Bumface

by Morris Gleitzman

  They never give up.

  *

  ‘I want Mummy,’ wailed Imogen.

  ‘Me too,’ shouted Leo.

  Angus put the saucepan and the potato-masher down, wiped his hands on his apron and went out to the living room. He picked Imogen up and gave her a hug.

  ‘Immie,’ he said gently, ‘you know that’s not possible. Not now. Be a brave girl and let me finish making dinner.’

  ‘What about me being a brave boy?’ demanded Leo.

  ‘You’re a very brave boy,’ said Angus.

  ‘I don’t want to be,’ said Leo. ‘I want Mummy.’

  Angus sighed. Poor kids, he thought. Must be even harder for them than it is for me.

  Then he realised his feet were wet. He looked down. All around him the carpet was sodden and covered in soap bubbles.

  ‘You kicked the bucket over,’ said Leo quietly.

  Angus saw, near his feet, the yellow bucket from the laundry lying on its side with a last few soap bubbles dribbling onto the carpet.

  ‘Hot,’ said Imogen. Angus felt the inside of his head get hot too.

  ‘What is this bucket doing in here?’ he yelled, pulling his apron off and trying to mop up some of the water with it.

  Imogen started to cry.

  ‘Immie wanted to wash Sidney’s hair,’ said Leo.

  ‘Cindy hair,’ wailed Imogen.

  Angus saw a sodden Sidney the bear lying next to the bucket. ‘So you let her?’ he yelled at Leo. ‘You went to the laundry and filled a bucket with hot soapy water and brought it into the living room just because a one-and-a-half-year-old asked you to?’

  ‘No,’ said Leo indignantly. ‘It was already in here. I was washing some ants.’

  Angus smelt something burning. For a second he thought it was his brain. Then he realised it was the fish fingers.

  Leo was crying as well now.

  ‘I want Mummy,’ sobbed Imogen.

  ‘So do I,’ wailed Leo.

  Angus ran into the kitchen, pulled the fish fingers out of the grill, dropped his wet apron on them to stop them smoking, ran into the laundry, grabbed the mop, ran back into the living room, mopped up the water, wrung Sidney out into the bucket, opened the window so the carpet would dry, took everything back to the laundry and put Sidney in the dryer.

  Then, out of breath, he looked at his watch.

  Six-thirty.

  At last.

  Angus went back to the living room, wiped the tears off the kids’ faces with his apron and gave them a hug each.

  ‘Who wants to see Mummy?’ he said.

  ‘Me,’ screeched Imogen.

  ‘Me too,’ yelled Leo.

  ‘Well, you’ve come to the right place,’ grinned Angus, ‘because here’s that very special person we’ve all been waiting for … Mummy.’

  He switched on the TV.

  3

  During the first commercial break, Leo disappeared.

  ‘Leo,’ called Angus, ‘you’ll miss Mum.’

  ‘I’m on the toilet,’ came Leo’s faint cry.

  The commercial break ended and Mum appeared on the screen in her spotless TV living room hugging two of her spotless TV children.

  Don’t know why they call this series a soapie, thought Angus. They’re all too clean to need soap.

  On the screen Mum was giving her TV twins her famous warm, caring TV smile.

  Angus felt the usual pang of jealousy and reminded himself that she was only acting.

  Imogen jiggled excitedly in her high chair and pointed at the TV. ‘Mama,’ she yelled happily, spraying a mouthful of chocolate milk over the table.

  ‘Immie,’ said Angus quietly. ‘Do you think just tonight we could try to be as clean and tidy as Mummy’s TV family?’

  ‘Mama,’ yelled Imogen again and threw a handful of mashed potato and pumpkin across the room.

  Obviously not, thought Angus wearily.

  ‘I’m missing Mum,’ came Leo’s distant yell.

  ‘Well, hurry up,’ called Angus.

  ‘I can’t,’ yelled Leo. ‘I’m stuck.’

  Angus ran to the bathroom. Leo wasn’t in there. Angus sprinted down to Mum’s en suite, then heard Leo yelling in the guest toilet. He doubled back, desperately hoping Leo hadn’t fallen into the dunny while he was flushing it.

  The door of the guest toilet wouldn’t open.

  ‘The lock’s stuck,’ yelled Leo.

  ‘Are you all right?’ shouted Angus frantically. Leo always forgot to close his mouth under water. In a sewer pipe he’d be history.

  ‘No, I’m not all right,’ yelled Leo. ‘I can’t see Mum. What’s she doing?’

  Angus peered down the hall. On the TV in the living room Mum was still talking to the twins in her famous warm, caring TV voice. Angus heard Imogen gurgle ‘Mama’ and saw chocolate milk splatter over the screen.

  ‘What’s Mum doing?’ yelled Leo.

  Angus strained to hear.

  ‘She’s telling Lachlan and Courtney to stop worrying,’ Angus shouted through the door. ‘She’s going to meet them after school and go to the newsagent’s with them, and if Mr Green overcharges them for lollies again he’ll be sorry.’

  ‘What?’ yelled Leo.

  ‘Open the door,’ yelled Angus. ‘Try harder. Spit on the key.’

  ‘What’s Mum doing now?’ yelled Leo.

  From the living room Angus heard the splat of something hitting the wall.

  ‘Never mind about Mum,’ he yelled frantically. ‘Immie’s in there on her own with mashed pumpkin and chocolate milk and stewed fruit.’

  Angus heard Leo spitting on the key.

  ‘It’s not working,’ wailed Leo.

  The lock needs more lubrication, thought Angus desperately. If Mum was home they could drain some oil out of her car, but she’d be taping at the studio for at least another hour. What if the TV people kept her really late for retakes and by the time she got home Leo had starved to death? He’d hardly touched his fish fingers.

  Angus tried to bash the door in with his shoulder.

  The door didn’t budge. His shoulder hurt a lot.

  Then Angus noticed a lump of mashed potato and pumpkin on the front of his school shirt. He scraped it off and stuffed it into the keyhole.

  ‘Try now,’ he shouted.

  The key turned in the lock.

  Angus pushed the door open and grabbed Leo and inspected him anxiously for signs of drowning or hysteria.

  He couldn’t see any.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked, relieved.

  ‘No,’ said Leo tearfully, ‘Mum’s on and I’m missing her.’

  Leo ran back to the living room. Angus followed, wondering how old kids had to be before they thanked you for using lots of butter in the mashed potato and pumpkin.

  Imogen was dripping with chocolate milk and smeared with mashed vegies and gazing happily at the food-spattered screen where Mum was having dinner in her spotless TV kitchen with her spotless TV family.

  Angus looked around the real-life living room and nearly fainted.

  The damp patch on the carpet suddenly didn’t look so bad. Not compared to the tomato sauce running down the wall. And the stewed fruit splattered over Mum’s awards. And the chocolate milk dripping off the indoor ferns. And the dollop of potato and pumpkin on the Prime Minister’s head.

  If the Prime Minister was here and saw this, thought Angus gloomily, he’d never have his photo taken with Mum at a charity lunch ever again.

  Angus sat down and closed his eyes and wondered how he was going to clean it all up before Mum got home. Plus do the dishes, make Leo and Imogen’s lunch for tomorrow, disinfect the stroller and do his human reproduction homework.

  He felt panic starting to bubble up inside him.

  He remembered what the lifestyle-show doctor Mum had gone out with last year had reckoned you should do about panic. Imagine you were in a beautiful place. The doctor had done several segments on panic, possibly because he’d been going out wit
h Mum.

  Angus tried to imagine he was floating in a pirate submarine through the Great Barrier Reef. He tried to see the dazzling coral and exotic fish through the gun sights. It was no good. He couldn’t concentrate. Not with that horrible noise Leo was making.

  Angus opened his eyes.

  Leo was spitting out a mouthful of half-chewed fish finger.

  ‘Leo,’ said Angus, exasperated. ‘I cut off most of the burnt bits.’

  On the screen Mum’s beaming TV husband Max was handing her a spotless TV plate. ‘A slice of pizza for Australia’s best mum,’ he said. In return she gave him one of her famous crinkly-nose TV kisses.

  Angus winced. Watching her do that always made him feel funny in the tummy, though tonight it was probably made worse by stress and soggy burnt fish fingers.

  ‘Not fair,’ wailed Leo. ‘Craig and Nolene and Lachlan and Courtney are having pizza. Why can’t we have pizza?’

  Angus took a deep breath. ‘We’ve been through all this,’ he said. ‘They’re Mum’s TV family. They’re not real. We’re her real family. We’re the lucky ones. Immie, don’t put your dinner in your nappy.’

  ‘We’re not as lucky as them,’ said Leo, reaching for the tomato sauce and knocking his orange cordial over. ‘Mum spends heaps more time with them. They’re luckier.’

  ‘She has to spend more time with them,’ said Angus. ‘It’s her job. It’s how she earns the money we need to live on.’

  ‘She’s our mum,’ said Leo tearfully. ‘She should spend more time with us.’

  Angus grabbed a kitchen sponge and started mopping up. He felt a chill running up his spine. It wasn’t just the cordial soaking into his shirt. It was because Leo was right.

  Angus wiped the feeling away.

  Little kids, they were too young to understand.

  *

  Angus was still wiping pumpkin off the Prime Minister when Mum’s show ended.

  Please, begged Angus silently as Mum disappeared from the screen, don’t go.

  She went.

  Imogen gave a howl of rage and threw a handful of stewed plums and pears at Mum’s CD player. Angus managed to catch most of it.

  Leo sulked.

  As usual Angus cheered them both up by giving them a relaxing bath and making funny Bumface voices come out of Leo’s plastic submarine. This kept them distracted while he washed the potato and pumpkin out of Imogen’s belly button and the spider webs out of Leo’s hair.

  Angus noticed that Leo’s right earlobe looked a bit pink and swollen. He wrapped both the kids in towels, then hurried into his room to check his books.

  None of them had anything about swollen earlobes or spider bites. Angus couldn’t believe it. How can people write parenting books, he thought bitterly, and leave out all the important stuff?

  Angus went back into the bathroom, made Imogen spit out the soap, explained to Leo that toothpaste was not for painting expensive bottles of perfume with, then examined Leo’s earlobe again and decided it was just a phase he was going through.

  When the kids’ teeth were brushed, Angus took them to say goodnight to Leo’s mouse Geoffrey.

  Angus looked into the cage and frowned. Geoffrey was looking very fat these days.

  ‘What have you been feeding him?’ asked Angus.

  ‘Ants,’ said Leo.

  Angus peered at Geoffrey’s swollen tummy. He must have eaten most of the ants in the district.

  Angus tucked the kids into bed and told them a Bumface story. It was the one where Bumface kidnapped a whole bunch of parents and took them to his secret pirate submarine base on a remote island and kept them there until they promised to spend more time with their families.

  Even though it was one of Imogen and Leo’s favourites, they still had sad faces at the end.

  ‘I want my dad,’ said Leo.

  Angus sighed. ‘Your dad’s busy, Leo,’ he said gently. ‘He works nights, remember?’

  ‘My dad,’ said Imogen.

  ‘Your dad’s busy too,’ said Angus.

  ‘Your dad’s not busy,’ Leo said to Angus, ‘cause he’s unemployed.’

  Angus caught sight of his own weary face in Leo’s mirror. ‘A person can still be busy,’ he said, ‘even when they’re not being paid.’

  ‘When can they?’ said Leo.

  Angus thought about the sauce-spattered wall waiting for him, and the lunchboxes and the stroller and the homework.

  He decided not to depress the little kids.

  ‘When they’re a pirate,’ he yelled, and tickled them both.

  They screamed with laughter.

  Angus laughed too, and as he looked at their joyful faces he found himself wishing that a pirate would swing in through the bedroom window on a pirate rope and carry them all off to a secret pirate submarine base where they could always be like this.

  One day, thought Angus.

  It might happen.

  4

  Angus had just finished wiping the walls and was reaching into the dishwasher for Leo’s lunchbox when he heard a high-pitched voice behind him.

  ‘Avast there, me hearty.’

  He looked round.

  A cloth hand-puppet that looked sort of like a pirate was poking round the kitchen door.

  ‘I’m Pirate Jim,’ said the voice. ‘Splice me mainbrace and always wash your hands before meals.’

  ‘Hi Dad,’ said Angus wearily.

  Dad came in grinning broadly and waggling the pirate puppet on his hand. ‘What do you reckon?’ he said.

  ‘Kids TV show?’ asked Angus hopefully. Dad really needed a career break.

  Dad frowned under his curls. ‘That hopeless agent of mine couldn’t get me a role in a bread shop,’ he said, ‘let alone a TV show.’ Then he grinned again. ‘So I’m not moping around waiting any more. I’m writing a kids book. Pirate Jim. I got the idea from you when you told me how you’d persuaded your teacher to do a school play about pirates.’

  Angus stared at him. ‘Dad,’ he said, ‘you’re an actor, not a writer.’

  ‘Loads of actors write when they’re between jobs,’ said Dad. ‘Anyway, kids books are easy once you’ve got an idea. Mine’s a corker. Pirate Jim’s an ex-policeman who sails the world in an ecologically sound yacht telling bad kids how much more fun it is to be good. What do you think?’

  Angus suddenly found it hard to look at Dad. ‘Where did you get the puppet?’ he said, rummaging around in the dishwasher for Imogen’s lunchbox.

  ‘I’m going out with someone who used to do puppet theatre,’ said Dad. ‘Before she got into aerobics.’

  Angus sighed.

  ‘Thing is,’ said Dad, ‘I need a bit of help with research. You’re a good kid. What are your favourite fun things? The best things about being a kid? The things that make you glad to be alive?’

  Angus thought for a long time. Dad didn’t seem to notice because he and Pirate Jim were busy helping themselves to the chocolate biscuits.

  ‘The school play,’ said Angus.

  Dad wrote that down in a notebook.

  ‘And …?’ said Dad.

  Angus was still struggling to think of something else when he heard the sound of Mum’s car in the driveway.

  ‘Actually,’ said Dad, ‘there is another reason I popped round. I need to borrow a bit of cash from Mum. Has she got any around the place?’

  Angus’s insides sank. ‘Dad,’ he said, ‘Mum said no more. She pays you for child-minding and that’s it.’

  ‘Aw, come on,’ said Dad. ‘It’s only till I do a deal with a publisher for the book.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Angus, ‘I can’t.’ His chest felt tight and numb. ‘You’ll have to ask her yourself.’

  Outside, Mum’s car door slammed.

  ‘Some other time,’ said Dad. ‘I want to get home and get on with the book. Avast there me hearty and don’t forget to eat your vegies.’ He tweaked Angus’s nose with Pirate Jim, winked a couple of times and headed for the back door.

  Then he stop
ped and came back and gripped Angus’s shoulders.

  ‘Sorry I haven’t been around much lately to help you with the kids after school,’ he said hurriedly. ‘I just can’t afford the time. Your mum only pays me a pittance and I’m putting really long hours into Pirate Jim. Plus I have to pick Kelly up from aerobics. But you’re coping OK, right?’

  Angus didn’t blink.

  ‘Yes, Dad,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry.’

  Dad grinned. ‘My Mr Reliable,’ he said.

  Angus glowed. He waited for a hug. But Dad just tweaked Angus’s nose again and was gone.

  Angus sighed and reminded himself that Dad was in a hurry.

  He leant against the fridge. He saw that his hands were shaking. It’s just exhaustion, he thought dully. It’s my body’s way of telling me it knows I haven’t even started the kids’ lunches for tomorrow.

  Angus hoped Dad hadn’t noticed any signs of exhaustion.

  It was hard enough for a bloke to write a best-selling series of pirate books and save his career without having to worry about whether his son was suffering from a bit of tiredness.

  Angus was laying out the bread for the kids’ sandwiches when he heard Mum’s bracelets jangling in the hallway. She came into the kitchen, dropped her bag and coat onto the floor, and threw her arms round him.

  ‘You darling,’ she said, hugging him to her chest, ‘you’re doing their lunchboxes. I don’t know how I’d survive without you.’

  Angus glowed. This was his favourite part of the day, even though he almost choked on the smell of the stuff she used to get her TV makeup off.

  She pulled herself away and left him gasping for breath. Then he saw her face. It was creased with concern. She was staring at a magazine in her hand.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ said Angus, his heart picking up speed.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Mum, going through to the living room. Angus hurried after her. She kicked her shoes off and flung herself onto the settee and flicked her hair out of her eyes and waved the magazine. ‘Except I’ll probably lose my job.’

  Angus’s heart stopped. He stared at her, clammy with panic.

  It must have happened, the thing he’d feared most. A gossip magazine must have discovered the hours she worked and printed a story about Australia’s favourite TV mum neglecting her own kids in real life.