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    Freaks
    Freaks
    Freaks
    Ebook170 pages1 hour

    Freaks

    By Caroline Smailes, Nik Perring and Darren Craske

    4.5/5

    ()

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    About this ebook

    The weirdest stories you will ever read.

    A bizarre collection of short stories, each featuring a character with an unusual superpower.

    Meet The Photocopier, a woman who can reproduce herself at will and who attempts to teach her daughter to do the same.

    Or the zombie hairdresser who is able to reanimate every time she dies.

    And the man who can break his way into his lover’s dream.

    Over fifty freaks and misfits feature in this unforgettable book, and each is illustrated by comic book artist Darren Craske.

    This book contains some text-based images that are optimised for tablet devices.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins UK
    Release dateApr 12, 2012
    ISBN9780007442904
    Freaks
    Author

    Caroline Smailes

    CAROLINE SMAILES lives in the North West of England with her husband and three children. The Drowning of Arthur Braxton is her fifth novel. She can be found at www.carolinesmailes.co.uk and twitter.com/Caroline_S

    Read more from Caroline Smailes

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    4.5/5

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    • 4/5
      I suppose I should have started Freaks with the supposition that this short story collection has a serious message to deliver, but it was not until the book’s dedication that I was finally clued in. That dedication reads: “to all who, if only for a moment, felt that they didn’t belong.” We are all freaks, as it turns out, and we all have super powers whether we deserve them or not. The question we are left with is what we choose to do with those super powers because too many of them have the potential to ruin lives – and not just our own. Freaks is a beautifully packaged (in the guise of an old fashioned comic book) collection of fifty pieces of flash fiction recently published in the U.K. Some of the stories were written by Nik Perring, some by Caroline Smailes, and others are a combination of their efforts. In addition, illustrator Darren Craske provides mood-setting comic-book-style illustrations that add greatly to the fun. Don’t get me wrong. There are stories here about people with “legitimate” super powers. One woman, for instance, can duplicate herself by spinning in circles. But even that story is really more about the little girl who has unexpectedly failed to inherit her mother’s ability to “photocopy” herself. Too, “The Photocopier” is a good example of the tone and writing style to be found in so many of these stories. Here, for instance, is the girl’s reaction to seeing her mother throw off five copies of herself for the very first time:“I swear to Christ it was the freakiest thing I’ve ever seen. There was me with wee in me knickers, with six of me mums standing there smiling at me like nutters.”You have to love that image.“The Photocopier” is the first story in the book and, if I am reading the rather disturbing little tale “Maman, Flying” correctly, that one comprises the perfect bookend to put finish to the collection. Opinions about what really happens in the little five-paragraph story may vary from reader to reader – and, for readers like me, from reading to reading – but “Maman, Flying” is the perfect offset to the comic mood of the book’s opening.Freaks is a book about relationships – relationships between husbands and wives, lovers, potential lovers, friends, students, and parents and their children - all kinds of relationships. Some of the super powers described in Freaks will surprise you because you might already have one or two of them yourself. For sure, you know someone who has them, and you just might have had some of them used against you.This one is fun, but there is more here than initially meets the eye. My fellow freaks are sure to enjoy it.Rated at: 4.0

    Book preview

    Freaks - Caroline Smailes

    The day after me thirteenth birthday me mum said she had something massive to tell me. At first I reckoned she was going to say that me dad wasn’t me dad or that she was pregnant with Bill from next door’s sperm, but instead she just stood up and started spinning on the spot. At first I reckoned she’d lost the plot but then she started exploding.

    And five other mums shot out of her.

    I swear to Christ it was the freakiest thing I’ve ever seen. There was me with wee in me knickers, with six of me mums standing there smiling at me like nutters. Me Main Mum said that the reason she was showing me her true self was ’cause she reckoned that I was a photocopier like her and that we’d know for sure in a couple of months.

    I reckon I spent most of that year spinning on the spot in the front room with me six mums cheering me on, and me Main Mum telling me to spin faster or that I wasn’t trying me hardest or that I needed to want it more. Course I never went

    It was just me getting dizzy and trying not to throw up on me mums’ carpet. But still, every day, I kept practising me spinning, faster and faster on that very same spot, hoping to Christ that one day me mums’d say I’d done good.

    After that year me six mums sat me down and me Main Mum told me that they reckoned it was time I gave up me spinning. She said they’d been talking, her and me other mums, and that they’d figured that I’d never be like them. Me Main Mum said they reckoned that it was about time I concentrated on being ordinary.

    I remember when I first asked Hestia about her fingers. She’d been shy about it which surprised me. I mean it’s not like she’d ever tried to hide them from anyone: her fingernails were stone – it was obvious.

    She told me it had started when she was little. She’d wanted a hug from her dad and he’d said no, he’d told her to stop acting like a baby.

    ‘I felt it in my fingers and inside,’ she said. ‘It was cold and hard. And when I woke up next morning, this had happened.’

    She held out her fingers to me and I wrapped my hands around them. They were rough against my skin and they were cold too.

    Hestia’s ankles were stone as well. When she was eight she’d not been invited to her best friend’s birthday party. She was so sad, she said, that she’d cried from the moment she’d walked out of the school gates to when she’d fallen asleep deep into the night. She told me that, the morning after, when she’d gone to pull her socks on, she’d found that her ankles were exactly the same as her fingernails. Cold and rough and not really alive. She said she’d have cried if she’d had been able to, but she was dry.

    To be honest I found her limp cute at the beginning, when we first met, when I told her it wasn’t a problem, that we’d work something out. I think I have a thing for girls like that; in imperfection lies beauty, or something.

    And I think that’s why I like Amy. It’s the braces and her lisp – I’ve always been a sucker for speech impediments.

    She’s a nice girl too. The best bit’s her skin – I like how it’s all smooth and warm and how she doesn’t mind me touching it.

    I guess I’ve got a problem, and that’s what exactly to do about Hestia. I mean, I know I should tell her, but it’s difficult. I worry about how she’ll take it, about what it could do to her. You’d have thought that after eight years I’d know exactly how to handle her, how to handle this, but the truth is I’ve got no idea. I’m scared too. Recently her left breast became stone, completely without warning.

    Maybe it’s best to leave it, or maybe it’s better to wait and see. Like I said to her all those years ago: we’ll work something out.

    The first time she wore that hat was on her hen night. She was eighteen then. ‘You’re too young for marrying,’ her dad said to her. She’d only been seeing that one for a few weeks. ‘I’m pregnant Dad,’ she said. Her dad nodded because he understood. That night she took that pink Stetson out with her. She held it in one hand while she sipped lemonade through a stripy straw and watched all her mates having fun. ‘Put your hat on,’ some bloke said to her. She did. She put that Stetson on her head. That’s when time stopped. That’s the night that she snaked in and out of frozen people. Then she was tired and it was time for time to carry on.

    The second time she wore

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