He was going to have to hedge his bets here. He couldn’trisk Glen missing the target. He took both bottles out of the fridge andremoved the lids. He then opened the box of laxatives. There were ten sachetsin all. He opened them in turn, pouring five into the milk and five into the orangejuice. That ought to be enough. Then he gave them a good shake around for goodmeasure.
He couldn’t see into the orange juice carton. It was a TetraPak adorned with pictures of oranges growing in the Spanish sunshine. He could,however, see the milk through the clear bottle and was reassured to see no evidenceit had been tampered with. He put both back into the fridge and disposed of thelaxative box in the kitchen bin. All he had to do now was keep his fingerscrossed that Glen would behave true to form.
It was nearly an hour before Glen turned up, letting himselfin through the kitchen door. He never bothered to knock.
“Sorry I’m late, Kenty. Stopped off at Boots on the way topick up a few johnnies. Got a 12 pack, that should be enough even for a man ofmy sexual prowess.”
He pulled the pack out of his trouser pocket and waved it inKent’s face. “I would let you have one but seems a shame to let it go to waste.I doubt whether you’ll get a chance to use it before the expiry date.”
He shoved the pack back in his pocket and headed straight forthe fridge. To Kent’s joy, he went straight for the milk and downed the wholelot in one go. This was what he had been counting on. Glen was behaving completelytrue to form.
“Help yourself to a drink,” said Kent, unable to keep a hintof sarcasm out of his voice. Glen showed no indication that he had picked up onhis tone.
“Cheers, mate,” he replied, wiping the milk from his mouth. “Whatbiscuits have you got?” He made a beeline for the biscuit barrel next to thekettle, grabbed a chocolate digestive and shoved the whole biscuit into hismouth in one go. Then he took another. They were demolished in about tenseconds flat.
“Lovely. Now then, what’s all this about the booze?”
Kent looked closely at him. He didn’t seem to have noticedany difference in the taste of the milk. That was good. He wondered how longthe laxatives would take to work.
“Yes, I’ve got thirty quid here,” said Kent. “We can getplenty with that. All we’ve got to do is get it into the school and we can dothat this afternoon. They will only be searching people tonight.”
“How?” asked Glen, opening another cupboard, the one wherethe crisps were kept. He grabbed a packet of Beef and Onion flavour, rippedthem open, and started shovelling them in about six at a time.
Kent ignored the fact that Glen was blatantly helping himselfto everything in sight. That was what he did every time he came round. He, did,however make a mental note to have a look and see if there were any more packsof Beef and Onion in the cupboard later. He was pretty sure you couldn’t getthem anymore. When had they disappeared off the scene? He hadn’t even noticedand they used to be his favourite.
Continuing to outline his plan, he said, “School’s open forthe lower years today. We go straight in through the front door before the endof the day, into the changing rooms and hide the booze in the lockers. No one isgoing to question why we are there, especially if we take our football kitswith us. We can hide the bottles by wrapping them in our kit in our backpacks. Thenlater in the evening, once the ball has actually started, we go back to the changingrooms to get it. Easy.”
It wasn’t really that easy. There were a number of potentialflaws in this plan, but as long as Glen bought it, that wouldn’t matter. Afterall, the whole purpose of this ruse had been to get Glen round to the house. Hopefullyhe would be taken short long before they got anywhere near the school,rendering the whole alcohol-smuggling plan redundant.
“I like your thinking, Kenty,” said Glen, in-between mouthfulsof crisps. “I remember now why I let you be my friend.”
“Well, what are friends for?” asked Kent, amused that Glenwould be finding out exactly what the price of his false friendship would be veryshortly. “Come on, let’s go.”
As they walked into town, Glen was still not showing anysigns that the laxatives were having an effect. Instead, he remained his usualirritating self, shouting out, “Schwing!” at every single girl they saw. Therewas no denying the year they were in. The catchphrases defined the period just asmuch as the passing cars which had notably changed since he had walked thisroute in 1984. The old British Leyland models that had dominated the road backthen had largely vanished, replaced by VW Golfs, Nissan Micras and VauxhallNovas. When they reached the start of the town centre, the traffic diverted offto the right as the two of them entered the recently established pedestrianzone.
Kent didn’t want to waste the thirty quid on booze if hecould avoid it. He was sure he could put the money to better use later. It wasonly a couple of hundred yards until they reached Victoria Wine, so he neededto slow Glen down a bit. As they passed The Railway Arms, he remembered hisearlier desire to revisit his old, long gone local. This would do very nicely.
“Hey, we’ve got plenty of time, mate. Let’s pop in here fora quick pint and a game of pool,” he suggested.
“Good idea, Kenty. You’ll have to pay, though. I totally forgotto bring any cash with me.”
“That’s OK,” said Kent, being as accommodating as possible,even though he knew Glen was lying. How had he paid for the condoms if he hadno money? No matter, half an hour in here and a pint of lager should do thetrick. Everyone knew that Big Don, the landlord, never cleaned the pipes. Adodgy pint should
