Not As We Know It

by Tom Avery

  I fetched the hose that lived attached to the outside tap. Ned tried to turn it on.

  “I’ve loosened it for you, Jamie,” he said when I took over.

  We let a trickle of cold water fall on Leonard’s chest. The little man shivered, not a chill shiver but one of relief. I turned the tap on fully and Ned placed the hose at the end of the tub, away from Leonard.

  “He’s a sea creature, right? He’ll need salt,” Ned said.

  I nodded. “Mum’s got sea salt. In the kitchen,” I replied.

  I turned the tap back off and fetched the salt. Mum was upstairs; I had no questions to answer. Yet.

  When I returned, Ned was crowded over the tub, ready to join the fish-man.

  “How much?” I asked.

  “Here,” Ned said, taking the salt and emptying in a handful.

  I went outside and turned the tap on once more.

  We stood and watched the bath fill. The water covered Leonard’s hands and feet first.

  “They’re the same,” Ned said.

  His hands and feet were almost identical. Feetlike hands and handlike feet. Both long, jointed and scaled. As they spread in the cool water, I could see the webbing that connected each finger to its neighbor.

  The water covered his chest and stomach where the brown skin gave way to scaled legs.

  “Look,” Ned said.

  The gills on Leonard’s neck opened and closed and opened again.

  —

  Every time Ned had to stay home from school for a week or two or more, Dad would buy a new Star Trek video. We’ve got the whole set now. All three seasons. All seventy-nine episodes aboard the USS Enterprise.

  One of my favorites has these creatures called tribbles. The tribbles seem harmless. They are small, fluffy balls that purr and quiver. But they multiply and spread all over the spaceship. They get everywhere. The episode’s called “The Trouble with Tribbles.”

  Our fish-man was not a tribble. Leonard, lithe and slimy, looked nothing like them. But like them, he seemed innocent. Harmless. We’d taken him in, like the Enterprise crew had taken on the tribbles. As we stared, mesmerized, I could not help but think of all the trouble Leonard might cause.

  Then we heard footsteps. Ned leaped up.

  “Come on, boys. I want you in,” Mum called as the squeak of hinges sounded over the bubbling water.

  “Wait,” my brother shouted, running for the door.

  “We’re coming in,” Ned said, bundling Mum out before she had the door open, before she saw into the garage.

  “Let’s go, you’ve got work to do!” she said.

  We hadn’t been to school for months as Mum wanted us home. She wanted to look after Ned there. It had been early summer when we stopped going. The date was inked in my mind—May 5, 1983. The date marked a change, a big change for Ned, for what was happening to him.

  “Maybe they’ll come back after the summer holiday,” Dad had told the head teacher. “We’ll see how Ned’s doing.”

  We didn’t go back.

  It was agreed we’d be homeschooled. We read and wrote with Mum. Dad did maths with us when he wasn’t too tired. Granddad’s job was to teach us geography and history. He mainly told us stories.

  “Right, I want to hear you both read, then you’re off to Granddad’s,” Mum said.

  Ned led Mum away and again I had an urge to shout, to call, Help, Mum. Look at this…this thing. But somehow it was important to Ned, this secret. Before the world saw Leonard, I needed to find out why.

  I shoved the urge back down and followed them. I turned the tap off and shut the door, sliding the latch across. No one but us entered the garage anymore.

  Inside the house, Ned picked a book off the shelf about sea creatures—one that Granddad had given us when Mum first pulled us out of school. I raised an eyebrow at my brother. He grinned.

  Mum raised both eyebrows. “I thought you were reading that Tyke Tiler book. The man in the bookshop said it was really good.”

  “Finished it,” Ned replied. “It was good. Really good.”

  He hadn’t finished it. His bookmark had moved only a few pages a day.

  “Where is it?” Mum asked.

  Ned and I both knew why she wanted it. She liked to ask us questions. She quizzed us on what we read. If we got less than seven out of ten, we had to read the book again.

  “Erm,” Ned replied. “I think I left it at Granddad’s.”

  Mum opened her mouth to speak.

  Ned interrupted her. “Yeah, I definitely left it at Granddad’s. Didn’t I, Jamie?”

  I nodded but couldn’t hold back a smile.

  Mum narrowed her eyes at me like I was the culprit. “You can read to me first, then, Jamie. What are you reading?”

  I read to Mum about a boy called Billy and a fox cub running away from home. Ned flicked through the sea creatures book.

  When it was his turn to read aloud, I abandoned Billy’s adventures and listened as my brother read about wolffish.

  “Fearsome in looks, the wolffish is also known as the devil fish. Its strong, wide jaw and sharp teeth that give the fish its name are used to crush hard-shell mollusks and crustaceans. Despite its reputation as a bottom-feeder…”

  Ned stopped reading and grinned at me. We laughed. Bottom-feeder.

  Mum growled, “Get on with it.”

  “…the wolffish is not small, growing up to five feet in length. This shy creature lives on the ocean floor in rocky nooks and small caves…”

  —

  “Look at it, look at it…,” Ned said, holding the book up to me as we walked toward Granddad’s, just a few streets away. You could only see the sea from Granddad’s top windows. “It looks like Leonard, right?”

  There was something in the wide mouth, something in the jaw. And the fin that ran the length of the fish’s back was identical to those that ran in rows down Leonard’s head. Leonard wasn’t a wolffish, but he wasn’t a wolffish like Ned and I weren’t monkeys. Distant relations.

  “We should show it to Granddad,” I said.

  Ned frowned at me.

  “We should show Leonard to Granddad,” I tried again.

  Ned thought for a moment. Then shook his blond head. “They’ll take it away like they did with E.T.” He had made Dad take us to see E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial three times at the cinema. It was his favorite film after the Star Trek ones.

  But later, after a lunch of potted shrimp on toast, I couldn’t help but say, “Have you ever heard of people living in the sea, Granddad?”

  “Of course, Jamie. Lots of people live their lives in boats. In 1963, I only spent three days on dry land.”

  We knew this story. Granddad had crewed a ship called the Dublin. The crew called it Great White. They’d made their money ferrying spices. Granddad said a crate of saffron could buy a small house. And a little crate at that.

  “No, I mean, in the sea.”

  Ned coughed. Not a real one at first, but it became a fit, hacking and hacking till he spat into his handkerchief.

  “All right, Captain?” Granddad said to Ned. My brother nodded and Granddad turned to me. “You mean mermaids.”

  So instead of a lesson, Granddad told us the stories he could remember about mermaids. Explorers’ stories. Pirates’ stories. Myths and legends. The mermaids were usually beautiful. Mostly the head and torso of a woman and the tail of a fish, rising from the water, enchanting men.

  Nothing like Leonard.

  “Do they always look like that?” I asked.

  “In the stories,” Ned added.

  “Not always,” Granddad said. “We heard a good story in the war. A Japanese ship, posted to Indonesia, found itself in calm water, off a small, unfamiliar island. The captain, an old seadog, had suffered from a heart attack on the voyage. He’d survived it but was quite happy to wait there for orders.

  “They waited for days, the crew restless, the captain bedbound and growing weaker by the day. As they waited, they saw things in the water; thi
ngs no one had seen before. The captain wouldn’t believe his crew’s stories till he hauled himself from his sick bed and saw for himself.

  “He peered into the depths, groaning from his aching body, and they surfaced in the water all around the boat. Merpeople! These weren’t like the mermaids in legends. They were more like tiny humans. About yay high.” Granddad held out his hand two feet off the ground. “They had limbs like you and I, but a mouth like a carp and spiked fins on their heads.”

  I gasped, not a loud dramatic gasp, just a short sucking of air. Ned made a hmm noise.

  Granddad continued. “The creatures stayed with the ship for days on end while the water was calm and no orders came. The captain was enchanted and seemed to be returning to health. An artist in a previous life, he spent hours trying again and again to draw them.

  “The ship had been at anchor for over a week when, one night, the captain disappeared. His drawings went with him and the mysterious creatures were not seen again. Had the merpeople taken the captain? Had he gone willingly? Nobody knew. Nobody had been on deck to see him. The captain had sent the night watchman to his bunk under a strict command not to come back to his post that night.

  “The next day orders came to return to port. The crew took the ship and their story back home.”

  Granddad looked at us. Our eyes were wide. Our mouths hung open.

  “That story slivered like an eel from ship to ship. I don’t think the Japanese liked being laughed at. The first mate and half the crew were tried for mutiny. Their commanders believed they had killed the captain and flung him overboard. The crew stuck to their story, though. Even when they stood in front of the firing squad.

  “But if there were mermaids out there,” Granddad finished, “I’d have seen ’em. Not a drop of ocean I haven’t been in.”

  I looked at Ned. Ned stared at me.

  “What if there were, Granddad?” I said at the same time as my brother blurted, “I need to talk to you, Jamie.”

  Granddad shook his head. “You boys are in a funny mood today. I’m going to make some tea. You work it out.”

  When Granddad had left, my brother, usually all smiles and laughter, looked at me seriously.

  “Jamie, I don’t want to tell him.”

  “We’ve got to. What if it’s dangerous?”

  Ned scratched his head just behind his ear. “What does that matter anymore?” he said.

  I had no answer for this. I shrugged and frowned.

  “Everything’s going, Jamie. This, this”—Ned pointed to his chest, to where his lungs were filling with rubbish—“is taking everything. Everything. Soon.”

  We stared at each other. My lips hardened. I scrubbed a hand across my eyes.

  Ned had no fear of his future. He said, “If this is our last adventure, I want it to be just ours.”

  People always assume Ned’s my little brother. He is almost a foot shorter than me. Where I’m broad like Dad, Ned’s tiny. He could pass for a six-year-old. He’s eleven. We’re both eleven.

  Ned is my little brother, but only by eight minutes.

  Mum and Dad say he came into the world coughing and he hasn’t stopped since. You expect twins to have the same lives, do all the same things. Ned and I had different lives from the start; they rushed him away to clear all the gunk from his lungs, while I slept peacefully swaddled.

  It wasn’t till later that they knew what his condition was. Mum said she took him to the doctor because he tasted salty. The doctor knew what was wrong straightaway.

  It was the first time any of us had heard the words cystic fibrosis. We’re experts now.

  —

  When we got back from Granddad’s, Mum made Ned have a rest. A rest meant lying on the sofa, rewatching Star Trek. My brother gave me a look as he sat down and I stood by the door.

  “You’re not going to sit with your brother, Jamie?” Mum asked.

  “Erm,” I replied. On the way home, I’d agreed on the secret, on our adventure—and we’d agreed that if we were keeping Leonard, then he needed feeding.

  Although our lives were very different we usually stuck together. When they took Ned out of school, Mum had wanted me to stay there. But I ran from the schoolyard and away home every day. I had this terrible feeling that I’d lose him, that he’d go and I wouldn’t get a chance to say goodbye.

  After a week of the same, my teacher and parents agreed it would be best if I was homeschooled too.

  “Erm,” I said again. I could not think of a reason why I wasn’t watching Star Trek.

  Ned rescued me. “He’s got to put the bikes away. Haven’t you, Jamie? We just left them by the gate like the lazy dogs that we are.” He laughed, the moment of seriousness forgotten.

  Mum frowned.

  I slipped away.

  I leaned the bikes by the garage door. The latch had not been touched. I slid it across, pushed open the door, just a crack, and peered inside. The light was off but I could see the lip of the tub in the gloom. I opened the door a little more and reached for the light switch. I flicked it on. Nothing happened. I flicked again. Nothing. I opened the door wide and looked up at the bulb. It was smashed.

  I pulled the door shut with me on the outside. I thought about the wolffish, living in the dark depths of the ocean, and I made a mental note: Leonard doesn’t like light.

  I needed light, though. I knew where my torch was and fetched it from our bedroom. But before I went back to the garage, I snuck down to the cellar and the deep freeze.

  We never get through all the fish that Granddad gives us—Dad isn’t a huge fan. So I took a plastic bag of frozen herring out of the freezer and tried to creep back to Leonard.

  “What are you doing, Jamie?” Mum called from the kitchen.

  I had planned my answer this time. “Ned got a puncture. Just fixing it.”

  “Yeah, I did, Mum!” Ned shouted over the sound of phasers shooting down an enemy spaceship.

  —

  There was no sign of Leonard in the tub. I shone the torch into every corner of the garage but still nothing.

  “Hello,” I said.

  No answer.

  I pulled open the bag and threw one frozen herring toward the tub. It hit the edge with a crack, then slid into the water. I shone the torch over it as it bobbed on the surface.

  Ned would have strolled in and peered into the tub. He was the brave one. In Star Trek, he would have been Captain Kirk. I would have been the doctor, Leonard McCoy. He was the cautious one.

  “Damn it, Jim. I’m a doctor, not a merman keeper,” Bones would say.

  No away mission takes place without Kirk and now I was stuck without Ned. Like when you stand just beyond the waves’ wash and let your feet sink into the wet sand.

  I imagined my brother beside me. “Boldly go,” I whispered, and took one step, still watching the herring.

  A scuttle. A scurry. A splash. And Leonard was back in the tub, returned from his hiding place. A hand shot out of the water. It was just a flash and the herring was gone. Ripples spread out across the bath from where the fish had been.

  I nearly dropped the torch.

  I couldn’t go any farther. I needed Captain Kirk ahead of me. I threw two more herring into the bath, then I dropped the empty bag and ran.

  Outside, I made sure the latch was all the way across before leaning against the closed door and gulping in air.

  Ned was asleep when I got back. Mum had wrapped a blanket around him. Spock was warning Captain Kirk against fighting an alien with his bare hands. Kirk was ignoring him.

  “Right, Jamie, I want to get some writing out of you,” Mum said.

  —

  We didn’t make it back to the garage that afternoon. Ned slept the rest of the day, while I wrote about the storm. Dad got home early and was filthy. He was always filthy. But he set me some maths before his bath.

  When Ned woke, it was dinnertime. Then the rain came. Big, heavy drops; the kind of rain we knew Mum would never let Ned out in.

>   “You boys have a good day?” Dad asked. He drank coffee. We had mugs of hot chocolate.

  “Yeah,” Ned said. “You can’t beat a big sleep.”

  “Did you get anything good on the beach?” Sometimes Dad came treasure hunting with us at the weekends.

  “Erm…,” I said, pushing down the urge to shout once more.

  “Just a shoe,” Ned finished.

  We all agreed that was pretty rubbish. We had too many shoes. Dad knew a man who collected abandoned buckets and spades and hung them off a tree in his front garden. We had enough shoes for a shoe tree.

  “Mum wouldn’t like that, though,” Dad said.

  “We could…persuade her,” Ned said with a grin.

  “Maybe one day.” Dad winked.

  —

  In our bunks—Ned on the top, me on the bottom—I told Ned about the herring. He wasn’t surprised.

  “That’s what mermen must eat,” he said. “We should get him some mussels too. I reckon Leonard loves mussels.”

  That was the first time I felt it. Not jealousy yet. Just a strange feeling that something was happening, something unknowable, between my brother and the fish-man living in our garage.

  One of Granddad’s favorite stories was about the night he heard the whales sing. He’d been at sea for weeks. It’s not easy for sailors to get lost. Unless it’s cloudy. Then the stars are hidden at night and the sun is gone for most of the day. Before the whales sang, the ship’s equipment had broken and the clouds had been thick for three days and nights.

  “That’s the only time I’ve ever been truly scared at sea,” Granddad would say. “If a storm had come, we would not have had the foggiest where shallow water or rocks might be.”

  They put the ship at anchor and slept, praying for clear skies in the morning.

  “That night every soul on board was woken by deep singing. You can hear history in a whale’s song—each booming note slowly shaking your bones, vibrating through you. We all went out on deck and there they were. Huge beasts, shining in the moonlight. A gam of whales.”

  Granddad said that the captain, Long Ben, was one of the best seamen he’d ever known. “Knew the sea like a mother.”