About the Author
Michael J Ritchie was born in 1988 and started writing shortly thereafter, using fiction as a means to escape ordinary life and responsibility ever since. The University of Roehampton enabled him further by awarding him a degree in Creative Writing in 2009. He started his book review blog, Fell From Fiction, in 2013, and has occasionally worked as a freelance journalist, as well as writing fiction. He tends to work best with a glass of wine to hand. The Third Wheel is his second novel.
He can be found on Twitter and Instagram at @fellfromfiction.
The Third Wheel
Michael J. Ritchie
Unbound Digital
This edition first published in 2018
Unbound
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All rights reserved
© Michael J. Ritchie, 2018
The right of Michael J. Ritchie to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
ISBN (eBook): 978-1-912618-59-0
ISBN (Paperback): 978-1-912618-58-3
Design by Mecob
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, Elcograf S.p.A.
For Mum, Dad, Katie and my family.
You can’t choose your family, but I would’ve picked you anyway.
Dear Reader,
The book you are holding came about in a rather different way to most others. It was funded directly by readers through a new website: Unbound.
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Publishing in this way means readers are no longer just passive consumers of the books they buy, and authors are free to write the books they really want. They get a much fairer return too – half the profits their books generate, rather than a tiny percentage of the cover price.
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Founders, Unbound
Super Patrons
Kirk Baillie
Rachel Baron Singer
Jackie Bates
Victoria Batley
Felix Blakeston
Amanda Brown
Jonny & Kristina Casto-Ardern
Christopher Cherng
GMark Cole
Richard Cooper
Pat Cornwell
Ed Cornwell
Paula Costello
Vicki Cox
Robert Cox
Mavis Creaney
Sarah D’alessio
Chris & April Dawson
Pauline Dellar
Suz & Lucy Diamond-Wall
Jenny Doughty
Keith Dunbar
Sarah Dunsworth
Ellie Edwards
Graham Edwards
Amanda Egleton
Lucy Ellis
Rachel Ellis
Ember
Denise Emmerson
Brioney Euden
Lee Exelby
Dave Fisher
Abi Fraser
Susan Godfrey
Caroline Green
Sabrina Greenberg
Jenni Hardman
Vikki, Garry & Alfie Harnblow
Kevin Hawthorne
Brooke Hepburn
Merna Horthy
Sue Hunt
Lorraine Jarvis
Marilyn and Richard Jarvis
Lyn, Rob, Harry & George Jarvis
Thomas Jeram-West
Laura Johnstone
Suzanne Kalamar
Ella Kennedy
Ella Kennedy
Dan Kieran
Anwen Kya Hayward
Julie Lovell
Adam Lowe
Bill Lumley
Sam Mawson
Lois May-Miller
Amy Mayhill
Gary McQueen
Alice Meadows
Karen & Andy Meed
Christopher Melvin
George Mirabelli-Montan
John Mitchinson
Christopher Money
Emma Moore
Carlo Navato
Sue Nieland
Enrique Nieto
Christopher O’Dea-Giordano
David Pig Henshaw
Justin Pollard
Katherine Pontefract
Alex Ritchie
Katie Ritchie
Ian Ritchie
Helen Ritchie
Jenny Ritchie
Lindsey Roots
Barnaby Saltmarsh
Ste Sharp
Kristiane Sherry
Roxanne Smith
Phil Sparrow
Quentin Spender
Ross Strudwick
Greg Thompson
Mike Scott Thomson
Claire Toynton
Jacqui Trowsdale
David G Tubby
Aziz Twaijri
Kimberley Walter
Chris Wells
Jon-Paul Wheatley
Richard Williamson
Karen Williamson
Margaret Woodhead
Contents
About the Author
Dedication
Dear Reader Letter
Super Patrons
Prologue
One The End of Term
Two Priti-and-Art
Three The Wedding
Four Lara-and-Steve
Five Breaking News
Six Shell-and-Terry
Seven Neither Bang nor Whimper
Eight Yellow
Nine Peregrina-and-Pete
Ten First Contact
Eleven Ruby-and-Alex
Twelve Convergence
Thirteen Jay-and-Kay
Fourteen Guns and Teeth
Fifteen Annie-and-Matt
Sixteen The Fellowship
Seventeen Iris-and-William
Eighteen Midnight Mass
Nineteen Back to School
Twenty The Reason I'm Single
Twenty-One Evacuation
Twenty-Two Pub Brawl
Twenty-Three Recalibration
Twenty-Four The British Museum
Twenty-Six Ruby-and-Alex-and-
Twenty-Seven Journey to the Natural History Museum
Twenty-Eight Belly of the Whale
&n
bsp; Twenty-Nine Gavin-and-Frederik
Thirty They’re Back
Thirty-One Hellos and Goodbyes
Thirty-Two Victoria-and-Albert
Thirty-Three The Tower
Thirty-Four Uncertain Beginnings
Acknowledgements
Bonus material Lara-and-Steve
Gavin-and-Frederik Gavin-and-Frederik
Peregrina-and-Pete Peregrina-and-Pete
Prologue
The room is perhaps eight feet square. It’s rather grandiose to call it a room, really, so I’ll call it what it is. It’s a cell. It’s a prison cell on an alien spaceship. I’m by myself here though, once again, and I assume the others have been separated too. We don’t know what’s going to happen to us.
I sit in the one of the corners of the plain room. The walls and floor are solid and uncomfortable, sheet metal so smooth and featureless that it’s impossible to see where the door is. The cell is lit by a small orb of light – not a bulb, it hangs freely – in the corner opposite me. I hug my knees tight and wonder what’s happened to the others. Have they been given the same treatment as me? Is it better? Worse?
I run a hand through my greasy hair and, with care, scratch an annoying itch on my broken nose. It’s not so much bent out of shape as it is flattened, and I’m thankful that the walls aren’t reflective. There’s nothing to do and, in another lifetime, I’d be mesmerised by the fact that I’m hurtling through space – I can feel the quiet thrum of propulsion through the floor – but instead I’m overwhelmed by the notion of leaving everything I knew behind on that tiny blue dot that wasn’t prepared for its sudden demise.
I chew at my nails, blood and grime on my tongue. I rip at the thumbnail with my teeth too hard and it starts to bleed. I don’t do anything to try and stem the flow. There’s no point any more.
My ears prick up at a new sound. There are footsteps nearby, but I can’t work out which direction they’re coming from. I tense a little, wondering if I’m going to be dragged out of here again, but they grow faint and disappear.
It’s ironic that I’m sitting here by myself. A week ago, my biggest problem was that I was single, and all of my friends were – not intentionally, I assume – rubbing their coupledom in my face. But that was before the aliens landed and we lost the planet. I guess I’m getting ahead of myself, but with nothing else to distract me in here, I’m left alone with my thoughts. And my thoughts aren’t pretty.
It started about a week ago.
One
The End of Term
By the time you reach your mid-twenties, if not before, you realise that the world is built for couples. Everything is designed with them in mind – tables for two, weekend breaks for two, competitions with two tickets to a gig or show or theme park as the prize – and that’s just the way things are.
I am the only person I know who is currently single. My friends are coupled up, but I don’t hold it against them. They have stopped being single entities and become Jay-and-Kay (married), Shell-and-Terry (dating), Iris-and-William (cohabiting), Peregrina-and-Pete (engaged), Lara-and-Steve (engaged, wedding imminent), Gavin-and-Frederik (cohabiting), Priti-and-Art (dating), Annie-and-Matt (newly dating), Ruby-and-Alex (cohabiting). And then there’s me, Dexter, the third wheel.
Don’t get me wrong; I’m not that bitter. I like being by myself, on the whole, and I don’t often feel lonely. I’m too selfish to share my life with one other person, anyway. I like being a free agent. I don’t buy into the societal ideal that we’re not complete until we’ve got a partner, but sometimes it feels a bit crap to spend another evening at home with no one but Catsby for company, and no hand to hold. I still see most of my friends on a semi-regular basis, but it’s not like it used to be. I can’t call them up in the evening and drag them to the pub on a spur of the moment. They need warning and time to prepare, and often there’s an assumption the invitation encompasses the partner too.
Mind you, I can’t even pretend that unplanned evenings in the pub were a regular occurrence anyway, not since I started working at Fairmill Community College. I’m pretty good if I do say so myself, but I did sort of cheat to get the job. Ruby (one half of Ruby-and-Alex) had put my application to the top of the pile. People think English is a doddle to teach, but they’re wrong. Ruby teaches history and between us we read hundreds of essays a week. Occasionally one will have a unique thought, but a quick Google search will find it in an earlier form on Wikipedia.
It’s 3.25 on Friday afternoon and my Year 10 class have long since given up on pretending to pay any attention to me. Matt Hogan is texting under his desk, Perry Delaney is doodling on rather than filling in his worksheet and Kimberley Thornton is reapplying her make-up for the hundredth time, because she can’t possibly be seen next to the bins outside Tesco Express after school without a face full of slap.
We had been reading Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, a book even I have difficulty pretending to enjoy, and while the kids had tolerated me so far, it was a mere five minutes before the start of the Easter holidays, so there was no way any of them were going to get anything else done.
‘OK, you lot have obviously shut down for the holidays, so you can pack your stuff up and wait for the bell,’ I say, turning off the electronic whiteboard. There’s a scuffle and rattle of furniture as rucksacks and satchels are pulled up and stuffed with pencil cases and exercise books. A few of the boys have already taken their ties off. Kimberley Thornton is putting in dangly earrings that the school frowns upon. I don’t have the energy to protest.
‘Mr Scithers?’ says a voice in the front row. It’s Sharon Merton; she always calls me that rather than the ‘Sir’ favoured by the other children.
‘Yes, Sharon?’
‘Are you looking forward to the holidays?’
‘Of course, I am,’ I say. ‘Not that it’s much of a holiday – lesson plans and marking to do!’
‘Aren’t you doing anything fun, sir?’ chimes in Perry Delaney.
‘I’m going to a wedding tomorrow,’ I offer. Some teachers never reveal a thing to their students about their private lives, but I always figure why the hell not? It shows I’m human, and I find that gets me a tiny bit more respect. I’d die before I added any of them on Facebook, and my Twitter account is private and doesn’t include my name, but I can throw them the odd bone. They’re entitled to be curious – I was about my teachers.
‘Whose wedding is it, sir?’ says Farzana Chauhan, a look that suggests she thinks she might be pushing it a bit.
‘Um, a friend of mine from school, way back when,’ I say.
‘Have you got a date for it, sir?’ Perry Delaney says, snickering to himself. Little shit.
‘Just me, but lots of friends going.’ I give a forced smile. ‘Good opportunity to catch up.’
‘Don’t you have a girlfriend, sir?’ says Sharon Merton. Blast. I must’ve mentioned Georgina at some point. Hell, it’s almost certain that I did, but I’ve no idea what I said. How come they can remember that I had a girlfriend, but can’t remember what day their homework is due?
‘No, I don’t,’ I say. ‘Anyway, enough about my private life. Does everyone understand the homework?’ They chorus a bored ‘Yeeeessss’ which melts into the sharp trill of the bell that jolts them into activity, and they scurry off to do whatever it is teenagers do these days. I’m twenty-six, still technically counted as ‘young’ by many, but it seems forever ago that that was me.
In the corridor, I hear ‘Oi! No running! Yes, you Matthew!’ which signals the arrival of my friend, colleague and fellow wedding attendee Ruby. Her finely textured blonde hair is up in a somehow-perfect ponytail, and she’s got a large tote bag full of, presumably, textbooks and, probably, a bottle of wine.
‘Alright?’ she says, sitting on one of the tables in the front row. Her skirt is too short and tight, so it’s an awkward perch.
‘Mmm,’ I say, non-committally. I fiddle about with my laptop, pulling out the cables and shutting it down. I’m tempted to leave
it here for the Easter holidays so I can’t do any lesson plans, but I’d only be screwing myself over. ‘One of the kids asked about Georgina.’
‘Little shit,’ says Ruby. ‘You didn’t tell them you’d broken up, did you?’
‘Not directly,’ I say, shoving my laptop into my shoulder bag. ‘The bell went before we could get too far into it. I’m not about to discuss my explosive break-ups with a bunch of fourteen-year-olds.’ I get up and sling the laptop bag over one shoulder, and my rucksack full of exercise books from Years 7 and 11 over the other one. Teaching does wonders for your upper body strength.
As we leave, I turn the lights off and, unable to find my key and unwilling to unload myself to look, don’t bother locking the door. No one but cleaners here over the holidays. Up the corridor, I can see other teachers still working away – Anita won’t leave until gone seven – but nothing is going to stop me from getting out of there. In the car park, we pass Iris Burke (one half of Iris-and-William) getting into her car. She waves and says she’ll see us tomorrow at the reception and drives off. Ruby and I walk in tired silence to the train station. Thankfully, most of the kids live locally so, by the time we get on the train, we’ve lost most vestiges of the work day.
Three stops: Blackpond, St Simon’s and South Greenfield. That’ll be me home, a cuddle with Catsby and a large glass of wine. I may even get a takeaway and find a film on Netflix. As if on the same wavelength as me, Ruby asks what I’m doing with my night. I tell her and ask the same back.
‘Alex and I are celebrating our anniversary,’ she says. I can hear the love heart dotting the ‘i’ in ‘anniversary’.