Just Call Me Spaghetti-Hoop Boy

by Lara Williamson

  Look at me, I’m not a superhero. I’m no one.

  No one wants me. I don’t even want me. I hate who I am, but worse than that, I don’t even know who I am.

  Everyone in my class will be at the school now for the Forest For Ever exhibition. They’ll be chattering like monkeys at feeding time and Mrs Chatterjee will be ticking the list to make sure we’ve all turned up. The Pegasus Park Packet reporter will be there. I pull my arms from my blazer and try to hide inside it, but it’s not my bobble hat. It’s not safe. I wish I’d never given my hat away, because it was my security blanket. Stupidly, I gave it to someone who didn’t even need it and didn’t care about what it meant to me. It was from Minnie and it made me feel like I was part of the family. I was in Minnie’s gang, the Butters’ gang, and I was safe and no one and nothing could ever hurt me again.

  That’s gone now.

  I’m not in anyone’s gang.

  I pull the blazer from my head and wipe my damp cheeks with the corner of my sleeve and then I curl up again like a tiny prawn, my head resting against the wooden floor. There are noises from above me and I can imagine all the families in the flats around me having fun and I want to join in but it seems so far away. There’s a creaking inside the flat and I squeeze my eyes tight. Shh… I tell myself. There are monsters all around.

  When you don’t have your mum, you notice the monsters.

  Outside another siren comes and goes. I gulp the stale air and it’s hard because my chest feels tight, like there’s a rhino sitting on it. At first I take tiny gasps, because I’ve got this – I know how to breathe. It happens without you thinking about it. But now that I am thinking about it, it seems difficult. This time I only take half a breath and sweat begins to build on my upper lip. The next breath is a full one and I feel relieved, but the breath that comes after is a half, and another half breath comes after that, and it feels like I’m sinking down through the floorboards.

  I don’t know how long I’m lying there, but it’s long enough to feel frightened and surrounded by monsters. My eyes are squeezed so tight now I can see tiny floating spaceships behind my lids. As I’m wishing I could evaporate like candyfloss in your mouth or slip through the floorboards, I hear footsteps outside. They come close and then they clatter up the steps to the floor above. I hear a door slam and then a few moments later it slams again.

  My tears are warm and I let them soak into my hair.

  I hear footsteps again. They’re close.

  The front door creaks and then I hear footsteps inside the flat’s hallway and I can barely breathe. The steps are careful, slow, and then they stop. And I stop too – I stop moving, stop breathing, stop everything. It feels like even the world has stopped.

  “Hello,” whispers the tiniest voice.

  It’s a monster and it’s found me. You should never answer a monster. The floorboards creak as I move my elbow.

  “Hello.” The voice dribbles into the room. “Is anyone there?”

  No, there’s no one. I’m no one.

  The voice comes again, soft like a song. “Hello? Adam, are you in here?” It’s Mum and her voice cracks as she whispers, “Oh, Adam, please don’t be lost. I can’t lose you. I found you once, please let me find you again.”

  My heart stops galloping and my muscles relax almost automatically the second I realize it’s her voice. I can’t even see Mum yet but the black blanket of fear is falling off me and I know it’s being replaced by Mum’s blanket of love. The smell of damp begins to disappear and is replaced by the scent of sunshine.

  The footsteps begin to move again. “Adam, if you’re here I want you to know how much I love you.”

  “I love you too,” I whisper.

  I unfurl from the floor and Mum rushes into the room and she sees me in the corner and falls down beside me, and she’s saying she’s so glad she found me and she was worried sick and I shouldn’t have run off like that. She said she tried the flat and when I wasn’t there she panicked until she remembered what Dad said a while ago to her about Mrs Karimloo’s flat being empty.

  Mum can see me so I’m not invisible even if I feel like it. Mum can see me inside and out too. “Why are you here, alone in the dark?” When I don’t answer, Mum continues, “Okay, you don’t have to speak if the words won’t come. Let me talk to you instead, because sometimes it’s time for a mum to speak up.” When she says the word “Mum” the tears spill down my cheeks and Mum uses her thumb to wipe them away.

  “I am your mum, so I’m allowed to say that. You said we’re not your real parents, but where it counts, deep down in here…” Mum’s fingertip moves to her chest where her heart is. “…I know we are.”

  I look up at Mum, maintaining eye contact. “I’m sorry for what I said.”

  Mum tells me there’s nothing to be sorry for. Then she says, “I guessed you might be here because I knew you’d never go far from home, and Dad told me he’d mentioned the key was under a flowerpot to you. Pegasus Park Towers is your home, Adam, even if you don’t think so sometimes.” More tears come as I think about the jelly bean and how my room here will be his and how I envy him because I want my room.

  Mum brings a tissue out of her pocket and hands it to me and I give my nose a big blow. “I thought things weren’t right recently,” she says.

  “What do you mean?” I murmur, winding my school tie around my fingers.

  “You weren’t Adam somehow,” says Mum, “and I couldn’t put my finger on it, but something felt different. I felt like I’d lost my Adam and I wasn’t sure exactly where he’d gone. It was as if you stopped being you and started being someone else – someone distant.”

  I breathe in and scratch the side of my head where all the tears have made my hair damp and my skin tickle. “I wanted to be a superhero.” I pause. “A superhero called Ace. I wanted to make you happy – I wanted to make everyone happy.”

  Mum nods and she doesn’t look surprised. It’s pretty hard to surprise Mum, even if you put cling film over the toilet or a pretend spider in her bed. “I see. How did you find out your name?” I tell Mum I searched for the envelope I wasn’t supposed to look at until I was sixteen. “Ah,” says Mum, but she’s not angry. “It was your envelope, but I just felt it was better for you to see it when you were a little older, that’s all. I wasn’t keeping it from you.”

  “I was called Ace, Mum.”

  “I know.”

  “I thought it was a special name for a special boy.”

  “It is. You are a special boy.”

  “But it’s not.” I grimace. “I’m not.”

  “It’s the name your birth mother gave you. It is special and you are special and don’t let anyone make you think differently.”

  “I wanted to find her and I wanted to be excellent too. Because if I was, everyone would…” The words stutter out: “Be happy.” Mum’s eyes are full of worry and she asks me what happened. “I found her name out from the birth certificate. At first I just wanted the information. Then I saw my name and thought I was destined to do good deeds like a superhero. I wanted to be the best and I wanted to prove it.”

  Mum smiles. “And did you prove it?”

  “I wasn’t all that good at being a superhero. I tried to save a cat and help old people, but it wasn’t as easy as I thought. Then one day I pulled a boy back from stepping out into the road and saved him from getting hit by a car.” Mum’s eyes are wide and her mouth pops open. “Yeah,” I whisper. “I did. And then I found out where my real mother lived.” Lived. I said lived, not lives. I got the tenses right. I swallow. “And I went to tell her I was Ace.”

  I can barely look at Mum now because I can see the glitter in her eyes. She reaches for another tissue in her pocket and blows her nose too. “And what happened then?”

  “The name Ace didn’t mean a thing. It was just a stupid shop where she bought spaghetti hoops.”

  Mum stares out the window into the distance, and it’s obvious she’s thinking, and the glitter is still sparkl
ing in her eyes and her nose is redder than Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’s. “Of course you’re allowed to look for your mother and I want you to know I understand. As a mother myself, I know how important it is and how much you needed to do that.” Mum sighs and I see her chest rise and fall. “I only want what’s best for you and so even if it means me losing a bit of you, losing my Adam, I won’t get in the way of you connecting with your mother.”

  “She didn’t want me,” I whisper. My heart flutters as though it’s full of broken-winged moths. “I thought everyone loved a superhero, but she didn’t love me.”

  “Oh, Adam.” Mum’s voice wraps me in a blanket of softness.

  “She lived in a big house with lots of rooms but there wasn’t even a tiny corner for me. I thought I’d have a home with her. And I was going to take her to my Forest For Ever exhibition that was on tonight at the school. She was going to come. Only she didn’t. She walked away from me, just like she did the first time.”

  Mum jolts and tilts her head to the side. “Hold on. Did you say there was an exhibition at your school?”

  I nod. “I knew it was the same night as Minnie’s play and I wanted my real mother to come and see the family tree I’d done. I wanted her to be proud and take me home with her. I wanted to live with her.”

  Teardrops spill onto Mum’s cheeks and the light from outside catches them like sunlight on raindrops. “Oh, Adam. You wanted your mother to take you home?” Mum wipes the tissue across her face. “You gave her your bobble hat. She was the special person.”

  I nod.

  “Okay,” whispers Mum.

  “But she disappeared to Switzerland and took it with her. Or she threw it away. I don’t know. It’s gone anyway. She didn’t want to give me a home. She didn’t want me at all.”

  Mum looks so sad and she takes my hand in hers and says, “I don’t have any magic words to take away the pain. There’s no real medicine for a sore heart.” She smiles, adding, “Except love, and I’ve got plenty of that.” Mum’s hand squeezes mine. “I’m sorry that you’ve had a hard time finding your mother and I know you’re feeling like you’ve lost her again. But I don’t want you to feel like you’ve got no mother. Mothers come in lots of different shapes and sizes. Sometimes a mother isn’t even the person who gave birth to the child.”

  My shoulders rise up to my head and drop again. “But I wanted her to love me. I wanted it to be perfect, because meeting your mum should be.”

  “Perhaps the time was right for you, but not for her.”

  “Oh, I didn’t think about that. Do you think another time might be the right time? How will I know when that is? Will it be next week, or next month?”

  Mum looks directly into my eyes and says, “That’s a question I can’t answer, but the door isn’t closed for ever. Things change, people grow and people change too. Don’t let the spark inside you go out. Not yet. And in the meantime…” Mum clears her throat. “Would you consider letting me step in and be your mother? I know I’m not the mother you were hoping for right now, but I love you more than you’ll ever know.”

  “Why would you want me?”

  Mum coughs. “What do you mean?”

  “I didn’t think you’d want me. I’ve punched Dad and I’ve run away and I’ve tried to find my real mother and I wanted her to give me a home because I knew I was losing my home with you. Anyway, you’ve got the jelly bean to think about. That’s why I started to take down my comic wallpaper for you. I wanted to help. It’s okay. Don’t worry. I know you can’t fit me and the jelly bean in. I understand. I’m not yours and the jelly bean is.”

  Mum looks confused and she stares at me and asks me why I’m mentioning jelly beans now. “What is this jelly bean thing? You’ll have to explain it to me, because I’m so confused.”

  I clear my throat and try to focus on a spot on the ground so I don’t have to look at Mum. “You’ve got a jelly bean. I heard you mentioning it to Grandma on the phone.” When I glance back up there’s a flicker in Mum’s eyes and she swallows and I see her hands trembling as she pushes her hair behind her ear. “I know ‘jelly bean’ is a name for the size of a baby in your tummy. And I heard you talking to Dad about the sacrifice and the flat being small. So I know I’m going to have to make room for the baby – I know I’m the sacrifice you have to make. I saw an appointment for a scan in your bedside drawer too, and you’d torn out an ad about rehoming me.” I look down again as Mum gives a tiny snort of surprise. “I’m sorry,” I continue. “I know I wasn’t meant to see any of it. I was looking for a key. I didn’t want to spoil the surprise of the new baby, but I knew I’d have to go.”

  Mum’s face is serious and she tells me I mustn’t worry, but I’m already worrying. “You’re right. I have had scans. I’ll explain the rehoming part later, but it’s something completely different and, yes, it’s a surprise. There is going to be an addition to the family, but, Adam, you’re not being rehomed! You’re not leaving the family – you are our family.” Mum squeezes my hand once more and looks directly at me. “And I’m not having a baby.”

  This doesn’t make sense. What about the jelly bean and the conversation and the scans and the surprise? I didn’t imagine any of those things – they really happened.

  “On the phone to Grandma I said it was the size of a jelly bean.” I nod at Mum and she continues, “But I wasn’t talking about a baby, although I know people sometimes call the babies in their tummies jelly beans. This was more like a lump.”

  The word “lump” makes me shiver. It doesn’t sound as good as “jelly bean” did. It sounds painful and worrying and it’s making my heart thunder and my throat dry up. Lump, lump, lump, I tell myself. I don’t like it. I don’t want Mum to have a lump. Now I wish it was a jelly bean. This time I squeeze Mum’s hand.

  Mum tells me not to panic but I ignore her and start panicking. “The lump is in my breast and it’s small but it’s there and growing. That doesn’t mean you need to worry because it’s still early days, and I’ve spotted it quickly and I’ve been to the hospital and they think it might be okay, but it needs removing. They have to check the lump to make sure.”

  “A lump?” My head is spinning around like a washing machine. “You’ve got a lump, not a baby? I got it all wrong!” My mouth spits out, “You’re not going to die, Mum, are you? Please tell me you’re not going to die.” I can’t bear it. I can’t have wasted time chasing my other mother while my mum was ill.

  Mum thinks about the words and then slowly says, “I don’t have any intention of going anywhere without a fight. You see, I’ve got everything to fight for. I’ve got Dad, Minnie, Velvet and you. I’m not planning on dying any time soon. And I’m sorry if I’ve been weepy or moody, but it was a lot to take in.”

  There’s a river coming from my eyes and Mum can’t get tissues out of her pocket fast enough, and she tries to stop it but the river keeps flowing and I’m saying I can’t lose her and she can’t die, and she’s shushing me and saying that she’s doing everything she can to take care of it. She’s promising that she’s in safe hands and that the doctors are looking after her.

  “But I’m frightened, Mum. Everything has changed and it’s scary.”

  “I understand that you’re scared,” soothes Mum. “But sometimes it’s the things we don’t know that are the most frightening. Whereas when we know there’s a problem and we can step up and try to do something about it, that’s not as scary. It’s like I told you – after the rain there’s a rainbow. You might look out the window and think everything looks grey and miserable, but then the sky clears and the rainbow appears and you realize things are better and you’re happy.”

  “I still want that rainbow,” I sniff.

  “There is going to be one,” Mum replies fiercely. “There always is. It’s the same as day following night and the stars appearing in the darkness. The world keeps turning.”

  “I want my bobble hat back now. How am I going to be safe without it?”

  “Bec
ause even without it, you’re part of this family and no matter where you go and what you do, we will be looking out for you.” Mum puts a damp tissue into her pocket. “And, Adam, I’ve never said this before but I want to say it now…I’m grateful to your mother.” Mum sees the shock on my face and puts her finger to my mouth to stop me arguing. “I am, because she gave me the greatest gift I’ve ever had. She gave me you, when I’d been waiting for you all my life. If she was here I would hug her and thank her for giving me the chance to share my life with you.”

  I’ve never considered it like that before, but Mum’s nodding and smiling and saying I’m incredible, that I’m special, that she loves me.

  “But that sounds like a superhero,” I whisper. “And I’m not one. I never was Ace.”

  Mum inhales and pauses before saying, “You don’t have to be a hero to be super, Adam. You just have to be you.” For a moment I can hardly breathe and Mum nods. “Being you is quite enough and there is no need to prove anything, because I love you without any proof. I love you because you’re you. I love you for changing my life and I love you because you’re mine and nothing will change that. You’re my son, Adam, and you’re my heart.”

  What happens next is that the room feels a bit brighter than it did before. It’s as if the darkness isn’t so black, as if the monsters have disappeared, and Mum leans towards me and says that, no matter what happens in the future, we will always have each other. Mum says that I’m stuck with the Butters’ family for ever.

  I whisper, “Mum.” Then I do something I’m not expecting. I reach out my arms and Mum looks at me, a little confused. Then she smiles and reaches right back and she pulls me into the biggest hug of sunshine and I feel my heart beat in time with Mum’s heart. I think of how Mum always says she holds me in her heart and I know that’s where I am now. This is my home and always will be. And we don’t say anything, because sometimes words aren’t necessary. All I know is that I’ve found my real mother and she was here with me all the time.