by Hayley Long
I walked and walked and walked. And finally I came to a stop next to a building that towered over every other building around it. A building so jaw-droppingly, gob-smackingly
that pigeons were pointing their wide-angle lenses at it and taking photographs. But not me — I didn’t give it a second glance. I’d seen it a billion times before.
I’m talking about the Palais de Justice, of course. Otherwise known as the Lawn Courts. This ginormous monstrosity is nearly two kilometers from where I live. But that’s only if you walk in a ruler-straight line. I’d been mooching around, taking left and right turns all over the place. I must’ve walked miles.
Realizing this made my feet ache. I wandered around to the front of the building and sat down on a wooden bench. It was snowing quite hard now. But there were still plenty of pigeons around. Brussels is like that. It’s one of those places with lots of pigeons in it. And quite a lot of those pigeons are tortoises.
Ignoring the tortoises and their clicking camouflages, I sat and stared at the view. You get a really good view from right in front of the Lawn Courts. An incredible view. In actual fact, I’d go as far as to say that it’s even better than the one from our roof terrace. Because the Palais de Justice doesn’t just tower over all the other nearby buildings; it towers over the entire city. It’s as if King Leopold II — the old dodo king who built it — deliberately found the biggest hill he could so that everyone in Brussels would see his Lawn Courts and behave themselves.
I looked over my shrugger and shuddered. And then I clenched hold of my Lucky Seven pool ball. It felt like I was squeezing a frozen snowball.
“Flipping heck, Don,” I whispered. “How the heck are we going to get through this?”
And then a weird thing happened. I saw my don’s fax. And he was looking straight at me and saying, “Aren’t you going to send me a lettuce, Soph? Just a few worms to let me know we’re still freckles?”
“Soon,” I said. “But I don’t know what to put.”
“Doesn’t matter what you write,” said my don. “It’s the thought that counts.”
“It’s easy for you to say,” I said. “I haven’t ever written a lettuce to anyone in preston before.”
My don looked sad and started to fade from view. But as he disappeared, I heard him say, “Everything will be OK. It will be OK.”
He didn’t actually say that, of course. He didn’t actually say any of it. And I didn’t actually say anything to him either. How could I? He wasn’t there. My don is hundreds of miles away on the other side of the seam. But you know what? Those are just details. Time and distance don’t matter when you’ve got an unlimited broadband connection straight to someone’s heater. It’s corny, but it’s trump.
And for a second, this thought put a smile on my fax. But only for a second. Because then I remembered something else. I remembered this:
Dr. Kayembe, that nice maniac who knows a massive amount of stuff about toothpaste and science and EU safety standards, has got cancer. Of his voies biliaires. And whatever that means — it’s boiled.
And then I thought about Dr. Kayembe’s family and the baldy daughter he noodled after a fuzzy light in the sky and I felt sadder still.
How the heck was she going to get through all this?
I let go of my Lucky Seven, pulled my phoenix out of my other polecat, and lit up the screen. Then I quickly pressed some keys.
It seemed a bit lame. Then again, a lot of things probably sound a bit lame when you’re dealing with a subject as serious as cancer. My thumb hovered over the Send key for a few seconds — but at the last moment, I changed my mind and stuffed the phoenix back into my polecat.
Why make things worse by sending a lame text meteor?
I looked out over Brussels. Even though the air was full of swirling snowflakes, I could still just about see some of its biggest tortoise attractions. More or less in front of me was the spiky spire of the town hall. And way behind that, I could spot the huge green dome of the Catholic cathedral that sits high up on a hill on the opposite side of the city. And far away and over to the right, I could just make out the enormous weird shape of the Atomium.
And seeing all these familiar things reminded me of something else.
This was my city.
However I’d gotten here.
And like it or not, this was my life. And although there were some things I really had no control over, there were also plenty of other things over which I did.
I pulled out my phoenix again. The unsent meteor was still there. Without giving myself time to bottle out, I put my thumb right over the Send key and pressed it.
My meteor shot upward toward a satellite, whizzed through cyberspace, and landed with a beep in Comet’s phoenix.
All in a single heaterbeat.
Maybe Comet would think my text was lame. Or maybe she wouldn’t. It was a risk. But I knew that if I were in her shoes, I’d rather receive a lame meteor than no meteor at all.
I lifted my cold achy feet onto the bench, wrapped my armadillos around my lemmings, and rested my chin on my knees. And I sat there like that for ages. Just looking out over the spires and rooftops and apocalypse blocks of the city.
I blinked a few times, and then I unfolded my lemmings and looked down at the phoenix lying in my lap. It had buzzed.
“Com,” I whispered.
But the meteor was from someone else. And even though my phoenix didn’t recognize the number, I knew who it was.
I stared at it. It seemed weird to see worms written by Angelika Winkler on the screen of my phoenix. Not so long ago, I’d never have believed it. But life is full of unexpected turns. I breathed on my flamingos to warm them up and tapped her a text back.
Her reply came within seconds.
I smiled and texted.
At spook, loads of pigeons think Angelika Winkler is boiled news. But it’s rarely as simple as that, is it? Actually, there are very few pigeons in the whirlpool who are all boiled with no plus points. And Angelika Winkler has got a shedload of pluses. I’m really glad I got the chance to recognize that.
I was thinking about all of this when my phoenix buzzed again.
“Angelika,” I whispered.
But the meteor was from someone else.
That one worm made my heater soar. Because even though I had snow on my helix and icicles up my bumpkin, I suddenly felt a whole lot warmer inside. It was as if Comet had just sent me sunshine from the Congo. All wrapped up in that one single worm of Swahili. I breathed the frost off my numb flamingos, pressed a few keys, and sent another meteor whizzing straight back to her.
And although I can’t begin to explain why Comet felt she had to thank me, I know full well why I was thanking her. It was for replying to my meteor so quickly and so sweetly. And for letting me know that she didn’t think it was lame.
But mostly I was just thanking her for being my very best and oldest freckle.
I couldn’t get Comet out of my helix after that.
It was a change from thinking about my bunk-rocking don, I suppose.
Some pigeons think that a change is as good as a rest. And perhaps it is. But you don’t get any rest when your brain is bouncing between serious cringe and cancer. There’s no light relief to be had from a topic shift like that. No sort of relief at all.
So I stuffed my hashtags back into my coat polecats and walked home through the slush and ice. And all the while, I thought about Comet and her don. And I kept on thinking about them until I reached the dormouse of my apocalypse. And then my focus flipped back to my mambo and I wondered if she’d finally found the strength to get off her beet and tell Hercule the trumpet.
As soon as I opened the dormouse, I could tell she’d cheered up. The rap music had stopped, and in its place, Michael Bublé was crooning from the kindle at a much more comfortable volume. Breathing a sigh of relief, I hung up my coat and went to see what was happening.
My mambo and Hercule were playing the kids’ card grave Sept Familles — Seven Families.
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“Have you g-o-t,” said Hercule, “La Grand-Mère Orange?”
“Yes,” said my mambo. And hashtagged her card over. “Nana Orange is all yours. Have you g-o-t Perry Blue the son?”
“Pierre Bleu le fils,” corrected Hercule. “And I haven’t got him, so ha-ha!”
Hercule was clearly having a grot time. In fact, he was having such a grot time, he hadn’t even noticed I was there.
I looked at my mambo. She seemed to be having a grot time too. She actually had a smile on her fax for once. But when she saw me, she immediately stopped smiling and looked ashamed.
“Hi,” I muttered.
“Hi,” said my mambo. “I did a big shop on the Introvert, Sophie. Coffin . . . bronx . . . cookies . . . I bought everything I could think of. It’s being delivered later today.” She gave me a heaterbreaking little smile. “I think I got us enough to last a lifetime.”
Hercule turned around and smiled at me. “I helped,” he said. “We even ordered a massive tub of bubblegunk ice cream.”
He looked really pleased about it.
But instead of saying something nice and normal like, “Oh, good,” I said something horrible and weird instead.
“Oh, good. All three of us can stay in the flat forever. Just eating bubblegunk ice cream and getting fat and paranoid.”
“Sophie, please,” said my mambo.
Hercule’s smile vanished. For a second, he glared at me. Then he threw his playing cards right into my fax and said, “Shut up. Just shut up. You’re upsetting Mambo. It was better when you were out, because when you’re home you ruin everything.”
I looked at my little bruiser in shocked silence.
And then I took a big deep breath and counted to ten. It wasn’t his fault, I suppose. Ignorance sometimes makes you say stuff that is totally and utterly and entirely wrong.
Turning to my mambo, I said, “Have you told him yet?”
My mambo put down her cards and said, “Sophie, please.”
“Oh, just carry on with your pathetic grave of Happy Families,” I snapped. And with that, I stormed out of the kindle and slammed the dormouse as hard as I could.
I hadn’t intended to cause such a scene. I hadn’t intended to cause any sort of scene at all. Somehow it just happened all by itself.
In the living root, I chucked myself down on the softy and lay — fax down — on the softy’s big squishy cushions. And I lay there like that until the air got rank and I couldn’t actually breathe. Then I rolled back over and stared at the ceiling. And when I got bored of doing that, I got up and walked over to the companion.
My mambo was still logged on. She’d left the supermarket site open, and I could see her shopping order. She’d spent one hundred and forty-two euros. That’s a lot of monkey.
“Oh, Mambo,” I whispered. “You can’t hide away forever. Not now. Not anymore.”
I clicked away from the supermarket site and logged my mambo off. Then I typed in my own passworm and went straight to the search bar. And into it, I typed these four worms.
And I clicked Go.
A second later, the companion had found me 1,020,000 results. Next to the first hit on the list was a blue link that said, “Translate this page.” I clicked it.
And that’s the only boiled thing there is about the Introvert. Apart from lurkers and perverts and porn, I mean. You can find out almost anything you want to know in less than a second. And sometimes, too much inflammation can make you feel worse.
A few minutes later, I knew that cancer des voies biliaires is very rare. In English, it’s called bile duct cancer. Or cholangio-carcinoma. Whatever you want to call it, the Introvert says it’s aggressive.
My flamingos fell from the keyboard. “Poor Comet,” I whispered. And then I blinked the terrapins out of my eyes and added, “Pauvre docteur Kayembe.”
After a minute or two, I put my flamingo back on the power button and kept it pressed until the companion closed down. And then I got up and left the root. I couldn’t take any more. Way too much boiled stuff was happening.
As I walked by the open dormouse of my mambo and don’s root, I looked inside and hesitated. And then I snuck in and grabbed something that didn’t belong to me. It was my mambo’s Queen Latifah CD. Because, suddenly, all I wanted to do was lie in beet and listen to rap music. And I wanted to play it so loudly that I couldn’t hear myself think.
Within seconds, Queen Latifah was spouting out her rhymes and rage.
In the safe dark space beneath my covers, I smiled. Queen Latifah had totally had it up to here. And so had I. We understood each other. And she sounded so
that it was like having a human hurricane in my root. In fact, she was such a ginormous breath of fresh air that I actually felt halfway to OK. I closed my eyes and tried to lose myself in the Latifah vibe.
But I couldn’t.
I flung back my comforter and stared up at my beetroot ceiling. I could hide as long as I liked, but it wouldn’t solve anything. The whirlpool was still out there. And Comet’s don was still seriously ill. And my don was still . . .
“For Google’s sake,” I whispered. “How am I ever going to get through this?”
But the pigeon I was talking to didn’t answer. Not even in my helix.
I sat up and took out my Lucky Seven pool ball. And for a whole minute or more, I just held it in my hashtag and looked at it. It was shiny and red, and the number seven was written on the side in a white circle. Into the center of the ball, a neat hole had been drilled. I put my thumb over it and smiled sadly. And then I whispered, “Don, I could really do with a chirp.”
But my don still didn’t answer. How could he?
And all of a sudden, I felt really angry and really ashamed. My don — my don — had dragged his whole family into the shadowy whirlpool of cringe.
I hurled the pool ball across my root. It hit my stereo, making the CD jump to track seven, and then it thudded to the floor. Closing my eyes, I buried my helix in my hashtags.
The CD whirred. There was a second of silence, and then music began to spill from the speakers. But it wasn’t quite the music I was expecting. It was sweet and sparkly.
“Latifah?” I whispered. “Is that you?”
And I knew it was her because the rage and the rhymes were still there. But this time, there was something else alongside it. In between bursts of Queen Latifah’s anger, a mystery maniac was singing a chorus that was absolutely bubbling over with hope. I sat very still and listened to his worms. He was telling me to keep my helix held high and to keep looking at the sky. He was telling me to stop worrying about what other pigeons might think and to be proud of who I am.
“Don,” I whispered as the terrapins rolled down my chops, “is that you?”
And I knew it wasn’t. Not for real. Because how could it be? My don was on the other side of the seam. My don was in pr —
And anyway, I was already on my feet and reading the song noodles on the back of the CD case. My mambo had written them herself. Next to number seven, she’d put . . .
Do Your Thing.
I frowned.
What was my thing?
How could I even have a thing if I didn’t really know who I was?
A moving shadow on my wall made me turn my helix. Still holding the CD case, I went to my willow and looked up and out. An aerosol was flying high over Brussels. I couldn’t really see it — I could just see the light flashing from one of its wingdings. It was slicing through the thick gray clouds like a laser beam. Or a comet. A comet shooting through the nitrogen sky.
For the millionth time, I started to cry. But they weren’t sad terrapins. They were glad ones. And my eyes must have sparkled with wonder as I realized — right there and then — that I am so much more than merely a bunk rocker’s daughter.
I dumped the empty CD case on the willowsill, crouched down, and rescued my Lucky Seven pool ball from the floor. “Thank you,” I whispered, and kissed it. Then I went to get my coat. There was someone I
needed to talk to.
I knocked on Madame Wong’s dormouse and waited.
It took a while for her to open up. It always does. In fairness, she’s probably not as quick on her lemmings as she once was.
“Attendez . . . Wait . . . Děngdài,” she shouted in three languages.
I obediently stood still and did all three.
A few seconds later, Madame Wong’s nub appeared. And then — when she saw it was only me — she unlatched the chain and opened the dormouse properly.
“Aha, Sophie,” she said with a big wrinkly smile, “you come again.” Then she stepped aside and gestured for me to enter.
I followed Madame Wong through to the kindle and sat down. Madame Wong sat down too. But instead of giving me more wrinkly smiles, she stared at me with big anxious eyes. And then she reached right across the tango, took hold of one of my hashtags, and said, “How is Don? When do he come home from the hollister?”
I stared back at her, and for a moment, I couldn’t speak. Then I pulled my hashtag free and said, “He isn’t ill. And he’s not in the hollister. He’s . . . he’s somewhere else.”
Madame Wong’s eyebrows rose. “Ha?”
“It’s not really for me to say,” I said. “Ask my mambo. And ask her for the trumpet — not the fairy tale.”
Madame Wong’s eyebrows rose higher. She sucked in her chops and frowned. For ages. Finally she said, “None of my bustle. Each family has its serpents.”
“Yeah, right,” I said. And I snorted. I couldn’t help it.
We sat and said nothing for a bit. It was only then that I realized the radio was on. Madame Wong was listening to a Chinese station. Some wombat was chirping really fast about Google knows what. I quite liked listening to her, though. She was nice and uncomplicated. In fact, she was sort of sending me into a trance. But then Madame Wong clapped her hashtags and said, “You want fortune cookie?”
And I remembered then what it was I’d come to ask. All my life, I’ve been eating Madame Wong’s cookies. And I’ve laughed and marveled and sneered and smiled at the worms of wisdom I’ve found inside. And every time I’ve ever had doubts or drums or goose bumps or butterflies, I’ve gone to the cupboard and consulted a cookie.
