Snowflake

by Heide Goody

  It took about thirty minutes to get where it was going – thirty minutes of me driving solo for the first time ever, accompanied by the imagined voice of Terence pointing out his views of why replacing the roundabouts with traffic lights was EU bureaucracy gone mad and reminiscing about a mythical time when this whole area resounded to the hammers and drills of good old British manufacturing industry. It felt a lot longer. Not just because even pretend-Terence was deathly dull but because I was worrying about Theo. It wasn’t just James’ kid in the back of that lorry. It was a good kid, who might have been smarter than Google, but was still a ten-year-old kid trapped in the dark with a donkey.

  The lorry pulled into a yard behind a vast building. A warehouse, perhaps? I followed in the car and then got out when I saw the vehicle reverse up towards a door marked Bay Six. I walked towards the van as the driver got out and opened the rear doors. The floor of the trailer was level with the warehouse floor, so I had to clamber up to get to the back of it. As I did, I saw the donkey bolt into the warehouse. The driver turned to watch the departing donkey in bewilderment and managed a shout of “Oi!” but completely failed to do anything practical. Evidently, he hadn’t noticed Theo, who now emerged from the van behind him.

  I hugged him tightly.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “You’re safe now.”

  He pulled away.

  “No time for hugs, Lori,” he said very seriously. “We need to find Beyoncé.”

  “Oh, it’s got a name now?” I said, following him into the warehouse.

  “You can’t go in there!” shouted the driver, but we ignored him and continued.

  High shelving units rose up around us. Much of the warehouse was dark, but lights came on as we came into their range. We trotted through the aisles until we saw a curtain of opaque plastic ahead of us. It looked like daylight beyond the curtain.

  “Do you think Beyoncé’s gone through there?” asked Theo.

  “How do you know it’s even a girl?” I asked.

  “I can tell the difference between boys and girls, Lori.”

  We pushed through the curtain and I was very surprised to see that we were in a shop.

  “I’ve been here,” said Theo.

  “Is this IKEA?” I said.

  “I can smell meatballs,” he nodded. “Do donkeys like meatballs?”

  I hesitated and stared at an array of modernist, eco-friendly, Scandawegian office furniture. This could be one of those situations where I got into trouble for something that was entirely not my fault.

  “Are you worried that you let a donkey loose in IKEA?” asked Theo.

  “No,” I lied. “I think we need to find customer services.”

  Theo had already connected to the shop Wi-Fi and brought up a map. “This way,” he said.

  “We’re looking for a donkey,” I said to the customer services woman, feeling slightly absurd.

  The assistant smiled brightly. “I’d be happy to help. What department is that?”

  “Um. It’s a donkey.”

  “Is Dünki a light fitting?”

  “No.”

  “Ah. Are you sure?”

  “Fairly.”

  “Perhaps you’d like to check our current range in the catalogue? Page ninety-four.”

  She handed me a catalogue. My mouth worked as I tried to frame a suitable response. “No. I mean an actual donkey. You know, a beast of burden?”

  “Oh!” Her face lit up. “That’s fine.”

  Fine?”

  “Yes, the Börden range of drawers. You can see those over in storage. Last aisle on the left over there.”

  I looked at Theo and he shrugged.

  “I don’t think they understand,” he said. “It’s too big a concept for them to understand.”

  We walked away from the desk.

  “Maybe she didn’t come out here,” he said. “She might still be in the warehouse.”

  We headed back over to the plastic curtain and managed to slip through undetected.

  “We need to get up high so we can see,” said Theo. “We can use that.”

  He pointed and we walked over. It was a curious looking apparatus, and it had a sign on it: Wear hard hat to operate scissor lift.

  “We need hard hats,” I said, remembering I was the responsible adult.

  We found some hanging nearby so that made it fine. We climbed onto the little fenced-off platform of the scissor lift. There were controls on a small panel, and after some experimentation we hit platform and found that the joystick worked for taking us up.

  “This is brilliant!” yelled Theo when we were towering above the racks. “There, look!”

  He pointed and I could see Beyoncé, her hat clearly visible as she nuzzled a pile of rugs on the shelving.

  “Why did you call her Beyoncé?” I asked.

  Theo went a little pink and mumbled something.

  “What was that?” I said.

  “Big fat ass,” he said, shamefaced.

  I was aghast. “Beyoncé isn’t a big fat ass! She’s a strong, independent and successful woman.”

  “No,” said Theo, “I’m not saying she is a big fat ass. I’m saying she has – Down! Down! You’re going to miss her.”

  Theo pressed my hand forward on the joystick and we descended at speed to meet Beyoncé. I jumped out. Moments later, Beyoncé was back under our control. We briefly discussed the best way to get out.

  “The loading bay was too high off the ground. Beyoncé can’t jump down that far,” said Theo.

  He was right. “Well, we’ll just have to take her out through the shop,” I said. “We’ll brazen it out.”

  We passed through the plastic curtain again and stepped out into the shop. We hurried past the lady on customer services, trying not to make eye contact, and then looked to see which was the quickest way out.

  Ten minutes later, I was certain we’d done a lap of the entire building, but we were no closer to finding the exit. Everyone had stared at us. A little girl had pointed at the donkey and demanded to know where she could get one.

  “Look in the catalogue,” I told her. “Page ninety-four.”

  An employee approached us. He looked about my age, and I could tell he wanted to challenge us, but wasn’t quite sure what to say.

  “You have a donkey,” he went with in the end.

  “Yes.”

  He frowned. “Animals aren’t allowed in the shop.” He pointed at a sign on an access door with a line through a picture of a dog.

  “This isn’t a dog,” I said.

  “Same difference,” he said. “Only assistance dogs are allowed in the shop.”

  “This is an assistance donkey.”

  He frowned more deeply. “How?”

  “She suffers from a complex socio-neurological condition which makes her very gullible,” said Theo.

  “Does she?” said the man.

  “Yes,” said Theo.

  “Oh, I see.”

  “We’re trying to find our way out,” I said. “We’ve just been going round in circles.”

  “Ah yes,” he said. “Go down there.” He pointed at a shadowy gap between fixtures. Surely it wasn’t meant to be the way to the exit? We led Beyoncé into the unlikely gap and found that it was some sort of secret passage that brought us out by the tills.

  We were trapped behind a bank of tills, but a manager appeared from somewhere and had the presence of mind to open up a barrier to let us out.

  “Lori,” hissed Theo out of the corner of his mouth.

  “Keep walking,” I said.

  “Beyoncé’s just done a poo on the floor.”

  “Shh. Just keep walking.”

  Moments later we were back out in the daylight, although grey clouds had appeared, threatening rain.

  “Wow, am I glad to be out of there,” I breathed. “Now all we have to do is find somewhere to put Beyoncé. We should call your dad.”

  I pulled out my phone. “No signal,” I said. “Actually, that might be
a good thing. It means we’re out in the sticks, so a nice field can’t be all that far away.”

  I patted Beyoncé’s neck and led her on, heading away from the crowds of people. Were they taking video on their phones? Maybe they’d never seen a donkey before.

  We walked for a few minutes, and it was still busy. There were roads, people and noise. Everything to make a donkey jumpy. And it was starting to drizzle.

  “We need to make sure we can keep her calm,” Theo said. “Shall we sing to her?”

  I nodded. “What song will we both know though?”

  Theo ran through some titles that meant nothing to me. I tried him out with some McFly, but he had no idea who they were. It eventually came down to a choice between The Wheels on the Bus or All Things Bright and Beautiful. We went with The Wheels on the Bus. Theo had some sketchy Wi-Fi on his tablet and we streamed a video to sing along to. We did all the movements as well. I could tell that Beyoncé was enjoying it. I even think that her hat was bobbing in time.

  We didn’t spot any fields, but we did see a gate that led to a lovely green space. The padlock was unlocked so we opened the gate and led Beyoncé inside. It was allotments, and Beyoncé showed a lively interest in the rows of vegetables. We shut the gate behind us and let her go and explore. The rain started to fall in fat droplets.

  “We’re going to get wet,” said Theo. “And we don’t have coats.”

  There was a shed off to the side. It was gloomy inside – the windows were covered in a century’s worth of cobwebs – but there was the faint smell of wood preserver that reminded me of home and the shed that my dad had in our old garden.

  “It’s fun spending time with you, Lori,” observed Theo, settling into a deckchair.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “You always end up doing stupid things,” observed Theo.

  Was that a compliment? I think it was. I decided I would take it as one. I took the other deckchair and sat down. This was a cosy shed. There was a table, where someone had been reading the newspaper, and a kettle and mugs.

  “Things have been a little bit crazy just lately,” I said. “I don’t bring trouble into my life on purpose, it just tends to turn up.”

  He nodded as if he understood. I wished I did.

  While we waited for the rain to stop, Theo and I entertained ourselves by playing a game that we made up called Garden plant as medieval torture. It was a fun game, fuelled by a plant catalogue that was in the shed. We’d worked our way through the obvious ones like Red Hot Poker and Ladies Fingers.

  “Right, you can do Needle Grass,” I said to Theo, flicking through the pages.

  “Hm. That would be an experiment to see how many needles they need to put under your feet before it supports your weight rather than just piercing your skin.”

  “Ew,” I said. “How many do you think?”

  “Loads,” he said. “Hundreds. But if they started with just a few then your feet would look like mincemeat after a few goes anyway.”

  “My turn,” I said, handing him the catalogue.

  “Balloon flower,” said Theo.

  “Oh. Easy. That’s where they put a bicycle pump up your bottom and inflate your intestines until they –”

  “You can’t have a bicycle pump, it’s medieval remember? You’d have to use bellows.”

  “Bellows then. Anyway, they inflate your intestines until they explode.”

  “Gross!” said Theo with a delighted laugh. “Would that make a mess?”

  “Oh yes, I reckon so.”

  I wondered whether this had been the educational diversion that I’d hoped for as Theo mimed the explosive ka-pow from his bottom that would shoot him into orbit.

  “Are you hungry?” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “Me too.”

  “When do you think we’ll be able to get back home?”

  I thought about that. I wasn’t terribly sure where we actually were if I was honest.

  “When it’s stopped raining we’ll take a look round. I think Beyoncé will be alright here. Allotment people must be kind people. They’ll know what to do with a donkey. We should concentrate on getting you home.”

  If only I had some food with me, that would make us both feel a lot better. A thought occurred to me. I pushed it away but it popped back again. I picked up the newspaper. It was one of the fat ones with colour supplements to cover every kind of interest. I flicked open the foodie bit and soon found a picture of a pie. It looked mouth-wateringly good. Food porn. I’ve never understood it. Why show enticing pictures of something that people can’t reach into the image and just take?

  “Theo,” I said slowly, “I’m going to share something unusual with you. Don’t be scared because it’s –” I ran out of steam on that one. Was it normal or harmless? Who knew? “What I mean to say is, just don’t freak out. Watch this.”

  I held the pendant and pointed at the pie in the magazine. It popped into existence, as I knew it would. Warm chickeny gravy and succulent vegetables dribbled over the pages. The waft of hot golden pastry filled my nostrils. Theo’s face was a conflict of shock and delight. I could see that delight (and possibly hunger) had the upper hand as he wasted no time in taking the pie and tucking into it. I repeated the trick on the next page so that I had some pie for myself.

  “I don’t know how it works,” I said to him between mouthfuls, “but I do know that I need to be careful about using it too much. This was an emergency though.”

  Theo shrugged and carried on eating.

  I brushed crumbs and gravy from the colour supplement and turned over the page. My hand froze with the pie halfway to my mouth. There was a picture of me. I looked at the title of the piece. It was Look out! The Snowflakes are coming!

  “Fucksticks!” I exclaimed.

  “Lori!” shouted Theo.

  I waved him into silence and stared at the article. It went on for three pages, but my eye was drawn to a quote that had been pulled out into a highlighted box.

  “I hadn’t really mastered true adulting” says Lori, pictured here wondering how to use a cup.

  Oh. That wasn’t fair. I went back and read the opening paragraph.

  We all know someone who’s a bit hopeless, don’t we? Someone who struggles with the basic building blocks of life? Well, we need to look out because there’s an entire generation growing up without any of the key skills needed for survival. We’re talking about the simplest of tasks including managing money and preparing food. Millennials are so hopelessly ill-equipped that “adulting” is now an accepted verb, used by clueless millennials who master something that previous generations would have taken for granted.

  This week I caught up with Lori Belkin, who has muddled through to the ripe old age of twenty-five purely by luck! She has no money, believes that her cartoon blog is her route to success, and in the meantime, is stealing food to survive.

  I closed the magazine. That horrible man was not only trying to make me look bad, but he was saying that all young people were as useless as me! It made me sad to realise that I had walked into all of the traps that James had warned me about.

  Chapter 36

  I pulled out my phone to see if there was any signal here. There wasn’t, but there were a lot of missed calls from James.

  “Your dad’s been trying to get in touch,” I said to Theo. “You don’t happen to have a phone, do you?”

  He shook his head. “I’m connected to a local hotspot though. You can message him.”

  He passed the tablet over. I went to the home screen and was about to click on the messenger icon when my eye was caught by a folder of links: Mom’s videos.

  I shouldn’t have. This was Theo’s tablet, his personal tablet. But it was just a tap of the finger and my finger-brain was doing it before my actual brain told it not to. The folder opened.

  It was just full of YouTube video links. I recognised a couple of the titles from Theo’s video browsing earlier. My fingertip hovered over “Travels in the Sub
-Sahara”.

  “Found it?” said Theo and leaned over, past the donkey’s neck. “Oh.”

  “Sorry,” I said automatically. “I didn’t mean to. I mean I saw it and…”

  “It’s okay,” he said, but there was a sad tone in his voice. “Look at this one.”

  He tapped one called “Schools in Sudan”. When the app opened it played a promotional video for a worldwide education charity. Theo dragged the timer bar to about halfway through. The video cut from a white-washed concrete school building to a large group of children sitting in the shade of a tree. They were singing a song and clapping along and a white woman with a tan that was fifty percent freckles and fifty percent sunburn was playing along on a guitar, trying to keep time.

  “That’s one of the good ones,” said Theo. “She’s in it for quite a bit. Some of them, she’s just a face in the background. She looks happy, doesn’t she? Do you think she looks happy?”

  I couldn’t look at Theo’s face. I think if I did I would have burst into tears.

  “I think she looks happy,” said Theo.

  “She does,” I agreed softly and then, “I didn’t mean to pry.”

  “You’re not prying,” he said. “They’re public videos. Anyone can watch them.”

  I nodded. “How long has it been since you’ve actually seen her.”

  “I don’t remember,” he said. “It’s been a long time. She’s very busy and she’s helping lots of people. All the things she’s achieved.”

  I felt a sudden anger swell inside me. I think if that woman had appeared in the shed right then, I would have beaten her senseless. The selfishness of it all. To put aside all the good she had in her life – this wonderful boy and his possibly equally wonderful dad – in order to go explore the world, tick a few things of a pointless bucket list, swim with the fucking dolphins or whatever.

  “We need to get you back to your dad,” I said, minimized the YouTube and went to the messenger app.

  Dad was one of half a dozen contacts. James picked up instantly.

  “Theo?” he said on speaker.

  “Hi Dad,” said Theo.

  “I’m here too,” I said. “It’s Lori.”