Hurricane Wills

by Sally Grindley

  “Ready, kiddo,” said Wills. “You’re bike number four.”

  He turned up the volume as high as it would go and began to make acceleration noises.

  “Go, kiddo, go, go, go.” I pushed the button for forward and the one for fast and I shot away from the start ahead of Wills and the computer-generated bikes. Within seconds I’d done a high-speed wheelie somersault straight into a rock and the other bikes surged past me.

  “Great crash, kiddo!” yelled Wills, and then he whooped for joy as he overtook one of the computer-generated bikes.

  I righted my bike and pushed forward again, more slowly this time, but the bike lurched side-ways and back across the road. Wills was bouncing up and down in the chair now, and every time his bottom left the seat my perch lurched sideways along with my bike.

  “I’m gonna overtake again, watch this.” Wills was almost screaming by now. “Watch this, watch this. Here we go. Yeh! I am the cham-pi-on.”

  His bike tore across the line in first place. Wills leapt from the chair, catapulting me on to the floor, and threw his controller across the room.

  “Had enough of that,” he said. “S’boring playing a cripple like you.”

  He fell on to the couch, picked up the remote control, switched on the television with the volume up loud, and began to flick from channel to channel, barely stopping long enough to see what was on.

  Mom came to the door. “Turn it down, Wills, please,” she said.

  “S’not loud,” retorted Wills.

  “It is loud, and we’ll have the neighbors complaining.”

  “Nag, nag, nag,” said Wills, and he turned it up as loud as it would go.

  “Stop it, Wills,” I yelled. “You’re not even watching anything.” I grabbed the remote control from him and turned off the television.

  “Goody, goody, goody,” spat Wills. He stormed out of the room and up to his bedroom, where he turned his CD player on loud and stomped backward and forward across the floor. Then it went silent..

  “Now what’s he up to?” sighed Mom.

  “Leave him, Mom,” I said.

  Be here with me, Mom, I thought. This is the worst day of my life. I need you here with me.

  Chapter Four

  We went to Dad’s for the first time three weeks later, but he turned up twice before then to take us out for pizza. Both times Wills refused to go, even though he loves pizza. Mom pleaded with him, but he wouldn’t even say hello to Dad, just shut himself in his room. Dad fidgeted his feet on the doorstep, his forehead covered with globules of sweat, and waited for ten minutes the first time, while Mom and I called up to Wills. The second time he only waited five minutes, his goodwill quickly evaporating, his anger becoming volcanic.

  “Let’s go, Dad,” I said. “He’s the one missing out.”

  But Mom was missing out too, on a bit of peace and quiet, and Dad was missing out on being Wills’s dad. I was just happy to have Dad to myself, because I missed him like hell. I could catch up on the soccer and the football games and how he was managing without us and what his new place was like. And I could ask him if he was going to come back. I could ask him if it would make a difference if Wills took the drugs they had been told he should take to make him calmer, but which Mom didn’t want him to take because then he wouldn’t be like Wills. Dad said that it wasn’t Wills’s fault that he had left, because as a father he should be able to cope with his own children, and that anyway there were other things. I tried to say that no one could blame him for not coping with Wills, but deep down I felt that Dad had failed us, all of us.

  When Dad arrived to take us to his new apartment, I thought I would be going on my own again, and I was looking forward to having him to myself for the whole weekend. That was the good thing about Wills’s refusal to have anything to do with Dad. Dad and I would be able to do all the Saturday and Sunday stuff we did before, but without the constant threat of a hurricane-force wind. But no sooner had Dad rung the bell, than Wills tore out of his bedroom, down the stairs, and into the front seat of Dad’s car. Mom, Dad, and I stood on the doorstep and gawked.

  “Miracles will never cease,” sighed Mom.

  “Come on, then, Dad,” Wills called through the window.

  “Take them when they come, Rosie,” grinned Dad. “Put your feet up and have a good rest. You deserve it.”

  “Get a move on, Dad. Let’s see this new sty of yours.” Wills began to thump on the dashboard.

  “Good luck,” Mom grimaced. “Try not to get too angry with him, Brian. It’ll only make him worse.”

  Dad pecked her awkwardly on the cheek. I wanted to throw my arms around both of them to stick them back together, but Dad pulled away quickly and headed for the car.

  Mom hugged me goodbye.

  “Will you be all right, Mom?” I asked, wanting suddenly to stay with her.

  “I probably won’t know what to do with myself,” she smiled. “Off you go now, and look after your dad.”

  Dad’s apartment was only about fifteen minutes’ drive away. Wills spent the whole journey jigging up and down on his seat, drumming indecipherable tunes on the dashboard in competition with whatever was playing on the radio. I tried to ignore him, gazing out of the window at the cluster of brand-new, all-the-same houses that confused the route from our house to where Dad was now living.

  “I need to pee,” said Wills, jigging up and down even faster.

  “Nearly there,” Dad grimaced. “Try sitting still and it won’t feel so bad.”

  Wills sat still but started to groan loudly. I could see Dad was beginning to lose it, before we had even reached his new home, let alone spent a whole weekend there. Volcano-meets-hurricane moments in the car were bad news. We’d nearly crashed once when Dad was trying to swipe Wills with one hand while steering the car around a corner with the other; and he had stopped several times in the past and threatened to make Wills walk if he didn’t shut up, which was a stupid threat because Wills knew he wouldn’t carry it out. I tried to distract Dad by asking what football game was on the television that afternoon, even though I had looked it up before we left Mom’s home to go to Dad’s home.

  It was real what was happening, horribly real. I didn’t want it to be real. The only person I had told at school was Jack, and that was because his parents had split up a long time ago and I wanted him to tell me what it was like. He said he’d gotten used to it, and that there were some good things about it, like getting more presents for Christmas and birthdays, and not having to listen to his parents screaming at each other. But Mom and Dad never screamed at each other. They got cross with each other sometimes, that’s all, and it was usually because of something Wills had done that had put them in a bad mood. And I would rather have no presents at all if it meant Mom and Dad staying together.

  Dad pulled up outside a brand-new building.

  “Holy cow,” said Wills, “is this it?”

  “This is it,” said Dad, “at least, the bottom floor of it is it.”

  “You mean we’ve got to share it?”

  “It’s divided into apartments, Wills, and I’ve got the bottom apartment.”

  “Well, you definitely haven’t got a small bottom has he, Chris?” Wills guffawed.

  “You wait till you get to my age,” Dad said huffily. “Come on, out you get, I thought you needed the bathroom.”

  “Ah, but you were never tall, dark, and handsome like me in the first place,” continued Wills.

  We walked up the short path, which was graveled on either side, and Dad typed in a number on a security box by the front door. At the sound of a buzzer we pushed our way into a dark hall-way and Dad turned to the left.

  “Here we are, number two,” he said, turning a key in the lock of a plain white door with an eyehole at head height.

  “That’s what I want to do, number two,” said Wills.

  “Thanks for sharing that with us,” I muttered.

  “First on the right,” said Dad as we went in. “And don’t forget
to flush it.”

  Wills disappeared through the door, slamming it behind him, while Dad led me along the hallway, past two more doors, into a tiny kitchen. He stood there awkwardly while I looked around. It was so clean and tidy, not like our clutter-infested kitchen at home.

  “Drink or anything?” Dad asked.

  “I’m all right, Dad.”

  “It’s a bit small,” he said. “Only two bedrooms. I’m afraid you’ll have to share with Wills.”

  “But—”

  “I’m sorry, Chris. I couldn’t afford anything with three bedrooms.”

  Great. Just great. Share a room with Wills for two nights? I would rather sleep under a railway bridge than in the same room as Wills. Wills doesn’t sleep. Wills rumbles and snorts and scuffles and fidgets, and when he’s not doing that he’s bashing around his room looking for something to do. It’s bad enough sleeping in the room opposite him, let alone in the same room. As if to underline the fact, the bathroom door slammed, and Wills reappeared, still zipping up his fly.

  “That’s better,” he said. “There’s nothing like a good dump.”

  “You’ve been told not to use that expression,” Dad said, “and you haven’t flushed it.”

  “What, the dump?”

  “The toilet,” Dad snapped.

  “Sorry, Dad.” Wills looked anything but, and made no move to go back. “Bit small this place, isn’t it? Which room’s mine?”

  “I’ll show you around when you’ve flushed the toilet,” Dad shouted.

  “All right, keep your hair on.” Wills sniggered, and loped off up the hall.

  “He’s upset with you for going, Dad,” I said quietly.

  “I know he’s upset. I’m upset. We’re all upset.”

  Then you shouldn’t have gone, I wanted to say, but I didn’t. We would just have to put up with Wills at his worst until he calmed down a bit, if he ever did. Two doors slammed and Wills reappeared.

  “Where’s the other bedroom?” he asked.

  “We’re sharing,” I said, “and don’t make a fuss because Dad can’t afford three bedrooms.”

  “I don’t want to sleep with you, your feet smell.”

  “Not as much as yours.”

  “And you snore.”

  “Not as much as you.”

  “Dad will have to sleep with you and I’ll sleep in the other bedroom,” said Wills.

  “You’ll sleep where you’re told. Now, what do you want to do today?” Dad was exasperated and we’d been with him for less than half an hour.

  “I want to eat,” said Wills. “Where’s the grub, Dad?” He opened the fridge. “What are we supposed to eat? There’s nothing in here.”

  “You’ve just had breakfast, and I was planning to shop when I knew what you wanted to eat tonight.”

  “Pizza,” said Wills, “since I missed out the last two times.”

  “That wasn’t Dad’s fault,” I couldn’t help saying.

  “It’s all Dad’s fault,” said Wills. “And now we’ve got to stay in this dump with nothing to eat and nowhere to sleep.”

  “Shut up, Wills, shut up, will you?” I wanted to hit him so hard just to stop him from making things worse all the time.

  “Look, you two, let’s try and make the most of things, shall we? It’s no good going at each other. I wouldn’t have left your mother if I hadn’t felt it would be best for all of us.”

  Poor Dad, trying to bring the volcano and the hurricane under control. “Come on, we’ll go and buy some food, then I’ll take you bowling.”

  “Bowling, yeah, let’s go bowling. And pizzas tonight, eh, Dad?” Wills patted Dad on the back as if they were the best of friends.

  “Provided that’s all right with Chris,” Dad replied, looking at me questioningly.

  I really didn’t care, as long as it meant that Wills was happy, at least for the time being anyway.

  We trooped back out to the car—Wills stealing the front seat again—and drove down to the local supermarket. Wills piled the cart high with chips and cookies and ice cream and chocolate bars and soda—all the things Mom didn’t like him to have because she thought it made his Acts Dumb and Dumber worse—while Dad sneaked some of them back on to the shelves when he wasn’t looking.

  “You’re only here for two days,” he said.

  “I might stay longer,” Wills threatened. I watched Dad’s face drop.

  We took the food back to Dad’s then headed for the bowling alley. We’d been several times before, and Wills was much better than Dad or me. My hands were too small for the adult balls, so I had to use the children’s ones, which Wills always teased me about, and I didn’t have the strength to give it much speed. More often than not, my ball didn’t reach the pins at all before it disappeared down one of the side gutters. Dad wasn’t much better. His own bowling-pin shape stopped him from bending down very far, and he too was more successful at finding the gutters, even though he hurled the ball with all his might, often looking as though he would wind up going with it.

  Wills, with his long thin legs, looked like a wobbly giraffe, but with his big hands he could pick up the heaviest balls and most of the time he managed to hit the pins.

  “Dibs I set it up,” he said, as we reached our lane. He sat down at the computer and began to feed in our names, but within seconds he was up choosing his ball and nagging at me to hurry up and finish it up. He’d put his own name in at the top, and was already taking his turn as I entered my name. With his very first bowl he’d scored a strike.

  “Look at that!” he yelled, and did a mad dance across our lane and next door’s. “Strike first go!”

  “Well done, Wills,” said Dad.

  “You’re so lucky,” I groaned.

  “S’not luck,” said Wills. “That’s pure skill, that is.”

  My own first attempt bounced, then trickled slowly, slowly, into the gutter. Wills did the same mad dance as if he’d scored another strike, then clapped his hands loudly.

  “Well done, bro. Great shooting.”

  “It’s easier for you,” I said. “You’re bigger and stronger than me.”

  “Bigger, stronger, and handsomer,” said Will.

  “And very modest with it,” snorted Dad. “Now, watch the real expert at work.”

  Dad picked up a ball, rocked backward and forward from his heels to his toes, then charged toward the pins, belly wobbling, and stepped over the line before skewing the bowl across the alley and straight into the gutter.

  “Foul, Dad, that was a foul!” yelled Wills. “It wouldn’t have counted if you had scored.”

  “Bit out of practice, that’s all,” puffed Dad.

  Wills scored nine with his next ball, then missed the remaining pin, but his score leaped ahead because of the strike. I managed to clip two pins but missed the remaining eight completely with my second ball. And Dad scored three and four, which he said showed he was improving already and you wait till the second game.

  We were nearly at the end of the first game, with Wills having twice as many points as Dad, and me trailing miserably behind, when two older boys, four lanes away, pointed at Wills and waved. Wills seemed not to notice them until I pointed them out, then he gave a brief wave back.

  “Friends of yours?” asked Dad.

  “Sort of,” replied Wills. “Your turn, Dad. Come on, I’m getting bored.”

  Wills kept glancing over to the two boys after that, I noticed, though he was trying not to let anyone see. He bowled his next two balls straight into the gutter, and began to grumble that he didn’t want to play another game. Dad argued that he had already paid for two games and that he wasn’t going to throw the money away. When the first game was over—Wills winning it despite three bad last turns that rivaled mine—Wills dug his heels in and said that he wasn’t going to play, and that Dad and I would have to play for him. When Wills digs his heels in, it’s difficult to budge him. Dad was furious and neither of us could really be bothered to put much effort into the new game. Dad
had been deprived of the challenge of trying to beat Wills, and I was on my way to another humiliatingly low score. Wills sat watching, unusually quiet, then disappeared in the direction of the toilets. I saw that the two boys were no longer at their lane.

  Wills reappeared a few minutes later, on his own, just as Dad was beginning to mutter that there was something wrong with that boy’s bowels. He sat down next to me while Dad took his go, and he smelled strongly of cigarette smoke.

  “You’ve been smoking,” I hissed at him.

  “Haven’t,” he hissed back. “The toilets are all smoky, that’s all.”

  “You’d better not let Dad smell you,” I warned. Dad would go nuts if he knew that Wills was smoking.

  The two boys, one ginger, one dark, reappeared from the direction of the toilets and walked past the back of our lane. One of them flicked a cigarette butt at me and sniggered when I flinched. When Dad turned around, they said goodbye to him politely. I was angry when Dad smiled and said, “Goodbye, boys,” back, while Wills ignored them, got up, and took my turn.

  We went home for lunch soon afterward, Dad happy that he had at least won one game, Wills crowing that that was only because he hadn’t played, and me wondering how many more secrets I was going to have to keep from Mom and Dad. After lunch we sat and watched football, just as we would at home, except that Dad’s living room was tiny, with only one chair and a small couch in it. Wills tried to take the chair but Dad muscled him out, so Wills and I shared the couch and I missed half the action. Home away from home, except that when we got too loud, someone thumped on the floor upstairs, which wouldn’t have happened at Mom’s because our next-door neighbors would have been watching as well. Mom’s …

  “You’ll have to keep the noise down here, boys,” Dad whispered. “The walls and ceilings are a bit thin.”

  I wanted to argue that it wasn’t me making the noise, but I didn’t, and within minutes Dad and Wills were yelling at the tops of their voices and the thumping on the floor upstairs started again. Didn’t those people realize that you can’t contain a hurricane and a volcano?

  When it was all over, Wills sat on the arm of Dad’s chair to listen to the football results, so I went and sat on the other arm because I didn’t want to be left out. Wills toppled into Dad’s lap, and I toppled on top of Wills, and we fell on to the floor, all three of us, in a heap of tickling and giggling and screaming and punching (but not hard). It felt SO GOOD to let go and be silly and not care. I didn’t want it to stop, but at last Dad begged us to get off. He crawled out from underneath us, pink-faced, sweaty-headed, and puffing, and flopped on to the couch. Wills didn’t want it to stop either and tried to jump on Dad again, but Dad warned him and Wills obeyed. We sat on the floor, trying to catch our breath.