My Brother's Shadow

by Tom Avery

  “Can you come in here, Kaia, please?” she called, her voice all high and squeaky.

  I went in, wriggling my cold toes; the sun was out, but it didn’t seem to be able to warm the world enough. Mum was clutching a piece of paper; it had been folded but was now flat. I could see several gold stickers across the top and I knew what it said:

  For outstanding achievement in Art and making real effort to try new things and make new friends. Kaia White—Special Achiever

  “Why didn’t you show this to me, Kaia?” Fresh tears bloomed in my mum’s eyes as she spoke.

  I stared at her. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t say, “You haven’t shown any interest in me for over a year. Why would I show you this?” I didn’t say anything.

  “Has it been that bad, love? Have I been that bad?” my mum asked.

  I stared and still didn’t speak. I didn’t say, “The only times that haven’t been bad are when I’ve been with a boy who can’t even speak.” I didn’t say anything.

  “I’m so sorry, darling!” Then my mum started crying properly, full-blown wailing, her head in her hands.

  I didn’t say anything.

  I walked over and sat down next to her. I took the certificate out of her hands. “This is a good thing, Mum,” I said.

  She made a funny snorting sound like a pig laughing and looked up. “I know,” she said. “I know, petal.”

  You can sit with someone for a long time in silence, can’t you? Just sitting and thinking your own thoughts but with someone, someone who’s thinking their own thoughts too. Sometimes, sometimes you have the same thought. Me and Mum did. We had exactly the same thought.

  “Come on.” My mum took me by the hand and led me into the kitchen. She opened up cupboards, one after the other. From each she pulled a bottle, some small, some large. Each one she opened and emptied, pouring the entire contents down the sink.

  We were smiling when she started. We were laughing by the end.

  MAGNETS

  Still he has not spoken. Not a peep, not a sound, not a whisper. He makes lots of noises and gestures and expressions, but no speaking.

  It’s not starting to bother me. He couldn’t bother me—he’s my best, best friend. That sounds stupid, I know, but he is in all the important ways. I can tell him anything. I can rely on him to stick up for me. He’s changed everything.

  So it’s not starting to bother me, but I do at times find myself longing for more, more response than a flash of gray or a gentle laugh, or a leaf plucked from a low-hanging branch and handed to me.

  Today we sat, backs against a solid trunk on our favorite bench. I had told him all about Mum, about our new start, about the special group she says she’s going to tonight, a group to help people who drink too much. This is big stuff I’m telling the boy; big, important stuff.

  He watches, listens, eyebrows moving, dark against his pale skin, eyes flashing at all the right moments. When I’m done he stares into the tree above, looking for the nest we spotted a few days before—a nest, we think, containing newborn chicks.

  I don’t know about birds. I know about trees, I know all about trees, but not birds. So when he nudges me and points up, I don’t know what bird flies in with a worm wriggling in its beak, a mother feeding its babies.

  We sit together and stare above.

  “Hey, daydreamer,” a voice says.

  We rejoin the world and find Luzie standing in front of us. Luzie and Angelica.

  “You wanna play a game?” Luzie asks. And I do, I want to play a game. I want to play a game with other people. I want to play a game.

  The game we play involves magnets, which, until someone convinces me otherwise, I believe are magic. Well, they are, aren’t they? How do you get two things that are not sticky to stick to each other? Magic. How can you drag one piece of metal around by another piece of metal without attaching them in any way? Magic. How can you push something away without even touching it? Magic.

  So the game involved magnets. Luzie’s got all these magnets that look like little pebbles. You have to place them on the lines of a special felt board without letting any two magnets touch each other. That sounds entirely dull. It’s not.

  We played all break time. I played all break time. I played all break time with my friends.

  PAPIER-MCHÉ

  My brother casts a long shadow; thawing is a slow process.

  Slowly, slowly, rays of warmth were breaking through and moments of happiness were cracking the ice.

  My tears had frozen. My laughter had too. But last night was the first time I’d laughed since before. My laughter is beginning to thaw but my tears already have.

  Tears are strange. Strange because we have sad tears and happy tears, but they’re always when the world is too much to bear, an overflow of our emotions, our joy and our sorrow leaking out.

  I’d love some happy tears.

  It was Art today. Always Art on Friday afternoons. We were making models of fruit. I’m not sure why. We’d already made wire frames; we’ve been working on them for weeks. Now it was time to cover them.

  Papier-mâché. Have you ever done papier-mâché? It’s brilliant. Simple and brilliant. You turn soft, bendable, rippable paper into something hard. Some people had to go round school asking all the classes if they had any old newspapers. Some people had to mix up the glue with a bit of water to make a paste. The others, me included, read and waited.

  The boy was in class today and in my group. Me, the boy, Luzie and Gemma. We had to have groups to share the pots of paste. School’s strange like that. Groups and lines and classes and partners and teams. Does the rest of the world work like that? I guess it might. Can’t we just be me and you and him and her, each ourselves, each one of us “me” and no one else?

  I think the boy reads. I know he won’t or can’t talk. But he listens, he understands. He responds with a flash of his deep pools of magnificent gray. Does he read? I think so.

  He stared intently at a book on forests and jungles. I thought for a moment, while he stared at the page, maybe that’s where he’s from, like Mowgli in The Jungle Book. But then I remembered his rags, not fur and vines, but ragged old clothes. He didn’t get those in no jungle. And besides, there isn’t a jungle near my school.

  When the newspaper was gathered and the paste was mixed, we all got our frames. Mine’s a banana; the boy’s is a banana too. Poppy and Hanaiya handed out the newspaper. Dev snatched a whole stack from them and started quickly tearing little shreds, dipping them in the paste, then sticking them hurriedly to his … apple?… orange?… I’m not sure.

  Poppy’d nearly reached my table when she stopped.

  “Well, what’s this then?” she said, holding up a sheet of old and crumpled news, the rest cascading to the floor, feathers drifting out of the sky.

  Mr. Wills looked up from where he was working, helping someone who wasn’t in on the day we made the frames. “What is it, Poppy?”

  “ ‘Gang Member Found Dead,’ ” she started to read.

  I froze again. I froze. And I’m back, the cold air chilling me, frosted carpet crunching underfoot.

  “ ‘Police are investigating the suspicious death of a teenage boy …,’ ” Poppy intoned.

  I step towards his room, Moses’s room, listening to the silence.

  “ ‘… found by family members yesterday afternoon.’ ”

  I reach out. My hand pushes the door. It slowly creaks open.

  “ ‘The investigating officer’ ”—a face flashes in my mind: mustached, wide-mouthed Inspector Runcorn; questions run through my head, questions he asked in hours and hours of interview—“ ‘has stated that no possibilities are being ruled out at this stage of the inquiries.’ ”

  The door’s wide open now and there he is lying as I found him, cap forwards, a mess of blood.

  “ ‘MOSES WHITE’S FAMILY’ ”—and she said this in capitals—“ ‘continues to be questioned as to the circumstances surrounding his death.’ ”

&nb
sp; A mess of blood and a shadow reaching out, casting itself over my life, my brother’s shadow.

  “POPPY!” Mr. Wills roared, halting the reading and breaking the spell. “Stop that this instant!”

  I leapt up. I ran, pushing past Poppy, through the door, and once again threw up in the girls’ toilets.

  I didn’t go back into class. No one tried to make me. I sat alone in a cubicle.

  A hesitant knocking. A quiet voice.

  “Kai.”

  I stayed silent.

  “Kai, it’s all right—Poppy’s an idiot,” Luzie said.

  Still my mouth stayed shut.

  Rustling and the sound of hands slapping down on the cold floor; then Luzie’s face appeared at the bottom of the door. She was lying down. She stared at me. I stared.

  “Kai, do you wanna talk to me?”

  A single tear appeared.

  “Or Harry’s waiting outside.”

  No one made me go back to class. And no one could make me talk.

  Thawing is a slow process, especially if someone sticks you back in the freezer. No one could break the ice now. No one but me.

  CUP OF TEA

  Floating in through my window, he came again. It’s funny that he floats; he has wings but he doesn’t use them.

  The wounds in his arms had broken open. Thick, dark blood dripped down, dousing my duvet in a flow of red. I didn’t mind; it was warm, it was Moses.

  I just stared for a long time. Rivulets of blood crept under the duvet, washing against my skin, soaking into my too-short pajamas.

  “Tiny?” he said after long minutes, hours, days, weeks of staring.

  I nodded. A small nod, my head left hanging on my chest, too heavy to rise again.

  “My tiny girl.”

  I nodded the same nod, shaking warm salty tears I didn’t know were there from the end of my nose. Tears and blood mingled in a familial sea of sorrow, washing across my bed.

  It’s too much, I thought.

  “It’s too much,” I said.

  Quiet again, I watched the blood swirl as I shifted my legs.

  “Tiny,” Moses the angel said, drawing my eyes away from the bloody bed and up to his face. Smiling eyes pierced. “It is too much.”

  I continued to stare.

  “That’s why you’ve got to let me go.”

  “Let you go?”

  “Let me go. You’re ready.” Moses whispered the last two words.

  “I’m ready,” I said.

  Before Moses was an angel, Mum woke me up every morning, a cup of tea in hand. Every morning, mind you. She hasn’t made me a tea in bed since that day.

  And then, this morning, Saturday, tea. Its steam rose from the windowsill like snakes disappearing into undergrowth. And my mum sat at the end of the bed in the same place, exactly the same place where Moses had sat the night before.

  “Morning, my sweet,” Mum said.

  She smiled at me. I smiled back. She handed me my tea. I took a sip. She’d forgotten that I like sugar. I didn’t tell her.

  I hadn’t told her about the day before either, about Poppy and the old newspaper. I didn’t tell her now. I didn’t tell her about Moses.

  “I’ve got some good news, Kai,” she said.

  I nodded, taking another sip.

  “They’ve got me a job interview, the job center.”

  I nodded again.

  “Nothing big, I might not get it, but … but I wanted you to know I’m trying, petal.”

  “Thanks, Mum,” I said.

  She smiled. I smiled. She got up, smoothing down the duvet covering my legs, took several paces towards the door, then stopped as if she’d just remembered something.

  “Have you got any homework?” she asked. That’s another thing she hasn’t done since before.

  She really is trying.

  “Let her keep it up,” I whispered as she left.

  FAVORITE BOOK

  Literacy Homework

  Write a review of your favorite book. Make sure you include:

  • What makes it your favorite book

  • A synopsis of the whole story

  • A description of a character

  • Who you would recommend the book to

  • Don’t give too much away, though!

  I will do this homework. I will do this homework because I already have a favorite book. I already have a favorite book and I want to talk about it. It’s time to talk about it. It’s time to let go. I’m ready.

  But what if people laugh? What if everything goes backwards? What if Shadid and Luzie and even the boy think I’m mad? Because I am mad.

  No, the boy won’t think I’m mad. And everyone else …

  I’ll give them all a chance. I’ll be involved. I’ll be me. For the first time in forever and forever I’ll just be me and I’ll say what’s inside. Everything that’s inside.

  Trees of Britain: An Illustrated Guide

  My favorite book is not a story, even though I love stories. I love stories much, much more than information books, much, much more. I love the mystery, the plot unfolding, developing in your mind. I love all the characters, good and bad, almost-real people who leap off the page and walk around in your world. I love escaping in a story. But I can’t talk about a story, because none of them are my favorite book. My favorite book is Trees of Britain: An Illustrated Guide.

  What makes this my favorite book?—This is my favorite book because it’s the last thing that my brother ever gave me. If that’s not a reason for a favorite book, I don’t know what is.

  A synopsis of the whole story—The whole story? This book doesn’t have a story. Well, that’s not true, is it? The words in this book don’t tell a story. But the story of the book, well … Moses died on the 13th December, fifteen months and seven days ago. My birthday is on the 18th November. Moses gave me this book almost a month before he left. Every day he asked me if I was enjoying the book. I lied. I said that I loved it. I hadn’t looked at it. Now I look at my book every day.

  A description of a character—This book has no characters. Well, again, that’s a lie, because it has one character, the voice in my head, the voice who reads every word to me—Moses.

  He was the kindest, funniest and funnest brother a girl could ever wish for. But he was unhappy. I didn’t know. No one told me. He was ill, he was so unhappy. He was so unhappy that he couldn’t find a way to live anymore. He couldn’t find any way, except one way, the way out.

  Who would I recommend the book to?—This is a book that makes me happier than any other; I just have to see it and I smile. But it is also a book that makes me sadder than any other. I wouldn’t recommend this book to anyone. This is a book just for me.

  I read my review in class. I read it fast. I read it without looking up from the page, crinkled and creased in front of me, my hands shaking.

  It was hard at first. My voice was high and faltering. A tear, just one, escaped my eye. But then I steeled myself.

  That’s brilliant, isn’t it? I steeled myself. I made myself into steel. Nothing could hurt me. I was cold and hard like metal.

  Of course, I wasn’t. Inside I shook and fluttered. I saw in my mind my class, friends and ex-friends alike, laughing and laughing. I saw Mr. Wills ripping up my report. I saw myself crumbling to dust.

  But I held my voice steady. I stopped my hands shaking. I read word after word after word until they all flowed out, until everyone heard what I had not said before, what I’d never said, what had made me the freak.

  And when I stopped no one laughed, no one spoke, no one even breathed.

  I still did not look up from my page.

  A sniff broke the silence, then a voice. “Thank you, Kaia,” Mr. Wills said. “Thank you.”

  There was silence for a moment more and then something I didn’t expect—clapping. Not the riotous clapping of a class of eleven-year-olds, but a soft, gentle clapping. And it felt in that moment that they’d reserved this clap just for me.

  I looked u
p.

  I looked at Mr. Wills. He was dabbing his eye with a tissue.

  I looked at the class, who looked at me, looked at me like I was something new, not something old and forgotten.

  Then I looked at the boy. He was clapping with the rest, his head cocked to one side. And I knew he’d listened; every time, he’d listened.

  I trembled and felt happy and scared and relieved all at once. I’d done it.

  Soon, after a few more book reviews, real book reviews this time, it was break. We filed out of the classroom, heading for coats; the spring air still chilled us. Mr. Wills stopped me.

  “Really, thank you,” he said. And, “I’d love to see your book, Kaia. It means so much to you.”

  I nodded in reply and turned to leave but my teacher wasn’t finished.

  “And I’m sorry,” Mr. Wills said. “I don’t think I’ve always given you … well … enough time, I suppose.”

  I nodded again. I didn’t know what to say. So I said nothing.

  PINECONES

  A crowd gathered round me. Most just said a word or two.

  “That was amazing, Kaia.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Is the book here?”

  Luzie and Angelica, Gemma and Hanaiya, made a wall around me; saved me again.

  The boy was inside the wall. The boy was outside the wall. He danced in and out of the gathered faces. He’s lost in a crowd, I thought.

  It lasted a lifetime. It only lasted a minute or two. Eventually everyone found their game to play, friend to chase, ball to kick.

  “That was really brave, Kai,” Luzie said.

  The other girls nodded.

  I nodded.

  “Thanks,” I whispered. Something was stuck in my throat, something huge and spiky, a pinecone maybe.

  “I need a drink,” I said.

  There’s a bench by the water fountains. Not one of my favorites; it’s always busy at the fountains. The boys use them as a safe house in tag. The girls gather by them to talk about the boys. Poppy must not know this, though.

  She was sitting there. Alone. Her eyes were red, as if those cruel eyes had shed a tear.