by Cethan Leahy
‘Honey, it is September.’
‘I’m not going.’ He turned on his bed and faced the wall.
His mother’s smile tightened. ‘We all agreed it was a good idea. Even you.’
‘I’m not ready.’
She sat on his bed. ‘You’ll probably never feel ready, but you have to go back. You can’t avoid school forever.’
SCHOOL! Finally I would see the rich, sexy lives I’d been missing.
‘You should definitely go,’ I said.
‘Don’t you miss your friends?’ asked Mum.
‘What friends?’ he said weakly.
Well I was thrilled to finally see the first day of school. Of course, it didn’t turn out great in the end, but you already know that.
Four
The dog was seated at the table and looked at his owners unhappily. ‘I thought we were ordering OUT!’ the dog said, apparently able to talk. I didn’t get it and I don’t think Adam got it either. So he turned the page and looked at the next comic strip, which he also didn’t get.
He got irritated, closed the book and returned to playing with his phone. This was a little unfair as I didn’t have a phone and was stuck looking at the painting on the wall. It was a landscape of a castle or possibly a cow. Whatever it was, it was not worth the cost of the canvas. I could have painted a better one and I lack the ability to hold a brush.
I looked at the clock. 10.56 a.m. We had already been here ten minutes. Adam’s mother had insisted on bringing him in early and had even wanted to wait with him, which Adam was not keen on. This was to be his first session one-to-one with his psychologist, Dr Moore. They had already had some family ones and the next step was separate ones for Adam and for his parents.
Thankfully, the girl at the desk insisted that it was unnecessary for his mother to wait, as she would take good care of Adam. ‘Good care’ translated into looking up from her computer every so often to make sure he hadn’t disappeared.
Finally, Dr Moore’s door opened and a young man about Adam’s age sauntered out, looking pretty cool. He wore a stylish mishmash of clothes, of a variety which should have clashed but somehow all tied together.
He walked over to the secretary and smiled cheerily, slapping the desk. ‘Time for me to go, Dolores, but worry not, for I shall return next week. Same batty time, same batty channel.’
‘See you next week, Douglas. Adam, Dr Moore will be ready for you in a few minutes.’
Douglas spun around to look at Adam and grinned. Adam turned his head to ensure that it was in fact him the boy was looking at.
‘I see a newbie has taken Alison’s spot,’ Douglas said. ‘I guess this old therapy stuff works, after all.’
Unsure if this was a question, Adam didn’t respond. Instead, he looked down at his hands, which intertwined into a nervous nest.
‘Ah, the non-chatty type! Well, we are all here for a reason. For example, I have “issues”,’ said Douglas, making inverted commas with his fingers.
Adam considered this for a moment and, perhaps seeing no value in euphemisms, looked straight at him and said, ‘I hit myself in the head with a hammer.’
If this off-the-cuff admission fazed Douglas in any way, he certainly didn’t show it. In fact, he laughed. ‘That’s different. I like it,’ he said. ‘I do have questions, though, which unfortunately will have to wait. Pressing appointments. See you next week, same batty time, same batty channel!’ he said.
Adam didn’t know how to respond.
‘Hammer, you’ll need to be more responsive if we are to get our routine down. We’ll never make it to Broadway with this attitude.’
‘Oh, eh, yeah,’ Adam said, somewhat confused. I think the reference was beyond him; it certainly was beyond me.
‘Dr Moore will see you now, Adam,’ said Dolores. ‘See you next week, Douglas.’
***
‘Adam, you should feel free to tell me anything,’ said Dr Moore, leaning back in his seat, cool as a cucumber. (I heard someone say that earlier in the week. I have no idea how cool a cucumber is, but from what I understand it is colder than most fruit and vegetables.)
Dr Moore seemed like an okay kind of guy but it was a pretty dull session. In the previous family ones, Adam’s mother had filled the room with chatter when any awkward silences had broken out, but now it was just Dr Moore and Monosyllabic Joe.
Adam told Dr Moore next to nothing, just a vague retelling of the information he already had. Yes, trying to kill yourself is a bad idea. No, he didn’t know why he thought a hammer was the way to go. School is fine. Some kids are jerks but what are you going to do?
I spent most of the time examining the decor of the office. The doctor had a real thing for terrible paintings.
Obviously Dr Moore realised Adam was saying nothing and made an earnest attempt to get him to open up. He wasn’t successful. After an hour of no one saying anything of value, the alarm rang. Dr Moore told Adam this was a good start and that they would have the same appointment next week if the time suited. He said there was much to do but that he was looking forward to their journey together. I was confident that he was the only one in the room who felt this way.
***
‘That was pointless,’ said Adam.
‘Not true. At least we got to admire some of his terrible artwork,’ I said.
‘Oh, yeah, the fire truck painting behind him!’
‘Uh, I thought it was a horse.’
We took a shortcut home through the nearby maternity hospital car park, where expectant mothers sat outside, taking a break from being expectant mothers. One watched Adam as he walked by.
By another entrance to the hospital, Adam spotted a group of young people, the loudest of whom was Douglas, the kid from the psychologist’s office. With him were two girls and one guy. They were sitting on the wall, talking and laughing. This was the most overt display of camaraderie I had seen during my short existence and I found it fascinating. Adam must have thought so too, since he stopped and stared at them.
One of the girls noticed us – by which I mean ‘him’ – and said something that quietened down the rest of the group. They all looked over and Douglas stood up.
He waved.
Petrified, Adam gave a tiny wave back and then reached into his pocket for his phone. He pulled it out and pretended to learn something surprising on the screen. This fake message was apparently urgent and, in a pantomime turn, he ploughed forward, his eyes glued to the screen. It was a masterful performance, although a bit unnecessary as they had returned their attention to each other.
In the distance, we could hear them laughing again. Adam blushed and we took the long way home in the hope his embarrassment would have faded by the time he got in the door. When his mother asked how things had gone, he told her the session was fine, everything was fine.
Five
Night was a hard time for both of us as he couldn’t sleep properly and I simply didn’t. I’ll admit I quite liked the idea of sleep; everything going into standby for a bit of rest seemed pretty awesome, but it just wasn’t a thing that I did. Adam clearly was really into it as he lay in bed each night in hope. But his sleep was always fitful and interrupted at regular intervals. He never got quite there until the weekend following his return to school and his first solo visit to Dr Moore.
Saturday night he slept okay, but on Sunday night he slept like a big baby. I think exhaustion finally won over being kept awake by stress. He didn’t turn or stir; it was just a long, nice sleep. I watched him for a bit. Not out of any kind of affection or anything, I was just bored, really, really bored. As I mentioned before, I couldn’t leave his presence. I was trapped between these four white-painted walls for the night. Any time I attempted to move out of the room, I slammed against an invisible barrier, like a force field from that Star Trek movie we had watched during the summer. (Or was it Star Wars? It was a Star Something film anyway.)
Adam looked weird when he was asleep. His arms and legs were spread at bizarre angl
es, like a masterless puppet. His brown hair seemed to cling to his forehead as if glued there. It was like it knew how important it was to hide his scar at all times, even when in bed.
Once I tired of watching him sleeping, I paced around the room for a while, going through my normal routine of trying to pick things up on his desk, which, as usual, was unsuccessful. I tried this every so often just in case. If it finally worked, then I could find some teenagers and scare them silly. (Adam had been watching a lot of horror movies recently, possibly looking for tips on how to banish me. Fortunately I didn’t come in the form of a Victorian doll or a creepy music box, so I was safe.)
I continued circling his bed, really concentrating on how little I had to do. I assume this is why places become haunted – ghosts hanging around with absolutely nothing to do.
After a few minutes of thoughtless movement, I looked up and saw that Adam’s bed was in the wrong place. Also it was wider. Also his parents were in it. I’m not going to say how long it took me to realise I wasn’t in Adam’s room, but in his parents’ one next to his, but it was an embarrassingly long period of time. I must have walked through the wall when I wasn’t paying attention.
I dashed back into Adam’s room. He was still asleep. I jumped back into his parents’ room again. This was an important discovery.
It was strange seeing them without Adam. They looked peaceful. Suddenly his dad moved. I made a little jump. He rolled onto his side and wrapped his arm around Mum’s shoulders in a faintly protective manner. Perhaps he sensed a spirit in the room. I made an Oooo noise just in case.
I wondered if they ever looked that peaceful when awake. Perhaps before they realised they had a boy-shaped bomb in the house, one primed to explode. There were various photographs dotted around the house of past adventures and I often looked at them closely for clues. Did they have any inkling about Adam? Were these photos of a happy family taken on the same days that they shared concerned conversations in bed about how Adam doesn’t talk as much as he used to, or how he didn’t seem to have friends? Perhaps these were days when everyone was happy and there was no reason to question it, as if happiness was a vampire that if exposed to light would shrivel. These were possibly interesting questions I’d have dwelled on if I wasn’t suddenly able to get out of the gaff.
Passing their bed, I approached their closed door and slipped through it to find myself on the landing.
I walked down the stairs.
I walked out the front door.
I was outside.
The street lamps peeked between the tree branches and they buzzed as I moved underneath. I didn’t question my new freedom. I just kept going. The row of houses swished by as I sped ahead of their next-door neighbour, who was out running at this odd time. There was music somewhere. I followed it.
I followed it along the river that slunk through the city.
I followed it over the bridge.
I followed it to the centre of town, where drunks and loud music abounded, and men and women bumped into each other and laughed. They dared each other at the bridge and kissed each other sitting on window sills. I passed through them, hoping to experience their electricity. There were two men having a fight against a fountain as people cheered. There was a loud queue for food in cardboard boxes. This world was unfamiliar to me. They were happy and angry and sad and everything. I was so used to ‘numb’, I never imagined what other real-life emotions would look like. Facing so many new ones all at once was suddenly overwhelming, so I decided to find somewhere calmer.
I went further. To the suburbs, where nothing happens and there is always a dog barking in the distance. Adam lived close to the city, so there was always at least a hum of activity, but it was so quiet here, kind of like how I imagined sleeping to be. There was no one to be seen, except one person standing outside his front door staring at the night sky.
That person was a boy, much like other boys. He wore the same uniform as Adam, but didn’t look at all like him. This guy was more handsome and somehow looked more at home in his uniform. Most of the guys in school looked as if their uniforms didn’t fit, but not this kid. He also had a content expression which I had never seen before.
I was confused, though. What time was it? It had to be past midnight. He must really like school if he was still wearing his uniform in the middle of the night. I wished I could ask what he was doing.
As if reading my thoughts, he looked at me and smiled.
‘See you later,’ he said and just disappeared, smile and all.
Six
Probably since it was unused to sleep, Adam’s body got greedy and took more than it needed that night, so, as a result, the next morning he was late. Launching himself out of bed, he ran down the stairs with his school tie half strangling him. He dashed into the kitchen where his mother was listening to the radio.
‘Mum, I’m late! Why didn’t you wake me?’ he said, grabbing a banana from the fruit bowl.
‘Oh, I thought you needed the rest. I’m sure the school will understand.’
Adam sighed, as Mum unravelled and fixed his tie. ‘Everyone always understands. I just don’t want to be late. Can I have a lift?’
The closer we got to the school, the more his mood improved. But he didn’t share my enthusiasm for the previous night’s discovery.
‘I thought you weren’t able to leave,’ Adam whispered as we rushed through the gates.
‘Oh, it looks like I can when you’re asleep. I tried this morning when you woke up and no dice!’
He shook his head. ‘There is no way someone saw you.’
‘He was right in front of me. He was tall, had blond hair. His ears were kind of sticky out. He was wearing your school uniform, though. You may be able to find him here,’ I said.
‘I thought he disappeared.’
‘I think he did. Maybe he stepped back into the house. I don’t know how this all works.’
‘Well, neither do I. Wait! Stop! People can’t see me talking to thin air. Everyone thinks I’m weird enough as it is.’
‘Okay, but do you know who I’m talking about?’
‘No. He’s not real, because you’re not real. I know you’re a hallucination. Just leave me alone.’
‘Hallucination? Could a hallucination do this?’ I said, before I floated up above his head and down the other side.
‘Yes. Doing impossible things is the definition of a hallucination,’ he said at full volume and then gasped like a cartoon character when he realised what he’d said was loud enough for the rest of the school to hear. Fortunately for him, there was no one around. He checked his mobile for the time.
‘Crap. I definitely missed the bell,’ he said.
We entered the front door and walked down one of St Jude’s many corridors. The school seemed to be ninety-five per cent corridors of large blocks painted white, resembling something made from a dull set of toy bricks. (Coming Soon: The Educational Establishment Kit. Literally Seconds of Fun.) And they were very long too. If you were alone in them, they seemed infinite.
When we made it to the door of his classroom, he took a moment to prepare an apology. He didn’t get to use it, though, since the room was completely empty. He walked out and checked the next classroom, it was empty too. Not a sole student to be seen.
‘Wait, is it the right day?’ he said. ‘How long did I sleep?’
From the hall came the echo of talking. In a moment the voices turned the corner into our corridor and it was clear that it was two second years.
‘What is this for anyway?’ said the shorter of the two.
‘I heard somebody died. Hey, d’you reckon that guy finally did … Ow!’ said the taller one, his yelp caused by a hard dig in the arm. He started to protest but then saw Adam standing in front of him and realised his mistake. The younger boys both smiled awkwardly and walked past Adam. Once they thought they were out of earshot, they started to laugh about what a noob the taller one was.
Adam followed them to the school theat
re room, or ‘the auditorium’ as Principal O’Neill insisted on calling it. It was primarily used for visits from the lord mayor, cheerleading for upcoming rugby matches and, as it turned out, delivering bad news about fellow students. It was filled with the whole school. There was the usual noise that comes from packing lads of varying ages in a room, so Adam was able to sneak in largely undetected. The few who did look behind them to see who had come in appeared stunned, as if a zombie had walked in.
A teacher, Mr Banks, spotted Adam and pointed to an empty seat on the aisle next to Redmond. I think I mentioned Redmond before. He was the nervous kid who doodled impulsively on people’s books in class. I once watched him draw a record amount of Spidermen with large penises in the margins of an unsuspecting Exploring Physics 3 book.
Redmond made a little noise when Adam sat down next to him. ‘Adam! Oh, I thought that you were … I … never mind. Sorry, ignore me,’ Redmond said, so Adam did.
Mr O’Neill, the principal, appeared. He was a tall, skinny man with clouds of grey hair on his head. He stood in the centre of the stage area and coughed loudly. ‘Settle down,’ he began. ‘I regret to have to inform you all that a tragedy has occurred.’
He continued on, his speech pretty dull, and, to be honest, it isn’t really worth my while repeating the entire thing. It just kind of went on and on, although it had a few meaningful sentences scattered through it. The key piece of information – and this is important – is that there had been a death in the school, a fellow student.
That student was Chris Hurly: star rugby player, excellent student and, from what I gathered, a popular fellow. There was a noticeable gasp when his name was revealed. I couldn’t recall him being mentioned before now, but then I hadn’t been here too long and all the names and faces kind of blurred into one. (Adam later explained to me he was a sixth year, people liked him, and also that he was the older brother of Philip, the dick from the first day, who for obvious reasons wasn’t in attendance that day.)
