Flyaway

by Lucy Christopher

  He leans in to whisper. ‘Because people aren't birds.’

  I pull away and smile. ‘Yeah, I worked that out already, thanks.’

  ‘No.’ He grabs my arm. ‘That's the problem. For one of da Vinci's designs to work, the person operating it would need the same muscle power and coordination that a bird would have. But of course, we don't.’

  I keep smiling. ‘Because birds are too amazing, right?’

  He smiles with me. ‘Sort of. But they've also got hollow bones and huge hearts and more muscles on their bodies than we could ever imagine.’ His mouth twitches at the edge as he thinks of something. ‘You know,’ he begins. ‘There's something in Granddad's barn that could be useful for you. You might think it's a bit yuck, but it's been there ever since Granddad moved in. I think it came with the house.’

  ‘What is it?’

  Dad hesitates. ‘Maybe you remember it from when you were young, you might not like it.’ He looks up from the feathers, his mouth stretching into a yawn. ‘Your nan used to call him old Swanson. Ask Granddad to show you.’

  When his eyes start to close, I move his cup of water nearer to him. He murmurs to me as he's slipping into sleep.

  ‘Swans are amazing though,’ he whispers. ‘Pretty magical.’

  I grab his hand again, thinking he's going to waffle off facts about whooper swans for the fifty billionth time. But he doesn't. His eyes flicker open and he gazes at the sky.

  ‘Some say swans’ wings catch souls,’ he says.

  I grasp his hand a little tighter. ‘What are you talking about?’

  He wakes up a little then. ‘It's a myth,’ he says, nestling into his pillows. ‘Some people used to think that if you were dying when a swan was flying overhead, the swan would catch your soul in its wings and take it up to heaven . . . singing a swan song as it went . . .’

  His words drift away and I try to get him to wake up.

  ‘What do you mean swan song?’ I ask. I don't like where this conversation is going or what it seems like Dad is thinking about. His eyes start closing again.

  ‘It's the final song,’ he murmurs. ‘The last thing a dying person is meant to hear . . . not moans of pain, but singing . . . the most beautiful song ever sung.’

  His fingers relax in mine and he sleeps. I think about the swans flying overhead when Dad fell down in the field. Perhaps Dad was meant to die that day, and the swans that were circling were meant to catch his soul. I swallow down the sudden tightness in my throat, listen to the soft beeping coming from the machine beside his bed. His electric heartbeat.

  ‘You soul's not going anywhere,’ I whisper to him.

  When his breathing starts to get heavier, I take my hand carefully out of his and go out to find Mum.

  CHAPTER 30

  Mum and Jack are sitting on the plastic fold-down chairs, talking.

  ‘When are we going to Granddad's next?’ I ask as I join them, still wondering what Dad meant by ‘old Swanson’.

  Mum turns to me. ‘We were actually thinking about going there now. He should know how your dad is.’

  Jack stands, letting the chair bang. ‘But we're getting takeaway first,’ he says. ‘There's no way I'm eating his food again. I swear that broccoli had mould on it.’

  Mum doesn't smile, which is odd. Normally she'd laugh about Granddad's cooking.

  ‘Is something up with Dad?’ I ask.

  She hesitates before shaking her head. ‘There's nothing new,’ she replies. ‘It's just this operation he's got to have, it's pretty serious. I've been talking to Dad's surgeon and . . .’

  She swallows quickly.

  ‘What?’ I say.

  ‘It seems there's no guarantee that Dad will survive it.’

  It feels like someone's kicked me in the stomach. I'm suddenly gasping for air. Mum reaches out to me.

  ‘Hey,’ she murmurs. ‘Dad's strong and fit, you know that. I'm probably just worrying too much. I shouldn't have even told you.’

  Her eyes are digging into mine as if urging me to stop panicking. But it's hard when I can see the fear in her eyes, too. Mum tries to smile it away.

  ‘He'll be OK, Isla,’ she says. ‘He's got a great chance, even the surgeon said. So we shouldn't be worried either. I thought we'd go and tell Granddad anyway, though, it might prompt him to visit.’

  I look up at Jack, but already he's jiggling his legs, just wanting to move. I walk to the car in a daze. Suddenly I don't want to go to Granddad's. I want to stay in that hospital room with Dad and never have to leave. I fling myself onto the back seat, not even bothering with a seat belt. Mum doesn't notice, she just sighs loudly as it starts raining again. I watch the drips slide down the window, almost as if they are racing each other. Somehow it seems right that it's raining now. None of us talk. Jack stares straight ahead through the windscreen, and the flashes of car lights in front reflect on his skin.

  There is a small strip of tatty-looking shops before Granddad's house, and we've never stopped there before. The only takeaway is Indian.

  ‘Granddad will just have to lump it,’ Mum says, catching Jack's look. We all know that Granddad doesn't eat takeaways, apart from fish and chips.

  Mum and Jack go in, but I stay in the car. I turn onto my back and listen to the rain drumming on the roof. Outside I can hear kids squealing as they jump in the puddles. There's a man's voice too, telling the kids to come inside. Dad would never have done that. When we were younger, Dad was always outside, jumping in the puddles with us.

  When Mum and Jack return, they bring smells of garlic and fish and damp clothes.

  ‘We got you daal,’ Jack says. He chucks a bag of poppadoms at me and I sit up to catch them. ‘But if Granddad doesn't like his curry, you'll have to swap.’

  ‘He's got cod curry and chips,’ Mum explains. ‘Thought that might be close enough.’

  The rain gets heavier. Someone gathers up the puddlejumping kids and ushers them into a newsagent's. Jack reaches down to one of the plastic bags at his feet and tears off a bit of naan bread. He offers me some, but I can't eat. I'm thinking too much about Dad lying in his hospital bed, imagining him being wheeled away to his operation in a few days’ time . . . imagining him not coming back. Mum rubs the sides of her forehead in slow, circular movements. It's what she always does before she gets a headache.

  As we pull back onto the ring road, Jack turns on the radio. It's tuned into Mum's talky station. A man with a deep, boring voice is talking about bird flu.

  ‘The illness has already killed thirty-five people in India,’ he's saying. ‘Experts warn of it spreading to epidemic proportions.’

  I try to block it out. I'm sure this is the last thing any of us want to listen to. But for some reason, Jack doesn't change it. He just drums his fingers against the window. When the man starts talking about a suspected new outbreak in Bangladesh, Mum pushes the windscreen wipers to a faster speed. Jack reaches back to grab a poppadom.

  ‘Why didn't you see Dad yesterday?’ he asks.

  Mum flashes him a warning look. I don't answer him. I feel bad enough as it is about missing Dad, I don't need him to make me feel worse. But Jack doesn't give up.

  ‘Were you seeing that boy again?’ There's something nasty about the way he says it. I can hear his anger.

  ‘Well, you were playing football,’ I mutter.

  Jack's eyes narrow. His mouth goes tight, and I can see him thinking of something to get at me further.

  ‘Is he your boyfriend?’ he taunts.

  ‘Don't be stupid.’

  I grab the bag of poppadoms and chuck them at his face. They smack hard against his chin. He won't give up now. He picks off a bit of poppadom from his chest and leans over the seat.

  ‘So you chose to see some sick boy over visiting Dad?’

  ‘I didn't mean to!’

  I launch myself at Jack, try to punch him over the headrest. I thump my fists into his shoulder and kick the back of his seat. As Jack turns to grab my arms, the poppadoms go flying t
owards the dash. Mum lashes out at Jack, tries to stop him.

  ‘Enough!’ she yells.

  Jack stops, lets go of me.

  ‘You're such an idiot,’ I hiss, rubbing my skin.

  I wait for Mum to tell him off. I look at her when she doesn't. Normally when Jack and I kick off, she's the first to react. She can shout louder than everyone in the family put together. But not tonight. Tonight she's like a robot, staring straight ahead and blocking us out. Jack follows my gaze and notices her expression too. He turns back to the front slowly, and shuts up.

  Mum turns up the volume on the radio. I press one ear against the cold window, but I can still hear every word. The man is interviewing someone about how bird flu killed her husband. They cut to the sound of swans honking. I think they're a flock of whoopers. There's the sound of a gun going off. Another swan honking. The flap of wings. I don't want to listen. I want to open my window and let the words and noises escape, but it's still raining outside. I'm about to lean forward to turn the radio down myself when I notice Mum's face.

  It's all crumpled looking. And there are tears on her cheeks. I freeze, just watching. I don't know whether Mum's upset about Dad, or the news report, or about Jack and me fighting. I almost lean forward and grab her hand, but she seems so separate from us, almost as if she's driving in a different car. I glare at the back of Jack's head, wanting him to say something. He's the older brother after all. But none of us do. We drive the rest of the way to Granddad's in silence.

  CHAPTER 31

  Granddad picks out bits of fish and wipes the curry sauce off them. He smells each forkful before he puts it into his mouth.

  ‘Do you want the rest of mine?’ I say, pushing my plate towards him.

  His forehead only wrinkles in annoyance. Mum waits until we're all quiet.

  ‘Graham's going in for a valve transplant,’ she says. ‘It's pretty serious.’

  Granddad's eyes flick across to me and then Jack. He chews carefully on the fish.

  ‘Aren't you worried?’ Mum asks eventually, her voice harder-sounding than usual. ‘About your son?’

  Granddad swallows his mouthful, runs his tongue over his teeth. ‘I'm sure he'll pull through, he's a tough lad.’

  ‘Maybe so,’ she says quietly. ‘But he'd appreciate a visit.’

  Granddad's face goes red then. For a moment I'm worried he's going to choke. He even starts to cough a little.

  ‘I don't like hospitals,’ he says.

  He's been saying that a lot lately. Mum's not impressed, though. She clatters her knife and fork onto her plate and glares at him.

  ‘You know,’ she starts. ‘Beth's illness was serious, Martin. It wasn't the hospital's fault.’

  Jack exchanges a look with me, and I know what he's thinking. No one mentions Nan in front of Granddad any more, we all know how upset he gets. But Mum doesn't wait for him to react, she just grabs his plate and storms into the kitchen. He blinks at us, his jaw pulsing at the sides.

  Mum scrapes the rest of Granddad's meal into the bin then starts to do the washing-up really loudly. Glasses and plates clink together as she thumps them all onto the drying rack. Jack leans backwards on his chair.

  ‘Want a hand?’ he calls out to her.

  He just wants to get away, like I do. But Mum doesn't answer. Jack slowly pulls his chair back from the table and goes over to the TV. He channel-surfs. Granddad feeds the rest of the poppadoms to Dig. He doesn't look at any of us, but I see the poppadoms shake as he holds them out.

  Jack settles on some American sitcom, where there are beautiful girls and guys arguing in a restaurant. It's exactly what Granddad wouldn't want. He flinches when the canned laughter comes on. What makes it worse is that Jack starts to laugh too, at all the really unfunny bits. It's not Jack's normal laugh; I think he's forcing himself to enjoy it. Granddad grips the table so tightly his knuckles go white. He's so tense now that he's starting to look unwell. I lean towards him, try to get his attention.

  ‘Dad said there was some stuff in your barn,’ I say cautiously. ‘Things that might be useful for a school project I'm doing. He said something about Old Swanson?’

  Granddad looks over at me, his face still red. ‘Did he?’ He keeps frowning. ‘Beth found Swanson,’ he says. ‘In the back of the barn when we moved in.’

  I shut up then. The last thing I wanted to do was bring up Nan again. Granddad scrapes his chair back.

  ‘You're welcome to it, though,’ he mutters, walking away from me. ‘I suppose it's all just a pile of old rubbish now.’

  He flicks a glare at Mum in the kitchen and heads towards his conservatory. He shuts the door behind him and stands in the dark. I sit by myself at the table, listening to all the unfunny lines from the telly. Then I grab my coat from the back of my chair. I shut the back door behind me and lean against it. I take a deep breath of the cold air, then walk carefully down to the barn. It's got dark since we arrived, and the only light to see by is the moon. I draw back the cold, rusty bolt that fastens the large metal doors. It's even darker inside. There could be anything, or anyone, hiding in the blackness. I run my hand along the wall, my fingers scraping on rough wood, and find the light switch.

  The barn is suddenly huge. I'd forgotten how big it is. There is still a row of stables to one side that used to be part of Granddad's vet practice, but instead of horses inside, there's a couple of old, rusty bikes leaning up in them now. The rest of the barn is jammed with crates and furniture and old farm equipment. Lopsided heaps of magazines and books. Sagging boxes. Stuff Granddad no longer wants. Dirt and memories. I have no idea where to start looking. Nothing seems to have anything to do with birds or flying machines. I almost give up. But I don't want to go back to the house yet, either.

  I pick a path through the debris and find a box labelled ‘Graham's School Books and Photographs’. I don't recognise the handwriting so it must be Nan who wrote it. I trace my fingertips over her letters, and try to remember her. She was smiley and energetic, like Dad, and she'd always greet us at the door with the smell of something cooking in the kitchen. It was always fun, coming here, there was always so much to do. Dad used to drive us over all the time. Before Dad, it was Nan who used to tell me about the swans. I suppose I miss her, just like Granddad does, although my memory of her is patchy and blurred.

  I can remember how she died, though. She had something wrong with her heart. Like Dad. She went into hospital for an operation and got some sort of virus. She never came out. When Dad got the phone call from the hospital, he turned pale and clung onto the receiver for ages.

  I lift the lid of the box and look at the loose photographs inside. There is a picture of Nan in a flowery dress, and a picture of a younger and taller Granddad standing next to a horse. There are pictures of Dad, too. One photograph is so crinkled and thin, it could almost be a piece of exercise paper. Dad looks really young in that photo, but he's got the same brownish-blondish hair that he still has now and there are a pair of binoculars around his neck. There's a hand on his shoulder, belonging to someone just out of shot. Granddad maybe. Dad's smiling as if he's having the best day of his life.

  I walk on. Further down the barn is a dusty steel operating table and a skeleton of a horse. I touch its cool, dry bones. I flip through a couple of posters about animal body parts.

  Then I see it. It has to be what Dad meant. It has to be Old Swanson.

  I walk towards it. Its eyes stare back at me, unblinking. I crouch down and touch its glass cabinet, wipe away some of the dust. I can remember this now; it used to give me nightmares when I was young. I used to dream of it coming alive and chasing after me through the barn.

  It's only stuffed. I can still remember Nan's voice, too, as she explained it to me. She'd laughed and cradled me to her. This bird's not going to be chasing anyone, that I can promise you. She'd placed it back into the shadows of the barn. Silly old, useless thing, she'd murmured.

  It looks different to how I remember it, less scary somehow . . . m
ore like something you'd find in a museum. I trace the outline of its wings on the glass. I can tell by its large black beak that it's a male mute swan. Its wings are outstretched and pinned to the back of the cabinet, mid wingbeat. They're huge, beautiful. Its glass eyes aren't creepy in the way l remember. They just look lifeless and sad. Nothing like the intense eyes of the lone grey whooper at the lake.

  I wonder how I could use this for my project. I almost laugh.

  ‘I wasn't going to make a life-size model, Dad,’ I murmur.

  But looking at these wings now, perhaps I could. Perhaps I could attach some wooden planks to the bird's body and make a kind of hang-glider with wings. It's a bit odd, but it might look like those da Vinci sketches, and Mrs Diver would love it.

  The cabinet screeches as I drag it along the floor. I rest it against the edge of the old operating table, underneath an electric light. Then my head turns as I hear Mum yelling for me. She's outside, on the path to the barn. I hear her quick footsteps near the door. I stand up, waiting for her. She blinks as she steps inside, looks confused until she finds me.

  ‘Come on, it's time to go,’ she calls over.

  So I give up on the stuffed swan. For now at least.

  CHAPTER 32

  I dream of wings that night; huge, powerful white wings. I dream they flap all around me, hundreds of them, beating around my head and body. Touching my skin and clothes, growing out from my back. They beat so fast that a cyclone whirrs up around me. My hair fans backwards. I shut my eyes against the wind and the cold. And I spin off into the night, held up by all those feathers.

  CHAPTER 33

  The first thing I see is Harry's shirt. I've left it on the back of my chair, ready to return to him. I get up and hunt around for one of my ordinary school shirts, but I've used them all. They're sitting in the clothes basket downstairs. Doing the washing was always Dad's job. Since he's not been in the house, none of us have even been near the washing machine.

  I pull Harry's shirt off the chair. Can I get away with it? I thread my arms through its sleeves, tuck it deep into my trousers. I don't have anything else. I hang my school tie loosely around my neck. Cover it all with my spare school jumper. I have to wear my muddy trousers from the other night.