For the longshoremen of the Isle of Wight,
both past and present, especially Dad.
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Prologue
1 What?
2 Cold Chips
3 Mum vs Tilly
4 Click
5 Smoothie Volcano
6 Die, Pasta, Die
7 Mr Bell’s Cardigan
8 Like a Zombie
9 But, Mum, you CAN’T
10 Pineapple Soup
11 A Gust of Wind
12 An Extra-large, Double Chocolate Golden Syrup Sponge Ninety-nine, Please
13 Potato Clock
14 Best Sunday EVER
15 No One Calls a Teacher by their First Name
16 Walking on Sunshine
17 It Takes Twenty-three Coins
18 Kind of Cute
19 Not Kind of Cute
20 Foggis Fogg was the First
21 Is That a Bad Thing?
22 If It’s All Under Control?
23 No Problem
24 Jacob vs Deckchairs
25 Scrambled Egg (1)
26 Good Old Jacob
27 Scrambled Egg (2)
28 VOTE!
29 Fogg, Frog and a Bucket
30 Baby Otter Loses his Hair
31 Empathy?
Also By Fleur Hitchcock
Copyright
Prologue
I was shocked by just how angry the deckchair was.
One minute, we were getting on with a sunny Sunday on the beach. The next, Mr Bissell was racing over the sand, screaming. Apparently pursued by a deckchair.
It’s impossible, I know.
But I saw it.
‘Dad,’ I say on the way home from the beach, laden with buckets and rolly-up things that keep on unrolling. ‘Did you notice anything odd?’
‘Odd, Tom? No,’ says Dad, swinging a spade onto his shoulder. ‘People can get into terrible pickles with deckchairs. So difficult to manage – I never know which bit goes where.’
‘Oh,’ I say.
But I can’t stop thinking about it.
1
What?
Yesterday was the last day of the Easter holidays, and today is the first day of the summer term, so a wet sea squall has blown in and is having a tantrum all over town. I pull my waterproof tight over my chest and thrust my hands deep into my pockets and wait for the school bus at the bus shelter by the model village.
A moment later, Tilly, my younger sister, arrives by my side, and we stand in mutual silence by the road, getting soaked.
‘Morning, chaps. Bracing, isn’t it?’
Dad?
‘What are you doing here?’ says Tilly.
‘Guess,’ says Dad, rubbing his hands together.
Tilly looks disgusted. ‘Dunno, I can’t imagine.’
Dad smiles smugly and says nothing else.
The bus arrives and we all three climb on. Dad sits at the front with the driver, Tilly joins her friend Milly, and I roll to the back to sit next to Eric.
Eric puts down his copy of 150 Alternative Ways to Spend the Summer Holidays and looks up. ‘Morning, Tom. Why’s your dad on the bus?’
I shake my head. I feel about 9% good about the answer to that question.
Eric raises his eyebrows, which means that some pale hairs that are barely visible on his freckly face move closer to some slightly red hairs boinging all over his forehead like broken springs. ‘Really?’ he says.
I look around. All the usual suspects are there, mostly staring at the lashing rain outside, but some are staring at Dad because no dad ever, ever, ever has, in the history of school buses, caught the school bus. Surely?
Why would my dad be the first?
‘Hey, Model Village,’ says Jacob from the back seat. ‘Daddy coming to school with you today? Is he coming to hold your hand?’
I try to ignore him. ‘Did you have a good holiday, Eric?’ I ask.
‘Yes,’ says Eric, looking at me strangely. ‘You know I did.’
‘Good,’ I say. I stare out of the window and I feel a blush start at the bottom of my back and spread up over my face until I’m sure that I’m completely beetroot.
Something appalling has occurred to me. A vision. Something that’s been part of our lives all holiday. In my mind’s eye I can see the kitchen table, with the Bywater-by-Sea Gazette open on page 17 and one advert ringed in red. I’ve even read it and I know that between the adverts for LOST – ONE TORTOISE and FOUND – ONE TORTOISE is one that says: JOB OFFERED. BYWATER-BY-SEA SCHOOL – REQUIRED: TEACHING ASSISTANT. IMMEDIATE START.
‘OH! No!’ I mutter.
‘What is it?’ says Eric.
‘It’s Dad, he’s going to be working at school – every day, all the time.’
‘Oh dear,’ says Eric. ‘Oh dear, Tom. You have my deepest sympathies.’
2
Cold Chips
It takes me until break to remember that I want to tell Eric about yesterday’s deckchair-on-the-beach episode. And when I finally find him feeding the Mongolian hawk-moth caterpillars in Mr Bell’s classroom, I have walked past Dad handing out juice in the playground three times.
‘Hi, Tom,’ Dad shouts with enthusiasm. ‘Great working here. Lovely to be with you all day.’
All of Year 1 turn and stare as I bolt across the playground.
‘How’s it going?’ asks Eric, tempting a particularly large and repulsive orange caterpillar with a nettle.
‘With Dad? Awful,’ I say. ‘But that’s not the point. The point is that something happened on the beach yesterday.’
‘Oh?’
‘It sounds really silly, but a deckchair attacked Mr Bissell.’
‘Attacked how?’ Eric puts down the first nettle and picks up a second. They look exactly the same.
I think back to what I saw. ‘It folded round him. It sort of pinched him inside.’
Eric drops the second nettle in the tank and turns to face me. ‘Fascinating. Just the one?’
‘Yes – only one.’
‘Did anyone else see?’
Once again I try to remember the scene exactly as it happened. ‘Mum was reading the paper. Dad was building a sandcastle. Mr Bissell’s wife must have seen, although she might have been asleep. Oh and Mr Fogg –’
‘Albert Fogg – the longshoreman?’
‘Yes, him, the one with the beard. The man who hires out the deckchairs and eats crab sandwiches under an umbrella. He must have seen.’
Eric looks wise for a long time before saying, ‘Why’s your dad taken a job here? I thought he was going to be a magician?’
At lunch, I have to hide behind the bins in the rain.
‘Tom, Tom!’ Dad’s wandering around the playground looking for me. He’s wearing a checked pair of trousers, an apron and rubber gloves. ‘Tom, love, I thought we could eat lunch together. We could share a bag of crisps.’
‘Hiding from Daddy?’ says Jacob, rolling round the corner and settling next to the bins. He pulls an enormous greasy package from his pocket.
‘What’s that?’ I ask.
‘Yesterday’s chips,’ he says. ‘Want one?’
I shake my head. ‘I thought they’d banned chips,’ I say.
‘They have,’ he says. ‘That’s why I’m round here hiding with a loser like you. No way am I eating salad – so I’ve brought my own packed lunch.’
He prises a long, soggy, flaccid chip from the pile and dangles it into his mouth. Not only is it cold but it has ketchup embedded between it and the greasy polystyrene box. Jacob’s lips close round it and he begins to chew. ‘So,’ he says. ‘Where’s Snot Face? Thought you two were always together?’
Snot Face is what Jacob calls Eric. It’s unkind, but then Jacob is un
kind.
‘I’m here,’ says Eric. ‘And do stop calling me “Snot Face”, please, Jacob.’
‘As you like, Snot Face,’ says Jacob, wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve.
Eric ignores him. ‘So, Tom, what we need is a closer look at that deckchair.’
‘What deckchair?’ says Jacob.
‘The one that attacked Mr Bissell on the beach,’ says Eric.
‘Sounds exciting,’ says Jacob. ‘Did it kill him?’
‘No,’ I say.
‘And would it be better if it had?’ Eric asks Jacob.
‘Yes,’ says Jacob.
We both stare at him.
‘Was that the wrong thing to say?’ says Jacob, polishing off another chip.
‘Anyway.’ Eric turns back to me. ‘Do you think you can get a sample?’
But before I manage to answer, we’re interrupted by Dad. ‘Tom, darling – there you are. What on earth are you doing here in the rain? Now, boys, come and join me, and I can show you how the potato-peeling machine works. It’s absolutely thrilling.’
3
Mum vs Tilly
It almost kills me. The worst bit is when Dad takes the checked trousers off in the middle of the dining room. He has got shorts on underneath but how was I to know that?
At the end of the day, Dad gets on the school bus, whistling, and insists on chatting to everyone. The bus burbles around the town shedding passengers. Dad talks to them as they go.
‘Right, Dad,’ says Tilly when we finally get off the bus in a howling gale at the bottom of the model village. ‘We are going to have some rules.’
‘Yes,’ I say, for once in total agreement with her.
‘Number one,’ she says, struggling to put up her pink umbrella. ‘You are not allowed on the school bus.’
‘Number two,’ I say. ‘We do not eat lunch with you.’
‘Number three,’ says Dad. ‘You two don’t tell me what to do, so put up with it. I’ve got a job at your school and if you want to eat then that’s the way it’s going to be.’
‘OHHHWWW! Dad!’ shouts Tilly. ‘That’s so unfair!’
‘It is, isn’t it?’ he says, swinging off through the model village whistling.
I stand staring at his back, my heart sinking and sinking. I feel 1% good about this.
‘We’ve got to stop him,’ says Tilly. ‘This can’t go on. I’ll die if he asks me one more question about trestle tables. We’ll have to have a word with Mum. What are you doing now?’
‘Um …’ I say. ‘Going to the beach?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Tom. In this?’ She waves her hand through the torrential rain.
So I follow her up to the house.
But Mum’s drawing red circles on the newspaper too.
‘Shall I train as a plumber?’ she asks.
‘Very small spaces, dear,’ says Grandma, taking a large carving knife to some raisin shortcake and loading it onto inadequately small plates. ‘You won’t like it.’
‘Or an electrician?’
We all stare at Mum. Last time she did anything electrical it was to stick a screwdriver in the top of the washing machine and nearly blow up herself – and the house.
‘All right. What about welding? Could I do welding? Or I could be a yoga teacher or learn to make cheese. Or perhaps I should join the –’
‘Mum, can you just be quiet?’ says Tilly, grabbing a pencil off the table and using it to scratch her head.
Grandma frowns, but Mum turns to Tilly and beams.
‘Look,’ says Tilly, ‘it was bad enough when you and Dad were going to be magicians, but things are much, much worse now.’
‘Oh?’ says Mum.
‘Dad, at school. I’m serious, he is not coming into school again. Ever.’
‘Why?’ says Mum, reddening.
‘Because he’s awful – he behaves like … like … like a puppy!’ shouts Tilly. ‘He cannot, I repeat, cannot, come to school again.’
Grandma scowls. Mum folds the paper and opens it again. She doesn’t actually look Tilly in the eye. ‘NO,’ she says. ‘He will be going to school tomorrow, and the next day. It’s his job.’
Tilly looks as if she’s going to explode. ‘WHAT!!!???’
‘And we’d be very grateful if you were actually able to be supportive.’
Tilly doesn’t say anything this time but she turns red, then white, then a little green before racing from the room, screaming.
4
Click
I slip out of the back door and through the model village. Mum and Grandma have been working hard. All the hedges are trimmed ready for the summer season and they’ve laid fresh gravel and cut the grass.
Mum’s had loads of time to help Grandma this time because the whole magician thing has gone wrong. We moved here because Mum and Dad wanted to be stage magicians. They gave up perfectly good jobs, a perfectly nice house and some perfectly lovely friends to move here, to be with Grandma, so that we could all live next to the model village. The plan was that they would become stage magicians, tour the country, do the odd cruise, get a telly series, write books and become household names. The reality turned into a free show at the town hall, three children’s parties, a sixtieth birthday party, a disastrous ruby wedding anniversary and the disappearing cabinet finale, where they actually disappeared someone. Not even enough to pay for the rabbit food.
Which is why Dad is now working at the school and Mum is looking for another career.
I just hope she’s not thinking of working at the school too.
I stumble through the model village, drop down to the Dingly Dell Crazy Golf and clamber over the gnome-covered wall onto the promenade. Huge puddles stretch over the tarmac and under the glass shelters that line the seafront but there’s no one hiding inside them. It’s simply too wet.
I stop under the amusement-arcade awning and study the beach.
It looks utterly deserted. Out at sea some moored yachts bounce on the waves and in the harbour others jostle and groan against the jetties. A couple of people fight their way along the pier, brollies flipped inside out and coats flapping.
Perfect.
Breaking free of the amusement arcade I dash over the tarmac and race down to the beach steps, water splashing up my trouser legs every step of the way.
Vast heaps of seaweed have been thrown up onto the shore since yesterday and for a moment it looks as if everything has been swept from the beach by the storm, but then I see Albert Fogg, the man who looks after the deckchairs, crouching at the back under an oilskin and a huge umbrella.
Flip.
He’s manning the deckchairs. As if on a day like this you’d have to.
I slow down and saunter over the pebbles. A length of seaweed wraps itself round my foot and I spend an unnecessarily long time untangling it, taking the opportunity to have a good look at Mr Fogg.
Normally he wears a navy-blue sweater and the oldest, most faded jeans I’ve ever seen. His skin is the colour of old crab claws and his eyes are hidden so deeply in the crevasses of his face that I couldn’t say if they had a colour at all.
Today he’s wearing the full yellow sailor waterproofs and, despite the rain, seems to be washing a deckchair down with a watering can.
Snatches of his song escape through the rain. ‘Put him in the scuppers …’
He fills the watering can from the beach tap, scuttles back over the shingle and goes at the deckchair with a broom. ‘Take that – and that!’ he says and then bursts into song again. ‘What shall we do with the drunken sailor …’
I straighten up and wander past. It’s hard to look casual when there’s a gale blowing. When I’ve reached the end of the beach, I shelter under the pier and look back.
I can’t work out if this is the deckchair that attacked Mr Bissell. They all look exactly the same, but then why would Mr Fogg single out a lone deckchair for a scrub when he must have a shed full of them?
Above me, the pier whizzes and pings as the unpl
ayed machines try to attract attention. Someone’s feet sound on the boards and then thump along to the seafront. The same person pulls their coat close round them and marches along to the set of steps nearest to the beach tap. They trot down the steps, and start to talk to Mr Fogg.
I can’t see who it is. They’re wearing too many waterproofs. But I can hear some words. ‘Not … safe … secret … newspapers … not a bean left … important … vital.’
Mr Fogg nods and pulls his cap.
The wrapped-up person struggles up the steps and into the town, disappearing into the storm.
Mr Fogg opens a door behind him. He places his empty watering can inside and I see a cave that seems to go deep into the solid front of the seafront. He locks the door again and folds the deckchair flat, leaving it lying against the front of the store.
I wait, trying to make myself as thin as one of the pier supports, until he rolls up the steps, along the sea wall and in through the front door of the Trusty Tramper Café.
It’s not easy to tiptoe on pebbles, and frankly it’s not actually necessary in a gale, but I do tiptoe until I’m over by the deckchair and hidden under the lee of the sea wall.
There’s nothing to see. I’m pretty sure it’s the same one, as there’s a tear in the cloth where I seem to remember Mr Bissell turning and attempting to bite it. Otherwise it looks disappointingly ordinary.
Experimentally I try to lift it. It’s quite heavy, but not impossible and I half carry, half drag it along the beach to the very end.
Which is where it gets difficult.
The moment I stick my head over the parapet the wind doubles in strength and seems to change direction so that I’m blown back towards the sea.
‘Stupid thing,’ I say, pulling it against me. But the wind catches the fabric and tugs both me and the deckchair back down to the beach so that I have to lean the deckchair against the wall and stop to breathe.
Peeling the hood from my face, I let the rain beat on my skin for a minute. This seems ridiculously hard work. Surely it can’t be this difficult to move a deckchair?
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