Johnny Two Fingers
"What can yer see?" asked the van man, holding up two fingers.
"What's your name?" A woman said kneeling down beside the boy, "Where's it hurt?"
Johnny felt like he was inside a tin box listening to the voices and that his eyeballs were sitting on his shoulders. "Johnny," he said. Then he remembered the finger question, "two fingers," he added.
"Johnny Twofingers?" asked the woman.
"It's a street tag," said the van man. "Seen it sprayed on walls, six foot 'igh with a two finger V sign."
"Where do you live?" asked the woman as Johnny was still trying to think where it hurt. He couldn't feel anything so he said, "Nowhere."
"Where do homeless kids get money for spray paint?" said the woman.
"Stealing, selling drugs, shoplifting, mugging, 'ouse breaking, all that sort of stuff..."
Traffic noise crashed back into Johnny's head, and his eyes rolled back into their sockets. He saw his mangled bike stuck under the wheels of the van, a man bending over him, a sympathetic looking woman's face and he felt something wet trickling down his chest.
"Shall we get him off the road?" said the woman.
"Better not, look what happened to Superman."
"Superman?"
The van man moved closer to Johnny and shouted, "LISTEN, IS YOUR SPINE BROKEN?"
Johnny screamed as they lifted him and groaned when they dropped him. His eyeballs scampered back to the safety of his shoulders.
"Are the ambulances on strike?" asked the woman.
"No, that's the fire brigade, Luv."
"Lucky he's not on fire, then."
A new voice said, "Make way, I'm a traffic warden.''
"We need a medic not a blooming parking ticket."
"Who've we got here?"
"Johnny Two Fingers, graffiti vandal. Shot in front of my van while making 'is getaway."
"What's all this wet on his chest?" said the traffic warden.
"Pissed himself, probably. I knew this bloke once, thought he been shot by a sniper. Turned out it was just a car backfiring and he'd pissed himself…"
"Let's take a look."
"Aren't yer supposed to cut his jacket open wiv scissors?"
"Not if there's a zip. Oh? There's a plastic bag inside his jacket."
"Poor lad, a colostomy bag at his age."
"Somefink's moving inside it, God it's alive! I saw a film once - this fing bursts out of this geyser's chest and…"
"It's a frog."
"A frog? In a colostomy bag? Blooming 'ell!"
"What's with the frog, son?" asked the traffic warden.
"I got it from a pond, out at Epping," said Johnny.
"They get high as kites licking them," interrupted the van man.
"My Dad built a pond in the back garden and Mum said, it'd be nice if we had a frog in it."
"Looks like the frog's ok, son. Here's the ambulance."
"They won't let 'im take a frog in the ambulance," said the van man.
"Why ever not?" asked the woman
"Health and safety."