THE POST HASN’T arrived. It is thirteen minutes past ten and I have been in double figures for one hundred and ninety seven minutes. I heard something at the door a second ago but it was just the milkman. We had to get our own milk in London. We’d always run out ’cos the supermarket was a fifteen minute drive away and Dad refused to go down the road to the shop owned by Muslims. I got used to having dry cereal but Mum moaned when she couldn’t have a cup of tea.
So far my presents haven’t been that great. Dad gave me football boots that are one and a half sizes too small. I’m wearing them now and my toes feel as though they’re in a mousetrap. First time he’s smiled for ages when I put them on. I didn’t want to say I needed bigger ones ’cos he probably chucked the receipt. I just pretended that they fit. I never get on football teams anyway so I won’t have to wear them that much. In my school in London I tried out every single year but I was never picked, except for once when the keeper was ill and Mr Jackson put me in goal. I asked Dad to come and he rubbed my head like he was proud. We lost thirteen-nil, but only six of the goals were my fault. When the match started, I was gutted Dad hadn’t turned up. By the end, I was relieved.
Rose bought me a book. Like always, her present was by the urn when I went into the lounge. I got this strong urge to laugh when I saw it there, and imagined the urn sprouting legs and arms and a head and walking to the shop to buy a present. Dad was watching me with his serious eyes though so I tore off the paper and tried not to look disappointed when I realised I’d already read it. I read a lot. I used to go to the school library at lunchtime in London. Books are better friends than people the librarian said. I don’t think that’s true. Luke Branston was my friend for four days when he fell out with Dillon Sykes for breaking his Arsenal ruler. He sat with me in the dining hall and we played Top Trumps in the playground and no one called me Maggot Dick for almost a whole week.
Jas is waiting for me downstairs. We’re going to the park to play football in a second. She asked Dad too. Come and watch Jamie try out his new boots she said, but Dad just grunted and turned on the TV. He looked hung-over. Sure enough, I found another empty vodka bottle in the bin when I checked. Jas whispered We don’t need him anyway and then shouted Let’s go and play as if it was the most exciting thing in the world.
Jas just yelled up the stairs to see if I’m ready. I shouted Nearly but I didn’t move from the windowsill. I want to wait for the post. It normally comes between ten and eleven. I don’t think Mum will forget. Important birthdays feel like they’re written on my brain in that permanent ink teachers sometimes use on whiteboards by mistake. But maybe Mum is different now she lives with Nigel. Maybe Nigel has children of his own and Mum remembers their birthdays instead.
I’ll definitely get something from Granny even if I don’t get anything from Mum. Granny lives in Scotland, which is where Dad is from, and she never forgets anything even though she is eighty one. I wish I could see her more often ’cos she is the only person Dad is scared of and I reckon she is the only one who could make him stop drinking. Dad never takes us to see her and she is too old to drive so she can’t visit us. I think I am a lot like Granny. She has ginger hair and freckles and I have ginger hair and freckles and she is tough like me. At Rose’s funeral, she was the only other person in the whole church who didn’t cry. That’s what Jas told me anyway.
The park is a mile away and we almost sprinted there. I could tell Jas was trying to burn calories. Sometimes when we watch TV, she jiggles her leg up and down for no reason and she does hundreds of sit-ups every day after school. She looked funny in her long dark coat with her bright pink hair, speeding past loads of sheep that stared and said Baaa. I kept looking for the postman ’cos it was almost eleven and he hadn’t arrived by the time we left the cottage.
There were three girls on the swings when we got to the park and they stared at us as we walked in. Their eyes were like nettles, all full of sting, and my face went red as I paused by the gate. Jas wasn’t bothered. She ran right up to them and climbed on one of the swings, standing on the seat in her jet black boots. The girls looked at her as though she was a freak, but Jas swung really high and really fast and smiled at the sky like nothing in the world could frighten her.
Music’s more Jas’s thing so I beat her easily, seven-two. My best goal was a volley with my left foot. Jas reckons I’ll get on the team this year. She said my boots are enchanted so they’ll make me as good as Wayne Rooney. My toes tingled as if there was magic inside them, and for a second I thought Jas was right until I realised my blood supply had been cut off and my feet had turned blue. Jas said Are your boots too small and I said No they are perfect.
I felt excited on the way home. Jas was going on and on about getting more piercings but all I could think about was the mat in the hall in the cottage. In my head I saw a parcel on top of it. A fat parcel with a football card taped to the shiny wrapping paper. Nigel wouldn’t have signed it but Mum would have put lots of kisses inside.
When I opened the front door, I knew something was wrong. It swung forward easily. I didn’t dare look down at first and forced myself to remember what Granny always says. Good things come in small packages. I tried to imagine all the little presents Mum could have sent that were still nice even if they didn’t block the door. But for some reason the only small thing I could think of was Roger’s dead mouse and it made me feel sick so I stopped.
I looked down at the mat. There was one card. I recognised the loopy handwriting on the envelope as Granny’s. Even though I could tell there was nothing underneath it, I still nudged the card with my toe, in case the present Mum had sent was really really tiny, like a Manchester United badge or a rubber or something.
I could feel Jas watching me. I glanced up at her. Once I saw a dog run into a busy road and my shoulders shot up to my ears and my eyebrows scrunched together as I waited for the collision. That’s how Jas looked when I checked the mat. I bent down quickly and tore open Granny’s card, laughing too loudly when twenty pounds fluttered onto the carpet. Think of all the cool stuff you can buy with your money Jas said, and I was glad that she hadn’t asked me a question ’cos I had a lump the size of the world in my throat.
In the lounge we heard the clunk-fizz of a can being opened and Jas coughed to disguise the fact that Dad was drinking on my special day. Let’s have some cake she said, pulling me into the kitchen. There weren’t any candles so she stuck a couple of her incense sticks into the sponge. I closed my eyes tight and wished that Mum’s present would arrive soon. I wished for the biggest parcel in the whole world, one that would break the postman’s back. Then I opened my eyes and saw Jas smiling at me. I felt a bit selfish so I added And please let Jas get her belly button pierced before taking a deep breath. Smoke went everywhere but it was impossible to blow out the sticks so my wishes won’t work.
I cut the cake as carefully as I could ’cos I didn’t want to spoil it. It tasted like Yorkshire pudding. This is really nice I said and Jas laughed. She knew I was lying. She shouted Dad, do you want some but there was no reply. Then she said Do you feel older and I said No ’cos nothing has changed. Even though I am in double figures now, I still feel like I did when I was nine. I am the same as I was in London. Jas is the same. And so is Dad. He hasn’t been to the building site even though the man has left him five answerphone messages in two weeks.
Jas nibbled the corner of a tiny slice of cake and asked if I wanted my present. The wind chimes tinkled as we opened her bedroom door. She said I didn’t wrap it and handed me a white plastic bag. Inside was a sketchbook and some fancy pencils, the nicest I’ve ever seen. I’ll draw you first I said. She stuck out her tongue and went cross-eyed. Only if you draw me like this.
After lunch we watched Spider-Man. It is the number one best film of all time and we sat on her bedroom floor with the curtains closed and the duvet wrapped around us, even though it was the middle of the afternoon. Roger curled up on my lap. He’s my cat really. I’m the one who looks afte
r him. He used to be Rose’s. She begged and begged for a pet and, when she was seven, Mum agreed. She put the cat in a box and stuck a bow on top and when Rose opened the present she cried with happiness. Mum’s told me that story about a hundred times. I don’t know if she forgets she’s told it before, or if she just likes telling it again, but it makes her smile so I just bite my tongue and let her finish. I’d love it if Mum sent me an animal for my birthday. A spider would be best ’cos then it might bite me and I’d get special powers like Spider-Man.
When I went downstairs after the film, almost all the cake had gone. There was just one bit on the plate, but it wasn’t a neat triangle like the slices I’d cut. It was all hacked up. I walked into the lounge and found Dad snoring on the sofa with crumbs on his double chin. Three empty beer cans were on the floor and a bottle of vodka was propped against a cushion. He must have been too drunk to realise the cake didn’t taste right. I was about to go back upstairs when I caught sight of my sister on the mantelpiece. Next to the urn was a slice of cake and for some reason it made me really cross. I walked over to Rose and, even though I know she’s dead and can’t hear a word that anyone says, I whispered It’s my birthday, not yours and stuffed the cake into my mouth.
Two days later, I was in the back garden sketching a goldfish in the pond and trying not to listen out for the postman. I’d told myself again and again that the present wouldn’t come but, as soon as I heard footsteps on the drive, I ran inside. A few letters flopped onto the mat. Nothing from Mum. But then there was a knock on the door and I opened it so quickly, the postman jumped. He said Package for James Matthews and my hands trembled as I took the parcel. The postman said Sign here in this bored voice as if he didn’t know that something amazing was happening. Feeling like Wayne Rooney, I signed my name and made it all squiggly like an autograph. Then the postman turned around and walked away, which was a relief. For a second I was worried that, if wishes really do come true, he might have a broken back.
I took my present upstairs but I didn’t open it for ten minutes. The address was in neat capitals. I traced the letters on the brown paper with my finger, imagining Mum writing my name as nicely as she could. Then all of a sudden I couldn’t wait a second longer and I ripped off the wrapping paper and screwed it up into a little ball and chucked it on the floor. Inside was a plain box that didn’t give anything away. Rose liked boxes, Dad told me once, and she used them to make spaceships and castles and tunnels. He said she liked the boxes better than the presents when she was a little girl.
I’m not Rose so I was relieved when something rattled against the cardboard when I shook the box. I opened it up. My heart felt like a wild rabbit you see in car headlights in the countryside. At first it sort of froze, too scared to move, but then it exploded and jumped about really fast. Inside the box was some red and blue material. I tipped it onto the bed with one of those grins that hooks on your ears like a hammock on palm trees. The material was soft and the spider sewn on the front was big and black and dangerous. I pulled the Spider-Man t-shirt over my head and looked in the mirror. Jamie Matthews had disappeared. In his place stood a superhero. In his place stood Spider-Man.
If I’d been wearing my new t-shirt in the park, I would not have been scared of those girls. I’d have run after Jas and leapt on a swing, landing on one foot without wobbling. I would have swung higher and faster than anyone ever has before and then I would have jumped off and flown through the air and those girls would have said Wow. Then I would have laughed so loud like HAHAHAHAHA and probably even sworn or something. I would not have stood ten metres away going all red and shaky like a coward.
On the card there was a football player wearing an Arsenal kit. Mum probably thought it was Man Utd ’cos they both play in red. In the card she had written To my big boy on his tenth birthday. Have a great day, love from Mum with three big kisses underneath. I didn’t think I could get any happier until I saw the P.S. at the bottom. I’m looking forward to seeing you in your t-shirt very soon.
I repeated that sentence over and over and it’s still circling my head now, like a dog chasing its tail. I’m sitting on the cushion by the window and Roger is purring. He knows it’s been a good day. The stars are shining more brightly than ever before and they look like hundreds of candles on a black birthday cake. Even if I could blow them out, I wouldn’t wish for anything else. Today has been perfect.
I wonder if Mum has already booked her train. Or maybe Nigel has a car that he will let her borrow, though I don’t think she’d like to drive all the way up here on the motorway. She hates getting stuck in traffic and walks everywhere in London. But she’ll get here somehow ’cos she will want to see me before I start school to say Good luck and Be good and all of that Mum stuff. And she will definitely want to see me in my new t-shirt. I am not going to take it off until she gets here, just in case. I’ll sleep in it too ’cos superheroes are never off duty and she might arrive late after a train delay or a traffic jam. It might not be tonight or tomorrow or even the next day, but if Mum said Very soon then she meant Very soon, and I will be ready for her when she gets here.
MY TEACHER MADE me sit next to the only Muslim in the school. She said This is Sunya and stared at me when I didn’t sit down. Mrs Farmer’s eyes don’t have any colour. They are paler than grey. They look like TVs that have lost reception and gone fuzzy. She has got a mole on her chin and two hairs curl out of the middle. It wouldn’t be difficult to pluck them out. Maybe she doesn’t know they’re there. Or maybe she likes them. Is there a problem said Mrs Farmer and everyone in my class turned to watch. I wanted to shout Muslims killed my sister but it didn’t seem like the kind of thing you say before Hello or I’m Jamie or I am ten years old. So I just sat down at the very edge of the table and tried not to look in Sunya’s direction.
Dad would go mental if he knew. He thinks the best thing about leaving London is getting away from the Muslims. None of that foreign stuff in the Lake District he said. Just real British people minding their own business. In Finsbury Park there were thousands of them. The women wore these long cloths over their heads like they were dressed up as ghosts and ready for Halloween. There was a mosque down the road from the flat and we’d see them all going to pray. I really wanted to have a look inside, but Dad told me to keep away.
My new school is tiny. It is surrounded by mountains and trees and a stream runs past the front gate so if you are in the playground you can hear this gurgle gurgle like water running down a plughole. In London my school was on a main road and all you could hear or see or smell was traffic.
After I had got out my pencil case, Mrs Farmer said Welcome to our school and everyone clapped. She said What is your name and I said Jamie and she said Where have you come from and someone whispered Loser land but I said London. Mrs Farmer said she would love to visit London but it was too far to drive and my tummy clenched ’cos Mum suddenly felt miles away. She said Your records haven’t arrived from your old school yet, so why don’t you tell us something interesting about yourself. I couldn’t think of a single thing to say. So Mrs Farmer said How many brothers and sisters have you got and I couldn’t even answer that ’cos I don’t know if Rose counts. Everyone started giggling and Mrs Farmer said Shhh children and then she asked Well, do you have any pets. I said I have a cat called Roger. Mrs Farmer smiled and said Roger the rat sounds very nice indeed.
First we had to write two pages under the title My Wonderful Summer Holiday and take extra care to put full stops and capital letters in the right place. That was easy enough but trying to think of something wonderful to write was more difficult. Watching Spider-Man and getting my presents from Mum and Jas were the only good things that happened this summer. I wrote them down and they just about filled one page ’cos I made my handwriting really big. Then I sat and stared at my book and wished I could write about ice creams or theme parks or swimming in the sea.
Five minutes left Mrs Farmer said, drinking coffee and checking her watch. Everyone should be a
ble to fill two pages and some people might even manage three. A boy looked up. Mrs Farmer winked at him and the boy’s face seemed to swell. Then he leaned over so far his nose almost touched the table and he started writing really fast, thousands of words flying out of his pen as he described his wonderful holiday.
Three minutes left Mrs Farmer said. My pen was stuck at the top of page two and it had made an ink splodge ’cos I hadn’t moved it for seven minutes.
Make it up. These words were whispered so quietly, I thought I’d imagined them. I looked at Sunya and her eyes were bright and twinkly like puddles in sunshine. They were dark brown, almost black, and she had a white cloth over her head that completely covered every single hair but one. The hair hung near her cheek and was black and straight and shiny like a thin piece of liquorice. She was left-handed and six bracelets jangled on her wrist as she wrote. Make it up she said again and then she smiled. Her teeth looked white next to her brown skin.
I didn’t know what to do. Muslims killed my sister but I didn’t want to get in trouble on my first day of school. I rolled my eyes like I thought Sunya’s advice was rubbish but then Mrs Farmer shouted Two minutes to go. So I started writing as fast as I could, making up fast rollercoasters and trips to the beach and finding crabs in rock pools. I described Mum laughing her head off when seagulls tried to eat her fish and chips and Dad building me the biggest sandcastle in the entire world. I wrote that it was so big my whole family could fit inside but that sounded made up so I crossed it out. I said Jas got sunburn but Rose got a tan. I paused for about one millisecond when I wrote that last bit ’cos, even though everything else was a lie, that was the biggest one of them all. But then Mrs Farmer shouted Sixty seconds left and my pen raced across the page and before I knew it I’d written a whole paragraph about Rose.
My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece Page 2
