I shrug. I don’t care if it’s not working. It still looks like a superhero’s watch and it still belonged to Granddad Fred. That’s good enough for me.
The next morning Minnie scowls at me as I take my seat beside her at the breakfast table. “Look, swamp boy in a grubby bobble hat rises from his pit.” Then she stares down at the sawdust in her cereal bowl.
“It’s organic muesli, in case you’re wondering,” says Mum, passing a carton of almond milk across the table. Minnie looks at it and says milk should come from a cow’s udders and this is a travesty of nature. Gingerly, she brings the spoon to her mouth and sucks up the sloppy liquid. “Remind me why we’re all eating sawdust clippings?” she splutters.
“It’s important for your insides,” says Mum. She pats her belly. “I’ve told you we should be healthy and we’re sticking to it.” Minnie says yes, it’s important for your insides to be healthy if you’re ancient, but when you’re young it’s important to eat burgers oozing with melted cheese and fried onions. I feel my mouth water, but it stops the instant I look in my bowl. Meanwhile, Minnie points and shouts that I’ve got the bonus prize.
“What?” I do a double take.
“You’ve got a raisin,” she exclaims, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Don’t eat it all at once.”
Velvet is saying that Sausage Roll can’t eat muesli because he likes chocolate cereals that turn the milk the colour of poop, and Dad is telling us all to simmer down, as if we’re overexcited boiled eggs in a saucepan. When I glance at Mum she’s staring into her sawdust and she says it’ll make her feel good from the inside and Dad nods. He brings his spoon up to his mouth and nearly chokes but says, “Yum, yum, I can feel all my organs getting happy. Go, organs.”
Mum says she’s not as hungry as she thought. Maybe her organs aren’t as happy as Dad’s. I swear there’s a tiny shimmer of a diamond in the corner of Mum’s eye, but I think it must be conjunctivitis, like Tiny Eric has. When she blinks it’s gone. Mum pushes her bowl away and says she’s going to ring Grandma, and that everyone should finish eating their breakfast and think about getting to school. Dad says he’ll drop us all off. Minnie says she’s going to walk like she usually does, because she’s not going to arrive at school in a van with Surelock Homes painted on the side – she’d rather be dead.
“That could be arranged,” I mutter.
“Oh, I’ve just split my sides,” says Minnie, pretending to laugh.
“That’s because your skirt is too tight,” I reply.
“Dad!” yells Minnie. “Adam is being a complete pain in the…”
“Bum,” says Velvet helpfully. Minnie slaps her forehead and says that’s not the word she was thinking of but good try. Unfortunately she doesn’t slap her forehead hard enough, because she’s still able to whinge on and on. And I’m about to argue back when Dad rises from the table, saying we need to stop fighting because Mum doesn’t need all this hassle at the moment. He pulls open the kitchen drawer and takes out the van keys and asks who wants to come in the best vehicle in the world.
“If there’s a Lamborghini downstairs I will,” says Minnie, getting up. “If it’s an old red van with a key on it, I won’t bother.” She pulls open the cupboard door, grabs a packet of biscuits and starts eating one before spitting it out. “What is this?” She reads the label. “A gluten-free dairy-free fat-free biscuit-free biscuit.” In a huff she puts on her blazer and rushes past Mum, who’s in the hallway on the phone. She kisses Mum on the cheek and slams out the front door, her feet click-clacking down the steps outside.
Meanwhile, Dad’s urging Velvet towards the front door and I follow, saying goodbye to Mum as we head out. When we get to the end of the passage near the concrete steps, I realize I’ve forgotten my front door key. Dad gives me his and tells me to go back and find one. “There’s one in Mum’s drawer if you can’t find yours,” he says.
I use Dad’s key to open the door. Mum’s moved into the living room now and as I hurry down the hall towards her bedroom I hear her saying to Grandma, “I still can’t believe it’s happened to me. It’s the size of a jelly bean and growing.” I feel my breath catch in my throat. “I’ve got a scan soon and I hope it’s all going to be okay. Last time I had scans at the hospital it was with Minnie and Velvet.” There’s silence so Grandma must be talking.
I feel my heart batter against my ribcage. A jelly bean. I think I know what the surprise Mum was talking about with Dad was. They’re having a BABY! There’s this programme about babies being born every minute that Mum loves, and it was on once and mums-to-be were talking about scans and babies being the size of a jelly bean or a pea or a watermelon. That’s what Mum’s saying to Grandma. The baby is the size of a jelly bean and she’s having a scan and it’s like the scans she had with Velvet and Minnie. And Mum’s eating healthily now because she’s having a baby. This explains everything!
Quickly I rush down the hall and open the door to Mum and Dad’s bedroom. I can smell Mum’s perfume and it is warm and comforting, like the scent of baking bread. Making my way to Mum’s side of the bed, I pull open the drawer, knowing I can choose from about ten front door keys. But on top of the keys is a letter that wasn’t there before. It’s from Pegasus Park Hospital, confirming an appointment in a few weeks with a consultant, and it mentions the word scan. I know it’s wrong to read things you’re not supposed to, but my eyeballs aren’t listening (although, to be fair, eyeballs don’t really listen anyway).
As I rummage around, I also see a slip of paper torn from a newspaper. The top left-hand corner is missing, but I can make out most of it, and it’s saying if you want to adopt or rehome then call this number.
It feels like I’ve got a gobstopper lodged in my throat. I stare at the number and my jaw plummets. Weren’t Mum and Dad whispering about our flat being small and that they’d have to make sacrifices? What if they meant they need my bedroom for a nursery? Mum wanted to redecorate my room – what if that was for the baby? What if the sacrifice is that I have to be rehomed? That’s what that piece of paper is about, isn’t it? They’d never ask Minnie and Velvet to be rehomed because they’re not adopted. But I am.
Mum and Dad need my room for the jelly bean. There won’t be any space here for me any more. I’ll be sent somewhere else, probably to a strange new family I’ve never met before.
My legs are more wobbly than a jellyfish on Rollerblades as I take a key from the drawer and close it slowly. The key feels cold in my hot hands and I try to swallow down anger as I stumble towards the door. As I hurry back down the hallway towards the front door, I hear Mum saying, “Yes, it’ll take our minds off everything else. It won’t be long now.”
As I close the front door, I wipe my nose with my blazer cuff and a tiny voice inside my head says, “This changes everything. Information isn’t enough. You’ve got to find your real mother now and you’ve got to find her as soon as possible. Perhaps she’ll give you a home.”
I can’t concentrate on anything at school today. All I can think about is how I need to find my real mother. I can’t live with complete strangers, I’d be scared. But if my real mother could give me a home, at least I’d be with my own family. Then I think about Mum and Dad and how they’ve been keeping this a secret and I’m as angry as a bumblebee trapped in a jar. Mrs Chatterjee keeps saying I’m not listening to her and asking me if I’m on another planet rather than planet Earth. Everyone laughs. When I tell Mrs Chatterjee I am on planet Earth, she says it would be nice if I could stay here until at least three thirty and then I’m welcome to fly to the moon or another planet if I wish.
“Uranus,” says Nish, sniggering.
I don’t even answer him because I’m already back to thinking about how I’m going to find my real mother.
I’m still thinking about it at home time when I spot Dad’s red van outside school. Dad doesn’t usually pick me up after school, but there he is, pulling faces and waving like an eejit from the other side of the road. Something fishy is going on. I
pretend I don’t know him to start with, as some girls from school are going past, but then he waves both arms and rolls down the window and starts shouting, “Hey, Adam, sunshine. Get yourself in Surelock Homes.”
As I hurry across the road and climb into the van, Dad throws me a chocolate bar. “Here you go, champ, get your chops around that. Didn’t you see me waving at you? You’ll be needing glasses if you carry on like that. Right, strap yourself in and let’s whizz off on an adventure. We’re heading to Estermill town. I thought you could do with cheering up, because you had a face like a squashed rubber duck when you got into the van this morning.”
I bite into the chocolate bar. “I was thinking about something,” I mutter, spraying chocolate shrapnel over my knees.
Dad turns the key in the ignition and there’s a funny splutter and we don’t whizz so much as jolt and then trundle down Agamemnon Road. “Thinking is dangerous,” he laughs.
I really want to say I’ve been thinking about the jelly bean and then ask him if it needs my bedroom, but Dad’s too busy driving, eating four fingers of a KitKat at once and then rummaging in his jacket pocket. He stops at a traffic light and pulls out a piece of white card and hands it to me.
“That’s the adventure I was talking about,” says Dad, as the light turns green. We continue, taking a right into Dover Street and then speeding along Carlisle Road. “It’s just you and me on a proper lads’ afternoon out. Now, you don’t have to be so down in the dumps. I’ve cleared all this with Mum. We’ll eat our tea there – I’m thinking chilli hot dogs. Mind you, Mum doesn’t know about those.” Dad takes the first exit at the roundabout. “What goes on at Estermill Comic Con stays at Estermill Comic Con, eh?”
“Dad…” I say, licking some melted chocolate off my fingers. I pause, not sure exactly what I want to say and then I mumble, “What would happen if I didn’t live with you?”
Dad thinks for a second and shakes his head. “Why wouldn’t you live with us?”
“Maybe if you needed space for something,” I reply. Really I mean, If you needed space for someone. I’m trying to talk to Dad about the jelly bean, but it’s harder than the time we talked about the birds and the bees and Mum had to step in because Dad nearly combusted.
Dad says we always need space because the flat is small. “It’s a squeeze, but it’s home, eh?”
That makes me feel worse and all the bravado I had in asking the question disappears like a magician’s assistant behind a “poof” of smoke. I stare out the window and then press my nose against the glass. “What would it be like if I was a superhero like in a comic?”
“It’d be amazing,” replies Dad, flicking the indicator. It clicks until he flicks it back again.
My breath makes a small cotton-wool ball of a cloud on the window. “If I was amazing, would everything be okay?” I lift my head off the glass and press my finger to the cloud and draw a question mark.
Dad grins. “If you were a superhero everything would be more than okay. It would be fantastic! The world would fall at your feet. It doesn’t get better than that.”
“Would Mum like it?”
“I’m sure she would, especially if you could hold up the traffic for her or fly her to the shops.” Dad gives a throaty laugh.
“That’s what I thought,” I say. “Superheroes can live anywhere and still be the best, can’t they? I mean, they don’t have to live in one place. If they had to leave their home and go somewhere else they’d still be excellent.” I can’t help but think about having to leave the flat and, if I do, I want to make sure I’ll still be amazing so I can make everyone happy. Once you start on a mission you can’t just give it up when things get hard.
“Correctomundo,” says Dad, who appears to have no actual grasp of the English language sometimes, but still makes me laugh. “Batman had Wayne Manor and the Batcave underneath. He was excellent in both places.”
Sighing, I tip my head towards the four-leaf clover drawing in my pocket and whisper that things will be okay even if I do have a new home. Dad flicks his head towards me and then back to the road, before asking if I’ve got Tom Thumb in my pocket. I mumble something about talking to myself, which Dad accepts as totally normal. Mind you, that’s not surprising when we’ve got Velvet, who is always talking to herself.
Dad swings the Surelock Homes van into the car park of the warehouse and shuts off the engine. “Here we go, Adam,” says Dad, handing me ten pounds. “Go crazy and spend spend spend. Don’t buy a Porsche, though.”
I’m not sure what world Dad is living in, but in my world the only Porsche ten pounds will buy is one with plastic wheels that comes in a small box.
The Estermill warehouse is four times the size of our school hall and it smells of frying onions – or it could be sweat, because there are a lot of people dressed up in heavy costumes. Straight away, I spot Spider-Man queuing at the hot-dog stand. Batman is talking to Robin in the far right-hand corner and Doctor Who is talking to Dr “Bones” McCoy from Star Trek. Then Dad points out Ariadne, who is half woman, half octopus, and his favourite comic-book character. “Look,” he hisses. “Can you see the tentacles? I’ve got to go over and talk to her and get her autograph.”
“Have you got eight pens?” I mutter.
As Dad wanders off laughing, I head towards a stage where Frosty the Fearless from one of my favourite comics is just standing up from his chair. He’s dressed in a long white cape and his face is covered in silver glitter and his lips are blue. There’s a small crowd gathering as he steps towards the microphone and coughs. “Greetings, earthlings, monsters, aliens, superheroes, chubby guy at the hot-dog stand.” Everyone turns around to see a man dressed as a galactic sumo wrestler shovelling a frankfurter into his mouth in one go. He waves a bread bun at us and mumbles that we should try one.
Frosty the Fearless waves back and gives him a frosty smile. “So, as I was saying, it is a pleasure to welcome you to the fifth annual Estermill Comic Con. What we read in comics gives us hope,” he says, waving his finger in the air. “We can live out our dreams. Thanks to these comics, we can be strong, we can be good, we can be worthy of our chosen superhero name. We can be special, braver than ever, true to our heart; we can find the right pathway and stay on it. Whatever struggle comes our way, we can overcome it. It’s all in those comics. It’s all in us.”
There is a huge round of applause, mainly coming from Ariadne, whose eight tentacles are flapping all over the place. The alien next to me takes off the goldfish bowl he had on his head and lets out a “Phew! Ooh, he’s good,” he says, wiping some sweat from his brow. “He said just what I was thinking.” I nod enthusiastically and the alien continues, “I was just thinking that I needed a hot dog. That chubby guy has the right idea.” And he wanders off.
As I continue watching Frosty the Fearless, I feel a tap on my shoulder. “Look what I’ve got.” Dad has appeared beside me again and he’s holding up a piece of paper that says Ariadne Ariadne Ariadne Ariadne Ariadne Ariadne Ariadne Aria… When I ask Dad what happened to the last one, he shrugs and explains, “She got cramp in her tentacle.” Dad’s grinning and staring at the paper like he’s just found treasure eight times over, mumbling on about how it was worth every penny. Then he says he’s got to get a chilli hot dog before there’s a run on them. He wanders off again, giving me a little salute and saying he’ll bring me one back with extra chilli sauce.
Around me there are stalls and stands full of models, comics and badges, masks and lightsabres and gadgets. Above my head, stars dangle from the ceiling and there are giant planets made from papier mâché. One stand catches my eye and I trot over and rifle through a book about superheroes, before stopping at a page about Ace the Bat-Hound. The guy behind the counter glances over and says that Ace, the German shepherd dog, is the best. “He was an ally of Batman and good at tracking things down and finding missing people,” he says.
“I’m Ace too,” I reply. Misunderstanding, the man says he’s also ace and everyone here at Comic
Con is brilliant as well. “No, it’s my name, my real name. I’m going to make everyone around me happy by being excellent. It’s my mission.” I pass over some money and take the book and the man says I’ve made him very happy by buying it. Then he wishes me luck, and I say I’ve got a four-leaf clover that I’m hoping will help so he doesn’t need to worry. And I think, “I’m going to be as good as the Bat-Hound at tracking down my real mother.”
As I walk towards the hot-dog stand with the book under my arm, I see someone with milky-hot-chocolate coloured hair poking out from underneath a shimmering blue helmet. I swear it’s The Beast from school. But it’s hard to tell and when I look again the blue helmet has disappeared into a crowd of aliens.
Slowly I wander past stalls, picking up comics and flicking through the pages. But I can’t concentrate because all I’m thinking about is how I’m going to be rehomed because of the jelly bean. Earlier Dad acted as if he knew nothing about it and I wanted to ask him lots of questions but the moment passed. Just then, Superman wanders past me and I grab him by the cape. “Please, Superman, sir,” I say. “I’ve got a question.” If you can’t ask your dad questions then Superman is the next best thing, right? Superman stops and looks down at me with his arms folded. His upper arm muscles look like two pork chops. “You know your mother, Lara?”
Superman nods and then I think it was a stupid question.
“What I mean is, you were adopted by the Kent family, right?” I say, bouncing on my toes. “So how did it feel not knowing your mother Lara properly?” Superman raises one eyebrow and says it was hard being adopted but it was the right choice and why am I asking? I reply, “You’re adopted and you’re special and you make the world happy. I’d like to do that. The thing is, I’d also like to track down my real mother. She’s called Rose. I’m going to live with her. It’s because the jelly bean is coming.”
Superman looks confused. “Is the jelly bean an arch villain? Is the jelly bean going to destroy the world?”
Just Call Me Spaghetti-Hoop Boy Page 6
