OH GOD WHAT THE FUCK. I blame Eric for this.

It was the fourth time that I’d met that lit­tle girl in the alley behind the Coach and Horses. Just as she had each of the pre­vi­ous three times, she stood there in the shad­ows, star­ing at me unblink­ing, dar­ing me to make some­thing of the fact that she was there.

I stag­gered toward her, five pints and six dou­ble vod­kas the worse for wear. She didn’t shy away.

“It ain’t safe for you out here,” I said, just as I always said. “You’re lucky you met me, I’m not so bad, but there’s a lotta’ nasty peo­ple you could run inta’ in dark alleys behind pubs.”

“I’m safe,” she said, just as she always said. “Nothing’s going to hurt me.”

Maybe it was the crit­i­cal twenty-fifth unit of alco­hol doing the think­ing, but this time, I decided to press it further.

“Look, I don’t mean no offense, but you’re what, eight? At most? And it’s half mid­night, and you’re in the alley behind the Coach and Horses. You should be tucked up in bed in your par­ents’ house.”

“Ain’t got no par­ents,” she said defi­antly. “I live here.”

“You can’t pos­si­bly live here. Aren’t you… adopted, or something?”

“No.”

“Then how do you sur­vive? Who gives you food? Who pro­tects you from those nasty guys I was on about? I ain’t kid­ding, this is not a nice part of town.”

“I’ve got my Safety Flap­jack,” she said, clearly pro­nounc­ing the cap­i­tal letters.

I had noth­ing to say on the sub­ject for a full fif­teen seconds.

“Safety… Flap­jack. Not blanket?”

“Flap­jack.” She pro­duced it to make the point. It was about one inch by two, oaty and but­tery and not in the least bit reassuring.

“And this flap­jack keeps you safe?”

“It does.”

“But. But– but.” I stopped mid-thought again. I’d had the wrong end of the keg, that must be it, or that was some dodgy knock-off import vodka. I rubbed at my eyes for a while, and blinked a bit – until I heard foot­steps. And as soon as I had, they were on me.

“Give us yer wal­let and phone, quick!” one of them shouted, grab­bing hold of my jacket and lift­ing me off the ground. I strug­gled, hop­ing I could break free and some­how pro­tect the obvi­ously delu­sional kid. But it was not to be. I was thrown to the floor, and I hit my head pretty bad. The guy who’d thrown me started going through my pock­ets, while the other two advanced on the girl.

“Run home, kid,” one said. “You didn’t see nuthin’.”

But the girl ignored them, and turned to face me.

“You were going to ask how the Safety Flap­jack pro­tects me, weren’t you, Mister?”

I groaned, as I wasn’t really capa­ble of any­thing else by that point.

“It’s because,” she said sim­ply, “when I’m threat­ened, it turns into the Un-Safety Flapjack.”

After that, there was a blur, and some scrap­ing sounds, and a gur­gle. Then there was only darkness.

When I awoke, the sun was already high in the Sat­ur­day morn­ing sky. The girl was nowhere to be seen, and like­wise the mug­gers. All along the walls and the tar­mac of the alley­way, though, there were streaks of blood, and tooth-like gouges, and burnt streaks, and smol­der­ing shards of metal pro­trud­ing from brickwork.

I vom­ited copi­ously, then after ten min­utes of shiv­er­ing and gib­ber­ing, I went about my business.

To this day, I have never seen the girl again. Nor have I drunk in the Coach and Horses. And nor have I men­tioned the case of the Safety Flap­jack to another liv­ing soul, though night after night it still haunts my dreams.