Birthday Kiss

It was Aunt Maggie that made him do it.

If Aunt Maggie didn’t come over that Saturday, if it wasn’t his thirteenth birthday, if she wasn’t a big kisser, none of this would have happened. But as it happened, she did come over. It was his birthday. And she was, without a doubt, a big, wet, face kisser.

‘Ooh I bet you can’t wait for Aunt Maggie to get here,’ his brother teased that morning. ‘Are you looking forward to a nice big, birthday smooch?’

James cringed at the thought. Aunt Maggie’s breath smelt like old cigarettes and ancient, minty gum, and when she grabbed you by the face and planted one on you, you could feel the saliva drying on your cheek as she cupped your chin hard in her cold, bony hands and spoke directly into your face about how big you’ve gotten. The stench it left behind was otherworldly. Once he had dared wipe it off with his sleeve and his mum had slapped him round the back of his head and told him not to be so rude to poor old Aunt Maggie.

The excitement of his birthday that morning dissolved in an instant when his brother peeked through the sitting room curtain and called, ‘She’s here!’

He turned to James when their mum went to get the door and grinned menacingly. ‘Look, James, Aunt Maggie’s here! Maybe she’s got a present for you…!’

That was it. James wouldn’t put up with it at thirteen years old, enough was enough. He bolted from the room and scrambled up the stairs just as mum was pulling open the front door. He raced into his bedroom and spun around, desperate for a place to hide.

‘Where is he then?’ he heard Aunt Maggie’s wobbly voice trailing up the stairs, ‘Where’s the birthday boy?’

Not today, thought James. He dived under his bed, and that’s when it happened. A flash of light, a gush of air, and the beginning of a terrible ordeal.

James was curled into a tight ball, eyes scrunched shut against the threat of kisses, when a voice cleared their throat.

‘Hm-hm,’ it said.

James curled up tighter. She had found him already. But her voice sounded awfully croaky.

‘Hello?’ said the croaky voice. ‘Are you coming or going?’

James opened one eye, and what stood before him was much worse that Aunt Maggie. It was a goblin.

‘Would you mind?’ said the goblin. ‘You’re in the way.’

James’s mouth gaped open, his eyes stared, unblinking. He took in the short, scrawny, wrinkly-skinned goblin, its round, shiny eyes, its large, pointed ears, its bare feet wriggling impatiently on the floor, and before he could scream another goblin poked its head out from behind the first.

‘Come on, Colin,’ it said, ‘what’s the hold up?’

‘It’s not me,’ said the first goblin. ‘Someone’s clogging the portal.’

‘Well un-clog it, I’m late.’

The goblin named Colin sighed and rolled his big eyes, and before James knew it, he was being dragged out of a fireplace by his t-shirt. He tried desperately to get his bearings. It wasn’t a fireplace, it was a tiny archway, through which the second goblin disappeared and a third was following behind.

‘Great,’ said Colin, throwing his hands up, ‘now I’ve lost my place.’

Where was James’s bed? What was that tiny archway? What were these wrinkly, grey-skinned things and where were they going? James had so many questions that when he turned to the goblin to ask, they became jumbled and what came out was a confused gurgling sound.

‘I beg your pardon?’ said the Colin.

‘Where am I?!’ stuttered James.

‘In the way, is where,’ said the Colin. He was prancing back and forward trying to find a gap in the queue, to angry yells of ‘No cutting the line!’ and ‘I don’t think so!’ as he kept being elbowed out the way by other busy goblins. Finally, he gave up and turned to James with his fists on his hips.

‘Now look what you did, I’ll have to wait until rush hours finished. Why were you all scrunched up in the grate like that, anyway?’

‘It wasn’t a grate when I went in,’ said James.

‘Well, obviously not, that’s how portals work. What would be the point of going in the same place you’re coming out? And what happened to your face anyway?’

James felt around his face, wondering if it was smeared with jam from breakfast. ‘What? What’s wrong with it?’

‘It’s all… smooth. Like an egg. And why do you have so much of that… weird… stuff on your head?’

James felt around his head. ‘You mean hair?’

‘Yes, that.’ Colin was scratching his bald head now, eyes narrowed, brow creased, taking in every inch of James.

‘Well, it’s been a while since I had a haircut I suppose,’ said James, ‘but my mum says it’s ok long as I get one before I go back to school because she won’t have the neighbours thinking I’m a scruffy lay about. I don’t mind, only I can’t–’

Colin gasped, ‘You’re not even a goblin, are you?! Gargoyles, what are you, then? Oh no, you’re not a water sprite, are you? We’ve got to get you to a swamp right away, you can’t stay here.’

Colin took James by the wrist and started pulling him away from the tiny arch, James dug his heels in.

‘What?! No, I’m not a water-whatever!’

Colin dropped his wrist and looked at him again, rubbing his chin. ‘No? What then, not a banshee, not a vampire. Not a zombie either, you’re too pink and… sweaty.’

‘I’m not sweaty.’

‘You are a bit.’

James was a bit. But it could hardly be helped given the morning he’d had.

‘I’m a boy,’ said James.

Colin scoffed and folded his arms. ‘Yeah, right, and I’m a potato.

James thought he did quite look like a potato.

‘Boys can’t cross the portal,’ Colin said, ‘everyone knows that. The only way there would even be the slightest chance of it accidentally happening would be if you were in some kind of danger–’

‘I was in danger–’

‘–and if it was something special, something magic, like, I don’t know, like a birthday.’

‘It is my birthday.’

Colin stopped in his tracks. ‘You mean to tell me; you are actually a boy? A real-life boy?’

‘Yes. A boy. And I want to know where I am and how I can get back.’

‘Here, it’s pretty bad luck to be in danger on your birthday.’

‘Yes, it is.’

The goblin was looking James over, thinking hard. Finally, he spoke.

‘Ok, then. I’ll help you get back. But only because it’s your birthday, I’m really supposed to take you to the trolls, you know. I could get in big trouble.’

James supposed he should be grateful, and the two shook hands. They stood there, waiting for the queue of goblins to thin out enough that they could squeeze in, and James peppered Colin with questions about goblin life. The goblin city didn’t seem too bad actually, James could see buildings and bridges and tidy, cobbled streets, all decorated in some brightly coloured bunting that flapped around merrily.

Although a little grumpy, the other goblins didn’t seem awful either. Many of them seemed to know Colin and shouted greetings as they hurried around, carrying big packages and armfuls of plates and boxes of cutlery.

‘Ok, I think we can squeeze in here after this group,’ said Colin.

The two shook hands again and James got ready to fold himself back into the archway.

‘I hope you have a great birthday,’ said Colin, ‘I’m sure you’ve got lots of fun things planned.’

James made a non-committal ‘hm,’ sound, because if every other birthday was to go by, he would be forced to squash around the small dining table next to Aunt Maggie, while they ate cabbage and meat (‘Better for my constitution,’ Aunt Maggie says), and be encouraged to thank her profusely for a pair of socks she had hand knitted.

‘Wish I could come,’ said Colin, ‘you’ve managed to catch us on a horrendous day. Dragon Festival,’ he rolled his eyes.

James stopped with one leg in and one leg out, ‘I’m sorry? The what-festival?’

‘The Dragon Festival. Oh, it’s awful, they make us do it every year. It’s where all the dragons from the mountains put on an air display and we all have to go and watch and make floating lanterns and a huge bonfire and there’s fireworks, and then we have to eat this awful traditional feast. Really, it’s a drag.’

‘A feast?’ asked James, his leg still hovering in mid-air.

Colin sighed. ‘Yes, lots of stuff. But mostly hotdogs and fairy bread and then jelly and cake for after. Every year.’

James very much liked dragons, and feasts, and jelly. He thought a minute. Looked into the brown brick of the back of the portal, thought about that big, wet smooch and a knitted pair of socks waiting for him at the other end. He thought he could smell cabbage wafting through the wall. He retracted his foot.

‘I could… you know, if you want, I could come with you?’ said James.

Colin blinked. ‘You would come to the Dragon Festival? For me?’

‘Well, sure. I could.’

Colin blinked some more, and then his face broke out into a wide smile, crinkling his crinkly eyes. ‘Alright then, I don’t see why not!’

The two set off down the cobbled street, Colin bouncing and chatting happily beside him, and James thinking that for once, his birthday seemed to be looking up. He was pretty sure he could get back to the portal some other time. After jelly, maybe.

Aunt Maggie would just have to kiss his brother instead.