by Ross Welford
He brings me a juice with ice, and takes a deep breath.
‘You’re not the only one with secrets, you know, Eff?’
He plays with his hands for a bit.
I wait patiently. I can tell this isn’t easy for him.
That’s when he says that his dad, the big-shot London lawyer, is currently serving a seven-year prison sentence in Durham Jail for fraud.
‘Wow,’ I say, which sounds a bit odd as it comes out, but it’s what I feel.
‘That’s not all, though.’ He’s not looking at me while he says this, and the next bit he just blurts out.
His mum has bipolar disorder, which he explains is a mental condition that means you are sometimes crazily energetic to the point of being manic, and sometimes horribly exhausted and depressed. Sometimes she can’t work, and once was even admitted to hospital.
‘When was that?’ I ask, but I think I already know the answer.
‘When I started hanging out with you. I needed someone who would just … I dunno. Not be horrible to me. With Mum gone, you were about the only one.’
I sip my juice in silence. I really don’t know what to say.
Eventually, he breaks the silence.
‘Does it matter?’ he says.
I must look blank.
‘Does it matter that my dad’s a crook and my mum’s a …’ He thinks for a moment. ‘That my mum’s mentally unstable?’
‘Matter? Of course it matters! I mean, they’re both pretty big deals.’
‘No, I mean … does it matter to you?’
And that’s when I get it.
‘No, Boydy. It doesn’t mean I like you less. We all have rivers to cross, but we all have the materials to build bridges.’
He curls his lip at me, scornfully.
‘It’s something my gran says,’ I explain.
‘Blimey. I thought you’d gone all serious on me.’
Then he talks. About his mum’s illness (which started years ago), his dad’s desperation when his law company started to lose money, and the small deception that grew into a big fraud, and his dad’s trial that happened just as ’is mum was admitted to hospital …
‘He’s a nice guy,’ says Boydy of his dad. ‘You’d like him. He … he made some bad choices, though.’
‘And now you’re in charge?’ I say.
‘Well, when Mum’s bad I’ve gotta be, really. Right now, she’s fine. She’s visiting my dad. Now – are you hungry? It’s a new recipe I’m trying.’
That’s when I realise the reason he’s such a good cook. It’s because he has to make stuff for himself when his mum’s not around.
I feel like I’m kind of seeing him in a whole new light. He’s odd and jittery, though, all the way through supper, which he insists on eating at the table instead of on a plate off our knees, which is our usual way. It’s some beef thing which is lovely and I keep going, ‘Mmmm, yummy’ and stuff, but he’s still distracted.
Eventually, he says, ‘Effel?’
‘Boydy?’
‘There’s something I’ve been meaning to say.’
‘Yes?’
I’m on my guard now, because I thought all the revelations were over. What’s he going to say? Oh, hang on. Surely not. Surely not?
I hold my hand up and say, ‘Boydy. Stop there. I hope you’re not going to “ask me out” or anything like that?’
There’s a long pause, during which Boydy just stares at me. His shoulders have drooped and he looks a little sad.
‘Don’t be daft,’ he says, eventually. ‘I wasn’t going to ask you anything like that at all. I mean, we’re best mates, yeah? I like being your friend, and it would be a shame to spoil it, wouldn’t it? I mean, to risk our friendship by … by … No, I wasn’t going to ask you that. Tsk, honestly, Effel. What do you take me for?’
Well, that’s pretty emphatic. Phew.
‘What were you going to ask me then?’
‘Oh, erm …’ He thinks for a minute. He’s lost his train of thought. ‘Would you like pudding?’
‘That was it?’
‘Lemon sorbet. All the flavour, half the calories.’
He’s a good friend, Boydy.
But that’s all we are. Just friends.
Boydy’s dad, it turns out, was not a stand-up-in-court sort of lawyer. More like a sit-behind-a-computer-all-day sort of lawyer, doing stuff like tax and something called ‘digital forensic accounting’ which I can’t even begin to understand.
His prison isn’t a metal-bars-and-hard-labour sort of prison, either. It’s called a Category C Prison, and he’s allowed visits, and a computer and the internet and stuff.
What it means, though, is that as a favour to Boydy he is investigating the payment I made to a bank in China – Hong Kong, actually – for Dr Chang His Skin So Clear.
Boydy told him that I made the payment (on Gram’s card) and didn’t receive any goods, so we didn’t have to explain the whole invisibility thing. Mr Boyd – Pete – says there are two likely outcomes of an initial investigation.
The first is that it’s a small company moving banks, moving accounts, but keeping the same physical and IP addresses. These, he says, are fairly easy to track down.
The other option is that it is a much bigger corporation, doing lots of different types of transactions between countries, and opening and closing bank accounts in different banks all the time with multiple fake addresses, and somehow not leaving a trace in the electronic world – to keep two, three, four steps ahead of people like him. They are often impossible to track down, especially without a large team and – in this case – fluent Mandarin and/or Cantonese. Pete has neither.
If it is the first – and Pete says he is optimistic – then there is a chance we can obtain some more of the strange concoction.
Also, he is friends with a fellow prisoner on his block who knows both Mandarin and Cantonese and who says he’ll help.
What then?
Who knows?
It’s nearly the end of term, and I wish I could say that something awful has happened to Jesmond and Jarrow, but nothing has. They have, however, been very quiet. There have been no more posters on the lamp posts. Word has circulated about that particular scam, and any popularity they had seems to have evaporated.
Mrs Abercrombie got her reward money back.
As for the others? Aramynta tells me they did as well, and I’m going to have to trust her.
I suppose that’s a good result.
I haven’t told anyone yet about the Felina-is-my-mum thing, though I don’t want it to be a big secret.
I’m still wondering what to do about my name. Ethel Leatherhead is not my real name: it’s Tiger Pussycat ‘Boo’ Mackay.
Although what’s real and what’s not has been questionable lately.
And my skin? Much better, thank you.
Much better.
It’s my birthday tomorrow, my thirteenth.
It hasn’t rained for weeks now. The Links is getting yellow and dry, and the cloudless evening sky is a flat, endless, deep violet.
We would do this tomorrow evening on my actual birthday, but Dad has to fly back to New Zealand to sort out some stuff, so we’ve brought it forward a day.
Is it a birthday party? Not really. I didn’t want it to be – it’s more important than that.
Besides, it would be the strangest thirteenth birthday party guest list, all of us gathered on the big flat rock underneath the lighthouse.
There’s:
Me, obviously.
Gram.
Lady.
Boydy and his mum AND his dad, who is out of jail on a day licence, which is when you’re allowed out to see your family. (He’s nice. Basically, an older, fatter version of Boydy, and not at all criminal-looking. Boydy’s mum is smiley and shy.)
Mrs Abercrombie and Geoffrey. (I know, but I kind of had to invite her because I wanted Gram to have a friend there – and anyway, she’s much nicer to me now that Geoffrey has stopped growling at me.
She’d be even nicer if she knew it was down to me that she got her reward money back.)
Revd Henry Robinson.
Kirsten Olen (who I have now told about mum/Felina, but not about the invisible stuff. Not yet).
The same guy from the Whitley News Guardian who was at Great-gran’s hundredth. (Boydy’s local hero status is about to be further enhanced and he’s going to become even more bumptious, but I don’t mind so much now.)
And – of all people – Mr Parker, and a jolly lady called Nicky who he introduced as his partner. (I had not had Mr Parker down as the sort to have a girlfriend. Mr Parker, it turns out, is a secret lighthouse enthusiast. He told Boydy that he could borrow the music department’s mixing desk and amplifiers, and even went into school in the holidays to collect them. I thought that was quite a big deal, but Mr Parker called it ‘a mere trifle for a fellow pharophile’.)
Nothing, and no one, it is turning out, is what they first appear.
Boydy is pacing up and down, looking all nervous. He had a haircut last week, and shaved off the fluff that was on his chin, which looks much better, and in fact there’s not much of a double chin under the fluff after all. He’s also got himself some new clothes. It’s nice: it’s like he’s dressed up for the occasion. Not sure about the patterned shirt, to be honest, but at least his new stuff fits him. I found him a lighthouse keeper’s cap on eBay (who knew there were such things? Not me), which he loves.
There is another guest yet to arrive. Dad has gone to get Great-gran from Priory View. Normally all the residents are in bed by nine, and they were very reluctant to let her go.
‘Let her go?’ I heard Dad say on the phone to them. ‘Are you keeping her prisoner or something, or is she a paying guest?’
That did it.
Only, they’re late. Which wouldn’t normally be much of a problem, but the causeway will be beneath water in about twenty minutes and we’ll be stuck on St Mary’s Island overnight.
We’re all anxiously peering along the causeway and up to the car park, hoping to see headlights coming towards us in the twilight.
Dad wouldn’t miss this, would he?
I’m wearing Mum’s T-shirt, the one that still smells of her a bit. I know it might change the smell, but somehow I don’t mind. Not tonight.
‘There they are!’ calls Boydy, pointing to a pair of headlights coming towards us, and I breathe a small sigh of relief.
Next to Dad is Great-gran, a tiny figure in the passenger seat. When the car pulls to a halt at the bottom of the steps, near to the flat rock, I can see someone else as well, a man, sitting in the back seat.
‘Who’s that?’ I ask Gram, but she has no idea.
We already have a wheelchair waiting, and I push it to the car to help Great-gran out.
‘Stanley?’ I say when I get nearer and see who the old man in the back is.
‘Yeah,’ chuckles Dad. ‘Your great-gran didn’t want to come without her boyfriend, did you, Mrs Freeman?’
Great-gran smiles broadly and nods as she eases herself into the wheelchair, then she smiles her watery smile at me and says, ‘Hello, hinny.’
Dad takes over the wheelchair while I go round and help Stanley out. He’s frail, but steady on his feet.
‘Hello, Boo,’ he says in a reedy old-man voice. ‘I’ve heard all about you. It’s very nice to see you.’
(It’s only afterwards that I wonder what he meant by that. Was it a reference to my invisibility? Has Great-gran told him? I’m surprised to discover that I don’t really mind either way.)
‘Let us pray,’ says Revd Robinson.
And as we all clasp our hands and start to mumble the Lord’s Prayer, I keep my eyes open and look around at the gathering.
“Our father, which art in heaven …”
Old Stanley stands behind Great-gran’s wheelchair and adjusts her woollen shawl for her. Great-gran hasn’t closed her eyes, but instead is focusing on a point far out to sea. Her lips move as she mouths the familiar words.
Mrs Abercrombie has put Geoffrey down on the ground and he’s much happier, sniffing around a rock pool with Lady.
Kirsten is in charge of the music, and stands behind the school’s mixing desk.
Everyone says, ‘Amen’, and there’s a pause while a pair of seagulls answer loudly overhead.
‘Are we ready?’ asks Boydy.
‘Hang on, hang on!’ I say.
From my pocket I bring out a packet of Haribos, and open it, tipping them onto my hand. I give them out, one for each person.
‘Some of you will remember that these were my mum’s favourite,’ I say, and everyone has a sad smile as they start chewing.
Dad has to take his nicotine gum out first.
I nod over at Kirsten, who slides up a fader. Mum’s song blasts out, rich and loud:
‘You light up my life when I see you
And all I want is to be with you …
You light the light in me –
Come on, baby, light the light!’
When Mum sings ‘light the light’, Boydy flicks the switch on the extension cord snaking up the lighthouse, and the light of a million candles drenches the flat rock, beaming down from the glass-encircled top thirty-eight metres above us.
It lights up the whole beach.
It lights up the sea.
It lights up the whole world, it feels like.
Stanley cheers, and claps and shouts, ‘Bravo!’
And everyone else follows his lead.
Gram reaches down into her canvas bag and hands me the carved brass vase with the lid that I saw in her cupboard the day I went rummaging. It feels like a lifetime ago, and – in a way – it was.
I take a sniff of the T-shirt I’m wearing, then prise off the lid.
As Mum’s song continues to play, and people suck their sweets, I hold up the urn to let the dusty contents spill out, and they are immediately carried away on the wind out to sea. One or two ashes have fallen by the rocks, and a wave soon swishes over them. In a few seconds not a single bit remains in the air or on the ground.
I look around. Everyone is crying. Not loud, not sobbing, but Gram is wiping her eyes, and even Dad has this funny expression like he’s struggling not to cry. Boydy’s mouth has that upside-down smile that I have seen before.
Lady has lain down on the rock and is looking out to sea.
I say, ‘everyone is crying’ – well, everyone but me.
Me? I’m grinning!
Everything is right; everything is perfect.
Dad has come up behind me and squeezes my shoulders, and Gram’s holding my hand.
‘Bye, Mum!’ I say, and I wave out to sea with my other hand.
That’s when I decide that I’m going to be Ethel. Ethel Leatherhead. Family nickname: Boo.
That’s who I am.
No one has noticed that the causeway is now completely underwater. It’s going to be an interesting night.
Thanks to my excellent editor, Nick Lake, for his patience and good advice; also to the copy-editors and proofreaders Madeleine Stevens, Anna Bowles and Mary O’Riordan who have all improved this book in countless tiny – and sometimes not so tiny – ways.
Turn over for a taste of Ross Welford’s time machinery – a novel that will make you laugh, cry and wonder – and wish you could turn back time to start reading it all over again.
‘Extremely clever and totally engaging’
Irish Times
‘Touching, silly and exciting … an unforgettable, madcap story from a bright new talent in children’s fiction’
Waterstones
‘A touching tale of family, grief and love’
Daily Express
My dad died twice. Once when he was thirty-nine, and again four years later when he was twelve. (He’s going to die a third time as well, which seems a bit rough on him, but I can’t help that.)
The first time had nothing to do with me. The second time definitely did, but I would never even have been there if it hadn’t
been for his ‘time machine’. I know – that sounds like I’m blaming him, which I’m totally not, but … you’ll see what I mean.
I suppose if you’d asked me before, I’d have said a time machine might look something like a submarine? Or perhaps a space rocket. Anyway, something with loads of switches and panels and lights, made of iron or something, and big – I mean, really big, with thrusters, and boosters, and reactors …
Instead, I’m looking at a laptop and a tin tub from a garden centre.
This is my dad’s time machine.
It’s about to change the world – literally. Well, mine at any rate.
Books by Ross Welford
TIME TRAVELLING WITH A HAMSTER
WHAT NOT TO DO IF YOU TURN INVISIBLE
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street
Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia
http://www.harpercollins.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Canada
2 Bloor Street East – 20th Floor
Toronto, ON, M4W, 1A8, Canada
http://www.harpercollins.ca
New Zealand
HarperCollins Publishers (New Zealand) Limited
P.O. Box 1
Auckland, New Zealand
http://www.harpercollins.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London, SE1 9GF
http://www.harpercollins.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
195 Broadway
New York, NY 10007
http://www.harpercollins.com
