I feel Mum’s gaze on me but I don’t look at her and then she bustles around the table, cutting large slices of cake and asking Dad if he wants a big slab.
Do footballers dribble?
Do woods have trees?
Do superheroes wear their pants over their trousers?
Dad’s already shovelling in the cake and he looks at Mum, his mouth full of crumbs and his eyes full of sadness.
“Beetroot cake,” says Mum brightly. “I knew you’d all love it.” Now, I’m no Isaac Newton, but anyone with half a brain knows that cake and beetroot should never be mixed.
Mum whizzes past us and out of the kitchen, before returning with a present wrapped in blue paper with a big blue bow on top. Right now, Velvet’s eyes resemble those of a pop-eyed squid and she reaches out her hands.
If there was a page in the Guinness World Records for the child who could rip off wrapping paper in the fastest time, Velvet’s picture would be there. There’s already a small pyramid of scrunched-up blue paper by her feet and she’s mouthing “Yay!” In her hands she’s holding a pale blue collar and lead, and a rubber dog biscuit. Mum and Dad get a big hug and Velvet says Sausage Roll is going to love his collar. Then she squeaks the dog biscuit until Dad picks up a comic and says he’s just got to go to the toilet and read it and he might be some time. Mum says it’s only a comic, not War and Peace.
Velvet asks Minnie if she’s got a present for Sausage Roll. For the first time ever, Minnie actually goes pale under her fake tan. “Are you serious?” says Minnie. Clearly Velvet is, because she nods and her mouth is set in a firm little line of determination. Apparently, Sausage Roll is one of the family, and you always buy presents for family.
Minnie disappears to her bedroom and returns with a pale pink nail polish, saying it’s the best she’s got. “It’s called Sea Shells and it dries in sixty seconds to a mirror shine.”
Velvet taps her finger against her lip. “It’s not really his colour.”
“Good, I’ll keep it then,” says Minnie, taking it back and zeroing in on me. “Where’s your present, Adam? Surely you didn’t forget to get Sausage Roll a present?”
Oh, for the love of all things comic book, I did forget. For a millisecond I think of giving Sausage Roll the drawing of the four-leaf clover, but then I figure, how much good luck does an invisible dog need? But then what do you give an invisible dog? I mean, does he need an invisible five-star kennel or a tower of invisible doggy biscuits? That’s when the idea comes to me. I’ll quickly draw a doggy treat and say it’s for good luck. That’s what Tiny Eric might suggest. Anyway, doggy treats are just circles and I can manage one of those. Racing to my bedroom and coming back with a sheet of paper, I hand it to Velvet.
“It’s not much…” I say, giving a half-shrug.
Velvet hugs me and says it’s the best present Sausage Roll’s ever had. I’m about to say thank you when she holds up the blank side of the paper, and says it’s a portrait of Sausage Roll. I don’t have the heart to tell her I’ve drawn a lucky dog treat on the back, especially when she’s so happy looking at the blank side. After that I offer to do a portrait of Sausage Roll’s family and I hand Velvet another sheet of empty paper, but she asks why it’s blank. When I remind her that it’s Sausage Roll’s family, Velvet says I’m stupid because we’re his family and I haven’t drawn us. Sometimes it’s better not to try to get inside a six-year-old’s head.
Later, when Mum has cleared the kitchen table and put the uneaten cake in the fridge, she asks me to sit down beside her. There’s a big bark from the living room. That’s Velvet pretending to be Sausage Roll. Then there’s a squeak from the rubber dog biscuit. “Birthdays are strange days, aren’t they?” Mum gives a tiny half-smile and shuffles some crumbs to the edge of the table before catching them in her hand and throwing them in the bin.
“Definitely if it’s a dog’s birthday,” I mumble.
Shaking her head, Mum replies, “That’s not what I meant. Birthdays can be…”
There’s another distant squeak from the rubber biscuit.
“Funny,” adds Mum. “Sometimes they’re happy and sometimes they can feel a little sad. It happens at New Year for me too. What I’m trying to say is…I thought you looked a little sad when Velvet was blowing out the candles.” It seems Mum has her own superpower. She’s like a human sticking plaster, knowing you’re hurting and trying to make it feel better.
There’s something in my eye. To be honest, I think it might be tears, so I have to blink furiously to make them disappear back inside before they make a break for freedom.
“We’ve been meaning to give you a little gift,” says Mum as my finger does a sneaky sweep under my eyes. “We’ve had it for ages but the time wasn’t right till now. Anyway, Dad and I both agree that you should have this.” At first I think it’s the envelope and I feel sick that Mum might have discovered I’ve already opened it. But it isn’t, because Mum sets a blue box on the table in front of me. “Now, before you get too excited, it’s old and it’s broken.”
Mum’s really building this up.
I’m in a frenzy of mild interest.
Opening the box, I see a watch with a frayed and worn leather strap. The face is gold but there are tiny gaps where you can see the internal cogs and they’re not moving. Mum says it might have been wound up too tightly. “I know it doesn’t work but it’s still special because it used to be Granddad Fred’s. We thought you could keep it. We tried to get it mended years ago and it wouldn’t go, but we still wanted you to have it. Perhaps we could try and get it mended again for you.”
I take the watch in my hand and the strap feels buttery soft to the touch and I peer into the cogs and give it a tiny shake before placing it on my wrist.
“You don’t have to wear it,” insists Mum.
“I like it,” I reply, deciding the inside cogs make it look like a gadget a superhero might have. “I will wear it.” I twist my wrist this way and that, hoping the watch will start, but it doesn’t.
“Granddad Fred would be happy for you to have it. He was special, just like you are. We thought it would remind you of your family.”
I thank Mum and say it’s a lovely gift and she squeezes my arm and tells me I deserve it. “Is this the surprise we’re not supposed to know about?” I look up at Mum and her face is blank and she asks me what surprise I’m talking about. I don’t get this at all. My whole family is bananas sometimes. There has to be a surprise, because they talked about it. I didn’t make a mistake. But both Mum and Dad are acting like there isn’t one.
The thing is, I can tell Mum’s hiding something because her cheeks go red and she rises from the table and starts wiping the kitchen counter, even though she just did it a few minutes earlier. I ask Mum if she’s okay and she stops but doesn’t look at me. She says she’s fine and that everything is fine. But when a grown-up says things are fine, it usually means they aren’t. So I say, “I’m going to be excellent, Mum.”
“You are excellent,” replies Mum, turning around.
“But if I could be even better,” I explain, “you’d always be smiling.”
“You don’t need to be better, because I’m already smiling,” says Mum, giving me her biggest grin. But somehow it doesn’t reach her eyes and it makes me feel sad and even more determined to be excellent in the future.
Five minutes later, when I’m in SPAM HQ and lying on the bed, there’s a small rat-a-tat-tat at the door. “What’s the password?” I mumble.
“Is it ‘I like pink fluffy unicorns sliding down rainbows’?”
“Um…no.”
“Is it ‘I like dancing around wearing a tutu because I am a fairy’?”
“No way is it that one.”
“Is it ‘I like pink glittery cupcakes and strawberry milk and floppy hair bows and painting my nails pink’? Is it ‘I like picking my nose and eating—’”
“Nope.”
“Is it—”
“No, no, no. Just come in, Velvet,”
I offer, since she’s never going to guess the real password, which is “Kryptonite kills”. Velvet swings open the door, still in her tutu, with the blue bow that was on Sausage Roll’s present on her head. She dances into my room, touching things with a long silver wand with a star on its tip. She says she’s bringing magic with her and I say I’m not one hundred per cent sure about magic and Velvet stops, wounded.
“Is that why you have a sad ugly face at the moment that looks like it might cry? Because you don’t believe in magic?”
“No,” I reply, pulling an even uglier face. “You’ve got a way with words.”
“Oh, I know. My teacher says I could get a gold star for talking,” says Velvet proudly and she comes over and sits down beside me, her tutu fluffing up like a swirl of pink candyfloss. Her legs swing over the edge of my bed and she asks me why I’m sad then. I tell her I’m not and Velvet replies, “Okay, you’re very sad, so you can borrow my best friend, Sausage Roll.” Velvet waves her arms expansively into thin air.
“Um…oh,” I breathe. “’Kay.” It’s easier not to argue.
“Sausage Roll is only staying with us for a bit,” explains Velvet, picking up my teddy bear and playing with the bobble on his hat. “Mum told me he might have to leave us soon, because he’s got other families to go to.”
At this point I am trying to put myself inside a six-year-old’s brain and…nope, I still don’t understand what Velvet’s on about. “Why would he go when he’s happy here?”
Velvet smiles at me and says, “Because Mum told me he likes to make people happy. He’s a special dog. He’s staying here for a while to make us all smile, and then he’s going to leave us.” Velvet shrugs. “Mum says he’s a very busy magic dog, and I might have to prepare for the day when he’ll go. But Mum promises he won’t leave until we’re all happy. She promised me.”
I grin and reach out towards Velvet and grab the wand and bop her on the head with it. “You’re magic,” I say. She drops the bear, jumps up and takes the wand back before reminding me that I’m borrowing Sausage Roll tonight. With a little pirouette, she leaves SPAM HQ and then I hear her shouting to Mum that she’s eaten too many carrots and what if she turns into a rabbit? Mum shouts back that she’s only just got used to the invisible dog and the last thing she needs is a Velvet rabbit in the flat.
Easing myself back on the bed, I fling my arms behind my bobble hat. “So, Sausage Roll, if you’re staying with me tonight,” I whisper, staring up at Batman fluttering gently from the superhero mobile that Dad made me, “can you make everyone, including me, happy like Velvet said? The four-leaf clover isn’t working properly. I think it’s malfunctioning. If you know how to turn me into a superhero and make everything okay, bark.”
There’s silence and it seems like Sausage Roll is as clueless about what I should do as me.
The following morning, Mrs Chatterjee watches as we all drag our feet into the classroom and take our seats. Clearing her throat, she says breezily, “So, the Forest For Ever project – you’ve started building your trees out of cardboard. And I’m impressed that, after a day’s work, a few of you have managed to make the cardboard still look like cardboard rather than trees. I think we could all work on those trees a little more.” Mrs Chatterjee adds, “And then they will be tree-mendous.”
I watch as everyone shakes their heads and groans. Tiny Eric isn’t even listening, because he’s playing with his compass and making tiny holes in his notebook.
“But for today I think we should go back to writing. We need more tags to put on our trees.” There’s another collective groan and Mrs Chatterjee holds up her hand to halt it. “I know how much you all love art but, as I said, it’s writing today. What we’re going to do is write a letter on a tag to someone on your family tree. Now, it could be a close relative or a long-lost relative or your great-great-great-grandmother twice removed. Even if you don’t know them, you could still write a letter telling them what you’ve achieved and asking them questions about their life.”
Tiny Eric has punctured a big hole in his notebook cover and now he’s moved on to the inside page and he’s gently stabbing the paper. Mrs Chatterjee peers over her glasses, her eyes like tiny rabbit droppings in snow, and tells Tiny Eric there’s going to be more holes in his notebook than in a Swiss cheese factory.
Tiny Eric puts down the compass.
“Right, you’ve got half an hour on this task and it doesn’t matter how long or short the letter is but every word should count. Get cracking.” Mrs Chatterjee makes it sound like we’re a load of eggs waiting to be scrambled.
This exercise is hard because I’m supposed to be writing about someone on my tree. I’ve only got one person and that’s my real mother and how can I write a letter to her? What would I say? I think about it for ages before beginning to scribble down my thoughts.
Dear Mum,
Is it strange to call you Mum? I’m not sure because I’ve never said it out loud to anyone before but my mum who I live with. My other mum is called Sinéad and she told me I was adopted. I think about you on special occasions like my birthday and at Christmas. Sometimes I even think about you on Sunday afternoons when it’s raining and I stare out the window. But I’m very happy with my family and I love my mum, even though she seems a bit sad at the moment. I’m trying to make things better by being a superhero. Superheroes are excellent and they make people smile because they do good things and put the world right. I want to do that.
The reason I’m writing this letter is because my teacher, Mrs Chatterjee, told me to. We’re making family trees and, seeing as I know everything about my family at home, I wanted to know more about the other family I have out there. That’s you.
The thing is, when I was ten my sister Minnie gave me a jigsaw puzzle of the Zorbitans, and it had one piece missing. Nine hundred and ninety-nine pieces and one piece missing and that missing piece had a Zorbitan’s heart on it. A Zorbitan’s heart is important. Well, I’m like that jigsaw. Everything is great in my life but there’s a tiny bit missing and I can’t help but notice it.
My teacher said when we write to our family member we should ask questions. So, I’m writing to you and these are mine:
Why did you abandon me?
Why didn’t you come back for me?
Who is my dad?
Why did you call me Ace?
Did you love me?
I’m lost in thought after writing down the last question. Did you love me? echoes inside my head. Outside, shards of sunlight glint on the classroom window and I can see a spiderweb in the top corner and tiny droplets of rain glitter like teardrops on it. In the distance I can make out our tower block with clouds sailing past like white galleons on a never-ending blue sea. The words Did you love me? continue to bubble and melt inside my mind like molten cheese under the grill, and it’s only when Mrs Chatterjee bellows, “Five minutes left,” that I snap my attention back to the room.
Tiny Eric is staring out the window now too, his eyes planted on the horizon. He looks like he’s got two glazed doughnuts for eyeballs. Under his bitten fingernails I can see the tag he’s working on and today he hasn’t drawn a picture. Instead he’s written DAD and underneath in tiny letters he’s written WHY? I know Mrs Chatterjee said it could be short, but that’s ridiculous. How can every word count when he’s only written two? I’ve got no idea what WHY? even stands for, but whatever it is, it has made Tiny Eric’s eyes look all misty.
When I question him about it in the playground, Tiny Eric says he’s got conjunctivitis. “What’s that?” I ask and Tiny Eric says it’s when your eyes go all funny and watery. I tell him I think my mum’s got that too because recently her eyes have been misty a lot. Tiny Eric says he doesn’t think my mum has what he has and then he shrugs. He does that a lot at the moment. He used to be so much fun, but recently he keeps moping about in the playground, and every time I ask him what’s up, all he does is shrug his shoulders. I wish he’d just tell me. Friends aren’t supposed to keep secrets f
rom each other.
Trying to make conversation, I take Granddad Fred’s watch off my wrist and hold it up. I tell him my mum gave it to me last night, and then I pretend to swing it in front of Tiny Eric’s eyes. “Look deep into my eyes,” I mutter. “You will see this watch belonging to my dead grandfather, and when I finish talking you will be hypnotized into telling me all your problems.” I swing the watch back and forward until someone snatches it.
“I could tell you all my problems,” says The Beast, looking at the watch, “but we haven’t got all day. This is nice. The strap is a bit mangy though. That’ll break if you don’t replace it.”
“Who made you an authority on watches?” I blink.
The Beast stares at the tiny internal cogs and tells me that they’re not working. Someone give The Beast a certificate: I HEREBY DECLARE THE BEAST HAS ACHIEVED A GOLD STAR IN STATING THE OBVIOUS.
“My uncle repairs watches and sells batteries and second-hand jewellery. He’s got a shop on Brolly Way, so that’s who made me an authority.” The Beast turns the watch over and says there’s a picture of a heart on the back. I grab the watch and look at the tiny engraving on the reverse. The Beast continues, “My uncle said people used to say watches were like hearts because they tick. That’s probably why it’s been engraved.”
“This one doesn’t tick though,” I reply, putting it back on my wrist. “I think the heart must be broken. Mum said she’d tried to mend it years ago but it couldn’t be fixed. She might try and get it fixed again.”
The Beast snorts. “Maybe it’s got dust or sand or something in it.”
Just Call Me Spaghetti-Hoop Boy Page 5
