It was tough, being a five hundred year old teenager. The online feuds, the ennui, dubious boyfriends, bad skin, inaccessible cars and clothes... An uneasy suspicion that everything was either too difficult or meaningless, and yet the utter necessity of outshining successful Youtuber cousins, model/med student older sisters, podcasting friends...
How could Arthur feign that level of idiocy?
Most of the time he didn't even try. That was partly why his chemistry teacher Dr Yusuf sometimes took him on one side to try to find out what was wrong with him. (Of course, that wasn't quite how he phrased it, the old boffin.) He was no dummy. In fact Arthur accorded him full respect. He knew in his bones there was something wrong about Arthur, something about him he couldn't yet locate or define. Something reportable, culpable, possibly transmissible. Or maybe something about the people around him, or his family – was he an abused child, a battered boyfriend, repressing a trans crisis? Yusuf didn't know, but Arthur couldn't get him to stop trying to track down the truth. In the subtlest possible way: or so he thought. Not to worry. Yusuf was never going to find out, and if he did he wouldn't believe it anyway.
Thursday afternoons were pretty cool. A late class, four till six, in AS2 Engineering: he loved the practical class. He'd put together this little frog that winched its way along the floor, with a tiny audiotape in its gut making farting noises. Ok, croaking noises. They'd set it going lately at the end of every class, with the demonstrator pursing up his lips and pretending to disapprove, trying not to laugh. Then they sat in the cafeteria, drank coffee and played pool. Arthur beat Robert every time, and just smiled, casual, innocent. And Rob laughed, and convinced himself that he let Arthur win.
It was pretty nice being the only gay student in a class full of boys, and only to a limited extent in the way you'd imagine. Mostly it was nice because the guys – pupils and teachers both – felt like they had something to prove, owning their 'woke' credentials. He was everybody's baby and pet project -- as if they were amazed a gay dude wasn't off auditioning for musical theatre instead of engineering -- and it was as if everything he did well, was a feather in their own cap. Everybody vying to be his mentor and advisor, so he could suck up lots of info and tips and get so good they couldn't work out how it happened so fast.
When it was dark, and they were full up on sugar and fat and caffeine, they hopped onto their scooters – him and Robert – or the bus – Nash and Ariadne -- breathing white steam into cold wintery air at the bus-stop, banging gloved hands together to try to warm up, getting on the bike. And they buzzed off home. Feeling high, feeling good, like they were all going somewhere, and they hugged the secret of their direction to their chests. If folks only knew! Where they were going, how much they'd achieve, how they could change everything till it was unrecognisable. Old guys, they didn't know that kids know life's for real, serious. Except actually, Arthur conceded, a lot of kids didn't. So fair play to the old guys.
That's where it helps, to be an old guy yourself.
This Thursday evening, Arthur parked the scooter in the drive at home, and put his key in the lock. Pausing a little bit, summoning himself up, himself and all his powers. He needed a little extra, first thing as he came in the door. To his loving family.
It was good to come in from the darkness, to cosy radiators and bright white lights. All the pleasures and comforts of the twenty-first century, and by God most idiots didn't appreciate them nearly enough. It was as if they didn't understand they might not always have them. Arthur could remember when... Well, anyway. The house was set in a couple of acres – Mum was a solicitor and Dad a sales director in web and media packages, and they were loaded. The entrance hall was tiled, wooden floored, polished and lovely. How did people get used to this kind of affluence?
