Jimmy Hunter

I could have sworn it was 1984 when I went to bed. I had been at school that day, I remember Jimmy Hunter gave me a handful of dried magic mushrooms in a matchbox. I had eaten them before maths. In maths, I performed graffiti on my textbook. Spirals and double helix's, fractaling down to a giggling and wicked Donald Duck. It was awesome. By the end of the maths lesson, I thought we were all in a cartoon. Outside seagulls spiralled and double helixed around the green playing fields. Above my head and around they flocked in rhythm to the mewling screaming children. I got a little irritated by my peers, was I Donald Duck? Should I throw A Donald Duck type hissy fit?

I walked around and around that lunch break, I'm sure I did. I remember faces up close, "Look at his eyes!" I'd snort laughter at their disbelief, a couple of adult faces, Mrs Jump was one, were giving me the once over. Jimmy Hunter was nowhere to be seen.

Towards the end of the lunch break, I had a gang following me. They'd copy my every move, If I looked up at the sky so would they. When I put my hands on my hips they copied the motion, giggling and congratulating themselves. I plucked from the field a blade of grass, a perfect creation, held up close it looked like a tiny green sword, God's sword, God's army of swords! Look how many there were! I made a gesture across the field. "Wow." I said. Behind me 20 kids said w-oow, gesturing, then erupted, each with their own tiny green sword.

Mrs Jump and another teacher were pacing behind the strange happening. They couldn't quite figure out what was going on. The bell rang and my gang disbanded in hilarity, leaving me to wonder, what was going on? I was sure it was 1984. What should I do, I remember thinking that, what to do immediately? Go to class? I think it was Geography. Mrs Jump was walking close, dangerous, question at the ready, hands behind back. What should I do? What would Donald Duck do?

 "Hiya Toots! We are in 1984 right?" My address and question flummoxed her, and she attacked.

"How dare you! All I ever see you do is dawdle around. Drag your heels. Stare at God knows what! Nothing! Come to my office after school! Now get to class you, you prat."

I was sure I was 15, and it was 1984, but something else lay within me. It spoke of leaving school, of working, of marriage and children, of heart break, love and frustration, and experience. I wasn't going to let this woman talk to me like that.

"Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, don't be like that Mrs Jump!" She went crimson, and took two angry steps to me before I held up the blade of grass and barked, "Get Back!" She stopped suddenly, uncertain, then furious, not just the bluff type, real fury, with ears pricked up. Tardy students looked on agog. This was cool.

"Are you on drugs?"

"Aw Phooey!" I made a dash for it, around the front of the school out onto Longmead road, I snatched a quick look back at Mrs Jump watching me apparently depart, there was a palpable menace to her, and a cunning I had never seen before. I doubled back to the main entrance, and into Mrs Marr's Geography class.

I was ten minutes late. I got a frown from Mrs Marr and sniggering from the students. Someone drawled, W-oow and there was further amusement. I sat down, still feeling like a cartoon. I immediately began to doodle the double helix and spirals over my textbook. I remembered this moment, Mrs Marr was pointing out the features of a glaciated valley, she would say 'Moraine' in a moment, and she did. I was absolutely sure this was 1984. In the middle of my complex doodling was a face. Abstract, shadowy, but defiantly Mad Max, from the second film.

All faces looked up at a tap at the door, in the pain of the window was Mrs Jump. She momentarily looked like Margaret Thatcher, the Spitting Image interpretation, but her snarl was all American Werewolf in London. I turned to the class and said:

"I'm just here for the gasoline." I made a face, a slight face, but it seemed to work because they cheered. Outside Mrs Jump contorted and her teeth bulged out and sharpened. She said something, something like:

"Stay on the road, Keep clear of the moors." Then something else, something like 'lads' but her body had changed and words weren't words but howls. I knew what to say.

" Queen Elizabeth is a man! Prince Charles is a faggot! Winston Churchill was full of shit! Shakespeare's French! The giggling ceased, not because of what I had quoted but because the door had splintered and an enormous beast entered the classroom. I gave it both barrels of a sawn-off shotgun that came from my pencil case, and from the back of the class room the swish of a razor sharp metallic boomerang came, it snipped a couple of pieces of student off, before embedding itself in the muzzle of Mrs Jump.

I turned to face the class triumphant, expecting jubilation, high praise, but there was silence. Utter quiet. Every eye was on me with mouths a perfect O. Outside, a little raggedy boy grunted, his hair was a mess and he was wearing a loin cloth. He jumped up to look for his boomerang before, fading.

"He just punched Mrs. Jump!" Someone commentated.

This was not a dream. This was 1984. Mrs Marr groaned. Mrs Jump got up from the floor and also groaned then whispered something in The Geography teacher's ear. What had just happened? Mrs Marr left the room, Mrs Jump, took a step towards me, this time calm and worried. She wasn't aggressive at all, she was being kind, there was something wrong with me. Was there? Blood was filling her mouth and I could see her swallow, but when she spoke bloody tendrils threaded her lips. "Don't panic, sit down."

I did sit down, I felt like I was about to cry. Some terrible juxtaposition was upon me, was I in 1984 or was I something else? Absently, I picked up my pen as Mrs Jump quietly ordered the students out of the room. No one was sniggering this time, most of the faces were ashen. When they had left, she knelt down to look at me eye to eye. I continued the spirals, the double helix, and I introduced a treble helix, they danced together like tropical fish, and led to a face. Jimmy Hunter's.

"Please tell me, step by step, what you have done today. Don't worry, I know something is wrong and I want to help." I smiled at her.

"I gave him, I mean Jimmy Hunter gave me magic mushrooms which I ate whilst I, I mean he was still there."

"Jimmy Hunter gave you magic mushrooms?"

"A match box full, dried."

"Where is Jimmy Hunter?" A suggestion of shrewdness seeped back into her face.
"I'm here, no, Jimmy Hunter went home." She noticed my drawings and paused to watch. The flow was moving away from Jimmy Hunter's face, and the complex doodles were beginning to outline someone else's. Mrs Jump's hand grabbed my wrist, forcing me to stop. With her other hand she snatched my pencil away and broke it.

"Jimmy." She said. I looked up at her in shock. "It's okay, you've had an episode. Your mother is on the way, she will take you home and put you to bed."

Was I Jimmy Hunter? I looked at my hands, what were all those feelings that seemed to evidence I was someone else, that had lived half their life? I looked at Mrs Jump very carefully. She did look concerned. I let her lead me away. Outside my mother (was she?) took me by the arm and to home. She made me a cup of tea and put me to bed.

I awoke to the dawn chorus. Black birds especially seemed to fill the moment birds truly own. In the mirror I saw me, that face. It was me wasn't it? Did I have to go to school or work? I was sure it was1984 yesterday, but today, was I 15 or 45? Footsteps ascended the stairs. It was either my mother or my wife. I shivered and dressed.

By Andy Parker