by Adam Baron
The picture cheered me up and I told myself off. This wouldn’t be so bad. Mums went into hospital all the time. Lance’s did last year. His new-dad came to get him from school and when he came back next day his mum had had a baby.
‘So you’ve got a sister?’
‘A half-sister.’
‘Which half is your sister?’
‘The top,’ he said. ‘Definitely.’
I started to glow inside at the thought of seeing Mum and I pulled Bill to go faster. We got to the building, which was made out of dark red bricks that were black round the edges. We stood in front of a heavy blue door until a buzzer sounded and the door clicked open. We walked into a really bright reception and up to a big desk with two nurses behind it, one of them typing on a computer. The other left us standing there for a few minutes as she wrote something. Then, without looking up, she asked how she could help.
‘We’re here to see Janet Igloo,’ Bill said and I wished he’d just said ‘Mum’. I didn’t like hearing her name like that.
The nurse picked up a phone, asking us to take a seat and wait, pressing it against her chest until we’d turned away. We moved to the other side of the room and sat down at a low table with magazines on. I picked one up that had Prince William and Princess Kate on the front. They were holding their baby. Prince William was smiling and I stared into his face for a bit, before putting the magazine down.
‘Mr Martin?’ the doctor said.
He’d come out of a side door that clicked shut behind him. A very tall, thin man with a goatee beard and round glasses. I only realised who Mr Martin was when Uncle Bill stood up.
‘You’re Ms Igloo’s next of kin?’ His voice was really deep, almost like he was about to sing.
‘Yes,’ Bill said. ‘Her brother.’
‘I remember. Well, I’m Dr Mara, if you recall. And this handsome young man must be …?’
‘Cymbeline,’ Uncle Bill said. The doctor smiled at me and then asked if he could have a quiet word with Uncle Bill. He led him off towards the desk where the nurses were and I watched as they spoke. I was desperate to see Mum and wondered if she knew I was coming, trying to picture her face when she saw me. When Uncle Bill called me over I was about to ask him, but the look on his face stopped me. I turned to the doctor, who interfered with my hair.
‘Is Mum’s head better?’
‘It isn’t,’ the doctor said. ‘Not yet. And because of that –’
‘We’ll leave her alone today,’ said Uncle Bill, doing cheerful badly again, like he had that morning. ‘Let her get some rest.’
I stared at him. ‘But we brought her some flowers.’
‘I know. The nurses can give them to her. Okay?’
That word again. IT WAS NOT OKAY. I turned from him to the doctor.
‘Have you got a toilet?’ I said.
The doctor smiled and nodded, looking at the nurses, expecting them to help me. But they were both busy. I winced and squeezed my legs together and the doctor looked a little panicky. When I started to jump up and down he waved me to follow him towards the door he’d come out of, typing in some numbers on a keypad. He held the door for me and I went through it, into a narrow corridor with yellow walls. I waved back through the door at Uncle Bill, and the doctor showed me a green button to press when I wanted to come back out again. He walked towards a toilet door and I thanked him, just as a little device on his belt went beep. He looked at it, stopped, then hurried off up the corridor as I pushed the toilet door open.
But I didn’t go inside.
The doctor turned a corner and the corridor was empty. I started up it, ready to duck to the side if he came back. My heart was pounding and I realised something. Actually being in there made me realise it. My image of what would happen inside here was only that – an image. I’d made it up. What if I found something else? Something worse. I stared at the corner the doctor had turned down and wondered if I should go back. I even turned, before telling myself that I had to go forward, and I did that and …
‘Wow!’ I said out loud.
In front of me was the least hospitally-looking hospital I’d ever seen. To start with there were no people on plastic chairs complaining about how long they’d been waiting and staring up at a display in case they missed their names. Instead I was in a big space, with sofas, chairs and a carpet, and big pictures on the walls. The colours were not like hospitals normally are, all greys and browns. Instead they were soft and bright, like Starburst flavours. I was instantly cheered up, more so when I walked past people who were just sitting, reading or chatting, drinking tea, none looking particularly injured or anything. One had a name thingy round her neck that told me she was a nurse, though she wasn’t dressed like one and she wasn’t injecting anyone or taking their temperature. She was just talking.
It was such a relief. Mum wouldn’t mind staying in a place like this, would she? I looked around, hoping to spot her. I was about to ask the nurse where she was after I’d seen Mum wasn’t there. But I didn’t, because I’d heard something. It came from the other side of the space, making me smile, and I hurried towards it, stopping at an open door. I peered in. This room was smaller, though just as nice as the big space, and I was sure Mum would be in there because she LOVES The Simpsons. When I ask for a biscuit after school she says ‘okely dokely’. When she forgets the house keys she says ‘doh’, like Homer. If The Simpsons was on she was bound to be watching it. Only she wasn’t. No one was. I blinked, wondering why you’d have a room with a TV on, with no one in it, though it didn’t matter. Mum would explain it to me. I backed out and went on, past more rooms, looking into the ones with doors open. The first was a little kitchen and the next had a chair like a dentist’s, with machines all around it. I was wondering if I’d ever find Mum, when I came to another door, this one at the end of a corridor.
This room was more like the place I’d been picturing. To start with it did have beds in. They were bigger than I’d imagined, though, and further apart – two completely surrounded by curtains. The rest did have ladies in but none of them had a bandage on. One was an old woman staring up at the ceiling. Next to her was a woman in a duffel coat and seeing her stopped me. She was sitting up and it looked like she was washing her hands. She didn’t have a sink, but she was still doing that. My throat went dry and I wanted to back out, hoping she wouldn’t see me, knowing that I must be in the wrong room. But when I looked over at the next bed, there she was. Mum. Like the woman next to her, Mum was sitting on her bed. Not in her favourite nightie. Dressed. She didn’t have a bandage on her head either and I thought that might mean she was better now. I was so happy to see her. Just to see her of course, but also to say sorry – for lying to Lance about swimming. I was about to run forward but I found myself hesitating. Mum has a thing about her hair. She washes it all the time, but now it was tangly. She looked, in fact, like she’d been ‘dragged through a hedge backwards’ and she wasn’t sitting up straight either, like she was always telling me, but squashed over forward, fiddling with something in her hand.
‘Mum? The Simpsons are on.’
She didn’t hear. She just carried on staring at the thing in her hand, which she was pressing against her stomach. Then I realised that she was speaking, her voice really quiet, though I could just hear what she was saying.
‘Two sugars,’ she said. ‘Two. Sugars.’
What?
She said it over and over, and I didn’t understand. There was no one to say it to, for one thing; she was just speaking into space. And she doesn’t even take sugar. I was about to ask what she meant but then I saw what she was holding.
Mr Fluffy.
Mum was pressing him against her tummy. So that’s why he wasn’t in my bed that morning. I stared as she twisted his left eye and I wanted to tell her to be careful in case she pulled it off. But I didn’t, because, all of a sudden, I was afraid. Of my mum. I didn’t like that about myself and I asked myself how it could be. I couldn’t help it, though, and when I tri
ed to walk forward I couldn’t move. I just watched as Mum crushed Mr Fluffy to her face and began to sob, rooting me to the spot until a hand landed on my shoulder.
‘Come on, Cym,’ said Uncle Bill.
I didn’t go in to see Mum. Instead I let Uncle Bill lead me back past all the charity shops and the Greggs.
‘Oh no,’ I said, as we walked up on to the platform.
‘What is it, Cym?’
I didn’t answer. I just held up the flowers I’d bought for Mum, and which I was still holding in my hand.
I don’t remember much of what happened for the rest of that day. After Uncle Bill took me back to school I had to wait a bit before going in. Mum’s crying, I must have inherited it. When it stopped I was still in a daze, like being at the bottom of that swimming pool. Then I was just confused, picturing Mum with Mr Fluffy. She never lets me take him out of the house any more in case he goes missing.
So why on earth did she take him with her?
Uncle Bill hadn’t thought about giving me any lunch and, by the time I’d got into the hall, the Year 4 sitting was over. Mrs Stebbings offered to make me a sandwich but I wasn’t hungry. She said to run out on to the heath with my friends but that was the last thing I wanted to do. I went round to my classroom instead and got one of the spelling test sheets from Miss Phillips’s desk because I’d missed it that morning. I remembered what the words were as best I could before putting the sheet on the pile with the others. Veronique’s was on the top, her words are harder than the ones for the rest of us (she even has lessons on her own sometimes). The first one Miss Phillips had given her to spell was ‘precocious’. The second was ‘presumptuous’. Then ‘conceited’, ‘arrogant’, ‘haughty’, ‘immodest’, ‘complacent’ and ‘supercilious’. I don’t know if she got them right or not.
I didn’t go out at playtime. When everyone came back in I didn’t look at anyone; I just got out my book for private reading. At home time I was expecting to see Uncle Bill out in the playground, but he wasn’t there. Instead it was Auntie Mill who was waiting for me.
Auntie Mill had her hands on her hips and was holding her car keys, tapping her foot as she stared around at all the kids. She didn’t see me until I was right in front of her.
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘There you are. So how are …? I mean, come along then. Have you got everything?’
I held my bag up, and Mum’s flowers. Auntie Mill frowned at them for a second before taking them. ‘Oh, how … sweet,’ she said. ‘Thank you, Cymbeline.’
‘Oh, no, they’re not for …’
I couldn’t finish what I was going to say because Auntie Mill had turned towards the gates with the flowers in her hand. Ignoring Marcus Breen doing a drowning mime, I jogged behind her, out of the playground to where Auntie Mill had broken Rule 4 of the St Saviour’s school code. She’d driven right down to the gates instead of parking at the top of the road, thereby putting the lives of St Saviour’s children at risk. I looked for Reception kids squashed on to the tyres but fortunately there weren’t any. The car bleeped and flashed and I tried to pull the door open without success.
‘Need to grow a bit,’ Auntie Mill said, yanking it open for me.
Now, what I’m going to say next is controversial. Sometimes our parents have opinions and while they always assume that we’ll share those opinions (because we’re their children) sometimes we DO NOT. My mum, for instance, says that a band called Abba are great, but that is COMPLETELY NOT TRUE. What she also says is that Auntie Mill’s car is ‘tacky’ and ‘hideous’, a ‘gas-guzzling planet killer’, the sort of car driven by people with ‘frail egos’ and ‘no social conscience’. She doesn’t say this to Auntie Mill but to Uncle Bill, and, while I never comment, I disagree. Any car would be great as we don’t have one, but Auntie Mill’s car is EPIC. It is E-NORMOUS. It is black and shiny (which you know I like) and so high off the ground you could do with a rope ladder to get yourself in. The windows are tinted so you can do faces at people while you drive along and it has these leather seats that warm your bum up (a bit surprising the first time, I can tell you). The front seats have actually got TVs on the back. My cousins Juniper and Clayton have their own stashes of sweets in handy pouch things, and they don’t even have to ask Auntie Mill if they can eat them – they just do! I love Auntie Mill’s car almost as much as she does. On the rare times she comes round, she keeps looking out on to our street to make sure it’s still there.
‘Where are Juni and Clay?’ I said, as the car lurched forward. I was in the front seat on a booster. The road was full of people walking up to the heath and Auntie Mill pressed the horn, making them jump and turn round. She tutted and sighed, edging through when they walked over to the pavement.
‘Fencing,’ she said. ‘Well, Juniper is. I normally watch, though today –’
‘And Clay?’
‘Clayton is at debating club.’
‘Are we going to pick them up?’
‘That’s right.’
‘And are they coming to stay at our house too?’
Auntie Mill slowed down a bit to look horrified. ‘Your house?’
‘Until Mum’s better.’
‘Oh,’ she said, going on again and pushing in front of Rachel’s mum’s Mini. ‘No, Cymbeline, we won’t be going back to your house. You’ll be …’
‘Yes?’
Auntie Mill sighed. ‘Staying with us. And Uncle Bill. We’ll be … sharing you. Until your mum gets better.’
‘Oh. Do you know when that might be?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry to say that I don’t, Cymbeline.’
Auntie Mill pulled into the traffic as I sat watching the St Saviour’s kids coming out on to the heath. I tried to take in what Auntie Mill had said, and I tried to be positive about it. Their house is BIG. The garden is like a park, with a treehouse and bushes to hide in, some proper goalposts and swings at the bottom. It has also suffered, in Mum’s phrase, a ‘digital apocalypse’, by which she means that Clay and Juni both have iPads and that Clay’s got an Xbox, and Juni’s got a PS4 IN HER BEDROOM. I overheard Uncle Bill offering to buy me an Xbox last Christmas but Mum said NO WAY!
‘Why not?’ I wailed, when he’d gone home.
‘Because I’d quite like my son to remain a human being.’
‘But Clay’s a human being, isn’t he?’
‘How would I know?’ Mum had said. ‘For the last four years I’ve only ever seen the back of his head.’
I should, therefore, have been happy at the idea of going to Auntie Mill’s. But I wanted to be at home. Being there would feel closer to Mum. Her things would be there and there would be photos I could look at.
‘But I don’t have any stuff,’ I said.
‘Clayton’s got some old clothes. Pants and things.’
‘What about school uniform?’
‘You can wear what you have. And if it gets dirty Clayton’s got some. I don’t think a school like yours would bother too much if you came in wearing a different jumper, would they?’
‘I don’t know. But …?’
‘What, Cymbeline?’
I pretended to be embarrassed. ‘How will I get to sleep?’
‘To sleep?’
‘Without Mr Fluffy,’ I said, like I was confessing to something.
At that, Auntie Mill sighed, and put the brakes on. I could see her deciding, and then I could see what she’d decided. Clearly, she did not want me to be unable to get to sleep while staying with her, so instead of going up through Blackheath Village to their house she turned right across the little roundabout at the last moment, getting a beep from Danny Jones’s dad. She ignored that and sped up, and pretty soon we were parked outside our house.
‘I’ll wait here,’ she said, as I pushed the door open.
‘Don’t be long, please.’
I jumped down to the pavement and looked at our front door. A free newspaper was sticking out of the letterbox and I poked it under my arm. I dug around in my bag for the spare ke
ys, which Mum keeps in there because she’s always locking herself out. I’m an artist, she tells me, which apparently explains it.
I opened the house and stepped into the hall. It felt odd, and a little scary, to be in there on my own. I stepped forward, the floorboards squeaking beneath my feet. I went into the kitchen and put the paper on to the table next to mine and Uncle Bill’s breakfast things, which he hadn’t cleared away. I did that, piling them up in the sink and getting a cloth for the crumbs. Then I climbed the stairs and stared at Mum’s door for a bit before going in. I made her bed and then went into my room where I stuffed my own pants, and my own socks, and my own pyjamas into my bag, as well as some school clothes. Auntie Mill was wrong. If we even wore blue socks instead of grey ones, Miss Phillips made us stay in at lunch. And what did she mean when she said ‘a school like yours’? Was it different from Juni and Clay’s school in some way?
I put some Asterix books in and then went down to the living room where I had a decision to make. But Mum wouldn’t mind – not if she knew why I wanted it. I slid it in with the books and clothes and ran upstairs again and grabbed a random teddy from the shelf above my bed.
‘Mr Fluffy,’ I told Auntie Mill, holding it up as I climbed back into the car. It was a fib of course, because it wasn’t really Mr Fluffy. I would like to apologise for that. At least I had my own stuff, though.