by David Gilman
“You can’t fight bulldozers, Beanie. Get real,” Rocky said.
I stood there watching everyone go back into school. You can’t get real. It’s not something you can touch or smell. It’s something else. It’s called a figure of speech. But being real is different – that’s being yourself. At least that’s what Dad says. And I know who I am. I’m Jez Matthews, I’m nine years, eleven months and eight days old.
And, as Dad keeps telling me, if you don’t try, you don’t get. He never finishes that sentence – but I think I know what he means. You can’t give up without a fight.
It was sports afternoon, and circumstances meant I was excused. ‘Circumstances’ is a word I never knew much about – I didn’t have to because I never really had any. Circumstances, that is. But now I hear it a lot. Dad gave up his lorry-driving because of circumstances, Mum works shifts at the supermarket because of circumstances and I don’t play football because of circumstances. Thirteen is an unlucky number and there are thirteen letters in that word – and it seems to me that circumstances are never really that good. So on sports day my circumstances allow me to run home and sneak into Dad’s shed.
He’s brilliant at everything. He was a very careful long-distance lorry driver and he’s a well-liked postie who keeps an eye on elderly people when he delivers mail. He might be brilliant at everything he does, but no one’s told him that he’s not so brilliant at DIY. In fact he’s rubbish, that’s the truth. When he tried to decorate the house last year we had more wallpaper left over than the Dead Sea Scrolls, or so Mum said.
And another thing: Dad never throws anything out. You never know when you might need something again, he always tells Mum. Then she insists he puts whatever it is in the shed. Where no one goes except him. And me.
I had to tell the world about Sweet Dreams Sweet Factory and thanks to Dad’s hoarding and all those rolls of wallpaper I had everything I needed. I was going to make a banner big enough to be seen from space, though I doubted that anyone up there in the international space station would be looking down just at the right time.
It took me a while to saw the broom handle in half with Dad’s small handsaw and then tack each end of the wallpaper roll onto the two halves. Then I needed a long corridor to unroll my banner. And Dad’s shed isn’t even big enough to swing a cat in – or so he says – so I took it in the house and unrolled it in the hall. I got marker pen ink on me, the walls and Mum’s beige carpet. She wouldn’t be pleased if she noticed, and it would be hard to miss because where I’d gone over the edge of the paper looked like crows’ feet had walked in ink and staggered up the hall. But once she knew I’d done exactly what Dad had always told me, then I doubted that she’d throw a wobbly.
He’s always said we have to be brave. I don’t know why, because we don’t have rampaging elephants coming down the street, there are no cobras in the garden and the nearest motorway is miles away. As long as you can outrun Peacock’s Feather there’s nothing really to worry about around here. I think maybe he meant school and the other kids. But I’m not sure. He never said. And when I asked him why I had to be brave he didn’t seem too sure, but then said we shouldn’t be scared.
I didn’t know I was.
So, everything was going to plan until I got to the top floor of Sweet Dreams Sweet Factory. Some of the big earth-moving machines were at the back of the building and there was brick dust everywhere. Every time one of the JCBs whacked the building with its mutant-crab-like arm, the whole place shuddered. The stairwells were still okay and luckily the breeze came through all those windows we’d broken and blew fresh air inside, which stopped the dust from choking me. I think my timing was a bit out. I didn’t think my protest was going to save the building.
I got to the edge and climbed out onto the old fire-escape. Then I unfurled the wallpaper roll for the whole world to see. It dangled like a banner from a high-street shop when they have a sale, but my banner didn’t say ‘Everything Must Go 50% Off’; mine said ‘SAVE SWEET DREAMS SWEET FACTOR’.
Sometimes when I write an essay I run out of space on the edge of the page and I have to break the word up and carry on the next line. Well, I ran out of space with my banner. I couldn’t fit the Y in. But I didn’t have another line to go on. So people are either going to think I can’t spell or won’t know what Factor it is we should be trying to save. Some might be bright enough to know I ran out of paper.
I waited an hour but no one turned up to see my protest and it’d gone very quiet. I thought the demolition men had gone home. And the fire escape felt wonky. It creaked and groaned and I noticed it was quite rusty. I thought I might be too heavy for such an old bit of iron. My banner was flapping a bit as the wind picked up and I tried to climb back into the building. But as I put my feet on the railing it came away from the wall. Not much. But enough. It was a gap big enough to fit my lunch box in, between the wall and railing. I got this sudden lurch in my stomach and I caught my breath, because if it came away from the wall any more I was going to have a problem. Like falling.
I must have been really clumsy and left too many clues at home, because I saw Mark and Dad arrive in the car and Mark was already pointing up.
“Jez! Stay there, son! Don’t move!” Dad shouted.
I waved, but the iron fire escape wobbled. I held on and had to grip the railing tighter because my knees were trembling and all of a sudden it seemed a long way down to where Mark stood alone looking up at me.
“You idiot! You absolute moron!” he shouted by way of making me feel better and to disguise his true feelings of concern for me.
Then, all of a sudden, there was a crowd of people and kids, standing on the other side of the fence. Maybe they’d come to offer their support to save the factory. And right over there, coming down Jessup Road, was a police car with its lights flashing. I’m not so sure they were there for crowd control.
Then I went all wobbly. That’s happened before once in a while, but just then was not a good time to faint. I gripped the old iron tighter. My nose was running, but I couldn’t let go to wipe it. Then I found it was bleeding. Dad calls it a Bloody Nuisance Nose – it happens now and again.
Then I saw Dad. He popped his head through a broken window. He smiled and rolled his eyes. He always sees the funny side of things. Dad’s a lot of fun. Sometimes when we’re all out together he embarrasses Mum. There we are walking down the shopping mall and suddenly he jumps in front of us, opens up his big hands and stops us dead in our tracks.
We know what’s coming.
“Jim! Don’t!” Mum warns him.
But he puts on his mad face which cracks us up. Then he starts. “What do we want?”
And Mark and I shout back: “Each other!”
“And when do we want it?” he yells.
“Now!”
And we all give high fives. And then he does it again because Mum looks fit to die but he won’t stop until she joins in.
“What do we want?”
“Each other!” we shout back and even Mum joins in – she has to or he’ll keep on doing this until someone calls security.
“When do we want it?”
“NOW!”
Then Mum’s also laughing.
“You’re certifiable, you are, Jim Matthews,” she tells him.
“Well, I’d have to be, coming to the shops on a Saturday with you lot.”
It’s just one of those moments. It’s called magic.
I think being stuck up there on an old fire escape that was about to fall four stories into broken rubble might have been what Dad meant about being scared. What he never mentioned was the embarrassment of being rescued. I was never really frightened, but it was extremely embarrassing. Dad reached down and grabbed me and put me over his shoulder – like a sack of coal. And when we got down to the ground there was an even bigger crowd. I closed my eyes tight. That was the only way I could stop everyone gawping. The police said something about trespassing, Dad told them I was only a lad and they said somethi
ng about at least no one was hurt. Dad was agreeing and said that he’d take me home.
I didn’t listen to the funny remarks and laughter from the crowd. If you close your eyes tight enough it can affect your hearing.
I think that’s called turning a blind ear.
Of course they took me to the hospital – because of the nose bleed – and this set Mum off because of the whole smelly antiseptic hospital thing. I think she just got scared. And I got fussed over and everyone clucked and cooed like I was a chicken or a pigeon who’d hurt itself climbing out the nest. There was nothing wrong with me but Mum and Dad hovered outside the examination area whispering to the doctor. People whisper in hospitals with doctors because it’s impolite and embarrassing to let everyone know what’s wrong with you. Dad did his arm-hugging thing with Mum and that seemed to calm her down.
You know how it is when things frighten you and someone hugs you and says, “There there, it’ll be all right pet,” or “chuck,” or “sweetheart…” they might even use your name once in a while… well, that’s how it was with Mum.
Anyway, Mum took the rest of the day off to stay home with me. There would be a lot of unhappy customers at Sainsbury’s. Checkout 14 is very popular.
I’d been sick before I went to bed. I think it was the double-thick chocolate sponge pudding with custard that did it (Mum gets a discount) but Mark scoffed more than me and he was all right. But as I drifted off to sleep I was busy scoring the winning goal for Liverpool against Chelsea. Steven Gerrard passed a long curving ball, Gobby Rogers was defending for Chelsea – how did he make the team? – and he was coming at me like a National Express coach on the M6. I could hear the crowd roaring, “Beanie, Beanie, BEANIE!” It was a wave of sound and I was riding it like the Silver Surfer. Gobby Rogers snarled, like he always does, and as I jigged left, he stuck his foot out – that would be a foul and we’d get the penalty. Typical Rogers. Can’t think further than the end of his foot. I didn’t want a penalty. I wasn’t going to take a dive. I tapped the ball with my ankle, it bounced over him and I followed it. Rogers was sliding away into touch and there were no red shirts in the box, only Mr Forsyth, our Head Teacher who for some reason was playing goalie and looked more agile than I’d ever seen him. There were no strikers anywhere. Chelsea players swarmed at me. “Beanie! Beanie!” The crowd roared. It was deafening. I don’t know how I did it but I got through the defenders. It went quiet. Everything slowed down. Just me and Mr Forsyth, who never took his eyes off the ball as he crouched in defence. For some reason I noticed he’d got really knobbly knees.
The muscles in my leg tightened, I balanced my weight with my arms, head over the ball – I mentally thanked Steven Gerrard for showing me how to strike the ball like this. But I couldn’t kick it. Something was holding my leg. Mark’s voice came from the other side of the penalty area. He thought he had a clear shot. He didn’t. But he kept yelling at me. “Jez! Jez! Come on!”
With superhuman effort I kicked the ball. It started off low, gained height and then the fade I’d put into the strike made it curve, ever so slowly, above Mr Forsyth’s outstretched hands. He couldn’t get to it. The glare of the lights blinded me for a few seconds, the faces in the crowd froze, and the ball dropped behind him. It had to be a goal, it had to be…
“JEZ!”
Someone’s switched the floodlights off.
Mark was tugging at my foot. “Wake up,” he whispered. “Come on.”
He pulled me out of bed and I followed him to the window. Maybe I was still asleep. I could hear the crowd still singing the Liverpool FC anthem:
“When you walk through a storm,
Hold your head up high,
And don’t be afraid of the dark.
At the end of the storm,
There’s a golden sky,
And the sweet silver song of a lark…”
But now it sounded like there was only one voice.
Mark pulled the curtain back a bit and put a finger to his lips. We looked down into the back garden. Dad had a can of beer in his hand, and he was singing to the moon, except there wasn’t one. It was raining. Mum always tells us not to hang about in the rain. You can get cold, and that can lead to bronchitis and then pneumonia and then…
“What’s he doing? There wasn’t a match tonight,” I whispered to Mark.
“Shush,” was all he said.
“Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart… and you’ll never walk alone… you’ll… never… walk alone…”
Dad slumped onto the grass. Mum always says you get piles if you sit on wet ground. Then we heard Mrs Tomkinson shout, “Shut that flaming racket up!”
He threw his beer can over the garden fence. It wasn’t very aggressive, because Dad isn’t.
“He’s had a few,” Mark says quietly. I looked at him. He looked worried. We’d never seen Dad like this before.
Then Mum came out. “Oh, Jim. Come on, love, come on.”
Dad looked really sad. I thought he’d got rain in his eyes. She sat and put her arms around him. “Don’t… it’s all right, love. It’ll be all right.”
She hugged him like she hugs us but this was different. Then she gave him a little kiss on his head and held him to her. Like he was a little boy. They both sat in the rain holding each other.
I think Dad misses Michael Owen.
And he knows he’s never coming back.
In a way I’m relieved that the Sweet Dreams Sweet Factory wasn’t a secret germ warfare establishment because I’d probably have bubonic plague by now and that would mean going into hospital again and I’ve been there a lot – and that would upset Mum even more. I am disappointed that she isn’t any kind of secret agent, though she questioned me like I was a spy. Why was I out there? Why was I trying to save the building? What did I think I was doing? Didn’t I know I could get hurt doing that sort of thing? Didn’t I think she had enough to worry about?
She was really upset and kept going on and on, and when she has one of those turns the best thing to do is to just keep quiet. Besides, she asked all those questions without even taking a breath, so I couldn’t have said anything anyway. Though in fairness she never mentioned the stains on the carpet. Mark sat across the table with his eyes screwed up, glaring at me, waiting for me to crack under the pressure and tell everyone that the Sweet Dreams Sweet Factory, soon to provide housing for hundreds of new kids who will start gangs of their own, was our secret headquarters. But I didn’t crack.
You’d have thought that would make me a full gang member, resisting interrogation like that, especially as Mum had tears in her eyes. Skimp and Rocky thought I was awesome, so I didn’t tell them I was really quite scared, there’s no point in destroying people’s illusions. That’s called bursting their bubble.
Mark doesn’t have a bubble.
“You were irresponsible!” he yelled. “If you’d have fallen and got mangled in all the metal then it would have made headlines in the local paper – Mashed-up Boy was Secret Gang Member. And then the whole gang would have been dragged into it and we’d all be grounded for ever because parents always think the worst when they hear the word ‘gang’.”
I could sense another vote coming on. And even though Skimp and Rocky thought I was one step away from joining the X-Men, Mark could convince them to take away my probationary status.
“Beanie did all right,” Rocky said. But I could tell he was just being nice in front of me – after all, he is the gang’s 2IC and second-in-command has to carry some burden of responsibility.
“He was striking a note for freedom,” Skimp added.
“No, he wasn’t,” said Mark, pointing a finger at me while he looked aggressively at Skimp. “He was trying to be a martyr. That’s what he always does. He’s always the centre of attention.”
That was news to me. I thought martyrs were burned at the stake and that Simon Cowell was the centre of attention in our house, though Mum says he should be burned at the stake. I didn’t see any connection with any of t
hat and my protest at Sweet Dreams. Maybe if I’d fallen and got impaled on the old iron railings that would have made me a martyr and everyone would have rallied around and saved the old place. Then it occurred to me, out of nowhere, just a burst of light in my head, that Mark, who got new trainers for his birthday, had really wanted my Number 8 shirt.
“You can have my shirt if you want.”
“What?”
“I said…”
“Put your coat back on! Mum’ll kill me if you catch cold. I don’t want your stupid shirt. That’s got nothing to do with anything.”
“I’ll have it, Beanie,” Rocky said.
“No, you won’t!” Mark said, stepping between us. “Our dad got him that and it cost an arm and a leg. Jez! Put-your-coat-on! Do as you’re told.”
For some reason everyone was upset that day.
“I was only trying to save our headquarters,” I told him. “I thought that if I did that I could be a fully paid-up member of the gang.”
Skimp and Rocky looked away as if they didn’t know what to say. Skimp opened his mouth but Mark glared at him – and Skimp closed it again. Maybe he was just yawning. Hanging about for hours on end can be pretty tiring.
Mark looked at me. “I’m sorry, Jez, you’d better go home. I can’t risk you doing another stupid stunt and getting hurt. Mum and Dad would give me too much grief,” he said, putting his hand on my shoulder, like he was saying goodbye for ever. “And besides you can’t keep up.”
“I’ll try harder.” I was getting a horrible feeling in my stomach. I think it’s called desperation. I didn’t want to be left out of the gang.
“He could go up front,” Rocky suggested. “That’s what they do on army patrols. Slowest man sets the pace.”
Mark might be my brother but I think Skimp and Rocky are the only friends I have, and Pete-the-Feet, of course, who was running like a greyhound after a rabbit. He’s like that. Ultra. Greased lightning, though in truth lightning can’t be greased, that’s fairly obvious, it would never be able to stay up there and grip the clouds, would it? We’d have lightning falling out the sky like icicles all the time.
