend."
"Well, I suppose that you need all the friends you can get. How was Joel today?"
"Okay, I guess. I didn't see much of him."
We had dinner at the pub that night. We often did something like that when Gran left on her travels. Funny really, Mum and Gran do get on well together, but I think she likes to feel free of her mother sometimes.
I went to bed that night much happier than I'd been. It seemed that I had the most unlikely allies popping up all over the place.
(canned-heat@hotmail.com)