by Chloe Daykin
BANG BANG BANG.
I jump.
Someone hits Lloyd’s door.
A fist like a gun.
The bus drives off.
I turn and catch a blur of green tweed out the back window.
There’s no time to record:
strange thing number three
(a head-twisting, what-the-f***-was-
that (Dad) kind of sound).
I push my head through the seats. ‘Who was that?’
‘No one.’ Lloyd says and shuts his eyes.
The bus driver drives on shouting at cars and braking lots.
‘Does somebody not like you, Lloyd?’
‘We are living in strange times,’ he says and sticks his headphones on and starts shouting out Norwegian words:
Beklager
Nei
Mini Banker
People stare at him.
‘I am learning new things,’ he shouts.
The bus has free Wi-Fi which is great.
I check out YouTube.
A hundred and fifty-two likes.
Two hundred and twenty-one views.
I watch videos of cats jumping out from behind sofas and attacking a woman in a onesie, and a hamster that falls asleep in its wheel, and they make me laugh.
I wonder how many other people in the world are laughing at these right now?
YouTube’s like the magic hand of the universe.
Connecting everything.
I look out the window and watch the outside zooming by, which sometimes looks really normal and then really different, and feel a long way from everything and everyone we know.
I think about the mountains as big as volcanoes and cabins and waterways and boats.
They’re here, they have to be here. Somewhere.
I know it.
Plan 1
The Surprise
Surprise!
We get off at the bus station and go out into a flow of people and cars and blue trams that are coming at us like caterpillars. We duck into a shop with cinnamon buns and sandwiches and bottles of Isklar.
A man in a black coat squashes backwards into a shelf of Cheez Doodles. ‘After you,’ he says and I squeeze through with my case.
Dad buys a hot chocolate and it is twenty krone. I don’t know if this is a lot but I guess it is because we all share it. Dad has first go as he likes it hot as lava.
Lloyd goes last. When he has a drink I have the urge to smack the cup on the bottom, but I don’t. It is a random brain flick of craziness which I control. Sometimes I think about things like that. I don’t know if other people do.
Lloyd finishes the chocolate. I throw the cup under a truck to see if it squashes it. It does. It explodes. Dad walks into the road and picks it up and puts it in the compartmentalised recycling.
‘Down!’ Lloyd yells and ducks us down.
We drop on to the concrete.
TWANG.
A plastic crossbow arrow flies over our heads and into the O of the shop sign.
No one else seems to notice.
I see a man, a blur of green tweed, running away in the distance.
I look at Lloyd. ‘Who is that?’
‘Who?’
‘HIM.’ Me and Dad point at the green speck lost in the crowd.
‘No one.’
We keep staring, not accepting his answer.
‘That’s Floyd Partington,’ he says and looks down at his shoes.
‘Who’s that?’
‘My brother. He was rather keen on the Winchester.’ Lloyd unzips his suitcase. It turns out it is full of apples. Bags and bags of them, wrapped in newspaper. And two pairs of tracksuit bottoms. ‘Apples are very expensive in Norway.’ He strokes one and takes a bite. We stare at him. ‘It’s OK.’ He lowers the apple. ‘Floyd doesn’t like water.’
‘Why?’
‘He got pushed in the moat once and nearly drowned.’
‘In a moat?’
‘It was at our house. We lived in a castle.’
I think of Lloyd’s little caravan where he lives with a home-made wooden shack veranda by the river. You could fit it in the drawbridge of a castle.
‘He won’t like Norway then,’ Dad says.
‘No,’ Lloyd says. ‘I think he’ll just go away.’
And I think, We have flown thousands of miles away from everything and everyone we know and we are being attacked by Lloyd’s crazy brother with weapons and a rifle grudge.
Plan 2
The Newspaper
Going In
‘Dad.’
‘Yeah.’
I take my newspaper out. ‘Let’s go to the Aftenposten.’
He nods.
Lloyd salutes and zips his case back up.
I google the map and we go into town through exhaust fumes, tower blocks and shopping malls. I don’t think there’s even a dandelion growing here. OK, so Oslo isn’t beautiful. But no one died of looking at uglyness.
Or plastic crossbows.
I put my headphones on and listen to:
apple-eating excitement
and stick my head down and walk.
We go through people stew and zoom and trams into the hard blue lights of the Aftenposten.
We crick our necks up at the glass-fronted tower block.
Lloyd shouts, ‘DUCK,’ and we drop down but nothing happens.
‘False alarm,’ he says. ‘Sorry.’ People stare at us. We get up off the pavement, dust the grit off our knees and push open the slick glass doors into a cool, skiddy hallway.
I look at Dad clutching his trumpet case. I look at Lloyd looking out the window for weapons.
I walk up to the desk.
A woman in a bun and blue suit is working on a computer.
Her fingers snacker on the keyboard.
‘Can I speak to the editor, please?’
She looks down at me. ‘Do you have an appointment?’
‘No.’
‘Then I do not think it is possible.’ She squints and looks at Lloyd who is trying to rescue a bee out of the window with a bus ticket. ‘He is very busy.’
‘It’s very important.’
‘Mr Eriksen does many important things.’ She starts to turn away.
‘This is REALLY important.’ I yell. ‘Please.’ I say.
I put my phone down on the desk.
And hit PLAY.
The music comes on.
And my video voice-over.
*
One boy. (A shot of my face.)
One newspaper. (A shot of the paper.)
And one regular random zoo bench. (Montage of a baby, a rhino, a shot of the black twiddly zoo gates.)
One mystery to solve.
One place to start.
With you,
The Aftenposten.
The guardian of the secret.
Only you can help this boy discover who he really is and why … (I point at my head.)
Will you help?
Will you not help and watch him go home …?
All the way back to England.
With nothing.
And no money.
And crying …
She pushes the pause button. ‘Are you serious?’
‘I was found under this paper.’ I put the paper on the desk. ‘I have no idea who I am.’ I point at a stain on the N. ‘That bit’s where I sicked up some milk.’ I push the paper over. ‘Imagine if it was you.’ I look right at her.
She looks down at the date on it.
‘It’s all I’ve got. Seriously.’ It is.
She looks up at me.
And picks up her phone.
She speaks in Norwegian. It sounds very up and downy. Like a word roller coaster.
Lloyd rescues the bee through the double doors and stands behind us. ‘La de dah de dah de,’ he whispers. Dad elbows him. I put my fingers in my mouth so I don’t laugh.
She puts the phone down. ‘Mr Eriksen will be here in one minute.’
I breathe out and
a hot piece of satisfaction glows up from my stomach.
‘Thank you.’
Dad smiles and we do a secret high five under the desk.
Lloyd wanders off to look at a picture of a farmer with a prize pig.
We watch the clock tick over.
CLUNK
TICK
CLUNK
TICK.
Dad whistles.
A man in a white shirt and black trousers arrives. He is smiley and nice. ‘So you have come from England?’ He opens his hands. ‘Come in,’ he says. ‘Come in.’
We can’t go in as the desk is in the way. We walk down both sides of it like we’re on travelators set at the same speed and meet up at the end. ‘You may leave you cases here,’ he says and waves his hand. ‘It is quite safe.’ I think about Floyd. I check the CCTV – the cameras click round and look at us. I think about saying no.
But I don’t.
Brain flick.
I want to know what he’s going to tell us.
It’s like Christmas when you go downstairs and open the presents.
You don’t wait.
You get stuck in. Whether it’s socks or not. You need to know …
I watch my fingers leave my case.
Dad checks his watch.
Lloyd looks at Dad. ‘How long will this take? Do we have time?’
‘Sorry, do you not have time?’ Mr Eriksen waves his hands.
‘We have time,’ Dad says and grabs Lloyd’s arm and we follow the man down a corridor.
Tomatoes
The corridor is cool but not calm. People hurry past with papers and cups of coffee and phones.
We go into a side room and sit around a white table on leather chairs.
‘So,’ he says, ‘how may I help you?’
I put the newspaper on the table. ‘I was left under this as a baby.’
He whistles. ‘Really, so.’
‘I thought you might hold the secret of why.’
‘Yes?’
‘I thought the person who left it left it as a clue. So I could find them. So I could find out. Did you work here then?’
He nods.
Great.
‘I wrote this one.’ He points to the paper and translates: ‘“The new Svinesund bridge is opened joining Norway and Sweden”. This was a nice moment.’ He sighs and points to another page: ‘“Ten are dead after an outbreak of legionnaires’ disease”. This was a sad one.’
‘Was anybody in the office pregnant? Did anyone leave unexpectedly?’
He shakes his head. ‘Unfortunately not. Sorry. We have a distribution of over two hundred thousand. It could have come from anywhere, this paper.’ He spreads his hands like they’re the world.
‘There must be something. There can’t be nothing!’ I look at Dad. There’s no way this is it. I’m not going home now.
‘I can help you!’ Mr Eriksen taps his nose and takes a little white card and a gold pen out of his pocket. ‘The birth registry,’ he says, and writes it down. ‘This is where you need to go.’ He passes the card over. ‘The information should all be in there.’
I take it. He slips his pen back in his pocket.
It won’t be there. I looked it up online, like a million times. I haven’t got a birth certificate. And no one knows what my other name was. No one knows who I was before I was Elvis. There’s no way I can ask the birth registry. It’s impossible.
Isn’t it?
Maybe not.
The paper goes to two hundred thousand people right?
That isn’t bad.
It’s good.
Before the internet, people had papers.
Papers were the only way to spread news around.
‘We could put an ad in,’ I say.
Dad goes white. ‘What?’
‘An article – you could run a story. Boy found under paper seeks answers. After all these years. They’d see it then. They’d pick it up …’
Mr Eriksen strokes his chin. ‘Yes,’ he nods. ‘Yes. Interesting.’
‘No need,’ Dad stands up. ‘We have to go.’
‘No way!’ I stay sitting. ‘Why?’
‘It’s private … It’s …’ He runs his hand through his hair.
Mr Eriksen shakes his head. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘I’m sorry. I see you have a fine family.’ He looks at Dad and Lloyd who is saving a spider from the plug socket. ‘Sometimes we need to know our own secrets,’ he says. ‘But you know, we share sixty per cent of our DNA with tomatoes and we are nothing like tomatoes. You want a free paper?’
‘Oh yes!’ Lloyd puts the spider in a plant pot and takes three.
‘No thanks.’ I pick my birth one up off the table and stare at Dad. If he didn’t want to come he should’ve said it. If he doesn’t want me to know, why bother? I narrow my eyes and mouth, what?
He scratches his ear and mouths, later.
I get up and fold my arms.
Mr Eriksen walks us back down the corridor to our cases, past more people with coffee and phones and a woman who puts her hands through her hair and says, ‘Aaaghhh,’ and keeps walking.
None of us says anything.
We stop at the foyer. I look at my bag. It’s moved. I know ’cos the handle’s on the other side. Why?
Dad checks his watch. AGAIN.
‘You are all OK?’ Mr Eriksen says. His forehead wrinkles.
And Dad says, ‘Yes thank you, thank you very much,’ and grabs the bags and hustle-walks me out the door.
Hard Things and Secrets
We stand on the street and I hold the card.
Lloyd waves at pigeons.
Cars fly by. And people. And babies and dogs.
‘What was that about?’ I yell.
‘Reasons,’ Dad says and runs his hand through his hair.
I look up at the mountain of glass windows and think of how big the world is.
And how hard it is to try and find two people in it.
A man and a woman.
THEM.
People that could be anywhere.
People that could be anyone.
People that could be nowhere at all.
‘Let’s get an ice cream,’ Dad says.
‘No thanks.’ I drop the card down the drain.
‘It was a good plan,’ he says.
‘It was till you ruined it.’
‘We are united! We are united!’ Lloyd runs over and pats both our shoulders.
‘There’s something you should know.’ Dad looks at his watch. AGAIN. ‘We need to go.’
‘Why?’ I kick a rock off the pavement.
He hangs his head. ‘There’s something I should’ve told you a long time ago.’
Plan 3
Dad the actual surprise
Reasons
‘Like what?’
‘Come on,’ he says and walks off fast down the street.
Lloyd weaves in and out like a speedy weasel.
‘Where are we going?’ I run along behind.
‘The bus station,’ Dad yells over his shoulder. ‘We’re going back to the airport.’
I stop running. ‘We’re going home?’ Someone bangs into the back of me. ‘I’m not going home.’
‘No.’ Dad turns round. People bang into his sides and his bag. ‘We’re not.’
Lloyd jogs on the spot.
‘We’re going north,’ Dad says. ‘On a plane.’
I keep staring.
‘A propeller one. Like Tintin. It leaves in two hours, OK?’
‘Why?’ People swarm around me. Secrets aren’t Dad’s thing. This is weird.
‘Let’s just get an ice cream, OK?’ He rubs his head. ‘We’re all tired.’
‘I’m not.’
‘Do you want to miss the plane?’
‘No.’
‘I’ll tell you then,’ he says. ‘I promise. Let’s just get there, OK.’
I look at him. I think about a propeller plane. This is
A – a bit freaky
B – c
ool
C – weird, why?
I need to go. I want to go. Don’t I?
‘Do you trust me?’ He holds a hand out.
I nod. I do. Always.
‘OK,’ I say.
‘Onwards!’ Lloyd says and runs off, fast, and trips over a curb and cuts his chin. I look around for green tweed. There is none. We stop the blood with a tissue and run back into the station. We check the bus-times board and get softis (Mr Whippy) from an orange shop with Donald Duck magazines and packets of Don’t Stop and Can’t Stop that look like M&Ms.
I know something is up as Dad lets me get as many toppings as I want. I get Smarties and marshmallows and chocolate raisins and jelly babies, but just the green ones and chocolate sauce and we sit down on red plastic chairs next to a big window.
‘So?’ My spoon hovers.
‘So,’ Dad says. ‘I’m sorry we’re doing this here. I wanted …’ A man with plastic bags walks past us and shouts, ‘The problem is the infrastructure!’ and wanders off. ‘I wanted it to be nice.’ He sighs. ‘Is your ice cream nice?’
I eat a spoon with Smarties. ‘Yes,’ I say, ‘it is. Everything’s nice.’
We ignore a couple having an argument by the ticket kiosk. The man kicks a suitcase and walks off. Lloyd tucks a napkin under his chin.
‘Firstly,’ Dad says, ‘I wanted to tell you this before. I’m sorry I didn’t. It was wrong.’ He breathes out and puts an arm round me.
‘When I found you on the bench it wasn’t just the newspaper you had.’
‘And the HELP vest.’ I eat a green Smartie.
‘It was also this.’ He takes out a piece of paper from his pocket.
‘What is it?’ I look at Dad. I look at the paper.
‘Plan B,’ he says.
‘You mean Plan C.’
‘Yeah,’ he sighs. ‘Plan C. It’s your birth address.’
Sorry
Dad’s eyes go all red.
‘I know it’s weird,’ he says. ‘It’s probably a shock.’
‘Yeah.’ I put down my spoon. ‘It is.’
I stare at the paper.
