This Wonderful Thing

by Adam Baron

  And then, after the third time, the strange, empty feeling from before came back.

  Again, I couldn’t figure it out until …

  I sat bolt upright.

  And I gasped.

  I yanked the pillow aside – but there was nothing there.

  I jumped out of bed and pulled the duvet off.

  There was nothing there either, though, and I took short breaths, gripped by fear – because it isn’t just Mabel who’s got a !Teddy of Most Extreme Importance!

  I have too, though there was no way in the world I’d ever admit that to Ellen. He’s called Not Mr Fluffy. I don’t really think about him much any more (I PROMISE!) – but my bed felt EMPTY. Where WAS he? I shook the duvet to make sure he wasn’t in it. I emptied the teddy basket in case he’d been tidied up. Then I turned all the lights on. I searched EVERYWHERE, panic building inside me as I lay on my stomach and peered under the bed.

  But he wasn’t there!

  Which meant …

  The burglars!

  They were even MORE evil than I’d thought!

  THEY’D STOLEN NOT MR FLUFFY!

  Even now he was squashed down at the bottom of a sack with Mum’s iPad, her Bluetooth speaker and her painting. Even now he was …

  But he wasn’t, was he?

  A HUGE sigh of relief shivered through me. I shut my eyes for a second and then went downstairs, picking up my overnight bag from beneath the coats. Not Mr Fluffy was in there because I’d been planning to take him to Barcelona. Mum had put him in, in case I got homesick, she said. I carried him upstairs and, making sure the door was shut, I snizzled him, though I STILL couldn’t sleep. It was the rain for one thing, though Stephan’s phone had gone quiet. Now it was on the windows outside. Then it was because of Not Mr Fluffy. You see, he hasn’t always been my !Teddy of Most Extreme Importance! I used to have another one that I got when I was a baby, when my parents took me to this big country house for the day. They also took my twin brother there, who Mum didn’t tell me about for years because he died and it was too hard for her. Anyway, they bought me a teddy called Mr Fluffy, and he was ACE. A part of me. He was smaller than Not Mr Fluffy and cuddlier than him (sorry, Not Mr Fluffy) and I used to take him EVERYWHERE – until we all went back to the country house. Mum had become obsessed with it, because of what happened to my brother. Anyway, we went back (Veronique came too) and, that time, Mr Fluffy vanished. He disappeared, turning in circles and then floating away, right in front of my eyes. I was a bit younger then, and it was terrible.

  And it was still terrible.

  Because

  EVERYTHING

  was vanishing now, wasn’t it?

  It wasn’t a dream. When I woke up, I was not in the Nou Camp View Hotel. I was in my room, though for a second I did think I could hear the Barcelona crowd roaring after Messi had scored. But it was just Dad – who was on the camping mattress – snoring his head off. I blinked at him and then wondered something: how long had he known about this ‘callback’? Why hadn’t he warned me? It had probably come in late or something, though, and wasn’t his fault. It was probably mine, for making so much out of it.

  I tiptoed past Dad, and went downstairs, glad that Mum hadn’t let him sleep on the sofa. I was looking forward to using it, just sitting there, watching TV. You know, in that quiet time, in the morning, before the adults wake up and start DOING things. And getting you to DO things too. I felt a bit better, and then better again when I found the remote control: Horrible Histories was on. I’ve got really into history recently. We’re doing Henry VIII. We’d begun with his dad and the Wars of the Roses, which were a series of civil wars in England between the York house and the Lancaster house. Henry VIII’s dad was Lancaster (red rose) and he won, after defeating Richard III (white rose) in battle. Richard was killed and his last words were, ‘A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!’, which I don’t understand. After the battle, Henry buried him under a car park in Leicester, so, if cars were around then, why didn’t Richard III call out for a Ferrari? Or a Land Rover, if it was muddy? He could have escaped then.

  After the battle, Henry VII became king and was SO selfish. He hardly fought any battles at all, making the history of him really boring for everyone who had to learn about it later. Fortunately he died, though, and Henry VIII arrived! He was much better! I really liked him – until Miss Phillips told us something about him that was absolutely disgusting. She started with some fairly bad things, like how he stole Cardinal Wolsey’s new house, and how he chopped the heads off some of his wives. These were quite shocking, as was the fact that he burned loads of people at the stake (which would have been bad, though at least you’d have had a stake to eat). But get this. In 1540, Henry VIII did something so shocking that our class could hardly believe it. So prepare yourself.

  Ready?

  Really ready?

  He BANNED FOOTBALL!

  People had just started getting into football apparently, instead of firing arrows at stupid targets all day. And he made it a crime! I was outraged and so were Daisy and Vi. Lance literally fell off his chair and Billy Lee looked like he was going to be sick. Marcus Breen had a question.

  ‘What did they do with all the football kits, Miss? And the shin pads?’

  Miss Phillips laughed. ‘They didn’t have those things. Football was very different back then! Can anyone tell me how?’

  Marcus put his hand up again. ‘They didn’t have VAR,’ he said.

  It wasn’t Henry VIII on Horrible Histories, though. It was the Awful Egyptians, who didn’t have football because boots weren’t invented then. You can see that in their pictures. Getting the ball forward would have been difficult too as they only went sideways. They did suck dead people’s brains out through their noses, though, and I was looking forward to that bit.

  But I didn’t get that far.

  The theme tune had ended and I sat up – but I couldn’t concentrate. All of a sudden, this HIDEOUS noise started. It was coming from in the kitchen, but it still drowned the TV out. It sounded, in fact, a bit like someone was having their brain sucked out through their nose, only they were still alive. VERY cross, I swung my feet to the floor. I stomped through the kitchen door, though no possible explanation for the noise presented itself.

  Until I saw Mabel and Ellen.

  Ellen had her dad’s phone in one hand and his Bluetooth speaker in the other, which was where the noise was coming from. My response was to wince – was the speaker broken? I assumed it must be, but why not, then, turn the speaker off? And Mabel didn’t seem to mind the noise. In fact, she was grinning, and jumping up and down, sort of like she was trying to stamp on a load of frogs. But she wasn’t doing that.

  She was dancing.

  Which meant that the sound coming out of the speaker was … music.

  ‘The Squeaky Chicks,’ Ellen explained, when she saw me standing there. ‘They’re your favourite, aren’t they, Mabel?’

  ‘Squeaky Chicks!’ shouted Mabel, as she continued to ‘Do the Frog’.

  ‘Mabel wanted to play them to you. Great, aren’t they?’

  ‘What? Great?!’

  ‘Don’t like them?’ Ellen grinned. ‘What a shame. Mabel plays them ALL the time, don’t you, Mabel?’

  ‘SQUEAKY CHICKS!’ Mabel repeated. ‘SQUEAKY CHICKS! SQUEAKY CHICKS!! SQUEAKY CHICKS!!’

  I just winced, catching sight of Mr Fells from next door through the kitchen window. He was standing in his garden, staring over the fence in horror.

  It was clearly the noise that was bothering Mr Fells – and it really bothered me. I tried going back to the brain-sucking-out, but Mabel danced round the living room with the speaker in her hand. And then Stephan came through the front door with his arms laden. He wasn’t still in bed, as I’d assumed. He’d been to the DIY shop round the corner. He had paint, masking tape, wood filler and putty – for the kitchen window. He proceeded to take it right out of the wall, the old odd socks falling on to the floor! He asked if I wanted t
o help, but I shook my head and watched, Mum coming in with her dressing gown on and yawning. She beamed at Stephan, though, while I frowned: at the odd socks. Keeping them stuffed in the window gap had always been my job. I’d even asked Lance for some more odd socks, when the hole had got bigger. I wouldn’t be needed for sock duty any more, would I? When Stephan tossed three socks aside, I shoved one in the bin and kept the other two to give back to Lance.

  I saw him an hour later. Not going to Barcelona did AT LEAST mean I could go up to Saturday morning football, which parents from our school run on Blackheath. I wanted Dad to take me, but he was still in bed. It would have been easier to wake up Richard III. I walked there on my own, the Squeaky Chicks ringing in my ears. ALL THE TIME – that’s what Ellen had said. Maybe I’d go mad too and start jumping around the kitchen, trying to stamp on invisible frogs.

  I was five minutes late and everyone did double takes when they saw me. So I had to explain. Our coaches said it was great to have me there anyway, and that made me feel better, and, during water break, I told Lance about the burglary. He was shocked, but he didn’t know the half of it – so I took a breath, held on to his shoulders and said he should prepare himself.

  And I told him about the Death Star.

  Lance was stunned. He went bug-eyed and walked round in a circle with his fists clenched. When speech came back to him, he begged his mum to let him come back to my house after.

  ‘The Death Star must be recreated!’ he screamed, trying to sound like Darth Vader. He’s a bit high-pitched, though, is Lance, and it came out more like the Squeaky Chicks.

  Lance was allowed back. Dad got there ten minutes before the end and he took us home, Lance and I dumping our bags down in the hall. We ran straight into the living room, having already decided what we were going to do. The smashing of the Death Star was terrible, but we were going to rebuild it! And this Death Star was going to be even BIGGER than the last one. We’d use glue so it could NEVER be destroyed again (by burglars or Jedi) and we’d use hooks to hang it from the ceiling. It was going to be EPIC!

  But where was all the Lego?!

  I would have understood if the box had gone – Stephan or Dad could have put it somewhere. The box was there, though – right on the floor where it lived. But it was empty, not even one piece of Lego remaining. So did the burglars sneak back in and steal it?! I thought they must have, but no – Stephan had put this huge bar lock on the door, saying we were now like Fort Knox. So …? Had Stephan himself taken it?

  Was he mending the Death Star for me?

  That would have been really nice of him, actually, and I went through to the kitchen to find out.

  But I didn’t see Stephan.

  Instead, I saw Ellen again, and I saw Mabel.

  And I saw unicorns.

  Lego unicorns.

  And they were EVERYWHERE. The kitchen was FILLED with them. One herd was grazing Weetabix crumbs on the table while another lot were sleeping on a tea cosy. Some were on the radio, others on dinner plates, a few really brave ones on top of the toaster. Yet more were twisting round in the air, dangling by threads from the lampshade.

  ‘Thimbeline!’ Mabel shouted. ‘Look what we’ve made!’

  She had two of the bigger unicorns in her hands and was galloping them through the air.

  ‘Yes, look.’ Ellen grinned. ‘We’ve used up every last bit of your Lego, haven’t we, Mabel?’

  ‘To make unicorns!’ Mabel cried, holding her left hand up. ‘This is the queen!’

  ‘And is that the king?’

  Mabel looked at her right hand. ‘No. It’s the other queen. Those are the princesses.’

  ‘Where are the princes?’

  ‘Over there. All the boy unicorns are being banished for being naughty.’

  ‘Then you won’t need this one, will you?’ snapped Lance. ‘We’ve got to rebuild our Death Star!’

  And he grabbed the nearest boy unicorn and … snapped its neck off.

  Which caused mayhem.

  Before Lance could react, Mabel did what she always did, though not in a good way: she CHARGED. Screaming that Lance was a UNICORN KILLER, she butted him in the stomach, which must have really hurt, though not as much as when his head CRACKED against the corner of the fridge. And there was blood EVERYWHERE. Not that Mabel cared. She was still calling Lance a UNICORN KILLER half an hour later when his mum came to pick him up. She was still saying it as Lance’s mother put him in the back of their car, his head wrapped up in bandages like Mr Bump.

  ‘Cym,’ he said through the window, ‘thanks for having me and everything. But I think I’ll stay away for a bit. This place is a madhouse.’

  I couldn’t argue with that – not then and not for the rest of the day. I wasn’t allowed in the living room because Ellen was using it to practise her gymnastics (so unfair because if I ever take a football in there I get BELLOWED at). I tried going in the kitchen, but Mabel played the Squeaky Chicks so loud I could barely hear Mum and Dad screaming at each other. They were upstairs, just a few phrases making it down to me. Mum wanted to know if Dad was going to ‘at least help out with the food shop’ and Dad wanted to know ‘where your sense of charity’s suddenly vanished to?’ Then Mum said something odd. She wanted to know if Dad was going to give her the money back for the Barcelona tickets. So SHE’D paid for them?! Did that mean it was HER idea? And, if so, was it so that she could move Stephan in without me complaining about it?

  ‘I should never have told you what we were doing this weekend!’ Mum screamed. ‘You’ve done this on purpose!’

  Dad said he had no idea what Mum meant, as Stephan hovered at the bottom of the stairs, trying to decide whether to go up or not. Meanwhile, Mabel knew exactly what she wanted to do: guard the pieces of MY Lego that she was calling HER unicorns.

  ‘But WHY do you care about the boy ones?’ I said, thinking I could at least make a start on the Death Star. ‘They were being banished!’

  ‘Well, they’re not,’ Mabel hissed. ‘They’ve all been turned into girls. And, if you touch them, the unicorn queens will jab your stupid guts out!’

  Mabel thrust the unicorn queens at me and backed me into the garden. She slammed the door and left me out there, my eyes falling on the fig tree again. Was it dead, like Mum had said? I hoped not. That would be really sad – because I still needed a way of getting my football down. Ellen had really smashed those branches, though, which was odd. We’re about the same height and I’ve always got up and down it with no bother at all. AND she was supposed to be nimble, with all her gymnastics. So maybe she broke the branches on purpose, to get me into trouble! Wondering what else she might have planned, I looked back into the kitchen – and she was there. She must have finished her practice. She took one of the unicorn queens from Mabel, and waggled it at me.

  And it went on like that ALL weekend. Ellen scrawled Friend of Unicorn Killer on my bedroom door, in babyish writing to pretend it was Mabel. And she didn’t even get told off! She went on about my ‘teddy-weddies’. Mabel played the Squeaky Chicks all the time, something I wouldn’t have believed could get any worse. But what I hadn’t realised before is that she only played ONE of their songs, OVER and OVER. AND OVER. I begged her to play a different one, just for a change, but she wouldn’t, and then she broke SEVEN of my Subbuteo men. How? By trying to play Subbuteo with them? No. She did it by feeding them to the Hungry Hungry Hippos (not the yellow one – it doesn’t work). Even sleeping was terrible. Dad’s snoring really was hideous. He had this really deep snore and I kept waking up, thinking that the house was falling down. But he also had another high-pitched snore that made me dive out of my bed because I’d dreamed that a train was coming. And so, by the time Monday came, something truly incredible had happened.

  I, Cymbeline Igloo, truly and honestly – and I promise I’m not fibbing here, no fingers crossed – for the first time in my ENTIRE LIFE, actually WANTED …

  to go to school!

  Me? I KNOW!!!

  I got
dressed without any fuss. I even dragged Mum out of the house ten minutes before we normally left – all just to escape from what had once been MY OWN HOME. As it happened, though, we only just got to school on time.

  There was a coach outside, and my whole class was getting on.

  We were going to Hall Place. I’d forgotten because of Barcelona. Mum had too. She’s always forgetting things: keys, her phone, where she’s parked the car. Oh, not to mention the fact that she’s got a son who would have appreciated it if she hadn’t decided to RUIN HIS LIFE.

  ‘Cym,’ she said, as she hurried me towards the coach door, ‘I’m …’

  ‘Sorry?’ I asked. ‘Is that what you were going to say? Well, don’t.’

  Mum said that she’d run down to Greggs to get me a packed lunch, but Miss Phillips said she needn’t bother. She sent me into school to find Mrs Stebbings, in the kitchen. Mrs Stebbings made me a sandwich and then sighed. She must have seen that I looked pretty miserable.

  ‘It is just a game,’ she said.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Football. When it comes down to it.’

  I didn’t know what she was talking about – but then I realised. Mrs Stebbings is almost as big a Charlton fan as me! With everything else going on, I hadn’t even realised that they were playing that weekend.

  ‘Did we … lose?’

  Mrs Stebbings leaned forward to whisper, ‘Four–nil.’

  ‘Four–nil! Who to?’

  But Mrs Stebbings just shook her head and wouldn’t answer, which meant only one thing.

  We’d lost four–nil to Millwall.

  I climbed on to the coach in a bit of a daze and sat next to Veronique. She’s often got a space beside her because she tends to go on about black holes, or Shakespeare, or some other brainiac thing. She’s one of my best friends, though, and I wanted to tell her about the burglary.