The Boy Who Made Everyone Laugh

by Helen Rutter

  “Ha! So now you don’t know what to do? Friendship versus fame and fortune.”

  “Kind of.”

  “Sometimes when I can’t decide on something important, I find it useful to imagine looking in at myself as if I’m not involved, as if I’m just flying above the whole situation, or like it’s a TV show. Then I can picture myself making both choices and how they may play out, decide which person I want to be, what I want my story to be. Does that make any sense?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  On my way to class, I start imagining myself telling the boys that I’m leaving and how sad they’d be. I picture Josh crying and Alex not knowing what to say. I picture me in lessons on my own, feeling lonely like I used to. Then another picture forms, an image from my dream, of people clapping in a huge audience and everyone chanting, “TEENPLAY! TEENPLAY! TEENPLAY!”

  I don’t know who I want to be. Can’t I be both? A good friend and the drummer in a different band?

  I spend most of the day avoiding the boys. I feel like they will see my thoughts and know in a second that a huge part of me wants to ditch them. Me and Skyla spend lunchtime together, but she knows that something’s wrong.

  “I think I prefer Billy the comedian to Billy the grumpy drummer,” she says over her fries. “Are you planning on saying anything this lunch?”

  “Sorry that I’m n-not always in a good mood, okay?” I get up, ditch my tray, and find my spot under the stairs, where I used to hide from Blakemore. This time I’m trying to hide from everyone. I just don’t know what to do.

  * * *

  By the time Wednesday lunchtime comes, I am in an even worse state. I must have changed my mind a thousand times. Every time I think I’m sure, and that I’m going to do the right thing and just stay with my friends, I think about how good Teenplay are. My thoughts are whizzing, they’re drowning out everything else, so it’s hard to concentrate. When we get to the Music Lounge, I feel completely miserable when I see Teenplay packing away. The floppy-haired boy looks up and waves in my direction and immediately asks, “So are you joining us, drummer boy? What’s your name anyway?”

  “B-B-B-B-Billy.”

  “Okay, B-B-Billy. Who you gonna drum for?” As he says this the drummer/keyboard player starts a low drumroll just to add pressure.

  Everyone in the room is looking now.

  I glance at Alex, who’s smiling at me, and then towards Teenplay. I keep looking between the two groups, panic rising in my chest. I can see Mr. Osho watching from his desk. I try my hardest to find some words, to say, “Sorry, I can’t,” when I see Ellie chatting with a group of high schoolers on the other side of the Music Lounge. I remember how much she’d liked Teenplay. How she’d whistled with her fingers for them.

  I start again to imagine my life if I were in their band. My thoughts start to get loud inside my head. You would be hanging out with Ellie every lunchtime. Walking down the halls with all the older kids waving at you. Everyone cheering you on. Everyone knowing who you are, but not because of your stammer. Blakemore wouldn’t pick on you anymore if you were surrounded by high schoolers. Nobody would pick on you anymore. Rock is way cooler than jazz. Maybe this is it. This is the moment that your life will change. Maybe this is who you are meant to be.

  Then it happens.

  “YES,” I say, my eyes still on Ellie. I look back to the floppy-haired boy and say, “Yes, I will be the drummer in Teenplay.” I try my hardest not to look at Alex, Josh, and Matthew. I also don’t want to look at Mr. Osho, even though I only did what he told me to do. To decide what kind of person I want to be.

  It gets awkward instantly, and after the biggest silence of my life, Alex says, “It’s fine, Billy, I don’t blame you. We’re not as good as these guys.” But he doesn’t look at me when he says it, and his eyes are kind of sad.

  “I didn’t even want to do the stupid talent show in the first place,” Matthew adds before he half-heartedly pats me on the back. When I glance at Josh, he’s really annoyed and doesn’t even try to hide it like the others.

  “You sure, kid?” asks the boy with the floppy hair. “I don’t want to cause any arguments between band members, bro.”

  I could change my mind and stick with the boys. I remember my sleepover and laughing in the garage. It was so much fun, and it all felt so easy. But an offer like this is massive, isn’t it? If I can’t be a comedian anymore, then maybe I should start taking drumming seriously, and Teenplay are really good. The boys will get over it. They’ll still be my friends.

  “Yes,” I say, nodding my head, but feeling instantly sick in my stomach.

  “Well, that’s just awesome!” Josh shouts. “I thought we were friends, Billy! We were only doing this because of you!”

  “Can’t you guys s-s-s-still d-d-do it?” I mumble, knowing that a band without a drummer is not really a band.

  “Thanks for nothing, you idiot,” Josh says before he storms off. I instantly feel like I’ve made a massive mistake as the others kind of shrug and follow him.

  “Welcome to the band, kid. You won’t regret it!” says the floppy-haired boy … but I feel like I already do.

  * * *

  Josh hasn’t really spoken to me since. The others pretend to be okay, but I know they’re not. It’s all changed. In homeroom last week, I asked if they wanted to come over, and they all said they were busy. I don’t think they were busy.

  They say hi and I still sit with them but they talk about stuff I don’t know about. Games they’re playing at lunchtimes. It feels like they do it on purpose. Once, when they were talking about something that happened in the lunch line, Josh said, “You wouldn’t know about that, though, Billy. You’re probably too busy with your new band to care.”

  He really loved playing the box bass. That’s why he’s so upset. I think it was the first thing that he found where his constant jiggling actually helped him. They could just do the show without me. Any one of them would have made the same decision. I’ll be fine without them. Won’t I?

  So that’s my life now. I’m the drummer in my new band. TEENPLAY. It’s a bit of a silly name since I’m not even a teenager yet! They all are. They call the music we play “indie,” but I don’t really know what that is. I think it just sounds like the stuff me and Dad play in the garage. At the moment, Teenplay mainly does covers, but we want to start writing our own songs too.

  My favorite is “Mardy Bum” by Arctic Monkeys—there’s a section where the drums really kick in and I love it. The others say I’m “off the hook,” whatever that means. I think it’s a good thing.

  The singer and guitarist, Sam, is the leader. He’s the one with the floppy hair. He has a girlfriend. I’ve seen them on the field holding hands. I must have been staring as I saw her whisper to him, and he looked over at me and waved. Then they both started laughing.

  The bass guitarist, Phoebe, is a girl, but she says she doesn’t really want to be. She has short black hair, and her school blazer is really big. Everyone calls her Phee.

  The drummer with the pink cheeks who’s now back on the keyboards is Ollie. He’s definitely better on the keyboard. Ollie’s super nice. He only learned the drums because their old drummer left the band. The old drummer kept getting really mad and shouting all the time, so they had a vote and sacked him.

  Mom says I’ve become “moody” since joining Teenplay. She says that I’m her little “mardy bum.” It really annoys me when she says that. Dad laughs like he’s totally on her side. I’m not mardy (which I looked up—it means pouty). They just don’t understand. I don’t need to talk to her about every little thing that’s happening to me like I used to. She thinks that means I’m being rude, but I don’t think that’s fair. She says it’s “a real shame” that I’m not with the Regulars anymore. “They were such lovely boys.” That makes me really mad.

  Meanwhile, William Blakemore hasn’t bullied me for ages. Today in our math session, I brought in loads of Legos for us to use and he brought some Minecraft charact
ers. We ended up not doing much math, but Mr. Osho didn’t seem to mind.

  I can’t get used to Blakemore not being horrible. Like maybe it’s all a trick and he’s just messing with my head. I’m still convinced he’ll jump out from behind every door, be waiting in every corridor, and even when he isn’t, it puts me on edge. Like the scene in a scary movie, where waiting for the shock is worse than the actual moment. It feels like I am always waiting for something bad to happen. I’m just never sure what the next thing will be.

  I have no friends, but I love my shoes.

  They are my sole companions.

  I walk into the Oaks after school with some ratatouille that I made in food tech. Granny Bread loves trying what I make each week. She tastes it and pretends to be one of the judges on MasterChef. Her favorite so far is the fish pie. I’m holding the foil tub and three plastic spoons, in case Mrs. Gibbens wants some too, and listening to a new song that we are trying to learn for the talent show.

  I know something is wrong when I look up and see Mom talking to one of the nurses in the hallway outside Granny Bread’s door. Mom never comes to visit in the afternoon—this is my slot. Time slows as she looks at me with red eyes and a sad mouth. She opens up her arms. “It was a big one this time,” she whispers as I take off my headphones.

  I freeze. She hugs me. I can feel her really shaking hard as she squeezes me. I know that she definitely isn’t crying with relief or happiness this time. This is a different cry. One I’ve never seen before, and one that I will never forget.

  Granny Bread died today.

  Why did the banana go to the doctor’s?

  He was peeling really bad.

  I keep picturing Granny Bread. Making her funny face behind Mom’s back when Mom was moaning about the drum kit being too loud. Doing an impression of a dumbo octopus. Laughing at one of my jokes, head back and hand on her chest. It makes me smile. When I catch myself smiling, I feel bad. Like smiling and laughing are wrong now. Does that mean smiling will feel bad forever?

  The day after it happens, Mom knocks on my door and sits on the end of my bed. I’m reading a fact book called Amazing Animals. Reading seems okay. Appropriate. There are some things that I can do and some things I can’t. I like to separate them. To make it clear to myself what I’m allowed to do. I’m making a list for my pin board. Smiling = BAD. Laughing = BAD. Reading = GOOD.

  I’ve been doing a lot of reading. It means I don’t have to see anyone or do any more talking. That’s all they want me to do. Talk about how I’m feeling. Well, the problem with that is I don’t really know how I’m feeling. All I know is it’s not nice, so I don’t really want to talk about it.

  The thing I really don’t want to say, not to anyone, ever, is that I’m scared that I’ll never find anyone who makes my stutter go away like Granny Bread did. The reason I can’t say it is because it sounds silly and selfish. Like the only reason I loved Granny Bread is because I didn’t stutter so much when I was with her. Even thinking about it is making me feel like a bad person, because it’s not true. Not at all. I loved her for loads of reasons.

  So why do I keep thinking about my stupid stutter? My brain is stuck on the stutter channel.

  Thinking about my stammer = BAD.

  * * *

  Mom sits on my bed for a while as I pretend to read, not saying anything. She has a shoebox. It’s a Nike shoebox, so I think maybe she’s bought me some sneakers to cheer me up. It almost works. I start to imagine what color they might be. Maybe they’re the same as Matthew’s. He’s got the coolest Nikes—they start light blue and then go darker blue towards the top and they have a gold swoop. Thinking of Matthew’s sneakers just makes me feel worse. I wish I could see them—the Regulars. I really miss them. Especially now.

  Then she taps the box gently and says, “I brought you some bits and pieces of Granny Bread’s. Things that she kept. I thought you would want them.” Then I feel really bad. Why am I thinking about stupid sneakers?

  Imagining new Nike sneakers = BAD.

  She gives me a hug. She is hugging me so much I feel like I’m suffocating. I don’t stop her, though. I think it’s more for her than for me. I watched her crying as she was doing the dishes yesterday. She didn’t know I was watching. I snuck down and peeked in through the gap in the door. Tears were falling down her face while she was staring out of the window, her hands still in the water. It was weird, like she wasn’t really crying and she didn’t even notice, but the tears were just coming out. So I let her hug me for as long as she wants because I know she feels so bad.

  Letting Mom hug me = GOOD.

  I’m not opening the shoebox. The idea of opening it makes my chest hurt so that I can’t breathe. But it’s just sitting there in the corner, looking at me. I try to focus on my book, but I can’t read the words or look at the pictures. Not while the box is there. I try a different book, but my eyes still keep going back to the box. Wondering what’s inside. I pick up a towel from the floor and throw it over the box, but it just makes it worse. It looks even bigger somehow. I shake my head and take a big breath in. I can’t ignore it anymore. I’m going to look in it.

  There are loads of pictures in it. Things I’ve drawn for Granny Bread and notes I’ve written. Things from when I was really little. She’s kept it all.

  This one was from before she became Granny Bread. I don’t know why I put my age on it—she knew how old I was. Imagine if everyone put their age on letters and emails.

  There it is again. My smile. That bad feeling. Writing joke letters = BAD.

  There are so many things to look at in the box. Drawings of sharks, a handprint from when I was two, thank-you notes, a drawing of an octopus, a photo of me and her outside her old apartment, smiling, her arm around my shoulder. And at the bottom there is a tiny bottle of shells, tied with a white ribbon. I bought them with my spending money when we went to Spain. I thought she would want something from the sea. A tear rolled down her cheek when I gave them to her and she said she would “treasure them forever.”

  I don’t want them. I don’t want any of it. They’re not mine. It’s wrong that they’re in my bedroom. They aren’t mine! They were hers. They should be with her.

  I shove everything back into the box and tape it around and around until I run out of tape. I don’t know what to do with it then, but I know I need it to be out of my hands. I start feeling panicky and my chest feels tight, so I open the closet and shove it as far back as I can and cover it with all my winter coats. I slam the closet door shut as though there’s a ghost inside. I sit on my bed and breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth like Sue told me to do when I’m feeling stressed. I can feel my heart beating hard in my chest. Nothing is going to be the same anymore, without Granny Bread. Why did she have to die?

  A photograph lying on the carpet catches my eye. It must have fallen out of the box. It’s a faded picture of a little dog looking up towards the camera with loads of fuzzy black fur and its tongue hanging out. I turn over the photograph and see in scrawled tiny handwriting: My darling Scraggles. Mrs. Gibbens must have given it to Granny Bread. I’m not sure why Mom put it in the box.

  I carefully pin the photo up on my pin board and stare at it for ages, remembering what Granny Bread had said: She’s got no one. No one who would bother. Then I picture Granny Bread’s face and feel bad for even thinking about stupid Scraggles.

  Thinking about cute dogs = BAD.

  * * *

  I haven’t been back into my closet for three days. I don’t want to catch a glimpse of the box. When Mom asks why I’m wearing the same clothes again and tells me, “Go and get changed. You’re too old to wear the same clothes for days on end. You’ll stink!” I can’t tell her the truth. So I go upstairs and open the closet door the tiniest bit and stick just my arm in and grab the first thing I feel. Mom looks a bit funny when I come down in last year’s Christmas sweater, but she doesn’t say anything.

  I have to go back to school tomorrow. Mom let me have Thur
sday and Friday off last week, but she says, “You have to get back to normal. It’ll probably help.” I don’t know how I can, when everything is so different. I feel so different. I just want to hide from everyone and everything.

  A kid threw a lump of cheese at me.

  It wasn’t very mature.

  When one bad thing happens, it feels like other bad things see their chance and start happening too. Even the weather seems to know how I feel and wants to make it worse. The sky is dark, and it hasn’t stopped raining for five days. I feel like I’m outside of myself. Walking around school on my own, not really feeling anything. Like a zombie.

  Today in English I have to read out loud. Mrs. Timpson, the English teacher, always makes us read out loud when we start a new book. We’re reading Great Expectations. It’s really thick. It’s got more than four hundred pages. It’s about a boy who wants to go to London and change his life. I wish I could go to London and change my life.

  She’s never picked on me before, which I thought was really kind. But she must be in a bad mood today, like me. Maybe it’s catching and I gave her the bad mood.

  I begin okay and then get really stuck on the word Pip.

  “P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P—”

  Then I just have a total block. A block is where no sound at all will come out. It feels like I’m in a bear trap and the more I fight against it, the tighter it gets. My eyes are clamping shut and my jaw is jutting out. I feel totally out of control. Eventually I just move on to the next word.

  The main character is called Pip, so I know I’m in trouble. Every time I can see the word coming up, it gets worse and worse.

  “So I called myself P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-Piiiip, and came t-t-to be caaaalled P-P-P-P-P-P-P- P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-Piiip.”