The following day Minnie says she’s moving on from being an actress and has decided to be a singer instead. She’s going to audition for a school band called The Peanut Butter Zombies. She says she doesn’t mind that I didn’t come to see the play yesterday. “Callum was totally rubbish in it anyway. He kept overacting. He couldn’t even die properly. How can you be rubbish at falling over and pretending you’re asleep? It can’t be hard because Dad pretends to be asleep all the time when Mum asks him to do anything. Anyway, I don’t care about Callum any more.” Then Minnie says she’s been keeping a secret from me and she’s been feeling bad about it.
“I know the secret,” I reply. “It’s about the text.”
Minnie looks down at her hands. Her nail polish is chipped. “You knew?” I tell her I guessed because when her mobile phone bleeped I saw a text and I recognized the number straight away. I’d already memorized the number, because it was so important to me. “Why didn’t you say? You could have told Mum and Dad that I was being horrible.” I just shake my head. Minnie goes on to tell me that she saw the poster in Sharkey’s window and knew what I was trying to do, and so when she was at rehearsals with Callum she borrowed his mobile phone when he went to the toilet and texted me, pretending to be Rose and telling me to forget her. “Then I wiped the message from Callum’s phone. He didn’t know anything about it.”
My eyes lock on to Minnie’s.
“I know,” sighs Minnie. “You thought you were texting Rose and when your replies came back I thought Callum was being all secretive and getting texts from a girlfriend. I told you not to text back so I didn’t think you would. Callum wouldn’t even let me see the texts or I would have known it was your number. It was a stupid mix-up. But it was all my fault and I’ve got you a present to make up for it.” Minnie disappears into her bedroom and then comes back clutching a plastic bag.
“I gave you this gift when you were a baby and I’m giving it to you again. I want you to feel safe and I know it’s not the bobble hat, but it’s almost as good.”
I tell Minnie thanks and I look at the bobble hat. “I love it,” I declare, my fingers running over the pompom. “But would you mind if I didn’t wear it? I’ve worn one for years and it’s always made me feel safe, but now I do feel safe. The truth is, I never really needed a safe place because my safe place was already here with my family. I just didn’t realize it and now I do.”
Minnie grins. “Woo-hoo, get you!” Then she says she’s a poet and didn’t know it. A second later her eyes cloud over and she says, “I really am sorry about the text. It was a horrible thing to do. I’m a bad sister.”
I say, “You’re not.”
“I am,” replies Minnie, pushing her fingers through the plastic of the bag. “I’ve been jealous of you for ages. Ever since you got interested in comics and you and Dad were always together. I felt left out and I was angry because he was my dad.” Minnie looks ashamed. “Everything Mum and Dad taught us – that we are all equal and family – went out the window. I felt like you were more special than me and I envied you.”
“Me?” I’m shocked mainly because I was the one who envied Minnie.
“Dad always looked like he had so much fun with you. And he’s not interested in fashion shows and make-up. Those were the things I wanted to talk about.” Minnie shakes her head and then sighs and says that’s no excuse though. “I wished you’d never come here and I kept wishing you’d go away.” There are tears in her eyes as she continues, “Then I saw you that night of the storm and you were in Mum and Dad’s room and I found out you’d discovered your birth certificate, and suddenly instead of wishing you’d leave I wanted you to stay more than anything. I couldn’t imagine being without you. You’re my brother.”
I nod, my eyes watering. “Conjunctivitis,” I whisper, wiping them.
“That’s why I told you to forget your real mother and why I sent you the text. It was selfish but I wanted you to stay and I was scared your real family would be better than ours. I even imagined you’d get a new sister who’d be so much nicer than me.”
“I understand,” I whisper. “But finding my mother was something I had to do. Part of it was because it felt like a piece of me was missing. It’s sort of like when you lose a jigsaw piece and you really want it so you can complete the picture.”
Minnie tilts her head and then disappears to her bedroom again before returning and sitting down. “Open your hand. This is for you.”
Minnie’s palm brushes mine.
In my hand sits a tiny heart, a small jigsaw piece. “I found this under my wardrobe yesterday and it reminded me of that jigsaw I once gave you. It’s yours.”
And in that moment I know my picture is complete.
I’ve got used to knowing my real mother is in Switzerland with Bonbon. I’ve squished her into the tiniest corner of my mind. Of course, I’d be fibbing if I said I never thought about her once in the last month. I have, because it’s impossible to forget that I met her. But every time she pops into my head, I keep thinking she gave birth to me but she wasn’t a mother. Because it’s taken me a while to understand that a real mother is the person who tucks you up in bed, tells you stories, wipes away your tears and your snot, cleans up your sick after you’ve had too many fruit squashes – a real mother is the person who loves you. That wasn’t Rose. My real mother has always been Mum. Mums don’t just carry you in their tummy; they carry you in their hearts for ever.
Mum says a letter from Switzerland turned up at Dad’s work this morning. She told me that Rose must have found out that Dad had a key-cutting business and looked up the address. My heart pounded and my hands were trembling and I knew it was me who told her. Dad wouldn’t have been hard to find as he’s the only key-cutter in Pegasus Park.
“Don’t be worried,” said Mum. “I’m here for you, if you’d like to read it.” She peeled the envelope open and pulled out a letter. There wasn’t a lot of writing on it and Mum’s eyes bobbed from left to right. “Would you like to read it?”
I shook my head.
“Well, I’ll tell you a little bit of it. She says she’s sorry she left so suddenly but they had work commitments. She says she’d prefer it if you didn’t try to contact her, as her husband doesn’t know about her past. I’m sorry, Adam.” Mum folded the letter and didn’t say anything else about its contents, and I didn’t ask.
I pretended I wasn’t bothered. I was so not bothered that I didn’t eat much dinner. I was so not bothered that I didn’t watch TV. And now I’m in my bedroom, still trying to pretend I’m not bothered. There’s a little tap on my bedroom door and Mum comes in carrying a box. “I’m sorry about the letter, poppet. I know you’ve been fretting about it, but like I said before, perhaps it just isn’t the right time for her.” Mum sits on the bed beside me and hands me the box, and when I ask what it’s for, Mum says, “It’s a memory box. It’s a place to store the things that are important to you. Open it and see…”
I lift the lid and inside is my birth certificate, one tiny white bobble hat that Minnie gave me as a baby and a photograph of the family flying a kite when me and Minnie were little. Dad has me on his shoulders. Mum is fussing and making sure I don’t fall, while also trying to hold onto baby Velvet, and Minnie is just sticking her tongue out and holding the kite.
There’s something else in the box – a tiny photo, and Mum says it’s of Granddad Fred.
“And a baby,” I add.
“It’s his grandson,” says Mum.
“They look so happy,” I reply.
“Don’t you know who it is?”
“You said – it’s Granddad Fred. And he’s holding his grandson and, look, his grandson is playing with the watch,” I reply. “Is it Uncle Jon’s son?” Mum turns the photo over and asks me to read the writing on the back.
“A very proud Granddad Fred and his wonderful grandson, Adam.” There are big tears in my eyes and Mum squeezes my hand.
“Put anything you want in there. It’s for memories o
f the past and for new memories you make with us. You can mix all your memories together and what you’ll get is something wonderful. Something that is unique to you. This is your life, Adam. It might feel a bit muddled up, but one thing will always be there in the centre of that muddle and it’s us. Dad says he told you about it not being how you start the race but how you continue that counts. It’s up to you how you do that, but wherever you go and whatever you do, your family will be right there behind you.”
I let the tear fall but it’s not a sad tear.
Another thing that happened recently is the dog. It’s not an invisible dog either and it does bark and it chews the sofa. The dog arrived the day after Minnie gave me the jigsaw piece. There was a knock on the front door and when I opened it there was a dog sitting there and then it trotted inside and I shut the front door and it promptly weed on the floor. Mum wasn’t too impressed and I said I was sorry and that it must belong to one of our neighbours.
Then there was another knock at the front door and I opened it and Dad was standing outside with a big grin on his face. He said he’d knocked the first time but hid to surprise us.
Dad looked down our hallway and said, “He’s arrived,” and Mum said, “He has,” and that if Dad could clean up the wee that would be lovely. Then she handed Dad poo bags and said they were his as well.
It turned out the dog didn’t belong to a neighbour because it was ours. It also turned out that the dog was the surprise that Mum and Dad had been talking about for ages. It was the dog that needed a bed, a blanket and a toy. And it was the dog that needed a space and that they had to make sacrifices for. None of that was anything to do with the jelly bean. And the collar and lead they gave Velvet for her birthday was a clue, but we didn’t pick up on it. Also the slip of paper I found in Mum’s drawer was the number for a dog adoption and rehoming centre, because that’s where the dog was coming from. All that time I was convinced the surprise was a baby and that it was a boy, and I was sort of right, because it was a baby boy dog. I added everything up but got my calculations a bit wrong. Velvet was so happy about the dog that she laughed and cried and then she weed a bit too, but Mum didn’t mind when she blamed it on the dog.
We also said goodbye to Sausage Roll. Velvet said she was sad to let him go but it was the right time. Mum asked if she was sure and Velvet said she was, because Sausage Roll was here to make us happy and he had.
“Ah,” replied Mum, smiling.
“Yes, he found Adam when we lost him.”
Mum broke out into a laugh and said that was right.
“Okay,” said Velvet and she opened the front door and waved goodbye to Sausage Roll. “He was a special dog,” she whispered. Our new dog, which we christened Dog Star, licked Velvet’s hand.
“Yes, he was.” I squeezed Velvet’s hand and she squeezed right back and then I remembered the dog had licked it first and I took my hand away. Meanwhile Mum gave Velvet a biscuit and she forgot all about Sausage Roll.
Mum’s got surgery this week and I’ve tried not to worry but I can’t help myself. This is the time I want to be a superhero most of all. I want to zap the lump with a blaster and I try to imagine killing it. When I say this to Mum she smiles and says thank you for the offer but in this case perhaps it might be wiser for the surgeon to take a look at it. She explained that they’re going to give her a general anaesthetic and then they’ll use a vacuum to suck out the lump. Mum called it a lumpectomy.
“I thought vacuums sucked up things you don’t want,” I said.
Mum smiled and ruffled my hair. “They do and I hope this special vacuum works for me. Once the lump is removed they’ll send it for testing.”
“I’m frightened,” I told Mum, and I was. Think about it. You’ve found your real mother at last and you never want to let her go, but then something as tiny as a jelly-bean-sized lump comes along and threatens to make her sick and it’s scarier than any villain out there. Mum said she was frightened too and it was okay to feel that way – that we shouldn’t deny our feelings or bottle them up, and that getting them out was important. “You can’t leave me,” I whispered and I felt selfish but I couldn’t lose my mum.
Mum wrapped her arms around me and pulled me in close and I could smell sunshine again and she was warm and I felt safe. Mum’s heart was beating and I could feel mine beating in time with hers. Burying my head into her body, I felt stupid for ever thinking the jelly bean was a baby and guilty for ever thinking I was going to need to find a new home. Deep down I think I knew Mum and Dad wouldn’t do that to me, but I was so confused about everything.
Before this I never thought someone I loved could die. I was living inside a big bubble, thinking about the mother I didn’t have instead of the mum I did. Now, I’m sitting with Mum and it’s the night before she goes into hospital and there are so many things I want to say to her and I can’t remember any of them. But somehow it feels like she already knows how I feel, because she reaches her hand out and squeezes mine.
I squeeze back immediately.
We don’t talk for ages. When we do, Mum tells me how proud she is of me. She tells me that she reached out to me once and I gripped her hand and squeezed it. “I needed you just as much as you needed me,” says Mum. I look at Mum and ask her how that’s possible because I was a baby without a mum so surely I needed her most. “You might think that,” replies Mum. “But I needed you too. I knew I wanted a baby and at the time I was having a few problems and it didn’t happen and so we’d planned to adopt. We already had Minnie and we loved her so much our hearts felt like they could explode. When I found you it was like I’d found an angel and I knew I loved you too. Exactly the same way I loved Minnie.” Mum’s eyes fill up with tears and she looks away. “Never think that you owe me anything for finding you, when it’s really the other way around. I owe you for letting me be your mother. You’ve brought me so much joy. It’s immeasurable.”
I squeeze Mum’s hand again.
“It’s just like the joy Granddad Fred brought to your great-grandparents too. That’s what the watch was about – something to symbolize that connection and joy you both have brought to our family.” Mum reaches into her pocket and pulls out Granddad Fred’s watch and I feel my face burn.
“I’m sorry I threw it at you. I was angry. I didn’t mean to throw it away. I love this watch.”
“You didn’t throw it away,” soothes Mum. “We understand that you were hurt and confused, but this watch still belongs to you. You saw the photo. You were holding it. So while I was looking after it for you, I took it to a repair shop in town and got the broken strap fixed and I asked the man there if they could try repairing the watch itself. I said we’d tried before and it was worth giving it another go. But he couldn’t fix it. He showed it to this girl and she smiled and said it was lovely. I told her it was special and she agreed. She said it probably belonged to someone nice and I said it did. Anyway you can still wear it, if you want, but it doesn’t go. Perhaps it never will.”
I put the watch back on my wrist where it belongs. The new strap looks nice but I wish I’d never pulled it off in the first place. I’m never taking it off again.
The next afternoon Mum prepares to go into hospital and her face is as pale as tracing paper. I want to say lots of things to her but all I can do is make a heart with my fingers and Mum makes one back with hers. Minnie gives Mum a kiss on the cheek and Velvet clings on to Mum and Dog Star is licking Mum’s shoes. Minnie’s eyes are red-rimmed and as Mum pulls away Minnie bites her lip. Grandma is here to look after us while Mum is at the hospital, and she gives Mum a hug as she leaves, and then Grandma goes into the kitchen, telling us a cup of tea will help. But we don’t move from the window. Instead we watch the Surelock Homes van drive away with Mum and Dad inside. Rain splatters on the window and it looks like the sky is crying for us. I feel so sick that I nearly fall onto the floor, and it’s Minnie who holds me up by hooking her arm in mine, and then Velvet hooks on too, and we three stand at the window f
or the longest time.
Minnie looks at me and says she has a question that’s been bothering her for ages. “You know that poster you put in the window of Sharkey’s?” I nod. “Why was there a drawing of Mum on it? I never understood that bit, seeing as you were looking for Rose.” I blink. “It was how I imagined my real mother. I closed my eyes and thought about the mother I wanted most in the world and I described her and Tiny Eric drew her for me.”
“Well, it was a drawing of Mum,” says Minnie. She smiles and stares out the window into the distance.
And I realize she is right.
At the time Mum’s supposed to be out of surgery, I look out of my bedroom window far across Pegasus Park and in the distance, on the horizon, I swear I can see a tiny flicker of a rainbow. It disappears after a moment but that doesn’t matter. It’s just enough for me to know that Mum’s okay – that there’s a rainbow after the rain and even if the sky is dark there are still stars.
I touch the window with my fingers and trace a rainbow on the glass.
When Dad gets home he tells us Mum is comfortable and he’ll pick her up in the morning. I tell him we have to fly the wish kite and Dad says it’s a bit late to be going out to make wishes. Minnie and Velvet look at me and ask what the wish kite is.
I tug on Dad’s sleeve as I explain, “You write a wish poem on it and let it float high into the sky, don’t you, Dad? That’s what Granddad Fred told you when you wished for a car.”
“You wished for a car?” Minnie looks at Dad. “You wished for a car and ended up with an old red van. What went wrong?”
Dad laughs. “I wished for a Scalextric and I got one. And no, Minnie, before you wish for the contents of a make-up counter, I don’t think that’ll work. Since there are four of us, we need to combine our wish tonight, if we’re doing it.”
We look at each other and Dad takes Minnie’s hand and Minnie takes mine and I take Velvet’s and Velvet takes Dad’s. Four hearts, I think. Four hearts combining to make one, like a four-leaf clover. Dad gives us a moment to think what we want to wish for and then says we’ll go around the circle and ask each other.
Just Call Me Spaghetti-Hoop Boy Page 19
