2006 - Wildcat Moon by Babs Horton

up, if he had he’d have been out of the house like a shot.
    Walter stepped into the room and spotted the pile of filthy clothes in the corner where Archie had left them. He lurched over to them, lifted them up with his big toe.
    “Look at the bloody state on these!”
    Archie sighed.
    “And good God, boy, look at your face! You look like you’ve been licking a cow’s arse.”
    “I’m sorry for getting dirty and ruining my clothes.”
    “Sorry! So you bloody well should be. Where the hell have you been to get in such a state?”
    Archie fell silent, bit his lip. He wasn’t going to tell about the chapel.
    Not even if he got belted.
    “What have you been up to?”
    “I…Id…don’t…”
    “Don’t stammer, Archie, you know I can’t abide stammering!”
    “I…I…If…f…fell in the sea.”
    “Fell in the sea! Don’t make me laugh! You never get dose enough to the sea to fall in it!”
    Archie stared down at the floor miserably.
    Walter Grimble smiled, a cruel, thin-lipped smile.
    “You’ve been up to your old tricks again, ain’t you, Arch? You been sleepwalking again. Tell the truth and shame the devil.”
    There was no way out. Archie nodded slowly, averted his gaze.
    “It ain’t natural, Archie. Normal people don’t get up in the middle of the night wim their eyes shut and wander about the place like bloody ghosts.”
    “Sorry.”
    “Sorry my arse. Think I don’t know what goes on in my own house? Think I don’t know that the last few weeks your mother’s been washing the sheets out every morning and the stupid dot thinks I don’t realize! Always covering up for you, Archie, she is.”
    Archie blushed.
    His wetting the bed was a secret between him and Mammy.
    Mammy said not to go worrying his head about it. It was probably to do with the shock of Benjamin dying. Worrying only made it worse. She said he’d grow out of it and that thousands of kids had the same problem.
    “You piss the bed regular and you’re ten years of age. Bloody disgusting that is, Arch. She should rub your bloody nose in it!”
    Archie flinched and brushed away a tear.
    “I blame her, mind, always treating you like a bloody baby, mollycoddling you. She wants to let you harden up a bit, make a proper boy out of you.”
    “I am a proper boy,” Archie mumbled.
    Walter Grimble threw back his head, opened his mouth and laughed loudly, spraying spit all over the place.
    “You’re an apology for a boy, Archie Grimble! A bleeding embarrassment as a son, that’s what you are. And let me tell you this, keep up the sleepwalking and pissing the bed and you’ll end up in a place where they take boys like you.”
    Archie swallowed hard and said nothing.
    “There’s homes, institutions for cripples and halfwits where they shut them up, keep them out of the way so normal folk can get on with their lives.”
    Archie felt the tears stinging his eyes and his throat tightening until he could barely swallow.
    “Tell you what, though, maybe I’ll let you off, Arch, this time. Don’t suppose you’ve a few bob saved up?”
    Archie nodded and went slowly across to the cupboard and took down his savings tin. He took out a half-crown and held it out with a trembling hand.
    Walter Grimble took the half-crown but kept his hand held out, waggling his filthy fingers.
    Archie went back to the cupboard and took out his last half-crown and handed it over.
    Walter Grimble winked at Archie and left the room, whistling cheerfully as he went down the stairs.
    Archie threw himself down on the bed and punched the pillows with his clenched fists. He hated that bloody man. He was not going to let the bloody porker put him away, locked up in an asylum.
    Eventually he calmed down. He went downstairs, washed his face and helped himself to a handful of biscuits from the tin in the scullery. Then he went back to his bedroom to read the letter from Benjamin. He opened the envelope carefully, lifted the pages up to his nose. He could almost smell the old