Next I tested out my blue flashlight—still working—and then I bounced the tennis ball continuously on the floor thirty-seven times until it hit a lump in the rug and rolled under the sofa. There was no way I was going to poke around under there, so I just left it.
I filled in a few word searches in my puzzle book, and then, on the inside of the back cover, I used my pen to create a tiny maze with lots of winding pathways.
Two hours had passed.
She should have been back ages ago.
I took another look out the window.
“Where is she?” I said out loud as I gazed into the cold night. I leaned on the windowsill and let my breath steam a big circle onto the glass, and then I used my finger to draw two people with smiling faces. Me and Mum.
I sat back down and turned to a fresh crossword in my puzzle book and started from the top.
Across
1. A bad dream (9 letters)
I clicked my pen and filled in the boxes.
Nightmare
Mum had been gone for three hours.
I curled up on the sofa, feeling the warmth of the fire against my face. I was tired and my arms were aching from dragging the rug into the garden, but I didn’t want to go to sleep in case Mum came back. I closed my eyes to rest them and imagined Mum stroking my hair, just like she used to do when I went to bed in the darkness back home. “Don’t worry, Nate. Just close your eyes and it’ll soon be morning. I love you. Don’t you forget how much I love you.”
The springs in the sofa dug into my side. Every now and then I opened my eyes and took a quick peek around the room. I’d left the light on, but the bulb was really dim and there were weird shadows on the walls from where the fire was reflected. I shut my eyes again.
I’d always hated the dark. But now I really, really hated it.
And my fear had gotten a whole lot worse after Gary came to live with us.
On the day he moved in, Mum had been really nervous. Nervous excitement, not nervous fear. She’d vacuumed the whole house twice and cleared out half of her closet so that Gary would have some space for his clothes. She’d also bought a new chest of drawers that was bigger than her old one so there was enough room for his things too. In the dining room, she’d put a big vase of flowers on the table, and there was a fish pie warming in the oven. Every time I went near her she pressed down on a tuft of hair that kept sticking up on the top of my head.
“Put some water on it, Nathaniel. It looks messy.”
I’d met Gary loads of times, and he didn’t seem like the kind of guy who’d be bothered about my hair, but I still went to the bathroom and did what she said.
It had taken me a while, but I liked Gary. At first I thought he would take up too much of my mum’s time to leave anything for me, but he always included me when they went out for the day, and he brought me a present every time he came over. Once he turned up with a giant inflatable cactus. Mum had opened the front door and it was just sitting there on the step, swaying in the wind. When me and Mum stepped outside trying to work out where it had come from, Gary jumped out from behind the wall, shouting, “Surprise! This is just what you need in your room, Nate, don’t you think? All boys need a giant cactus.” Mum had laughed and he’d picked her up and spun her around, giving her a squelchy kiss on the lips. I left them to it and dragged the cactus inside and up the stairs, putting it in the corner of my room underneath the shelf with my jar of lights. It looked really cool—like something a teenager might have in their bedroom. But after a few months the cactus began to slump. I kept blowing it back up, but it must have had a puncture because one morning it was completely flat. Mum rolled it up and put it in a drawer and said she’d ask Gary if he thought it was worth repairing, but she never did.
On moving-in day he drove into the driveway and parked next to Mum’s car. He usually parked on the street, but that day was different; on that day he was staying forever. Our home was going to be his home as well.
“Ah, that’s a nice welcome party!” he called, getting out of his car as we both stood on the front doorstep, waving and grinning at him. He laughed and went to get some bags out of his trunk. Mum gave me a nudge.
“Go and give him a hand, Nate.”
I walked down the drive in my slippers and held out a hand, and as a joke Gary gave me the heaviest case, which fell to the ground with a thump. We laughed, but he quickly grabbed it off me when I tried to drag it along the concrete.
“Might be an idea to get rid of your car, Fiona. We won’t need two, will we? And that’ll mean more space in the driveway.”
Mum had had her car for years. It was a bit rusty in places, but it suited the two of us fine.
“Oh. I hadn’t thought about that,” said Mum. “I guess it makes sense. Let’s see, shall we?”
Gary dropped his bags by the stairs and looked up and around the hallway as if he was seeing it for the first time, and then he took off his jacket and hung it over mine on a hook by the door. There was a spare hook next to Mum’s coat, but perhaps he hadn’t noticed it. It all went a bit quiet and then Mum gave me another nudge and I ran to the kitchen to grab the card I’d made.
“Oh wow, what’s this?” he said, tearing the envelope. “You’ve made this? How fantastic.”
I watched him as he studied the front of the card and then opened it up to read. I can’t remember exactly what I wrote, but it was something about being over the moon that he was coming to live with us. On the front, I’d drawn a crescent moon with me jumping over it with splashes of glitter as the stars, which were now sprinkling down onto Gary’s trousers.
“Thanks, Nate. That’s really something,” he said, and he put it back into the envelope and dropped it onto the stairs.
Mum put her arms around him and gave him a kiss.
“Welcome to your new home, Gary. I think we’re all going to be very happy here, don’t you?”
He smiled at her. “I’ll just get the rest of my things.”
As he walked down the drive he gave his trousers a sharp shake and the glitter fell off onto the concrete.
That night I went to bed feeling really happy. I put my light jar on like I did every evening and lay in bed and listened to them downstairs as they laughed over a comedy show on TV. I wondered if Mum might suggest they go on a quiz show together, like she’d done with Dad on How Well Do You Know Me? I was sure there was something they could do, perhaps one of those shows where they run around a supermarket finding things. Or maybe a show that needed you to answer lots of questions. I reckoned Gary would be good at that.
I fell asleep but woke up to the sound of Mum and Gary’s voices in my room. They were in the corner, arguing in loud whispers.
“I don’t care if he’s your son. I can’t sleep with that thing glowing all night.”
“But we can’t even see it in our room, Gary! Nate has never liked the dark, and it’s in his room.”
I peeked at them over my duvet. Mum rubbed Gary’s arm, but he shook her off.
“Well, I can see it under the door, Fiona! No kids have nightlights at that age. He’s eight years old, and it’s about time he grew up a bit.”
It went quiet for a moment, and then I heard Mum’s gentle voice.
“It’s not a nightlight, Gary. It’s a light jar. A string of lights in a little glass jar. That’s all it is.”
I really didn’t like the dark, so a while ago my mum had made her version of a nightlight for me—a light jar. She’d seen one on the internet and said it was the perfect answer to my fear of the dark. It also meant that if I had friends over, no one would know it was actually a nightlight because it looked too cool. She bought a small glass jar and filled it with a string of lights that had a little battery pack attached, and she placed it on the shelf. I loved my light jar. It gave the room a comforting glow, but as I liked to keep my door open, I guess it lit the hallway up a bit. That must be why Gary said he could see it from Mum’s room.
“If I’m going to live here with you
both, we need to compromise, don’t we?” said Gary, taking the jar off the shelf. “And I need total darkness to sleep, so this has to go …”
He walked out of the room and everything went dark. I gasped and Mum came over to my bed.
“It’s fine, Nate. Sorry we woke you up. Just roll over and go back to sleep. Okay? There’s a good boy.”
I heard Gary shut the bedroom door with a bang, which was odd because Mum was still inside with me.
“I don’t like it, Mum. It’s too dark. Can’t you get it back?” I said.
Mum stroked my hair.
“Let’s just leave it for now and we’ll talk about it in the morning, okay? Go back to sleep.”
She pecked a quick kiss on the top of my head before going to her room. Or their room. I listened hard but couldn’t hear any talking and I shut my eyes tightly against the blackness. We lived on a road out of town with only two other houses and no streetlights, so when it got dark, it really, really got dark.
The next day I found the jar in pieces in the kitchen garbage. The string of lights was in there too. Gary told Mum he’d dropped it by accident, but I knew he was lying. I asked Mum if she could make me another one and she said she would, but she never did. I don’t think Gary would have liked it. I carefully took the string of lights out of the garbage, shook off the pieces of glass, and hid them under my mattress. Mum never knew I did that.
When I woke up, for a moment it felt like I was back in the guest room at Grandma’s house. A patchwork quilt was just centimeters from my face. I stared at the colorful fabric squares. Grandma had started making a patchwork quilt once. I’d watched as she sewed ten tiny squares together, telling me how it would soon grow into a great big blanket. But then Granddad got ill and her time was taken up with going to and from the hospital.
I blinked at the quilt in front of my eyes. Maybe Grandma had finished it after all? There was a square with three strawberries on it and another with a kite, blowing in the wind. The different fabrics had been randomly sewn together. I held my breath. Grandma was using a repeating pattern: one blue, three cream, two red. This wasn’t Grandma’s house. I slowly pulled the quilt down and peeked over the edge. I was still in the cold, gloomy cottage. I jumped up off the sofa and ran to the window. Mum had probably come back and, not wanting to disturb me, crept upstairs to bed.
But there was no car. She hadn’t returned at all.
The sky was getting light but only enough for me to know it was still very early. I went to the kitchen hoping to find a note or a bag of shopping—anything to show that she’d been here while I was asleep—but everything was exactly as it had been last night: half a roll of mints and a few cans of food. My heart was pounding. Mum had been gone for over twelve hours. Something must have happened to her. Maybe it was Gary? Maybe he’d been following us after all? Or maybe something had happened to the car and she’d had to walk back and was just upstairs asleep. Yes—that must be what had happened. I ran up to check her room, but when I burst through the door I felt my throat tighten. Mum wasn’t there. Her bed was neatly made, her bag of clothes still open on the floor where she’d left it. There was no sign that she’d been back at all. My ears began to ring and I felt dizzy, so I sat down on the sagging mattress.
“Where are you, Mum? Why aren’t you here?” I said out loud.
I sat there for about half an hour, staring at a spot on the carpet and listening for any sounds of a car, but all I could hear was the wind whistling around the walls, trying to find a way in.
I looked down at her bag and put it on the bed. I needed to do something, so I decided to unpack so that Mum would be pleased when she got back. I opened the wardrobe. The musty smell wasn’t good, but it looked clean enough and it was empty apart from a few hangers. I wasn’t very good at hanging the clothes up, so I decided to put them in a neat pile at the bottom. I put her bag of toiletries on the chest of drawers, and then I put her little white alarm clock on the table beside the bed. There was something else at the bottom of her bag. Something wrapped in blue polka-dot paper. It was a present. I picked it up and read the tag:
I sat down on the bed and held it in my hand. I gave it a little squeeze. The paper squished and I felt something hard underneath. Mum probably wouldn’t be happy that I’d found it, so I put it back in her bag. I was just doing up the zipper when a noise from downstairs made me jump. I sat there for a moment, listening. Maybe it was a knock? Maybe it was Mum! I quickly ran down the creaky stairs, opened the living room door, and stopped.
There, in the middle of the carpet, was my tennis ball, the one I had been bouncing last night until it rolled under the sofa. I stared at the ball, trying to think how it could have gotten there. I looked at the fire, which was now cold with a layer of gray ash. Could the fire have caused a draft that had blown the tennis ball out?
I could sense something yellow glowing in the corner of the room, but I was too frightened to look. I just kept my eyes fixed on the ball. Maybe I should roll it back under the sofa and see what would happen? No. I would pick it up and put it back in my backpack.
“Hello, Nate.”
I shuddered.
Someone was talking to me.
Someone wearing bright yellow was standing by the window in front of the half-closed curtains and they were talking to me.
Here.
Right now.
I was frozen to the spot.
“I got your ball back. Do you want to play catch?”
I felt dizzy. Was I dreaming? I must be dreaming. Or I was exhausted—that must be it; I was tired and hallucinating. I slowly turned my head to look.
Standing by the window with his arms folded and wearing a bright yellow T-shirt and jeans was a boy. His hair was the color of sand and his nose was covered with freckles. And he had a glow around him. A warm, yellow glow.
“Or how about hot potato! You used to love that one. Do you remember how to play?”
He took a few steps toward me and I stumbled backward.
“I—I … I don’t understand …” I said, putting a hand out to the dining table to steady myself.
The boy gave me a wide smile and held his arms out as if he were about to give me a really big hug.
“It’s me! I’m back!”
I blinked and blinked again as I studied his face. He’d gotten older, but it was still a face I recognized very well. Standing in the living room, in this deserted cottage, was someone who had been constantly by my side from when I was about three until I was five. I couldn’t actually remember when he left; he just sort of faded away one day.
“I can’t … I can’t …” I began, struggling to get my breath. “Is … Is that you? Is that really you?”
“Yep, it’s me, all right!” he said. “Hello.”
I took a big gulp of air. My ears were ringing and I felt like I was about to faint.
Standing in the corner of the room was my old imaginary friend, Sam.
“I—I … I’m dreaming …” I said quietly. “Everything is fine, I’m just having a bad dream.”
I sank down onto a wooden dining chair and watched him as he walked around the room. He bent over and studied all the ornaments along the mantelpiece above the wood stove, peering closely at each one and stopping at a porcelain spaniel who was gazing up at him with soppy eyes.
“Y-You’re a dream, right? You’re not really here at all. I’m just … I’m still asleep. I’m just having a dream. Aren’t I?”
Sam looked at me and snorted. “Nope. I’m not a dream.”
I scrunched up my eyes and opened them again, but he was still there.
“Wh-What are you doing here?” I asked.
“I told you, Nate! I’m back! Do you live here now? What happened to your old house?”
“I—I … We … We’re just … staying for a bit …”
“We came here once before. Do you remember? The cowboy duvet and the maze?”
I opened my mouth and then shut it again. This really couldn’t b
e happening.
He sat down on the sofa and picked up something that was hidden in the folds of the patchwork quilt. “Oh wow, look who it is! Mrs. Ellie-Fant! You still have her? After all this time?”
His freckled nose creased up, and he wiggled the elephant at me. I walked toward him, hesitated for a moment, and then quickly snatched the toy from him, stuffing it back into the bottom of my backpack.
“Hey! Nate!” he said, leaning forward. “Have you still got that game we used to play? The one with the little red and yellow circles where you had to get them in a row? What was it called? Connect Four!”
I held the backpack tightly against my chest. “You didn’t play it. I was playing it. You weren’t there. You’re … You’re imaginary, remember?”
Sam’s face stayed fixed in a wide grin, but his glow seemed to fade a little. I carried on.
“I—I pretended you were there and I took your turns. Okay? You’re not real. I made you up.”
He frowned as he thought about it for a bit, and then he burst into laughter. “Oh, you’re so funny, of course I was playing! How could you have played on your own? You’re just saying that because I always won. You always were a bad loser.”
While he chuckled to himself I ran to the hallway.
“Hey! Where are you going?”
I stuffed my feet into my sneakers and then tugged on the front door. It was stuck. Sam stood by my side, watching over my shoulder as I struggled to get out.
“What’s the problem, Nate? I thought you’d be pleased to see me. It’s been so long.”
“Go away!”
I could feel the ice-cold air outside as my fingers gripped the edge of the door.
“How long has it been, do you think? Do you know? Do you know how long we’ve been apart?”
I’d managed to get the door open a bit, but there still wasn’t enough room for me to get through. Sam walked around and leaned against the wall.
“This might surprise you, Nate, but did you know … ?” He laughed a little to himself. “Did you know that it’s been six years? Six years since you decided you didn’t need me anymore? How about that?”
The Light Jar Page 3
