by Adam Baron
Milly was reading a different book now. Both she and Benji were engrossed in it. Mum saw them and beckoned me over to her. She sat on a chair, almost out of sight of the others. She nodded to the one beside it and I sat, watching as she glanced across at Milly and Benji – to make sure that they hadn’t seen us. And then Mum studied me, so quiet and serious that for a second I couldn’t quite recognise her.
‘Dad’s ill,’ Mum said.
The words were plain and simple. And hard, like rocks. I was scared, and not just because of what she’d said. Mum was looking at me and her face was raw. It was honest, like she’d taken a mask off. A mask I’d never realised that she wore. I felt something odd inside – a closeness to her that I’d never experienced before, a different sort of closeness to the one I was used to. It was like she was opening up a new part of herself, one that us children didn’t normally see. For a second it made me want to giggle, but then I went very quiet inside.
She took a breath. ‘We should have told you before,’ she said. ‘Especially with my job. Dad didn’t want to, though. Not until we knew what we were dealing with.’
‘Right. So you’ve known about this for a while?’
‘Yes. And I’m sorry. Dad’s not been feeling right for quite a long time.’
‘Is that why he gave up his job?’
Mum nodded. ‘We should have told you. We should have been …’
‘Honest?’
Mum nodded again, but I wasn’t so sure. Wouldn’t we just have worried? I wasn’t even sure that I wanted to know now. But I didn’t have a choice. Mum told me what Dad had wrong with him.
‘Is that … bad?’
Mum nodded. ‘It can be. Not always, but in Dad’s case … well, yes. Though he won’t die, okay?’
I swallowed. That was good news. It was such good news. I hadn’t even known that I’d been thinking about that, but now Mum had said it I realised that I had, all the way in the car and then hurrying into the hospital.
‘But we’ll have to look after him.’
‘We can do that!’
‘Properly. We’ll have to change things. A lot of things. His life is going to change and ours is too. It’s going to be hard.’
‘I don’t care. I’ll do anything. Just ask.’
Mum nodded and the smallest of smiles appeared at the corners of her mouth. She reached for my hand and squeezed it – and then we looked at each other. I don’t know what she saw, but I saw a Mum I’d never noticed. I saw the lines near her eyes, her left earlobe a bit red because she’s always pulling it. I saw how her cheekbones looked a little rough and how the freckles that Milly had inherited had faded into her skin. I saw that she was the most beautiful person that I’d ever seen and it was like there was a bubble surrounding us, the whole world locked out.
Until it vanished.
Mum went back to being Mum again. She gave my hand another squeeze and then stood quickly. She went round to the others, first giving Milly a hug before she picked Benji up. She snuffled her nose into his neck and then, well, lied. She didn’t do it in words, though she did say Dad was ‘poorly’, not ill. It was more the way she acted. When Benji asked, ‘How poorly?’ Mum just grimaced.
‘Well, he’s certainly felt better!’ She was all energetic and positive. She let Benji show her his soldiers – as if that was in any way important compared to how Dad was. I frowned, like I was watching from the other side of a glass wall, one that ran right down the middle of our family. As soon as I had that thought, I realised that I’d always felt that way, only Mum and Dad were on one side, with us kids on the other. But Mum had lifted me over that wall, towards her, and I wasn’t sure I was glad. I wanted to be where Benji was, all smiles and knowing nothing, and I was still wishing that when Mum’s phone pinged.
Mum had left her phone on the chair. Right now, she was putting Benji’s shoes on – so she didn’t hear. And she still didn’t hear when the ping sounded again. I was going to tell her, but she’d see it soon enough. I decided to ignore it – though what if it was a doctor, about Dad?
So I picked the phone up, thinking Mum must have got a text.
But she hadn’t.
Mum had got a WhatsApp message. Because of that I put the phone back down. The doctors wouldn’t use WhatsApp. And WhatsApps aren’t like texts because you don’t have to answer them straight away, do you?
But then I thought about it.
A WhatsApp message?
I picked the phone up again and blinked at it. Then I typed in Mum’s PIN. I pressed the green WhatsApp icon – and swallowed. There were lots of chats that Mum was a part of, all in a list down the screen.
But only one had a message in it.
‘Friends of Cuckmere Haven’.
I read it quickly.
Then I looked at Mum, who was pressing the strap down on Benji’s other shoe.
Then I swallowed.
And then, very quickly, I hit DELETE.
He was wearing a check shirt. And a baseball cap. His hands were up in the air like a goalie, as he tried to get a word in. Then he turned to me.
‘Cym!’ Dad said. ‘Mate, I am SO sorry. It’s been TERRIBLE. I had this audition, it was a callback actually, and it just went ON. Could be good news, but it’s meant I’m late.’
‘But,’ I said, running towards him and giving him a hug, ‘can’t we still go?’
‘We’ve missed the flight, mate. I’m so sorry. And Alphonse, that’s my friend in Spain, he’s had to give the tickets away now. This weekend’s a bust for me anyway. Problems with my flat, which is why …’ Dad glanced at his two massive suitcases, then looked away when Mum glared at him. ‘But trust me, yeah? We’ll DEFINITELY do it soon, okay?’
I said okay, and Dad stared in through our door. ‘What’s been going on here then?’
Mum answered by asking Dad what the flipping heck it LOOKED like?
And then began what I can only describe as the most hideous weekend of my ENTIRE life. First Mum and Dad began to ARGUE. It wasn’t about Barcelona, though. It was about Dad’s flat, up in North London. The problem, it seemed, was that he didn’t HAVE it any more. That meant he had nowhere to stay.
‘Yes, you do!’ I said. ‘Doesn’t he, Mum? It would just be for a few days, wouldn’t it, Dad?’
That seemed perfectly reasonable to me. Do the maths! Mum was forcing THREE new people on ME so what was wrong with me suggesting ONE more to HER? Mum didn’t see it like that, though. She called Dad ‘irresponsible’ and ‘feckless’ (whatever that means) and started to babble objections. Ellen, meanwhile, seemed horrified, though not quite as much as Stephan. He looked like a goalie too, but one who’d been smacked in the face by a penalty. Only Mabel seemed pleased.
‘Do you like unicorns, Thimbeline’s daddy?’
Dad shrugged. ‘Of course. Yeah, love ’em.’
‘YES!’ cried Mabel, and that seemed to settle it.
Mum hissed, ‘Fine,’ and Dad grabbed his cases before she changed her mind. Not that we could go in. The police had to finish first. When they had, the policewoman asked us to see what had been stolen. Sure enough, as well as the speaker, Mum’s iPad was gone.
‘And one of my paintings,’ she said. ‘I’m an artist.’
‘Only one?’
‘Yes, I’m fairly sure. It’s all so …’ Mum paused to look around. We were standing in the wrecked living room.
‘Pointless?’ the policewoman asked. ‘I know. Not just burglars but vandals too. Mindless idiots. It’s hard to believe, but some people actually enjoy this kind of thing. Look on the bright side, though, Mrs Igloo. The horrible idiots have made a right mess, but there’s a fair few of you here to clear up, aren’t there? Having a party? It’s nice that we can do that sort of thing now, isn’t it?’
‘It’s not exactly a party.’
‘Oh. Well, in any case, you’ll help sort the place out, won’t you, kids?’
Only Mabel said she would (using unicorn power). Ellen and I just glared at eac
h other.
We did help, though. I was up in my room, stacking books back on the shelves and stuffing my clothes back in drawers. That’s when I found something I’d forgotten about before: my piggy bank. I’ve got twenty-two pounds and thirty-nine pence in there (plus Jacky Chapman’s signature on a Fruit-tella wrapper). I was relieved to see my piggy bank – but also confused. It lives on my desk – in plain sight. The burglars MUST have seen it. Why hadn’t they stolen it? I shook my head again at how stupid they were, and my eyes fell on my Charlton shirt. It’s priceless – why had they left that too?
OF COURSE!!!!
I turned to the door and ran down the stairs, just able to stop the last police car before it left.
‘Wait!’ I shouted. ‘I know who did it!’
The policewoman rolled down her window and I explained that our local rivals absolutely HATE us (and we’re not too fond of them either).
‘So it was …?’
‘Millwall fans!’ I shouted.
‘Right,’ the policewoman said. ‘I can’t believe we missed that.’ Then the police car pulled away.
Back inside, Dad had managed to cut his finger on the glass from my Charlton shirt’s frame. Mum put a plaster on it for him, though she wasn’t very gentle. She normally kisses my plasters after she puts them on, but she didn’t do that. Stephan picked all the glass up, wearing these heavy gloves, wrapping the shards in newspaper.
‘Well, obviously, if I’d had any gloves …’ Dad said.
Stephan and Dad then had a disagreement about our front door. Dad said they’d need to call out a repair service.
‘But we can do it,’ Stephan said.
‘Fix a door?’ Dad didn’t look convinced. ‘It’s all splintered. And get it back on its hinges?’
‘No bother,’ Stephan said.
And it wasn’t. At least not for Stephan. Mum helped while he sanded and sawed and drilled. When it was done, Dad said he didn’t think it was on straight, though when I pushed it back and forth it seemed all right.
‘Fabulous!’ Mum said, before giving Stephan a kiss.
‘Yeah,’ Dad said. ‘You’re very practical, aren’t you, Stephan? Spend most of your weekends in Homebase, do you? You’ll enjoy that, Janet,’ he added, as he passed Mum to go into the kitchen.
And then the house was pretty much back to normal – apart from the simple and unavoidable fact that it now had
FAR TOO MANY PEOPLE IN IT!!
Okay, not going to Barcelona had been pretty disappointing, but when Mum and I were coming back from Blackheath I’d pictured us at home together, doing stuff to make up for it. Mum would have got pizzas out of the freezer and put a film on. It would have been all simple, and calm, but instead it was so BUSY. First Mum insisted that I help empty Stephan’s van. Then I had to carry bags up the stairs, after which she made me put all these boxes in the shed.
‘Is there anything else you require, Lord Vader?’ I mumbled.
‘Sorry?’
‘Never mind,’ I said.
I tried to escape it all by staying in the garden after shifting the boxes, but even that didn’t work because I got told off for something that I DIDN’T DO! I was practising kick-ups when Mum came out to tell me it was supper time.
‘Cymbeline!’ she said. ‘Really!’
Mum was staring at the far wall. Our garden backs on to some garages and the far wall is part of one. Mum’s been growing a fig tree to cover it up – and two of the branches were broken.
‘Did your ball go on the garage roof again?’ Mum demanded.
‘No!’
‘I’ve told you NOT to climb up there. It’s dangerous, Cymbeline.’
‘But I didn’t.’
‘And you’ve totally wrecked that tree. You might even have killed it! Look, Cymbeline,’ Mum said, holding up her hand to cut me off when I tried to interrupt, ‘I know all this is difficult, but we have rules, okay?’
She went back into the kitchen then and I just shook my head. Unbelievable! Okay, sometimes I DO sneak up the fig tree to get my ball down from the garage – but I hadn’t done it THIS TIME. How dare she tell me off for something that I often did, without actually catching me? Ellen. I BET it was her – when I was upstairs. I shook my head and then blammed my ball against the shed door.
‘Cymbeline!’ Mum shouted from the kitchen.
Supper was some boring pasta because Stephan’s a vegetarian. Ellen said she couldn’t eat it because she was something called ‘gluten intolerant’. Stephan said it was the first he’d heard of it, though Mum put some rice on for her – which was NOT FAIR. I’m ‘vegetable intolerant’ but she still makes me eat them!
After supper, I thought I could get my Subbuteo out but, with all the extra bags and boxes, there was hardly any free floor space in the WHOLE house. I gave up, intending to go back out to my football. Mum asked me to help Mabel, though, who’d left her !Teddy of Most Extreme Importance! at her mum’s flat by mistake.
‘Can you lend her one of yours?’ Mum asked.
‘What?’ Ellen interrupted. ‘Have you got teddies, Cymbeline?’
‘He’s got lots of them, haven’t you, Cym?’
‘Thanks,’ I hissed. ‘I’m really pleased you told her that. They’re just old ones, from ages ago.’
‘But you’ll find a really special one for Mabel,’ Mum said. ‘Won’t you?’
‘Have you got any unicorns, Thimbeline?’ Mabel asked.
I sighed and, making sure I didn’t meet Ellen’s eye, said I’d have a look.
I took Mabel up to my bedroom and pretended that I didn’t know where my teddy basket was. I eventually managed to ‘find’ it, though, and I rooted through it, getting this empty, odd sort of feeling. I didn’t know where it came from so I ignored it, before apologising for the lack of unicorns. Mabel chose Tiny Clanger instead. Lance had given it to me years ago. He used to love the Clangers. He did their way of talking and called his mum the Soup Dragon at teatime (which she did NOT appreciate). I’d never been that keen, to be honest, but now I could see the appeal: the Clangers live on the moon, don’t they? Where there’s masses of space?
So maybe I should just go and live THERE!
I didn’t work out what the weird, empty feeling was until later. First I had to help Mabel make a horn out of cardboard to tie on to Tiny, who was now a Uni-Clanger. Possibly the first in history. Then Dad and Stephan had another disagreement, this time over who should do the washing-up, and who should dry and put away. Dad won by saying that washing-up gloves were bad for his eczema. Then Ellen stated, quite firmly, that there was
NO WAY IN A BILLION YEARS
that she was sharing our boxroom with Mabel.
‘It’s MINUSCULE!’ she bellowed at Stephan. ‘I’ve got my Level Seven coming up soon! You SAID we were going to share a BIG room! You said there’d be room to practise my arch and my walkover!’
Ellen meant her gymnastics, but I don’t know where she could have got that idea from. The boxroom is the only spare room we’ve got. That’s where they’d have to sleep – unless Mum was thinking of putting Ellen in with me! No, Dad was in my room fortunately.
‘I could kip on the sofa,’ he offered.
‘No,’ Mum told him. ‘That’s our living room. Stephan and I will want to be in there in the evenings. You’re in with Cym, and you’ll have to make do with the floor.’
‘Oh,’ Dad replied. ‘My back’s a bit … You don’t have a spare mattress then?’
Mum folded her arms. ‘Sorry.’
‘Yes, we do!’ I said. ‘Your camping one!’
‘Oh.’ Mum shrugged. ‘Yes, how silly of me. I completely forgot.’
I went to get it for Dad from under the stairs.
And then Mum said it was bedtime. She asked Dad if he was feeling sleepy too.
‘It’s only nine o’clock,’ he said.
‘Then what are you thinking of doing tonight?’
‘Well …’
‘Got any friends left in Greenwich? W
ant to go out and meet them for a drink?’
‘No,’ Dad said. ‘And funds are a bit … I thought I’d just …’
‘What?’ Mum snapped.
‘Stay here and watch TV with you and Stephan.’
And Dad went and sat down on the sofa.
Stephan looked like he’d been hit by ANOTHER penalty. Mum hissed out yet another sigh and she and I went upstairs. Stephan came too and I had to wait outside the bathroom while he took Ellen and Mabel in to clean their teeth. Then I had to wait because Mabel wouldn’t go to bed until she’d sung this stupid bedtime song: about unicorns. She’d made it up herself and it went on FOREVER. Fairy dust, candy-flavoured poo, icing-covered mountains: they were all in there. And, when she’d finally finished, she still refused to go to bed until everyone had taken turns singing the chorus. She made us all hold hands on the landing – but she still wasn’t happy.
‘And Thimbeline’s daddy!’ she insisted. ‘You should go and get him, my daddy.’
Stephan had to go and ask Dad to come up. Dad joined the circle between Mum and me, smiling at us as he held our hands (Mum didn’t smile back). Ellen sneered at me.
‘Why don’t you go first, Cymbeline? Sorry, Thimbeline.’
I tried refusing. It was SO babyish! Mabel started to cry, though, her hands making two little fists, her face screwed up and her mouth wide open. It really got me, so I sighed. And then I sang,
Night-night, little unicorn,
Rest your tired uni-horn.
Time to sleep is what Mabel said.
Just try not to wet the bed.
And we all had to do it. Dad was the loudest. He LOVED it. When it was his turn, he roared it out and even pretended to be the little unicorn, resting his tired horn on the floor while Mabel giggled.
I just wanted to go to bed. Being asleep would mean I wouldn’t have to deal with all this! Maybe I’d dream of Barcelona. Or maybe I’d wake up in the morning and find out that this had all been a VERY BAD dream. So I climbed in without even asking for a story – but I didn’t get to sleep. Stephan had put his phone on the landing to play this white-noise raining sound that Ellen and Mabel needed to get to sleep. It didn’t help me, though. I just had to keep getting up to do another wee.
