by Humza Arshad
‘And you will be sent to live in Pakistan until you are thirty-five,’ added my dad.
‘What?’ I shouted.
‘If you do not start winning tournaments, you will be going to live with Uncle Farooq in Karachi until your thirty-fifth birthday. Perhaps a proper Pakistani upbringing will give you the discipline you need.’
‘Mohammed!’ said my mother, rolling her eyes.
‘Nausheen!’ snapped my father. ‘I have spoken!’
Mum just shook her head.
What had just happened? My head was spinning. Babysitting Grandpa, winning cricket tournaments? Were they mad? Had they even met me? I couldn’t do those things! Not well, anyway. I was just about to protest, when the doors behind me opened and a zombie came barging out. Actually, it was Mrs Aguda, the nursery teacher, but there was something wrong with her.
‘Guuhhhh,’ she groaned. ‘Get out of my way!’
There were red spots all over her face, all over her arms and her legs. She was staggering, scratching at her skin, moaning. We all jumped out of the way and let her stumble past. She wandered out the gate and disappeared round the corner.
‘What on earth was that?’ said my mother.
We didn’t know it at the time, but the answer would turn out to be adult chicken pox – a real nasty case. The other thing, which we couldn’t have known, was that, after rushing out of the school gates that afternoon, Mrs Aguda was about to vanish into thin air.
And she wouldn’t be the only one …
CHAPTER FOUR
Grandpa’s Greatest Trick
Have you ever seen one of those vampire movies, when they enter the crypt or the castle or whatever, and there’s dust in the air and not much light and you know there’s a monster in there but you don’t know where?
That’s exactly what it felt like when we opened the door of Grandpa’s house a few days later. Auntie Uzma was still at school, doing whatever teachers do after the bell goes, so Mum had let us in with her spare key. There was no sign of Grandpa …
I still didn’t even know what I was doing there. Grandpa-sitting? Sure, he eats mushy food, wears a nappy at night and sleeps most of the day – but he ain’t a baby. I’m the kid here. He should be looking after me.
‘Can we leave?’ I said, as we stood in the doorway looking in. ‘This place smells weird. It’s like someone opened a curry house in a hospital.’
‘Of course you can leave,’ replied Mum, ‘… in two hours.’
‘Ah, man! If you just buy the camera for me now, I can make at least seven million quid by the end of the week and pay you straight back. That way neither of us have to spend time with an old man.’
‘This old man is your uncle and you are lucky to be able to take care of him. All my uncles are back home in Rawalpindi. I wish I could spend a day with them.’
‘Well how about we swap? I’ll go home and watch bad soap operas and you can stay here with Skeletor.’
She grabbed me by the collar before I could get away and yanked me back into the house. The door slammed behind us. We were alone in the dark. Something moved in the shadows …
‘Grandpa?’ said Mum.
‘Purr-rr,’ replied David Chesterton, stepping into the hall. He tilted his head and stared at us. We were obviously not who he was expecting.
‘Hello, David Chesterton,’ said Mum.
‘Wa-gwan, David Chesterton?’ I added, bending down to give him a little fist bump.
I’d taught him it a few months back, using bits of chicken as a reward. It only took five hours.
‘Purr-rrp, roo-ouuw,’ replied David Chesterton, tapping my fist with his paw.
I don’t usually like cats, but David Chesterton was OK. He had a great big fuzzy face and looked like a professor or a wizard or something. He was a mix of swirly browns, light and dark, and had a tail like a feather duster. His hair was so long and so thick you’d find it on you for days after you left. But, like I say, he was a pretty cool cat, so I didn’t hold it against him.
‘You seen Grandpa, boy?’ I asked him.
David Chesterton turned and looked behind him into the darkness. There was a gentle snoring coming from the living room.
‘Something tells me he’s in his usual spot,’ said Mum.
We found him on the living-room sofa with one of my auntie’s magazines draped over his face. The front cover had a pretty serious-looking portrait of the Queen on it. She looked like the photographer had just let one off and she wasn’t too impressed. The best bit though was that the magazine had slipped perfectly over Grandpa’s face, like a mask – so it looked like there was a wide-awake, slightly irritable Queen chilling out on Auntie Uzma’s sofa. You ain’t really seen the Queen until you’ve seen her with big yellow toenails and a curry-stained cardigan. Man, I wished I had a smartphone right then.
‘Grandpa,’ said Mum, gently touching his shoulder. ‘Humza’s here to look after you.’
‘Unless you’d rather just sleep?’ I added quickly. ‘In which case, we’re happy to leave.’
The Queen began to stretch and sit up. As she did, the magazine slipped down and revealed a bleary-eyed Grandpa underneath.
‘All right, Uncle?’ I said.
‘Hello, boy,’ said Grandpa with a cheeky smile. His teeth were all over the place: loads missing, all different yellows and browns, and seriously long. They were like funny little tombstones, wonky and exposed, all the way down to his elephant-grey gums. But for some reason it made for a great smile. Under all the wrinkles and cobwebs, there was still a kid in there somewhere.
‘Now, Uzma’s going to be back in a few hours,’ said Mum in that louder-than-normal voice she used for Grandpa and other old-looking people. ‘Humza’s going to stay here and take care of you.’
‘Why?’ asked Grandpa, scratching his head.
‘Exactly!’ I said. ‘Grandpa gets it. He doesn’t need me here. We could save everyone a lot of time and effort if you just paid me the money anyway and let Grandpa go back to sleep.’
‘They pay you to come?’ asked Grandpa, looking puzzled.
‘Damn right,’ I said. ‘My time is valuable.’
Grandpa’s smile had gone now. His eyebrows seemed to sink a little. ‘Oh,’ was all he said.
A few minutes later Mum let herself out, leaving me all alone with Grandpa. As the door clicked shut it struck me that I couldn’t remember a time I’d ever hung out with him by himself. Maybe for, like, five minutes while Auntie Uzma went to find a toilet in the shopping centre, but not properly, not like this.
I had a vague memory of sitting on his knee as a kid while he made up stories. But even then Mum or some auntie was always hanging about nearby. It felt pretty weird to be sitting here, just the two of us. I mean, what the hell did we have to talk about?
‘Uh … so … what do we do now?’ I asked.
Grandpa gave a small shrug. I could tell he was as thrown by this as I was.
‘You want a nap?’ suggested Grandpa.
‘Uh, not really,’ I replied. ‘It’s half past three in the afternoon.’
‘Oh,’ he said with a little smile, like this was new information to him.
We sat there quietly again. David Chesterton licked his paw and rubbed it on his head. That always struck me as a pretty stupid way to get clean: lick the thing you walk around on, rub it somewhere dirty, then lick it again. I think I’d rather just smell.
‘You like magic tricks?’ asked Grandpa out of the blue.
‘Huh?’ I replied.
It was the last thing I’d expected him to say. Well, I guess if he had said, I ate all the fridge magnets, or, The dishwasher has human feet, I might have expected that a bit less. But still … magic. It wasn’t exactly what you expect from Grandpa (even though he does kinda look like a Pakistani Dumbledore).
‘Come, come, come,’ he said, heaving himself off the sofa.
Man, what a noise. Have you ever cracked your knuckles? Now imagine that sound if your whole body was made out of
knuckles – knuckles for knees, knuckles for elbows, knuckles for knuckles … That’s what it sounded like when Grandpa pulled himself up. Bones and muscles and tendons all popping and stretching at the same time as they struggled to stop Grandpa falling to pieces right there in the lounge.
I followed him up the stairs – which took ages, as he was a billion years old. David Chesterton tagged along too, probably because it was the most action he’d seen in months. When we got to the landing Grandpa reached for the hatch that led into the loft. His spine stretching out sounded like someone popping bubble wrap.
Standing on his tiptoes, he managed to hook a bony finger into the pulley that hung from the little trapdoor. He gave it a yank and the hatch fell open, revealing a rickety-looking ladder.
‘You’re not gonna climb that, are you, Uncle?’ I asked him. ‘Cos if that’s the magic trick, I don’t wanna see it.’
‘Come, come, come,’ was all he’d say, and up he climbed into the loft, wobbling all over the place on the shaky old ladder.
David Chesterton and I looked at each other.
‘If he dies while I’m babysitting, do you reckon they’ll still let me have the camera?’ I said.
‘Mew,’ replied David Chesterton.
‘Nope … me neither …’
Like Grandpa, the loft was dark, cobwebby and weird-smelling.
The dim light bulb flickered a bit as I looked around the place. Stacked all over were big cardboard boxes, marked ‘Uzma’ or ‘Tariq’.
‘Who’s Tariq?’ I asked.
Grandpa smiled his gummy grin and pointed a knobbly finger at his chest.
‘Oh yeah,’ I said. ‘I forgot you had a proper name, Uncle Tariq. So what are we doing up here? Where’s the magic at?’
Grandpa reached up and took one of the ‘Tariq’ boxes down from the stack, placing it on the ground between the three of us. David Chesterton was definitely interested now. No cat in the world can resist an empty cardboard box. Opening it up, Grandpa reached in and removed an intricately carved wooden chest. It looked like it might have been as old as Grandpa himself.
‘When I was your age,’ he said, ‘I loved only magic tricks. I went to see the magicians in the markets; men who can float upon a length of rope or charm a cobra. I watched them every day, read of them in books. I had to know all their tricks, all their secrets.’
As he spoke, Grandpa placed the wooden chest down on the floorboards between us. David Chesterton didn’t waste any time in taking its place inside the cardboard box. He sat with his head poking out the top, watching us intently. Grandpa flipped open the rusty iron catch, which held the box shut. The ancient hinges groaned as he raised the lid.
Inside, was an explosion of colour. Too much to take in at once, it seemed almost to glow in the darkness of the attic.
‘Whoa!’ was all I could manage.
There were coins and cards and slips of silk. There were shiny cups and fuzzy red balls. There were magic wands, lengths of rope and a chain of sparkling silver rings. It was much better and much messier than any of those magic kits you can get at the shops. I didn’t know where to start.
‘What is it all?’ I asked him.
‘Oh, lots and lots. Many different things,’ he replied, that grin returning to his face.
‘OK, well, what’s your favourite one?’
‘Ah,’ he replied. ‘The trick I love best is still my first. The first I ever learned.’
He scooped out a small grubby coin from the bottom of the chest and examined it between his knobbly fingers. He moved it about between his fingertips and his thumbs like he was trying to remember how it felt. His fingers slid lightly across the coin. The coin slid smoothly between his fingers. It was weird, but somehow they didn’t seem like Grandpa’s fingers at all. They were so quick. So nimble. The little copper piece began to slip across his knuckles and between each finger, as though walking by itself.
‘How’d you do that?’ I asked him. ‘How’d you make it walk like that?’
‘Just practice. You can do it too,’ he said, closing the coin in his other hand and holding his fist out towards me. ‘But that is not the trick.’
‘What is then?’ I asked, holding out my own hand to accept the coin.
‘This,’ he replied, pointing to his outstretched fist.
He blew gently upon his fingers; then, one by one, he peeled them open to reveal an empty palm. The coin had vanished.
‘Whoa!’ I gasped. ‘Where’d it go?’
‘David Chesterton has it,’ he replied.
We both looked over towards where David Chesterton was sitting, his face poking out of the box. Right on the top of his head was the little coin.
‘How did you …?’ I began.
‘Magic, of course,’ said Grandpa with a toothy grin.
‘Grandpa!’
‘OK, OK,’ he said, laughing. ‘The secret of all good sleight of hand is misdirection.’
‘What’s “misdirection”?’
‘To make people see one thing, so they fail to see another.’
‘Can you teach me?’ I asked, taking the coin from David Chesterton’s head.
‘Of course,’ said Grandpa. ‘But you must do two things.’
‘No problem. What?’
‘The first is to practise. Practise, practise, practise. Never show a trick you have not mastered.’
‘All right. What’s the second?’
‘The trick is your secret. You must protect it. Magic trick is only magic if audience believes. Only share very rarely – like I share with you now. And when you master this I teach you a new trick, agreed?’
‘Yeah, agreed,’ I said.
‘Good. Then, watch,’ he said with a grin, lifting out a second copper coin to demonstrate with. ‘The secret of the disappearing coin …’
For the next ten minutes Grandpa showed me exactly how to perform the disappearing coin trick. (And if you want to learn it yourself, I’ve done a drawing at the end to help you – but don’t forget Grandpa’s two rules!)
I sat there practising and practising, over and over again. The trick was in making it look natural when you hid the coin from the audience. And it wasn’t easy. I don’t know how long I sat there performing the trick for David Chesterton in his box, but I hadn’t even noticed the snoring.
‘So why’s it your favourite trick then?’ I asked, but there was no answer.
I looked up to see Grandpa leaning back on a pile of boxes, fast asleep and snoring away. His fingers were twitching a little, like he was having a dream. I smiled. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all. I mean, I was gonna get paid to hang out with Grandpa and learn magic. That was a pretty good result.
I was just about to go back to practising when I heard the door close downstairs.
‘Hiii-eeeee!’ came the shriek from below.
I was ready to shout back, but I suddenly realized it might just give Grandpa a heart attack.
‘Grandpa,’ I said quietly, putting my hand on his shoulder. ‘Uncle, wake up. Auntie Uzma’s home.’
Grandpa opened his eyes and looked about. For a moment he seemed a bit surprised to find that he was in the loft. Then he smiled.
‘Have you been practising?’ he asked.
‘Yeah,’ I replied. ‘For ages. I’m getting good.’
‘Excellent,’ he said, and pulled himself up with the usual cracks and creaks. ‘Let’s go down now. Before we get caught,’ he added with a toothy grin.
‘Yeah, I bet Auntie doesn’t like seeing you up that ladder.’
‘Yes, but old Grandpa is younger than he looks,’ he said with a wink.
We had just closed the hatch when Auntie Uzma appeared at the top of the stairs.
‘Ah, there you are,’ she said. ‘What have you two been up to?’
Before anyone could reply, David Chesterton let out a loud hiss. His fur was standing up on end and he looked like he was ready for a fight. He was staring right at Auntie Uzma. But instead of attacking her, as I
thought he might, he just turned and ran into the spare bedroom, disappearing under the bed.
‘What was that about?’ I asked.
‘He is probably just hungry,’ said Auntie Uzma, shaking her head. ‘Grandpa also is grumpy when he is hungry. They both need fattening up!’
‘I don’t know, Auntie. He’s a pretty fat cat already,’ I replied. ‘If anything, he could stand to lose a few.’
‘Nonsense!’ said Auntie Uzma. ‘You all need fattening up! Now come downstairs and let us eat.’
‘Actually, I think I’m meant to be eating at home.’
‘You can do both,’ she said with a matter-of-fact nod.
‘Uh, yeah, but I probably shouldn’t. My mum’ll get annoyed.’
‘Oh, don’t you worry about her. What about a nice pudding before you go? I still have gulab jamun left over from school?’
‘Hmm …’ I replied. ‘I guess one couldn’t hurt.’
‘Exactly!’ said Auntie Uzma. ‘And two will be even better!’
Three gulab jamuns later I arrived home, licking sugary syrup off my fingers. As I opened the door the aroma of butter chicken hit me like a delicious brick in the face.
‘Dinner’s ready!’ called my mum.
Despite me already being full to the brim with sugary goodness dinner actually smelled pretty great. I tell you, life can be tough sometimes but it looked like I was just going to have to eat more delicious food.
‘How was it with Grandpa?’ asked Mum as I walked into the kitchen.
‘Good actually,’ I replied, still feeling a bit surprised by it all. ‘Grandpa’s pretty cool – you know – for an old guy.’
‘I’m pleased to hear it,’ said Mum, with a smile. ‘Now, please, lay the table,’ she added, holding a fistful of cutlery out towards me.
‘Uh-oh, no way!’ I said, whipping my hands away. ‘I’ve clocked out. No more chores for me. This is Humza time.’
‘Oh, really? And do you still like pocket money?’
‘Uh, yeah …’
‘Then normal chores apply,’ she added, and she thrust the cutlery into my hands.
‘Ah, man …’ I muttered, and walked off to lay the table.