The Amazing Brain of O C Longbotham

by Barbara Spencer

  ‘Tut …tut,’ Mrs Longbotham was just opening her mouth to exclaim, when she heard a loud scream. Recognising Anna’s voice she jumped to her feet, instinct telling her that the scream had something to do with her son.*

  Philip had just spent a happy hour watching his new craft float along the river bank when an unexpected gust of wind had carried it towards the middle of the river, where a gaggle of ducks were happily swimming.*

  The boat didn’t particularly bother them. More concerned with eating breakfast, any number were upended in the water with only their tail feathers showing, their beaks scouring the river bed for a tasty morsel of weed. Unfortunately, with so many webbed feet paddling about, the string attached to the boat had got caught. Before Philip could get it free and pull the craft safely back to shore, it snapped. The current quickly whisked the little craft towards the far side of the river where three large notices warned of deep water.

  And Philip, without a moment’s thought for sensible words like:

  ‘I’d better wait till Mum gets here ’cos I can’t swim,’

  waded in to rescue his boat.

  Mrs Longbotham arrived on the bank to see Kitty and Anna jumping up and down, pointing at the river and screaming, ‘Somebody do something.’

  At that precise moment Philip plunged into deep water and his head vanished below the surface.

  Two burly park keepers ran up. ‘What’s going on?’ they yelled in unison.

  Mrs Longbotham pointed to the bubbles. ‘It’s my son.’

  Stopping only to remove their boots and jackets, they waded into the water and fished Philip out.

  ‘What did you do that for,’ Mrs Longbotham screamed.

  ‘I didn’t want to lose my boat. Would you get it for me?’ Phil said politely to the hovering park keeper, not in the slightest bit bothered about swallowing nearly half the river, water still streaming off him in torrents.

  Obligingly the keeper waded in again, retrieving the boat and its tangled string from the milling birds. ‘Excuse me, madam,’ he said, handing the boat back to Philip.

  Having tried the outdoors, Mrs Longbotham decided it was probably much safer to stay at home. In any case it was typical summer weather, raining most days. One morning, having discovered the cupboards bare and the fridge empty, except for two eggs and some butter, she rushed off to the supermarket, leaving Anna in charge.

  Taking her responsibilities very seriously, Anna came downstairs long enough to check the backdoor was locked, so Philip couldn’t escape. She also hid the matches, so he couldn’t set fire to the house, and the remote control for the television, so he couldn’t change channels. Then she went back to bed, leaving Philip to amuse himself.

  Sadly, there wasn’t a dad. There had been once but he had run off with his secretary* … and now lived in South Africa.

  Philip had been happily watching cartoons. They had ended and been replaced by football, which he didn’t much care for because it was noisy and made his head seize.

  Wondering where his sisters were, he went upstairs to look for them, checking the bathroom, the loo, and the airing cupboard on his way to Kitty’s door.

  Kitty’s door was much more interesting but it was here he stopped. At the back of his head was a vague memory that last time he had tapped on this particular door, it had exploded.*

  On the day in question, Philip had knocked on Kitty’s door and, receiving no answer, had carefully turned the knob and peeked in. There in front of him was a regular Aladdin’s cave, full of things just waiting to be tidied. Without stopping to think that his sister might not want him to alter her room in any way, he had pulled the door open and gone in. For a moment he did nothing, silently admiring the mess which stretched from one end of the floor to the other. Then, with a beaming smile, began to pick things up and sort them. Within a surprisingly short time, he had tidied all the toys, books, games and magazines into four neat piles – while the wastepaper bin overflowed with sweet wrappers and empty crisp packets, screwed-up bits of paper, broken hair bands, and several half-eaten apples. After that, he pulled a chair over to the wardrobe and, using it to stand on, began to hang up Kitty’s clothes.

  It was at that moment that Kitty came in.

  From her point of view, her young brother was messing with her stuff. She was livid and chased the eight-year-old back along the landing, where he took refuge in his bedroom.

  ‘I’ll kill you if you so much as put your nose in my room again,’

  she had screamed, loud enough for next door to hear.*

  It was Anna who started the screaming. ‘Mu-um. Come quick! It’s Phil. He thinks he’s a human fly.’

  Mrs Longbotham had fled into the front garden to find her son climbing down the brick work on the side of the house. The gardens on either side had quickly filled with anxious neighbours, hands on ears or mouths, no one daring to make a sound in case he slipped.

  Philip hadn’t slipped, finding his way from crack to crack and dropping the last few feet onto the ground.

  ‘What did you do that for?’ Mum had shrieked.

  Philip had smiled happily. ‘I was hungry,’ he had explained, ‘and Kitty was standing on the stairs.’

  And it was that which he remembered, the screaming and being hungry.

  After carefully reading all the notices, Philip tapped gently hoping the door wasn’t going to explode again.

  Kitty was awake, eating biscuits for breakfast, and reading a book about a boy werewolf. It was exciting story and, without thinking, she shouted, ‘Come in.’

  ‘What do you want?’ she muttered, not raising her head from her book.

  ‘I was looking for Mum.’

  ‘Well, you won’t find her in here,’ Kitty growled. ‘I expect she’s gone to the shops.’

  ‘Kitty, can I ask you something?’

  Kitty, who was in a good mood, snarled back, ‘Yes, but make it quick.’

  ‘Why don’t we ever see our dad? The kids at school have a dad. Michael and Ethan and Sam and Tilly and ...’ Philip began ticking the names off on his fingers.

  ‘Oh, for crying out loud! How many kids have you got in your class?’

  ‘28 and me.’

  ‘Well, I’m not sitting here while you rattle off 28 names. Besides, there must be some without dads?’

  Philip smiled. ‘Yes, there are. There’s Brendan and Ethan J and ...’

  ‘OK! OK! OK! I got it. You don’t have to bore me to death.’

  Having slept in her clothes, she swung her legs out of bed and stood up. ‘Actually,’ she said. ‘It’s your fault we haven’t got a dad.’

  ‘Why me?’ Philip said, ‘I don’t ever remember seeing my dad.’

  ‘I keep telling you, Phil, you don’t remember ’cos you don’t remember.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘And you did see him. Or, at least he saw you.’ Kitty’s blue eyes sparkled gleefully. ‘He took one look at you and caught the next plane. You see, you were born at the full moon.’ Hastily she slid the book she was reading under her pillow.

  ‘Is being born at the full moon different from other times?’

  Kitty groaned. ‘Honestly, Phil – you really are dense. Don’t you know that children born under a full moon are monsters?’

  Philip shook his head, amazed.

  ‘Look in the mirror then.’

  Philip looked and saw exactly what he expected to see – a boy with medium brown hair. ‘What am I looking for?’

  Kitty dragged him upstairs to their mother’s room, where there was a full-length mirror. ‘Now look.’

  Philip looked and saw a boy with medium brown hair, wearing jeans, a red t-shirt and a sweater.

  ‘It’s the same,’ he protested.

  ‘No, it isn’t. But you have to be patient,’ she assured him. ‘At sunset, just as the sun slips over the horizon and the moon rises ...’ Kitty took a deep breath. ‘That’s when it will happen. That’s when you will see the monster, Dad left home because of. Hang on a minute,
I’ll get some rope just in case.’

  It was not until two hours later that Mum finally arrived home, after fighting the queues at the supermarket. She went upstairs to change her clothes and discovered her only son sitting cross-legged on the floor, a long piece of rope securing him to the bedpost, staring into the mirror.

  ‘I’m trying to see the exact moment I turn into a werewolf,’ he explained cheerfully.

  ‘And the rope?’

  ‘Kitty tied me up because a werewolf eats people. If I was loose, I might mistake you for my dinner.’

  Stopping only to untie him, Mrs Longbotham, breathing fire, galloped down the stairs.

  ‘Kitchen. NOW!’ she yelled.

  Kitty and Anna, who had been watching a film on TV, rushed into the kitchen.

  ‘SIT DOWN.’ She pointed to the table where Philip was already waiting.

  ‘But …’ began Kitty.

  ‘But nothing! And don’t move till I can get back. Understood?’

  With that she disappeared into the sitting room.

  Alarmed, Anna eyed Kitty. ‘Do you think she’s found out that we ate the chocolate cake for breakfast?’

  ‘No way! She’s not been back long enough. In any case, that was down to you; nothing to do with me at all. I only ate the biscuits.’

  ‘Whatever! I tell you what though …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘If she goes on like this, one of these days she’ll explode. You mark my words,’ Anna muttered.

  Hearing the word ‘explode’, Philip rushed upstairs to his bedroom to look up the word in his dictionary. He tore downstairs, dictionary in hand, crying,

  ‘Mum, Mum, Mum, please don’t burst with great violence.’

  Mum was in the sitting room printing out some pictures on the computer. She laughed. ‘I’ll never do that.’ She tucked her arm round him. ‘Sadly, people use words irresponsibly. And it grieves me to say, your sisters are more irresponsible than most. But what are you doing in here? Didn’t I tell you not to move?’

  ‘I forgot.’ Philip pulled out his notebook. ‘I didn’t write that down.’

  ‘Oh, Phil,’ Mum sighed. ‘You can’t write everything down. Remember the memory exercises the doctor gave you?’ Philip shook his head. ‘Never mind, dear. I tell you what, how about we make some posters and put them on the wall in your bedroom?’

  ‘To remind me about what?’

  ‘About all the things you forget.’ She got to her feet. ‘Come on, let’s go back in.’

  She pushed open the kitchen door, Philip following on behind. ‘Right you two. It might interest you to know that I found another batch of grey hairs this morning and that stunt, Kitty … are you listening.’ Kitty nodded glumly.

  ‘That stunt was the last straw.’ Philip opened his mouth to say something. ‘No, Phil. I am not going to explain what the other straws were. You will just have to trust me on that.’

  She swung back to Anna and Kitty. ‘As I was saying, I am not going to spend the rest of the holiday nagging. It does my head in.’ Changing her voice to a softer tone she said, ‘Doing my head in, Phil, means sending me mad.’ Noticing the puzzled expression on her son’s face still hadn’t disappeared, she quickly added, ‘Sending me mad doesn’t mean I actually go mad, it just means I get very cross and start shouting.’

  Philip frowned, still not convinced. ‘So why not say, I am getting cross,’ he suggested. ‘Then I’d understand.’

  ‘Because!’*

  ‘So, you two listen good,’ Mum continued her lecture. ‘I am not going to spend my life stressing, grumbling, lecturing and shouting.’

  She picked up one of the photographs she had printed off. ‘From now on, if you see the first picture – everything’s okay.’

  She flashed it round the room. In it, she was smiling.

  ‘If you see this one.’ She waved a picture of herself frowning. ‘Watch out, you’re treading on dangerous ground. And this one,’ she flashed a third picture, ‘is me glaring.’

  ‘It’s ever so realistic, Mum.’ Anna said nervously.

  ‘It had better be. Because if you see this one, you leave the room immediately and do not return for at least an hour or until I call you, whichever is the longest!

  ‘And this one …’ Mum brandished the fourth picture in which she was pointing towards the camera, an extremely fierce expression on her face.*

  ‘Take a good look … If you see this one – God help you. I would advise immediate evacuation for at least a week because I’m in imminent danger of exploding.’

  ‘Now, I’m going to sit here, read the newspaper, and have a quiet cup of coffee. Philip, go and play. You two go to your rooms and don’t come down again till they’re tidy. And, just so that you know, I will be deducting the cost of the chocolate cake and a packet of biscuits from your pocket money.’

  By the time he was ten, Philip had acquired so many doctors, if you had laid them end to end they would have stretched from the top of the cul-de-sac to the main road. They peered into his eyes and ears, while their machines peered into his brain, and they used long words that no one except doctors ever understood.

  Mostly they just stared, probably hoping something extraordinary …*

  would erupt from Philip’s ears, which might explain why he was completely fearless in the face of danger, and could remember all sorts of mathematical equations, but nothing else.

  For Philip, even remembering ordinary things was a problem, which is why he carried a notebook to write everything down, while the walls in his bedroom began to fill up with posters.

  Mrs Longbotham finally gave up on doctors when they introduced the word concept into the conversation. She had become used to their using long words to describe her son, such as extraordinary, amazing and brilliant. However, the word concept generally followed sentences which began, ‘Unfortunately Philip has no understanding of …’ followed by words such as:

  danger, fear, pain and spacial awareness.*

  ‘What concept are you talking about now?’ Mrs Longbotham asked the doctor.

  ‘Prettiness,’ he said, studying the clipboard in his hand.

  Mrs Longbotham groaned.

  ‘Are you ill, Mum?’ Philip asked.

  Mrs Longbotham shook her head, dreading what was coming next.

  ‘Philip recognises the human form of course,’ the doctor began not looking up, something that Mrs Longbotham knew from long experience was an ominous sign.

  ‘Of course,’ she said.

  ‘I understand he has two older sisters?’

  She nodded.

  ‘I expect they are both drop-dead gorgeous.’ The doctor laughed. ‘Smokin’ is the modern saying, I believe.’

  Mrs Longbotham said quickly, ‘Philip wouldn’t understand that term.’

  ‘I wouldn’t expect him too,’ the doctor sounded irritated. ‘But I would expect him to understand the word pretty.’

  Mrs Longbotham closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair.

  ‘Philip was shown two pictures; the first a beautiful film star, the second a gorilla. When asked which one was the prettiest, he pointed to the gorilla.’

  On the way home, she asked, ‘Why the gorilla?’

  ‘The gorilla what, Mum?’ said Philip, having completely forgotten the earlier conversation.

  ‘You told the doctor that the gorilla was the prettiest.’

  Philip’s brain kicked in. ‘I remember,’ he said. ‘The girl’s eyes were big and round and empty. I chose the gorilla because its eyes spoke to you.’

  Mrs Longbotham took her son’s hand and hugged it to her heart. ‘I think we’ve had enough of doctors, Philip,’ she said. ‘We’ll manage on our own from now on. But perhaps a new poster.’

  Philip nodded happily.

  Of the two people who eventually explained to Philip how his brain worked, the first was Mrs Edwards. She was his Year 5 teacher. She had a grown family of her own and told everyone who asked, that she had learned about children the hard way.r />
  Philip thought her fantastic, because she never got angry and didn’t use words like: ‘You’re driving me bonkers,’ which his sisters said all the time, or der brain, which the kids in his class called him. She also spoke proper English which Philip understood perfectly.

  ‘Your brain is like a rook. You know, as in chess,’ she said.

  Since Philip was super-duper at chess and had already beaten everyone in primary school, he understood immediately.

  ‘You mean it can only move in straight lines?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Is that why I’m good at maths and science?’

  Mrs Edwards nodded. ‘Better than good – brilliant.’

  ‘And why I’m rotten at English.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say … er … rotten, Philip.’

  ‘Kitty would,’ he gloomed.

  Mrs Edwards, who had had the privilege of teaching Kitty some years previously, and remembered her very well indeed, sighed loudly. ‘Perhaps we could say your English is unusual.’

  Philip nodded. ‘So why does my brain seize up and why do I forget things?’

  ‘I can’t explain why you forget things but I think your brain seizes up when it’s overloaded with too much information. Remember the other day in the school yard, when that boy fell off the climbing frame? There was a lot of confusion, with kids screaming and shouting. I expect your brain couldn’t cope – so it shut down.’*

  Philip shook his head. ‘I don’t remember. It’s okay though, I never do.’