The Day I Was Erased

by Lisa Thompson

  The chanting grew louder and louder, and while the teachers tried to calm everyone down I ran off before I was spotted.

  I didn’t want to go home. Mum and Dad might have stopped arguing by now, but as soon as they found out what had happened at school it would all start again. No. I would go to the place where I felt most safe. Reg’s.

  I burst in through his kitchen door.

  “Reg? It’s me. Can I … can I stay here for a bit?”

  Reg appeared in the lounge doorway, a flustered look on his face.

  “What? Who are you?” he said, holding on to the doorframe.

  “It’s me, Reg. Maxwell. You know who I am! I see you nearly every day. You’re just going to have to trust me on that. I can’t … I can’t explain it all again right now…”

  I think he could tell I’d been crying. He stared at me for a bit and then walked into the kitchen.

  “Sit yourself down, young Maxwell. I’ll get us a drink and some biscuits. How about that?”

  I breathed out with relief.

  “Thanks, Reg. That would be lovely,” I said. I went into the lounge and slumped on to the sofa. I was exhausted. I thought of all the chaos I’d left behind at school. There must be hundreds of angry parents arriving now, demanding to know who was to blame for their child being so upset.

  Reg appeared with the biscuits and two glasses of orange squash on a tray. He put them down on the little table and took the lid off the tin, pointing it towards me.

  “Now. Tell me all about yourself and let’s see if you can jog a few memories.”

  I took a ginger biscuit from the tin.

  “I’m Maxwell Beckett. I’m twelve years old and … everybody hates me,” I said.

  Reg took a sip of his orange juice.

  “Well, that’s quite a big thing to say, young Maxwell. Why would everyone hate you?”

  I began to eat the biscuit, taking tiny bites around the edge. My throat still had a huge lump in it and I didn’t really want it but concentrating on each nibble calmed me down.

  “They hate me because I’m … me,” I said.

  “But they can’t hate you for just being you,” he said. He began eating his biscuit in the same way, taking tiny bites around the outside in an ever-decreasing circle.

  “Everybody hates me because … because I’m a loser and I’m always getting into trouble. Everything I do goes wrong. Everything.”

  I could feel Reg staring at me as I carried on.

  “My best friend hates me … in fact, everyone in my school hates me … even the teachers.”

  Reg put his head on one side.

  “And what about your family? I bet they don’t dislike you.”

  I turned and faced him, swallowing back the tears.

  “My parents are too busy hating each other … but … but they don’t get on because of me. It’s all my fault. If I didn’t get into so much trouble then they wouldn’t argue so much and maybe they’d actually like each other.”

  Reg took the biscuit out of his mouth.

  “Well, I don’t hate you, Maxwell. You did that marvellous drawing of me for a start, didn’t you?” He pointed to the framed picture on his mantelpiece, the one I’d drawn for the school competition. He’d actually remembered something for a change. I looked at the picture that I’d drawn of Reg, which was one of the few things I was truly proud of. Although, this evening it didn’t look as good; the nose was wonky and the eyes weren’t level.

  “That picture is rubbish. You should just throw it away,” I said.

  Reg sighed.

  “It sounds to me, young Maxwell, like you’ve just had a particularly bad day. We all have them. I’ve had plenty in my time, I can tell you.”

  His pale, grey eyes stared off towards the wall for a moment and then he returned to me.

  “However. Because you’ve had a bad day today, doesn’t always mean that tomorrow will be the same, or the day after that or the day after that.”

  He started eating his biscuit again.

  “But you don’t understand,” I said. “I make everybody’s lives worse. My best friend Charlie Geek wouldn’t have hurt his nose if it wasn’t for me, the TV show wouldn’t have been cancelled … my parents wouldn’t argue … I’m a disaster. After what I’ve done there is no way anyone is going to speak to me ever again. Anyone. Everyone hates me so much.”

  I shut my eyes and put my head in my hands. The room was quiet for a moment and then I heard Reg give a big sigh.

  “Have I ever shown you the dodo’s feather?”

  I wiped my face with my hands and looked up at him. Reg brushed biscuit crumbs from his jumper.

  “Dodo’s feather?” I asked.

  He smiled.

  “Yes! You know. That silly bird that became extinct? Would you fetch it for me? It’s in the cabinet.”

  Reg reached into the tin for biscuit number three.

  “Look for a cardboard box marked DODO.”

  I sighed. This was all I needed: having to poke around his creepy cabinet. I stood up and walked to the glass doors and peered inside. The shrunken head/shoe was still propped against one side and the plastic tub full of what Reg thought were mermaid scales was at the back. The old, dark globe speckled with holes was balanced on the shelf next to a black hat and the large, wooden egg-shaped musical box that didn’t open.

  I moved a few things around, trying to find the dodo feather amongst all of the junk. There was a small cardboard box at the back, and as I reached for it I knocked the globe with my elbow. It crashed to the floor along with the black hat, the shrunken head, the box of mermaid scales and the carved wooden egg.

  “Maxwell! What are you doing? Be careful!” said Reg, from his armchair.

  “See what I told you?!” I whined. “I can’t do anything right.”

  I looked down and huffed. The guitar plectrums had come out of their box and were everywhere.

  “Make sure you put everything back properly, won’t you, Maxwell?” called Reg.

  I sighed, then got down on my hands and knees and began to pick up all of the pieces of plastic and put them back into the little tub. There were hundreds of them so it took ages. After I’d finished I picked up the globe and sat back on my heels.

  “Do you know? Sometimes I think everyone would be better off if I’d never existed in the first place,” I muttered. I turned the globe over in my hands as I stared at the faded countries. I sighed and stood up and wedged the globe on a shelf between a dusty old umbrella and a dirty-looking vase.

  I picked up the black hat and put that back on the shelf then lifted the shrunken head using my fingertips. I quickly threw it on the shelf, checking that Reg wasn’t watching. The egg had rolled towards the back of the sofa. I went over and picked it up.

  “Why can I not do anything right?” I said, turning the egg over in my hands. There was a little wooden knob on the top. I twisted it a couple of times to the right. It made a tiny ticker-ticker-ticker noise, like an old watch being wound.

  “What was that, Maxwell?” said Reg from his chair.

  “It’s fine,” I said. “I’m just … I’m just picking things up and putting them away like you asked me to.”

  I held the egg in the palm of my hand and traced some of the carvings with my finger.

  “There’s no point in me really, is there?” I said, very quietly. “I just wish … I wish I’d never been born.”

  I gave the egg a shake. There were three strained plink, plonk, plank sounds and then it stopped. The noise reminded me of an old jewellery box that Bex used to have when she was little. You opened the top and a plastic ballerina sprang up and twirled around as it played “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”.

  I stared at the egg and took a deep breath and then I stood up and placed it back on the shelf next to the hat and closed the cabinet door. I remembered I was supposed to be trying to find the dodo box.

  “I’m not really in the mood to look at the feather right now, Reg. Is that OK?” I sai
d, but when I turned around, Reg was sound asleep, his head tipped back and his mouth wide open. His nose was making a whistling sound as he breathed.

  “Oh, well, that’s just great,” I said.

  I looked around the room then sighed again. There wasn’t really anything else I could do. I’d have to go home and own up to what had happened at school. Mrs Lloyd would have rung my mum and dad by now, so there was no doubt about it.

  I was in very big trouble indeed.

  I’d have to keep to the shadows on my way home. There would be a lot of parents driving past soon, picking up their crying children from the ball. I walked down Reg’s pathway, looked left and right, but for now the road was deserted.

  I turned past Mrs Banks’s house. Although it was dark, I could still make out the shape of the plastic flamingo watching over the pond.

  I stopped.

  Something had changed.

  The flamingo had a head.

  It hadn’t had a head when I’d walked past it on the way to the ball. It had definitely been a headless flamingo.

  I squinted into Mrs Banks’s lounge. Her blinds were gaping a little and I could see the silhouette of her sitting on the sofa. Maybe she’d bought a new flamingo and swapped them around when I’d been at the school ball? I stared at the plastic flamingo and its black eye stared back at me. For a second I thought about throwing another brick at it, but I figured I was in enough trouble as it was.

  I carried on walking and every now and then I checked behind me for cars, but the road was deserted. There should be hundreds of them by now, ferrying upset kids home from the ball. Where was everybody? Something didn’t feel right. I just wanted to hurry up and get home, so I started to jog.

  The first thing I planned to do when I got in was to head to the kitchen and give Monster a big hug. That would help me deal with facing Mum and Dad. Monster always made me feel better. I smiled to myself, but when I got to the house my face dropped.

  Something was wrong.

  At the end of our path we had two columns of bricks and in between them was a black iron gate.

  The only trouble was … we didn’t have a gate.

  We used to have a gate, but I’d broken it about five years ago. I liked swinging on it as it made a funny creaking noise, even though Mum told me not to. Eventually the hinges buckled and the gate fell off. I walked up to it and pushed it gently with my foot. It gave a low, growling squeak, just like our old one. In fact, this gate looked identical to the one we used to have. Mum and Dad were useless at mending things and there was no way they’d have paid someone else to fix it. Where had it come from? The wind picked up and I heard a scratchy noise coming from behind me. When I turned around it was just a few leaves scattering along the dark, empty road.

  I looked at my house. The lights were off and Mum’s car and Dad’s van were missing from the driveway. They hadn’t said anything about going out. Maybe they were at the school picking up Bex? Or looking for me? But then surely they would have gone straight to Reg’s house if they were worried about where I was? They knew I always went there.

  “What’s going on?” I whispered.

  I walked up to the front door and knocked, as I didn’t have my key.

  Nothing.

  I pressed the doorbell, even though I knew the battery had run out months ago.

  PRRRIINNNGGGGG!

  I jumped as it let out an urgent ring.

  My heart pounded as the sound echoed through the house and then there was silence. They must have just replaced the batteries and forgotten to mention it. It wasn’t a big deal. I pressed the doorbell again and listened as the PRRRIINNNGGGGG blasted through the house again. No one came to answer.

  I stood there for a moment, wondering what to do, and then I remembered we had a key hidden around the back in case any of us were locked out. There were two plant pots on either side of our back door and Mum had hidden a spare under the one on the left, but when I got there, the pots had gone. I stared at the space where they used to stand.

  “Where are they?” I said out loud. Maybe Dad had moved them?

  I tried the handle on the back door but it was locked. I took a couple of steps back.

  “Hold on … hold on…” I said to myself. “Keep it together. There must be a reasonable expla— WHOA!”

  Suddenly an enormous black-and-white cat emerged through the kitchen-door cat flap. It blinked at me for a moment, then trotted off down the garden.

  “B-but… We haven’t got a cat!” I whispered. And the cat flap was always locked because Monster had a habit of poking his head through the hole and getting stuck.

  I watched the cat sniff at a bush and then disappear into the darkness.

  I felt dizzy and a bit sick. My heart was pounding madly. I spotted some plant pots near our patio door and I ran over and quickly rolled each one out of the way to see if there was a key hidden underneath.

  Nothing.

  I tried the patio door.

  Locked.

  My head was spinning and my legs began to shake. I knelt down on to the cold paving slabs, trying to work out what was happening. And then I pressed my forehead against the glass of the patio door and looked inside my house.

  “No, no, no, no…” I said. “This cannot be real… This cannot be happening.”

  I stared in at our kitchen. Although, it wasn’t our kitchen any more. The cupboards were the same, and the cooker and the sink, but everything else was different. There was a circular table in one corner with a vase of flowers in the middle. Our table was oblong and wooden and we certainly didn’t have flowers in our house. Along the wall was a pine dresser with lots of blue-and-white crockery propped up on the shelves. It was all neat and tidy looking. I leaned back from the glass and saw my reflection. My mouth opened and my lips mouthed one word.

  “Monster…”

  I quickly looked back into the kitchen, circling my eyes with my hands. The bin was in the same place as ours but it was black, not silver. And there was something missing next to it. Monster’s bed.

  “Monster? Are you in there?” I said, tapping on the glass. I tried to look to the left to see if I could spot his tail wagging behind the kitchen cabinets. I scanned around for his water and dinner bowls but there was no sign of them either.

  Suddenly the kitchen light turned on and I blinked as it dazzled my eyes. A strange man walked in and put a jacket over the back of a chair. He turned towards the patio door and jumped when he spotted me staring in through the glass. He rushed to the patio door, unlocked it and yanked it open.

  “What on earth do you think you’re doing?!” he demanded.

  “I’m … erm … I was looking for someone.”

  He looked livid.

  “WHO?” he bellowed.

  I opened my mouth and closed it again. I was too frightened to say because I was worried about what his answer would be.

  “Were you trying to break in?” he said. “Anyone else with you?” He looked over my head into the dark garden. I got up from the floor.

  “I’m not trying to break in. Honestly! I was looking for the Becketts. Mr and Mrs Beckett? Amanda and Eddie? And a girl called Bex? They live here. And a dog. A beagle called Monster? Is he in there?”

  The man suddenly seemed to understand what I was saying and his shoulders dropped a little. I felt my own do the same.

  “Oh, the Becketts! Yes, yes, I know who you mean…”

  I sighed with relief. It was all fine. This had just been some kind of weird mix-up.

  I smiled at him. “Could you get them for me, please?”

  I moved to go inside but the man blocked my way.

  “Whoa, steady on a minute. You’re not coming in,” he said, folding his arms and glaring at me. “The Becketts moved out over a year ago. I bought this house after they got divorced. I’m not sure where they live now but it certainly isn’t here.”

  “Divorced…?”

  The man cocked his head to one side and stared at me.

&
nbsp; “Hang on a minute … are you sure you’re not a burglar?”

  My ears were ringing. Divorced? Moved out? What was going on? I took a few steps backwards.

  “Now get out of my garden and away from my property before I call the police. Do you hear me?”

  I stared back at the strange man, standing in the kitchen that wasn’t my kitchen any more.

  And then I ran.

  I sprinted down the road. My head was buzzing as if the doorbell was still ringing in my ears.

  What was happening? Where were Mum, Dad, Bex and Monster? Had they had enough of me and moved away, all within the time I’d been at school? Surely that was impossible? But our furniture was gone. How could a strange man have moved in with his stuff in the time I was out? And besides, the man had said Mum and Dad were divorced and that definitely hadn’t happened.

  I ran by Mrs Banks’s house, not looking up as I didn’t want to see the strange, new flamingo, and on past Reg’s towards Charlie Geek’s road. Charlie was going to be really angry with me for ruining the whole TV recording, especially when he’d been about to get the chance to win an amazing holiday, but I didn’t have anywhere else to try. I got to the end of the road and turned left and then crossed over to Charlie’s street. The roads were still deserted. I didn’t see one car.

  It was late now and I was getting cold. I put my hands under my armpits and gave myself a sort-of-hug as I arrived at Charlie’s house. He lived with his mum in a maisonette, which is one house split into two. They lived in the bottom half and used the front door and the people upstairs had a door around the side. I walked up to the front door and stood with my finger hovering over the doorbell. There was a light on so it looked like they were home. I took a deep breath then pushed the bell. A few seconds later the door opened and Charlie’s mum was standing there. I breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Mrs Geek! It’s you! Brilliant. Is Charlie there?”

  She frowned at me and so I gave her my brightest smile but I don’t think it came out very well.

  “I think you’ve got the wrong house,” she said. “Who are you looking for again? Mrs Geek did you say?”