Noses Are Red (eBook)

'Quick!' shouts Victor. 'Quick, Alan, run for it!' 'What's going on?' I ask. 'They're everywhere! Hurry!' He runs, pulling me after him by the neck. The dust cloud rises all around us, and the sound is in my ears -- once heard, never forgotten -- the buzz-saw whine of a million angry enemies. I can't get at them with the aluminum construction on my head. I run as fast as I can, considering that I can hardly see where I'm going. 'Help! Christopher!' I cry. 'Help, anyone!' Wait. I'm getting ahead of myself. Sorry. You're probably wondering what on earth is going on. Who's Victor? you ask. Who's Christopher? What aluminum construction? Who are these angry enemies, and why can't you get at them? Fair enough. Let me go back a bit further, and start again. Ahem. It all began on a beautiful spring morning about thirteen years ago. Cobourg, a pretty small town beside Lake Ontario -- no, no, make that a small, pretty town beside Lake Ontario -- was bathed in sunshine. The sky was a cloudless blue. The birds were singing their little heads off in the bushes outside the window of the hospital room. Inside that room was a tired new mom named Helen Dingwall. Mrs. Dingwall to you. She was learning how to put a cloth diaper on a baby. 'Under and over,' she muttered. 'Around and up and pin it like... this. Oops!' She stabbed the baby with the pin. The baby opened his mouth wide and screamed. 'Oh, you poor thing!' my mom said to me. I screamed some more. No, wait again. Come to think of it, that's probably too far back. I'll try one more time. Fast-forward through my early years -- teething, disposable diapers (finally no more pins!), singing 'Clementine' to my nana while standing up in my crib, kindergarten, measles -- and get to last June. I went to New York City to visit my dad. (My parents are divorced. No big deal. Maybe yours are too.) While I was having adventures with a snotty rich kid and her dog Sally (long story, no time to get into it now), my mom met Christopher. He's important to this chapter of the Alan Dingwall chronicles, so I'll describe him right off. Christopher Leech: tall and thick, with thick dark hair and a thick dark mustache. Thick arms too -- he's really strong. He can lift our big armchair over his head with one hand, holding on to the chair leg. He spends a lot of time lifting weights at the local YMCA -- that's where he met my mom. He's kind of handsome, I guess. He has a lot of big sweaters. He's my mom's age, more or less. Old. Shortly after I got back from New York, he moved in with us. He has a place of his own, but he stays with us for days on end. Sounds cosy, but it isn't really. There's something about him I don't like. Quite a few things, actually. His name suits him: Leech by name, and leech by nature. I don't like the way he dresses. I don't like the way he checks himself in the mirror. I don't like the way he peers around when he kisses Mom. He'll be giving her a peck on the cheek, and all the time his eyes are moving around the room, as if he's on the lookout for the cops. I wonder if he's on the run? It wouldn't surprise me. To be honest, I don't like him kissing Mom at all. We don't get on very well. He started off calling me my boy, and I told him I wasn't his boy. 'I already have a dad,' I said. 'I'm his boy, not yours.' Mom sighed, and Christopher apologized. Yesterday he tried calling me Young Dingwall. That didn't last long. 'What are you up to tonight, Young Dingwall?' he asked. 'Playing cards, Old Leech,' I replied. He choked, spilling...