by Mark Lowery
A few minutes go by.
I’m feeling exhausted from the panic attack. It’s been ages since I’ve had one. I should’ve known it was on the way, what with the mini-meltdown at Preston and the puke on the train and the stress of everything, but it’s still hit me hard and fast like a ninja.
At least they always pass. Even the bad ones. And now I’m starting to return to the real world again, aware of the sharp, cool bricks against my back, and the aching thirst in my throat, and the raw throbbing of my knuckles. I wish I had that bottle of orange juice. The thought of it makes me lick my lips.
I notice a thumping pain in my head, and when I open my eyes, I have to squint against the dim sunlight of the alleyway. There’s an overflowing trash can across from me, and I’m surrounded by a really strong smell of toilets. When I look at my knuckles, I see they’re shredded and bleeding, and I can’t really bend my fingers. Maybe I punched the wall like I did that other time this happened. Who knows?
For a few minutes, as I slowly come around, I flick in and out of consciousness. Behind the hum of some traffic noise, I can hear trains pulling in and out of the station, and suddenly I’m flying above the train as it rattles along through the countryside, then I’m zipping into the train car through an open window. And there’s the backpack, under the seat where I left it. And I float down the aisle, past the handful of bored passengers and into the bathroom where I can see Charlie. He’s happy and unaware that anything’s wrong and I want to hug him, but when I reach for him, he disappears like he’s made of mist and I’m back here in the smelly alleyway before I know it.
I feel sick about Charlie. What kind of a brother . . . ? I know I was panicking, but come on—there’s no way I should’ve left him behind. How can you lose a person? I’m not even meant to be here in the first place. And now there’s no way I can get to him, or the backpack. The backpack too. How stupid can I get?
This is a real disaster. I was only trying to do the right thing, but it’s all collapsed. What have I done? My shoulders shake, my fingers dig into my eyes, and I begin to sob.
Surprises and Phone Calls
I cry and cry, and a rhyme starts to form in my mind. It’s about being lost, but I can’t get past the first few lines. They’re on an endless loop. It’s a silent chant: Charlie’s lost. The backpack is lost. I’m lost. In more ways than one.
Gradually I become aware of someone else here. Don’t know how. I didn’t notice any footsteps. It’s just that feeling of being watched. I brace myself. Is it the police? I guess I’ll have to hand myself in. I don’t have the stomach to run again. And they might have to find Charlie and the backpack for me. But then I’ll have to go home and I’ll have to answer to Mum and Dad. The whole trip will have been a waste of time.
I move my hand away from my eyes and feel my body jolt. Of all the people in the world, it’s Angry Girl who’s squatting in front of me, holding a bottle of water in front of my face.
“Have you taken something?” she says. Her voice is much softer than before.
I gulp. “A bottle of orange juice. From a store in Birmingham,” I croak. “But I’m gonna pay for it, I promise.”
After a few seconds, I realize she means drugs. Just being asked this question makes me feel weird and I don’t like it. Not-So-Angry-Anymore Girl cracks up, but not in a nasty way. I’m surprised how concerned she looks, even when she’s laughing at me.
I take a glug from the bottle; then she pours some of it onto my knuckles and dabs them gently with a tissue.
“Why were the pigs after you?” she asks finally.
I’ve only been back in the real world for a minute, so I have to shake a weird picture out of my head of giant pigs chasing me down the train. “Ran away from home,” I say finally, wincing from my stinging fingers. I can bend them so at least they’re not broken. “Me and my brother.”
She stands up and looks around, adjusting her massive backpack. I’m surprised how this news doesn’t surprise her, if that makes sense. “Parent trouble?”
“Sort of,” I say.
“Huh,” she says. “Tell me about it. A little young for running away, though, aren’t you?”
“We’re only going for a night.”
“Fair enough. Make them sit up and notice, anyway. As long as you stay safe. Where’s he, then?”
“He’s hiding in the bathroom on the train,” I say. Suddenly I’m gripped by an urge to do something. “I’ve got to get back on the train to meet him. And I need to get my bag.”
I stand up way too quickly and get a massive head rush that makes me stagger back against the wall. Angry Girl grabs me by the shoulders and looks at me through her heavy eyelashes. “You’re not going anywhere. I was watching you freaking out just now, from the street. I dunno what all that was about, but the train’s long gone and you need to take it easy for a while. And anyway, you go back to the station and who do you think’ll be waiting for you?”
“You don’t understand,” I say, brushing her hands away. “The bag’s really important. I can’t lose it. I can’t. And Charlie needs me. And it’s all my fault and—”
I try to push past her, but she stands in my way. “Is your brother stupid?”
Her question stops me. “No.”
“Then he’ll stay on the train until Plymouth and wait there till you show up, won’t he?”
“Well. Maybe,” I say. I suppose it makes sense. He knows that’s where we’re heading. It’s always been a rule in our family: if you get lost on the way somewhere, wait at the destination. You need rules like that when you’ve got a liability like Charlie running around. But then again . . . “What if he heard the announcement on the train and he got off here? He could be wandering around the station looking for me right now. He’ll be lost and alone and he needs me.”
Angry Girl weighs this up. “All right. I can go look for him in a minute. But first we need to do something about your bag if it means so much to you.” She pulls out her phone. “What kind is it?”
I describe it to her while she’s doing a search on her phone; then she taps the screen and holds the phone to her ear. “Ooh, hello there, dear,” she says after it’s rung a few times. The sudden change in her accent is amazing. She sounds just like an old Scottish lady. “Is that the Plymouth Station manager? You won’t believe it, I’ve made a silly, wee mistake and left my backpack on the train at Bristol. . . .”
After Angry Girl’s arranged for my backpack to be taken off of the train by a member of the staff at Plymouth, and for it to be collected from the station by her granddaughter (giving a perfect description of herself by the way), she hangs up.
“Taken care of,” she says, pleased with herself. When I look confused, she explains, “If I’d said it was yours, they might not have given it to me. The police are looking for a lanky kid who got off at Exeter, not a wee old Scottish lassie who hopped off at Bristol, remember.”
Even when she’s putting on the accent again, she still sounds seriously businesslike. The way my brain’s still buzzing, it feels nice to have someone who can take charge, even if I don’t really know who she is, or whether I can trust her or not.
“But how are we gonna get to Plymouth?” I ask, which is just one of the millions of things that are making my brain ache right now.
Angry Girl smiles. “You let me worry about that. Now, I need to know what your brother looks like.”
Anything’s Not Possible
By the time I’d legged it back to the cottage, Dad was already vaulting over the balcony rail, holding Charlie’s inhaler, while Mum climbed down behind him. We sprinted back up the dune together and stuffed the inhaler into Charlie’s hand. He took a few puffs of it before slowly catching his breath.
Dad rubbed his back. “You’ve got to be more careful. You know you can’t go running off like that without your inhaler.”
Mum was nervously rubbing the little, gold crucifix she wears around her neck between her finger and thumb. “Oh God, I thought—”
Face like thunder, Charlie ducked away from her hand and stumbled angrily down the sand dune on his own. Halfway down, he turned around. “It’s a stupid, crappy lie!” he shouted.
“What are y—?” began Mum.
“The sign!” snapped Charlie. “Anything’s not possible! Just when you think . . .”
His voice trailed off, and he stormed away again. After struggling to pull himself up the balcony railings a few times, he stomped away and disappeared around the side of the cottage. A few seconds later, we heard the front door slam.
I wanted to go after him, but Dad said to let him calm down and the three of us sat on the soft sand together for a while, not saying anything.
Eventually, we followed him back. Inside the cottage, the bathroom door was locked and Dad’s phone had gone from where he’d left it on the kitchen table. It was weird how quickly things had changed: the excitement of seeing the dolphin, the buzz of the cottage, the panic of Charlie’s asthma attack, and now this.
For the next hour, the bathroom door stayed closed. The rest of us unpacked and wandered about barely talking to each other. Charlie’s mood was like a blanket over a parrot’s cage, subduing and silencing the rest of us. After a while, Dad went off to the store to get milk, but I didn’t fancy going with him. I was desperate to be out on the beach. Bored, I switched on the Xbox, but I couldn’t get into it, so I chucked the controller down on the sofa and marched over to the bathroom. I’d had enough.
The Worst Car I’ve Ever Seen
When Angry Girl comes back twenty minutes later, I don’t realize it’s her at first. This is because she’s in the passenger seat of a car that pulls up at the end of the alleyway.
“No sign of anyone who could be your brother,” she calls, rolling down the window. “So hurry up. We need to get a move on!”
I tentatively walk over. This is honestly the worst car I’ve ever seen. It’s an ancient VW Polo. The passenger door and roof are red, but the rest of the car is a kind of dirty cream, except for the huge rusty holes at the bottom of the bodywork. And the massive permanent-marker picture of a skull and crossbones on the roof that looks like it was done by a hyperactive four-year-old.
The driver is a youngish guy with no shirt on. He’s skinny, with loads of tattoos all over him. His head is shaved, and he’s wearing those dinner-plate earrings that stretch out his earlobes. I’ll be honest—I’m terrified of him. But then he leans forward in front of Angry Girl and gives me a toothy grin. “Hear you need a lift,” he says in a friendly Devon accent. “Hop in.”
My hand reaches out for the rear-door handle. Then I stop. What am I doing? I don’t know this weird man with the dangly earlobes. I don’t even know Angry Girl. This whole thing’s making me nervous.
“Don’t wanna rush you, old boy,” says Dangly Lobes, “but we’re in a no-parking zone and I ain’t rich enough to pay parking tickets.”
“We want to get your brother, don’t we?” says Angry Girl, and I don’t know why but I trust her. I know it’s wrong and stupid and against every sensible bit of advice you could ever be given, but what other choice do I have? Charlie and the backpack are gone. I can’t go back to the station, and I’m completely broke. I can’t get the backpack unless Angry Girl collects it for me from Plymouth, and I can’t get to Plymouth without climbing into the car. It’s not like I’ve got any other options. But still, I don’t move.
Angry Girl hops out and stands really close to me. Her voice is low and secretive. “Look. Your poem. The one about the sand dune. It was . . .” She blows a strand of hair out of her face. “It was like . . . reading about myself. Like you’d been inside my head or something. . . .” She pauses to swallow. “When you were having trouble with the police, I just had to help you, and then, when I saw you in the alleyway, well . . .”
Still unsure, I look at her for a few moments. It’s not too long ago that I thought she was going to blow me up.
She seems to know what I’m thinking. “I’m sorry about when we were on the train. Sometimes I find it . . .” She frowns, like it’s a real struggle to push the words out. “. . . hard to be nice.”
The look she gives me then is so surprisingly kind and unguarded that I find myself biting my lip and climbing into the car.
Not
That funny-looking kid’s not weird or stupid,
He’s just different.
And this pen isn’t a pen,
It’s a key that opens up hidden doors.
And that dolphin isn’t a dolphin,
It’s a magic creature that changes people.
I guess what I’m trying to say,
Is what you think and what things actually are
Can be two very different things.
By Martin Tompkins
Age 13
Stage 4d
The Alley by the Side of a Cheap Hotel in Exeter to Plymouth Station
Distance–45 Miles
Car
Cakes and Old People
During the first fifteen minutes of the car journey from Exeter to Plymouth, I learn the following things:
Angry Girl is actually named Henrietta, but I should call her Hen because “Henrietta’s the kind of name you give to a canal boat.”
Her dad, who she hasn’t seen since she was seven, is Italian, which is why she was speaking Italian to the conductor on the train. She tells me that, at one point, she’d actually told the conductor that she loved him! She never buys a train ticket, and this is her favorite way of not getting busted for it.
Dangly Lobes is actually named Wesley, although most people call him Doctor Lizard for reasons that aren’t really clear.
Doctor Lizard, or Lizard for short, is Hen’s best friend, and he’ll do anything she asks, although they are definitely not boyfriend and girlfriend. They grew up near each other in Exeter and like hanging out and going to music festivals together. Whenever she’s in town, she sleeps in the spare room at his parents’ house.
Lizard’s car is called “the Tank.” I thought the outside was bad, but the inside is even worse. There’s no carpet and that rusty hole in the floor is so big that I can see the road under my feet. The seat is scarred with deep gouges, like it’s been attacked by a panther. Black smoke pours out of the exhaust the whole time, and the engine rattles, shakes, and whines as though it’s in pain.
Lizard works as a caregiver in an old people’s home. This doesn’t seem to fit with his crazy image, but after a few minutes of knowing him, he seems to be a very nice person.
According to Hen, the old people at the home love him. In fact, when he got sacked for teaching a seventy-eight-year-old woman with two false hips to skateboard, the rest of the residents refused to eat until he got his job back. When he came back to work, Lizard celebrated by baking scones for all of them. Henrietta says that Lizard is amazing at baking. This is another thing I wasn’t expecting to learn about him.
As soon as Hen mentions baking, Lizard tells me to fish out a tin from behind his seat. I reach down and open it. It’s filled with delicately decorated cupcakes with swirly blue icing and silver balls sprinkled on top.
“Made a batch for one of the old boys. It was his ninety-second birthday,” he says, smiling to me in the rearview mirror. “These are the leftovers. Help yourself.”
They look awesome, but it’s really funny; he’d be the last person in the whole world you’d expect to have made them. This just goes to show that you shouldn’t judge people by what they look like. It reminds me of a poem I wrote once about how we look at things. I didn’t like it at the time, so I crossed it all out and scrawled “Sucks!” across the page. But it makes sense now I guess. Mr. Hendrix wouldn’t let me tear the page out of my notebook. He said that poetry’s about emotion, and the scribbling shows I was frustrated and angry at the time, so it’s actually kind of cool to leave it as it is. I like Mr. Hendrix.
“I keep telling him to go on that television show The Bake Off,” says Hen, but Lizard grins and shakes his
head.
I take a cupcake and quickly hand the tin to Hen. I don’t want to hold on to it for too long because it makes me think of the special-leftover-from-Christmas tin in my backpack, which in turn makes me think of Charlie.
I bite my lip, but strangely enough, I don’t freak out again. I think this is for three reasons. Firstly, no matter how bad the car might be, I know that we’re moving toward Charlie. Hen was right. My brother might be crazy, but he’s definitely not stupid. I know he’ll be waiting for me when I get there. I just know it.
Secondly, I’m a lot less stressed after what happened in the alleyway. Like I wrote in the sand dune poem, everything seems calmer when the avalanche is over. In fact, I feel a bit floaty.
And thirdly, well, the cupcake is ridiculously delicious, and there aren’t many situations that can’t be improved with a cupcake, right?
“Why do you need to head to Plymouth then, fella?” says Lizard, steering the car with his wrists and unwrapping his cupcake at the same time. We’re way out of Exeter now and we’re on this open land, bleak and empty. There’s a part of me that thinks this would be a perfect place for two weirdos to take a stranger they’ve just kidnapped so they can murder him, but I shove this thought down before it takes over.
“Told you on the phone, he’s lost his brother. And he needs his bag,” says Hen. She snatches the cupcake out of Lizard’s hands, unwraps it for him, then shoves it into his open mouth so that he can steer properly.
Lizard chews the cupcake and swallows but doesn’t say anything.
I fold up the cake wrapper and shove it in my pocket. Of course this is a waste of time. The car is littered with old take-out wrappers and drink cans, but I don’t feel right dropping garbage in his car when he’s doing me such a massive favor.
