Too Small to Fail

by Morris Gleitzman

  Dad grabbed one of Oliver’s arms and Mum grabbed the other one and they steered Oliver out of the boardroom and along the corridor towards Dad’s office.

  Which was a relief.

  Answering some of those questions would have involved maths.

  Everybody was still hard at work in the trading room, talking urgently into phones and staring even more urgently at computer screens. As Oliver hurried past with Mum and Dad, he had a tiny hope that one or two of them might glance up and say, ‘thanks for trying to help.’

  Nobody did.

  Oliver understood.

  In investment banking you had to concentrate. Even taking the time to say thanks could cost you thousands of dollars.

  Mum and Dad weren’t saying thanks either. Instead, they were muttering to each other over Oliver’s head.

  ‘You should have told him he was only there for decoration,’ said Dad.

  ‘I thought you’d tell him,’ said Mum.

  Oliver sighed.

  Decoration, he thought miserably. Fail a few dozen maths tests and that’s all people think you’re good for.

  It was his own fault. He’d completely forgotten to tell Mum and Dad about the A+ he got for his credit default swap project.

  Oliver told himself to stop wallowing in self-pity. There were others worse off than him.

  He tried not to think about what might be happening in a small house in the suburbs. A house with guns behind the TV. Where too much beer was probably being drunk. Except, Oliver remembered with a hopeful jolt, he’d heard somewhere that too much beer made people fall asleep.

  Yes.

  That’s probably what was happening.

  He imagined Erik and the other men asleep on the sofa and Barclay asleep in an empty beer carton.

  Fingers crossed he was right.

  And paws.

  Oliver glanced up at Mum and Dad, who’d gone back to muttering to each other. You couldn’t blame them for being stressed. Not after being bullied by those rude and unkind reporters, who didn’t even ask about the incredibly long hours Mum and Dad worked.

  Oliver squeezed both their hands to help them feel better.

  Mum squeezed his.

  ‘Thanks for trying to help, love,’ she said.

  Oliver glowed. And felt very tempted to ask them for five hundred dollars and a lift to the suburbs.

  But he didn’t. He could see how tense and distracted they still were.

  Better to stick to the plan. Let them calm down, then let them meet Moo and hear Nancy’s story from her own lips.

  First thing in the morning, thought Oliver. As soon as Mum and Dad have relaxed and remembered they’re too big to fail.

  14

  ‘Oliver, wake up.’

  Mum was shaking him. Oliver peered at her, still half asleep. His eyes weren’t fully working yet, but he could see that Mum’s eyes were red and puffy, almost like she’d been crying.

  Oliver sat up in a panic.

  Had she been watching early-morning TV? A news story about a dog being treated unkindly in the suburbs? Or even worse, on an early-morning hunting trip?

  ‘Oliver,’ said Mum urgently. ‘Come on, get up. We’re going to the beach.’

  Oliver stared at her, trying to make his sleep-wonky brain work properly.

  The beach?

  He peered at his watch.

  Three-twenty.

  Oliver blinked a few times to check if he was still asleep. No, he wasn’t. It was actually happening. Mum was dragging him out of bed at three-twenty in the morning.

  ‘Get dressed,’ said Mum. ‘And put some clothes in a bag.’

  She hurried out.

  Oliver fumbled for his clothes. He knew he should be pleased. He’d been saying to Mum and Dad for ages he wished they could have a family holiday at the beach house.

  But this didn’t feel right. You didn’t go on holiday at three-twenty in the morning.

  Dad stuck his head into the room looking even more stressed than last night. His hair was sticking out as if he hadn’t even had a shower.

  ‘Only bring what you can carry,’ said Dad, and hurried away.

  Oliver tried to make sense of this. Why would you take something on holiday you couldn’t carry? The beach house was fully furnished. There were beds and fridges already there.

  Oliver shivered. This felt like one of those war movies where people had to get out in a hurry because planes full of bombs were coming.

  Suddenly he had a horrible thought.

  Nancy.

  He didn’t know her extremely well, but one thing was obvious. She desperately wanted to save her camels. And a person who could pretend to threaten a dog’s life was capable of anything.

  What if Rose had persuaded her to get tough? To put some serious pressure on Mum and Dad?

  Not with a jack handle.

  With threats.

  Bomb threats, for example.

  As soon as Oliver got in the car with Mum and Dad, he knew his bomb-threat theory was totally silly. Whatever was going on here, it was much more serious than a bomb threat.

  Dad was driving.

  He never did that.

  Oliver had been in the car with Dad heaps of times in his life, ten at least, and there was always a driver. It felt really strange now, being in the back by himself.

  ‘Where’s Ron?’ said Oliver, as Dad steered the car out into the dark empty streets.

  ‘Ron doesn’t work for us any more,’ said Dad.

  Oliver waited for Dad or Mum to explain why, but neither of them did.

  ‘Was he let go?’ said Oliver.

  ‘That’s how Mum always said it when she sacked a housekeeper. But it would be weird if Ron had been let go, because Dad never sacked drivers. Ron had been with them for as long as Oliver could remember.

  ‘Was he?’ said Oliver.

  ‘That’s enough,’ said Dad angrily. ‘Just be quiet.’

  Oliver sank back into his seat, confused and worried. Dad hardly ever got this cross, except when things happened on the news to make share prices go down or wine prices go up.

  ‘Pull over, Owen,’ said Mum.

  Dad kept driving.

  ‘Please,’ said Mum firmly.

  Dad slowed the car to a stop outside a normal bank. Mum got out. For a moment Oliver thought she was getting some cash, but she wasn’t. She slid into the back of the car next to him.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said to Dad.

  Dad drove on.

  Mum turned to Oliver.

  Oliver couldn’t remember ever seeing her this sad, not even a couple of days ago in her office.

  ‘Ron doesn’t work for us any more,’ said Mum quietly. ‘Nobody works for us any more.’

  Oliver stared at her.

  He mustn’t have heard that right.

  Mum put the armrest up and moved as close to Oliver as the seatbelt would allow.

  ‘Oliver, love,’ she said gently. ‘I’m afraid there comes a time in every young person’s life when they discover that the world isn’t always a sweet and perfect place.’

  Oliver was starting to feel sick. Not car sick. Frightened sick.

  ‘What Mum’s saying,’ said Dad, not taking his eyes off the dark empty road, ‘is that a terrible thing’s happened and we’re history.’

  Oliver tried to see Dad’s face in the mirror. He couldn’t. But he’d never heard Dad sound so miserable.

  ‘A stupid, stupid thing,’ said Dad. ‘They had it all, those clowns in New York. Up to their armpits in wealth. Plenty for everybody, including us. But they blew it. They ruined it. And I trusted them.’

  Oliver didn’t understand.

  ‘What clowns?’ he said. ‘Ruined what?’

  ‘Everything,’ said Dad.

  Oliver’s insides were tight with anxiety. Dad sounded like he was going to cry.

  Mum squeezed Oliver’s hand.

  ‘The big banks in America,’ she said, her voice almost as miserable as Dad’s. ‘Some more of them hav
e gone broke. Their government is rescuing them.’

  ‘Because they’re too big to fail?’ said Oliver.

  ‘Yes,’ said Mum, her voice almost a whisper. ‘They are. But it turns out we’re not.’

  Oliver struggled to take this in.

  It was something almost impossible to imagine.

  ‘Has our bank gone broke?’ he said.

  Dad didn’t reply.

  Mum didn’t say anything either. Just put her arms round Oliver and hugged him. He felt her tears on his face and knew the answer was yes.

  The clanking of the automatic gate woke Oliver.

  His neck was stiff.

  Next to him, Mum was stretching and groaning.

  We’ve arrived, thought Oliver.

  He pulled the car curtains back and gazed at the big house where he’d had some of the happiest times of his life.

  But not when it looked like this.

  Oliver peered up at the dark windows, shocked.

  Every other time he’d arrived, when he was little, the windows had all been blazing with lights. And people had been waiting at the big front door to welcome them. Cooks and maids and butlers, all nice people from the local agency.

  Oliver stared at the silent empty house and remembered that everything was different now.

  Sadly he wondered how big a bank or a beach house had to be before it was too big to fail.

  The automatic gate was clanking closed behind them. Mum and Dad didn’t seem to want to get out of the car. They were just sitting there, sort of stunned.

  Poor things, thought Oliver. It must be really upsetting, thinking you’re very good at maths and then discovering you’re not.

  Now that Oliver was in bed, he wanted to go back to sleep so he wouldn’t have to think about things.

  But he couldn’t.

  In the darkness outside his beach-house bedroom, the thud of the surf sounded like banks collapsing and injured animals plummeting onto grubby carpets.

  Oliver crept out of his room to get a drink. As he passed Mum and Dad’s room, he heard them talking.

  ‘What happens if they find it?’ Mum was saying.

  Oliver stopped and listened.

  ‘They won’t,’ said Dad. ‘It’s all safe. Everything from our private accounts except the housekeeping one.’

  ‘I heard at a conference that banks in Switzerland aren’t as safe as they used to be,’ said Mum.

  Dad grunted, which sounded to Oliver like he didn’t agree.

  ‘What was the final figure?’ said Mum.

  ‘Can’t remember exactly,’ said Dad. ‘The bank statement’s in my briefcase. Just over thirty-eight, I think.’

  ‘All our own money?’ said Mum.

  Dad gave another grunt, but this one sounded like a yes.

  Neither of them said anything after that.

  Oliver decided he didn’t need a drink after all.

  Back in bed, he quickly felt himself nodding off. The last thing he thought about was the number Dad had mentioned. He wished he could let Barclay and Nancy and Rose and the camels know the good news. Which was that when Mum and Dad said a number like thirty-eight, they usually meant thirty-eight million.

  15

  When Oliver woke up, sunlight was streaming into his bedroom. Outside, seagulls were squawking a welcome. Oliver rolled over sleepily and gazed out the big window. All the way to the horizon, the ocean twinkled.

  Oliver’s thoughts felt sunnier too.

  OK, yes, life was going to be different. There’d be big changes. Bound to be when your parents had their own bank one day and didn’t the next.

  But it wasn’t all bad news.

  Mum and Dad wouldn’t be so busy, for a start.

  Then Oliver remembered Barclay.

  Erik and his mates would be waking up soon, even if they’d had buckets of beer last night. And people who were cruel to animals were probably extra cruel first thing in the morning.

  Oliver jumped out of bed. Time to talk to Mum and Dad about the thirty-eight million dollars in their bank account in Switzerland. And how just a small part of it could make a big difference to Barclay and the camels.

  As Oliver opened his bedroom door, he heard a man sobbing.

  For a second he thought it was Dad. But it didn’t sound like Dad. Except Oliver couldn’t be absolutely sure, because he’d never actually heard Dad sob.

  Oliver hoped it wasn’t Dad.

  He went over to the gallery railing and peered down into the centre of the house. And gawked in surprise.

  Down in the living area, sitting on one of the big white leather sofas, almost dropping an armful of office files as he tried to wipe his eyes, was Mum’s assistant Hayden.

  Mum and Dad were both standing in front of Hayden in their beach tracksuits, looking grim. Oliver wondered if he should offer to fetch Hayden a tracksuit so he could get out of his business suit and relax a bit.

  ‘No bonus at all?’ Hayden was saying. ‘Nothing?’

  ‘Sorry, mate,’ said Dad. ‘We’re all in the same boat and it’s sunk.’

  ‘You told me I’d get four hundred thousand,’ said Hayden, looking like he was about to start crying again. ‘At the staff bonding weekend. You told me.’

  ‘That was before all this,’ said Dad.

  ‘We’re sorry, Hayden,’ said Mum.

  ‘You have to take those files back, mate,’ said Dad to Hayden. ‘If the authorities think we’re trying to destroy bank documents, they’ll have us on toast, mashed.’

  Hayden sniffed and scowled.

  ‘I was just trying to do the right thing,’ he said. ‘You’re going to have investigators crawling all over the bank. Federal police, tax department, the lot. When you lose two hundred million dollars of your clients’ money, people want revenge. They’ll pin anything on you they can.’

  ‘I know,’ said Dad quietly. ‘That’s why we have to be out of the country by Monday morning.’

  Oliver had started to go down the stairs. He stopped. His legs were suddenly so wobbly he didn’t dare.

  Two hundred million dollars?

  Mum and Dad had lost two hundred million dollars?

  Oliver sat down on the top step. He tried to calculate how many people that added up to. How many families like Nancy and Rose had trusted Mum and Dad with their money.

  Hundreds?

  Thousands?

  Oliver couldn’t work it out. The maths was too hard. So was the thought of how much human and animal suffering Mum and Dad had caused.

  Down below, Mum was helping Hayden with his folders.

  ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘I’ll make you a cup of tea before you go.’

  ‘Thanks for trying, mate,’ said Dad to Hayden. ‘But it’s over. Take the files back, have a holiday, get another job, you’ll be fine.’

  ‘I’ve ordered a new BMW,’ said Hayden bitterly. ‘An M5. I’ll lose my deposit now.’

  Mum led him towards the kitchen.

  Oliver went back to his room, got his school bag and made his way slowly down the stairs. His legs were still wobbly, but he had important things to talk to Dad about.

  Dad was slumped on a sofa. Behind him, the ocean was glittering like a million of Mum’s diamond earrings. But Dad wasn’t looking at it. He was staring at a huge painting on the wall, the one of the bank buildings in New York silhouetted black against the setting sun. Dad had always reckoned one day he was going to have his own building right next to them.

  Oliver remembered saying when he was little, ‘Daddy, can you paint your one a happy colour?’

  Now Oliver sat down next to Dad on the sofa.

  ‘I was so sure I had everything covered,’ Dad was saying, so quietly it was almost like he was talking to himself. ‘Every collateralised debt obligation in our portfolio was hedged with a credit default swap. And every credit default swap was hedged with another credit default swap.’

  Dad gave Oliver a sad smile.

  ‘Sorry, mate,’ he said. ‘You don’t know wha
t I’m talking about, do you?’

  Oliver shook his head. But it didn’t matter because there was something more important he wanted to say.

  ‘Dad,’ he said, ‘I don’t mind if we end up poor. We can live in a little house with a garden and grow our own veggies and have a dog.’

  Dad frowned.

  Oliver held out his bulging school bag.

  ‘I can sell my iPad and PlayStation and stuff’ he said. ‘To buy seeds and dog food.’

  Dad put his arm round Oliver.

  ‘Ollie, son,’ he said. ‘We’re not poor. We’ve got plenty of money. Me and Mum have worked hard and we’ve saved lots. We’ll be fine, mate.’

  Oliver frowned. Dad was forgetting something really important.

  ‘What about your customers who’ve lost all their money?’ Oliver said. ‘I know you won’t be able to pay it all back, not two hundred million dollars, but you’ll pay them what you can, right?’

  Dad looked at Oliver.

  ‘That’s not how it works, Ollie,’ he said. ‘We’re not a charity.’

  Oliver stared at Dad, horrified.

  ‘But Dad,’ he said. ‘You’ve got thirty-eight million dollars. You can’t just keep it.’

  Dad was starting to look cross.

  ‘Oliver,’ he said. ‘We’re not going to give all our assets away and move into a hovel and live on turnips. I think it’s best if you stop talking about things you know nothing about.’

  ‘But I do know about it,’ said Oliver, jumping to his feet. ‘For a start, I know that if you’re mean and selfish, an innocent dog’s going to have horrible things done to him and sixteen camels are going to die of thirst.’

  Dad glared at him, lost for words.

  ‘What’s all this?’ said Mum, coming back in from the kitchen.

  As fast as he could, before Mum and Dad had a chance to interrupt, Oliver told them about Barclay and Rose’s father and the camels.

  Mum and Dad stared at him.

  Oliver could see they were shocked.

  But then Dad stood up, shaking his head grimly.

  ‘It’s not that simple,’ he said. ‘Hundreds of our clients have lost their investments. If we start agonising about each one and giving them money, it’s going to look like we’ve done something wrong. And we haven’t. We’ve lost our bank. We’re victims too.’