Spies, Dad, Big Lauren and Me

by Joanna Nadin

  At break Miss Horridge asked me to stay behind because she’d like a word. It was actually words, not just one. She said, ‘I think it’s wonderful that you’re friends with Kyle because he could learn a lot from a boy like you, Billy. But please make sure it’s that way around. Don’t be brought down, Billy.’

  I said, ‘I won’t, miss.’

  And I won’t. Because Dad will be here. And he’ll stop him.

  Saturday

  28th June

  This time tomorrow Dad will be home. And Dave will be gone, because he’ll be powerless in the face of chemistry.

  Dave has met Dad once before, and I thought they might get into a fight over Mum then and there and Dave would be left battered in the multicoloured gravel, but they just talked about football and whether Rovers were going to go down. But this time will be different. Because of Plan C, which is MAKE MUM IMPOSSIBLE TO RESIST.

  Lauren came over to do a trial run this afternoon to make sure it all goes like clockwork and the makeup is invisibly brilliant. Also Lauren loves makeovers. They’re her favourite kind of TV programme after talent shows. She says they’re more exciting than EastEnders, even when Bianca came back, and everyone always cries when they have the ‘mirror moment’ because they are transformed from being totally ugly and old into being beautiful and young. Lauren says if she’s not Leona Lewis when she grows up she wants to just do makeovers.

  She had to beg Mum to let her do this one though. She said it was for practice for one of her Brownie badges, which is almost true because she is a Brownie, but I don’t think make-up is a badge, it’s mostly sewing and stuff. Anyway she said Ashley had chewed the nose off her Girl’s World and her Mum was out getting Jordan a ball pool, so please please please could Mum be her model.

  Mum said, ‘Can’t you do it on Billy and Stan? Stan loves face paints.’ But Lauren said no and anyway it would be good practice for the wedding sitting still and letting someone else do it, because Stacey is going to do Mum’s actual make-up and hair on the day because Mum will be nervous with shaking hands. In the end Mum gave in, because Lauren said please twenty-five times and it wore her down.

  Lauren had got a pink lipstick off the cover of Go Girl magazine, blue and green sparkly eyeshadow and a black felt tip, because she didn’t have any eyeliner. When she was putting the eyeliner on, Mum said, ‘Is that Crayola?’ Lauren shook her head. Because it wasn’t, it was from WHSmith so it wasn’t a lie really.

  When she had finished she said, ‘Ta-da!’ and held up her Snow White mirror for Mum to see. And I thought Mum was about to cry at her mirror moment because she was utterly transformed with her invisibly brilliant make-up. Except the make-up was not invisible at all, it was very visible. And also indelible. Lauren forgot to check the felt tip and it was a permanent marker. Mum tried scrubbing it off with soap but it was still visible. Lauren said, ‘It’ll wear off, honest.’ But Mum didn’t say anything. She just looked very annoyed. Then Dave came in with Dave Two from five-a-side practice. Dave said, ‘You look like a Goth panda.’ And then they started killing themselves laughing. But Mum didn’t think it was funny at all. She just said, ‘Thanks a lot’ and shut herself in the bedroom.

  Lauren was disappointed about the mirror moment and that no one cried. But I said it doesn’t matter because when you think about it, it was actually brilliant to use the felt tip because Mum’s annoyed with Dave again and Dave thinks Mum looks stupid. But Dad won’t care because of the chemicals. And also because I’ve hidden her baggy jogging bottoms in the cupboard under the stairs in a Sainsbury’s bag, along with her grey knickers and the sweatshirt with paint on it. So now she’ll have to wear a dress or her swimming costume. So she’ll still be impossible to resist.

  Mum came out of the bedroom for tea. Her eyes were red. So maybe she did cry after all. Or maybe it was the rubbing. She and Dave went into the kitchen and shut the door while me and Stan watched Doctor Who, but instead of the Doctor and Amy talking to a Dalek, all I could hear was Mum and Dave.

  Like Mum saying, ‘How the hell am I supposed to go to work looking like this?’ and ‘What if it doesn’t come off for the wedding?’ And Dave saying, ‘Calm down’ a lot. But she didn’t calm down, so I concentrated through the door and sent her positive thoughts like Derren Brown. I said, ‘Don’t worry. Dad is coming and everything’s going to be all right, and you don’t have to get married or even go to work because Dad must earn a fortune as a spy.’

  And then it all went quiet in the kitchen. And all I could hear was a Dalek saying, ‘Exterminate! Exterminate!’ And then Mum laughing.

  And I smiled. Because she’d heard me. And she knew everything was going to be excellent again.

  Sunday

  29th June

  He didn’t come. Dad, I mean. He didn’t come home at all.

  I was eating Coco Pops because it was a Sunday and Mum was looking for her baggy jogging bottoms with her felt tip eyes still painted on and Dave was saying, ‘When did you last have them?’ And Mum said, ‘If I knew that, I’d be able to find them.’ Dave rolled his eyes and went into the hall but then Mum’s pocket started buzzing and she pulled out her mobile phone and flicked it open and didn’t even say hello. She said, ‘Don’t tell me, something’s come up.’ And I don’t know what the voice said because it was too tinny and high, like alien interference, but I knew it wasn’t good news, because then Mum said, ‘Jesus, Tom. This is the last time. It’s not fair on them or me. I’m the one who has to pick up the flaming pieces.’ And then I knew it was him. And I got up and reached to try to get the phone off her so I could speak to him, but she clicked it shut and my arm knocked my Coco Pops and a chocolate river gushed across the table and started dripping over the edge on to Stan’s lap and he started crying because he doesn’t like to be messy. And all the time Mum just stood there looking at me, but not looking at me. Like her felt tip eyes could see through me with x-ray vision and she was really staring at the wall or outside it or something. Then Dave came in with the Sainsbury’s bag in his hand and he saw the chocolate river and Stan crying and Mum just staring with her black eyes and he said, ‘What the . . .’ And Mum blinked and then it’s like her superpower disappeared and she could just see the room again and the mess and she said, ‘He’s not coming. Something came up.’

  I could feel the electricity seeping into me so I dug my nails into my hands to try to make it go so I could be calm. I said, ‘It’s not his fault. It’s work. He must have a mission to do.’ And Mum looked at me all funny, like she looked at us when our rabbit Elvis died. And I said, ‘Well he does.’ And she said, ‘Welcome to the real world, Billy.’ I said I was in the real world, I wasn’t living in the thirteenth dimension or anything, like on Stan’s cartoons. And then Mum saw the Sainsbury’s bag in Dave’s hand and the jogging bottoms sticking out. She said, ‘Where did you find them?’ He said, ‘Under the stairs. What the hell did you put them there for?’ Mum said, ‘I didn’t.’ And then she looked at me. And I could tell she knew everything. And her face wasn’t sad any more, it was all tight with anger and she shouted, ‘When are you going to get it, Billy? He’s not coming back. He’s NOT COMING BACK.’

  And I could feel wetness on my cheeks and my nails digging down into the skin and hear Stan still crying about the Coco Pops and the noise and I said, ‘But he’s the ONE. He’s the ONE.’ And Mum screamed, ‘No he’s not! He never was.’ And then the electricity surged like a lightning bolt in my blood and I ran. Not upstairs but out. Down Brunel Street, past Kyle’s broken concrete wall, past the cars and houses and on and on until I could hear blood swooshing in my ears and feel my lungs bursting in my chest and my legs buckling underneath me and I knew my electricity had run out and everything went dark.

  When I opened my eyes I could see the sky through yellow bars and it was turning slowly like the world in my solar system model. And then a blur appeared in front of the sun and I could hear a voice saying, ‘Are you dead, Billy Grimshaw?’ And I thought maybe I was in heaven or
something and it was God or an angel. But when I sat up there were no angels or pearly gates. I was on the roundabout in the park and Kyle Perry was sitting on the bar with his legs dangling down and one foot trailing on the ground.

  ‘No,’ I said. He nodded. Then he said, ‘I thought you was busy today with your old man.’ And I remembered the phone call and Mum shouting and my body flooded with electricity again.

  I said, ‘Something came up. He got called out on an emergency. Terrorists on the tube.’ Kyle said, ‘Muslims, innit.’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ And it didn’t feel bad. Not even when I thought about Arthur Malik. Or Mr Patel. Or even Dr Singh, who’s always trying to help me with the being different. It felt like nothing. It was like I was so full of electricity, of anger and hate, that there was no room for anything else. Kyle said, ‘Come on, Spy Boy. Let’s do something.’ And right then I knew where I wanted to go. And I didn’t care who saw me. Or what happened. I just wanted to get something right. Get someone to come back home. So we went to fetch Dolly.

  We couldn’t go round the front down Beasley Street, because I knew Nan would be there looking through her one-way nets at number twenty-three, so we went down the back alley, jumping over the broken bottles and dog poo and old Coke cans until we got to Mr A M Feinstein’s.

  His gate had the number stuck to it in aluminium letters and a hole in the wood where a knot had fallen out. Kyle said, ‘Give us a look’ and put his eye up to the gap. ‘Can’t see no one.’ I said, ‘He’s out.’ Because it was half past ten – I checked on my watch, which is set according to the BBC website clock, which is accurate to half a second, and I knew he’d already be halfway to wherever by now.

  Kyle said, ‘Give us a bunk-up.’ But I remembered what Zac Black said which was never take the hard way when the easy way is staring you in the face. What was staring me in the face was the latch so I clicked it and the gate opened like the wardrobe to Narnia, except on the other side wasn’t snow or Aslan the lion or even Dolly. It was just a backyard with a dustbin and a washing line that goes around in a hole in the ground and a house that looked old and empty.

  Through the kitchen window I could see a china cup with roses round the rim upside down on the draining board and an old record player like Dad had, but no CD player or DVD or anything like that, which a burglar would have. But I thought it could be a cover. It could all be hidden in the basement with Dolly in a cage with wires on her head and a panel of levers and buttons. And then above the cup, on the wall in a wooden frame I saw a piece of paper. It was yellow and ripped and on it were black inky letters, but none of them were in the right order for English. They said, Ich liebe dich. And I felt a buzz because it was code and I was trying to crack the code in my head when Kyle said, ‘No alarm.’ I looked up and he was right because on the wall was drainpipes and telephone cable but no white box with a flashing red light like at Granny Grimshaw’s.

  Then Kyle tried the easy route staring him in the face, which was the back door. But this time it was locked, and the windows were shut. To stop Dolly escaping, I thought. And I thought about how Zac Black had broken into Dr Van Fleet’s lair, and I knew the only way in was through the glass and we had to smash it and I could feel the electricity fizzing in my arm like it wasn’t mine, it belonged to someone else, and I watched the arm reach down and pick up a concrete tortoise. ‘What’re you doing, Spy Boy?’ said Kyle. But I didn’t answer because it wasn’t really me doing it, it was the electricity arm and it pulled back behind me and then rushed forward and the fingers let go of the concrete and it flew at the glass and there was this crack and tinkle like when I dropped the plate on the patio only a hundred times louder, and then there was nothing any more in between us just a big hole in the wood with a jagged edge and the smell of cooking seeping through. And then I saw him. Mr A M Feinstein. He wasn’t out. He was standing in the hallway through the jagged hole, staring at me with his mouth open like a big black hole. Kyle saw him too and he said, ‘Run!’ and I felt his elbow knock against my arm and heard the gate bang against the fence and his footsteps disappearing down the alley.

  But it was like Mr Feinstein had Derren Brown superpowers and out of his mouth special telekinetic rays were fixing me to the spot because my feet wouldn’t move, even when my brain told them to. They were stuck with glue to the step. And then he spoke and his accent was weird, like Dr Van Fleet, and he said, ‘Who is it?’ And then I realised he didn’t have his glasses on. I was just a blur. And the glue sucked back into the ground and my feet heard my brain and ran.

  When I got home everyone was in the kitchen. Even Nan. I could see her at the table through the back door and her eyes were wet and so were Mum’s and I knew that Nan had seen through her nets and through Mr A M Feinstein’s house and saw that the blur with the concrete tortoise was me. And I was scared to turn the handle and wanted to go back to hide somewhere where no one could find me, not Mum and Dave, not Kyle Perry, not Mr A M Feinstein. But it was too late because Stan saw me and his mouth moved and even though I couldn’t hear I knew it said, ‘Billy’. And Mum and Dave and Nan looked up and the door opened and the shouting started.

  Dave said, ‘Where the hell have you been? We’ve been worried sick, I’ve been driving round the whole bloody town looking for you.’ And Stan said, ‘You swore! Mum, he swore.’ And I waited for Nan to say it was me but she didn’t, instead Mum said something. It was, ‘Dolly is dead.’

  And then it all went quiet and I could see the box on the table. It said, Walkers Crisps Prawn Cocktail Flavour on the side but I knew there weren’t crisps inside, there was Dolly dead and broken and covered in blood. And everyone was looking at me to say something but words wouldn’t come out of my mouth. Not anything. Because I was thinking about what Mr A M Feinstein had done. He’d seen me and killed Dolly as an act of revenge, like when Dr Van Fleet kills Zac Black’s dog. And I wondered how he’d done it. Maybe he’d strangled him. Or cut his head off. Or pulled it like a chicken until it snapped. And all the dead Dollies were in my head miaowing and eating cornflakes and watching Deal or No Deal and I wanted them to shut up and get out and it all to stop. So I ran up the stairs and pulled the curtains and lay on my back in the dark counting and counting and counting.

  I felt her sit down next to me, but she didn’t stroke my hair this time, she just sat very still for ages. And I just kept looking at the ceiling at the Plough and Ursa Major and the half Orion. Then she said, ‘Where did you go?’ And I wanted to tell her, so she could make it go away and make it all right again, but she doesn’t have superpowers, so I said, ‘Nowhere. To the park.’ Then she said, ‘I’m sorry, Billy.’ And her voice was quiet and sad and I could feel the tears bursting out of my eyes and she picked me up and held me against her and I could smell Persil and lipstick and soap. And I should’ve felt safe and happy but I didn’t. Because Dad was never coming back.

  Monday

  30th June

  Dolly’s still here. He’s buried in the Walkers Prawn Cocktail crisp box behind the compost heap. Stan said Nan didn’t want him at her house in case she got too sad, so Dave said he could stay at ours and dug a hole in the ground with Stan’s yellow spade. But it’s worse because even if Nan doesn’t know about the concrete tortoise and the revenge, Dolly does, and now he’ll be waiting to come out of the ground like a zombie cat and attack me at night for getting him killed.

  I’ve moved places at breakfast so I can’t see out of the window and Dolly can’t see me. Mum said, ‘Billy, will you keep still! You’re spilling milk all over the table and I haven’t got time, I’ve got to be at the Registry Office to sort some things before half nine and Stacey can only cover me until eleven.’ But I wanted to sit in Stan’s chair because he can only see the fridge and the Great British Buildings calendar, so I carried on moving anyway. Dave said, ‘I’ll get it, Jeanie, calm down.’ Mum said, ‘I am calm.’ But she wasn’t. It was a LIE.

  When I got to school, Kyle was waiting for me by the wooden pirate ship and I could see his gold
earring glinting in the sun like Jack Sparrow – Jack Sparrow doesn’t have a shaved head, he has dreadlocks. I carried on walking but he followed me and kept talking saying, ‘Are you all right, Grimshaw? You were mad on Sunday. Did he catch you? What did your mum say?’ And I could see Big Lauren watching me from the steps with Karen Connolly, and I wanted to go over there where it was safe and talk about makeovers and Leona Lewis. But Lauren didn’t smile or wave, she just stared, and I knew she was angry at me for being with Kyle and that now he was my only friend. And Kyle said, ‘Meet me at HQ at lunch.’ I said, ‘What HQ?’ He said, ‘Duh, our HQ behind the bike shed.’ And I thought I didn’t have anything else to do or anyone else to be with any more so I said, ‘OK.’

  But I wish I hadn’t. Because that’s when he told me the plan. He’s going to make Sugar-Free Sean pay us money every day starting tomorrow. Sean has to meet Kyle in the toilets in first break and give him two pounds. And I’m lookout because of my decoy face and binoculars. Kyle says I don’t actually do any of the bad stuff, I’m just the sidekick.

  But it doesn’t feel like that.

  Tuesday

  1st July

  Sean only had one pound fifty and it was his dinner money and he said if he didn’t eat his blood sugar got low and he might die, which is true, it happened once in PE. Only he didn’t die, he fainted, and had to go to Wing Nuts’ office and have an injection. Kyle said, ‘Tough’ and then he pushed him against the hand dryer which went off and blasted Sean’s hair and was really hot and was hurting him, but Kyle held him there a bit longer and said, ‘Bring it all tomorrow or else.’ Sean didn’t ask ‘Or else what?’ but I knew it wouldn’t be good, and so did Sean. And all the time I stayed at the door and looked out for Wing Nuts and Miss Horridge. And when Stephen Warren asked to come in the toilet I said no and he had to go to the infants’ where the toilets are really low down and your knees stick up in the air.