Boy Underwater

by Adam Baron

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I’m being called by my middle name now.’

  ‘I didn’t even know you had a middle name.’

  ‘Well, I do. And my dad said I could use it.’

  ‘Your …?’

  ‘My real dad, right?’

  ‘Right. But … what’s wrong with Lance?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘There must be, or you’d still be called it.’

  The boy I thought was Lance sighed. ‘Well. Even though I’m not named after Lance Arm … and it’s just a random name … my dad’s started making jokes.’

  ‘Your …?’

  ‘My new-dad.’

  ‘What kind of jokes?’

  ‘I wanted to go out on my bike but he said I had to wee in a bottle first.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To test if I was on drugs.’

  ‘Sounds like he’s on drugs.’

  ‘My real dad says that too. But I’m not Lance any more, understand?’

  ‘I don’t mind what you’re called. But I think it’s probably best if I know what that is.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, hard luck because I’m not telling you.’

  ‘You’re not? Why?’

  ‘Because, Cymbeline Igloo, that would be talking to you. And I’m not talking to you ever AGAIN.’

  And with that the boy I’d thought was Lance – and who really was Lance (but wasn’t Lance) – stormed off into our classroom.

  I stared, amazed, like someone in an old-fashioned cartoon who gets hit in the face with a frying pan. I wondered what I’d done and I went after Not-Lance to ask, but I didn’t get a chance. Instead I ran straight into Billy Lee and I stiffened, waiting for him to jeer, for this to be the beginning of all the really funny jokes about the swimming pool. But, instead of laughing, he shrank away, almost as if he was scared of me. I stared into his face as he swallowed and I noticed that he had a black eye. But I didn’t give it to him, did I? I was about to ask him how he did get it when Miss Phillips told us all to get ready. And, for the first time ever, Billy was the first in line.

  We were going to the Tate Modern art gallery and you don’t have to worry about me this time because (unlike the swimming pool) I was used to this. Mum takes me to galleries all the time and Tate Modern is my favourite, largely because the pictures aren’t all of old people (not like some galleries I could mention). There’s also this slope you can do Heelying on. Even at the National, where Mum works, I get told off for doing that.

  We got the train from Blackheath station to London Bridge. We walked from there and when we got to the Tate we put our bags in a room downstairs. Then we went upstairs, everyone looking around at the massive ceilings. I was next to Elizabeth Fisher but when we got to the top of the stairs I walked over to The Friend Formerly Known As Lance. I wanted to talk to him because, on the way there, I’d worked out why he was angry and it had got me really upset. We were supposed to be friends. We were in nursery together, and we’d had four joint birthday parties. He was the one I was supposed to be taking on my birthday outing this year. He’s the only person I’ve ever had a sleepover with without my mum staying and I have never once been on the opposite side to him in lunchtime football.

  And in spite of this, I lied to him. I told him I was epic at swimming. I wanted to tell him sorry, that it was just a stupid thing to say, that I only said it because I was nervous. But I couldn’t because when he saw me coming he turned his head away and walked off. Then Miss Phillips put us in different groups and I sighed, hoping I could talk to him at lunchtime.

  I went off with my group and the first thing we did was make nametags so the helpers would know what to call us. A helper then gave us each a big pad of paper and each group was given a different area of the gallery to explore. In my group was Elizabeth Fisher, Danny Jones, Vi Delap and Vi Delap’s mum. We had to find pictures to copy, something Danny said was weird, because why draw a picture that’s already been drawn? But, once again, I was used to it, because Mum gets me to do the same thing, something that takes ages at places like the National or the Royal Academy. Another reason I like the Tate, though, is that in there it takes no time at all. Line-scribble-swish-dab: done. You can really see why artists don’t bother painting old people any more and, if I’m an artist one day, I am so going to be a modern one.

  We found some paintings by a man called Jackson Pollock. Vi’s mum said they were famous. This was confusing because Marcus Breen did some just like them in class last year – all random swirls – and got really told off. I enjoyed doing copies, though. I started with green, going round and round, then doing the same thing with yellow, and red. Blue. And it was strange. I had so many difficult things making me think about them – Mum, ‘Lance’, swimming – but for the first time since the Charlton match it all disappeared. I was just there, trying to make the colours even, a feeling growing that I couldn’t really understand. When I’m drawing a train, say, or a castle, I’m painting that, trying to make it look the same. But because this was just colours, and wasn’t of anything real, it began to feel like I was drawing what was inside me. Trying to make everything line up and not be so sort of jangly. I got completely stuck in until Vi’s mum looked over my shoulder.

  ‘Wow,’ she said. ‘That’s brilliant.’

  I couldn’t help smiling and then again when (after I’d finished) she took the picture to show Miss Phillips. Miss Phillips told her, yes, I was really talented, just like my mum. I smiled even more, and not just because she liked my picture. I never thought of myself as good at things. Veronique was, and David Finch. Billy (grrrr). But compared to the other pictures, which Miss Phillips put on a table, mine was good. I stared at them, some copies of a Picasso, others of Matisses, and others of paintings by someone called De Chirico, who always painted pictures with these long shadows on, though no one had got them all going the right way, quite.

  It was even stranger because I hadn’t meant mine to be good. It just came out that way, like someone else had done it from inside me. And that person had to be my mum because if I was good at art it was because I was her son. This thought made me even happier, a glow coming on inside me. And when I looked at my picture again, it grew even warmer. The colours had come together. They looked even, and calm. And this would happen with the difficult things inside me because if I’d made it happen in the picture I could make it happen in real life, couldn’t I?

  Starting with Lance.

  I mean Not-Lance.

  Not-Lance still wasn’t talking to me. I thought I’d find him at lunch but the room they took us to had these long tables and he waited to see where I sat before going right off to the other end. Mrs Stebbings had given me two Penguins to cheer me up, which normally would have worked because they’re my favourite, in spite of the fact that they’re not actually shaped like penguins, which they should be. Mars bars too – they should be round. And red.

  Anyway, I was going to give him one of the Penguins because his mum only ever lets him have yoghurts on school trips (which my mum says is just to show off to the other mums about how healthy they are). But, when I made the Penguin do a little penguin walk in Not-Lance’s direction, he turned away. And I realised something. He looked miserable, and I didn’t think it was just because of me. It was his dads. Clearly they were upsetting him. His name change told me that. So, was having two dads just as hard as having none? Was one dad the only number you should have? Or, perhaps, it was just having even numbers of dads that was bad. Perhaps three, five, seven, nine or eleven dads would be okay. Whatever it was I felt guilty, like my problems had taken over everything. I wished I could ask him but after lunch Miss Phillips put us in pairs.

  And she put me with Billy Lee.

  I stared in horror as the words came out of her mouth. How could she do this to me? Billy looked equally stunned, especially when Miss Phillips asked everyone else to leave the lunch room but told us to stay behind!

>   ‘Billy,’ she said, when they were gone. ‘You have something to say to Cymbeline, don’t you?’

  Billy stared down at his feet.

  ‘But you didn’t push his shoes into the swimming pool, did you? So you can say it to his face.’

  Billy lifted his head like it was a boulder. I saw that his black eye wasn’t actually black but a mixture of purple and green. They should be called purple and green eyes.

  He mumbled, ‘I’m sorry I pushed you in the swimming pool, Cymbeline.’

  ‘Yeah, right you are.’

  ‘I am,’ he insisted and, weirdly, he looked like he meant it. That confused me and when Miss Phillips told us to catch up with the others I tapped him on the shoulder.

  ‘Did you get done then?’

  Billy nodded, and then faced forward as we hopped on to some escalators.

  ‘Did Mrs Johnson call your mum?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘From the office?’

  He nodded again.

  ‘And was she mad?’

  ‘No.’ Billy sighed. ‘She wasn’t there. My mum. She didn’t answer her phone.’

  ‘You are so lucky.’

  ‘I’m not. Mrs Johnson, she …’

  ‘What?’

  His lips trembled. ‘She called my dad. I begged her not to but she wouldn’t listen. He was on site with clients and he had to come in and get me. He was so …’

  ‘Mad?’

  Billy just bit his lip instead of answering but I think he meant yes. I was about to ask what his dad did, but Marcus Breen tripped over at the top of the escalator and six of us fell over after him.

  ‘This way please, St Saviour’s,’ the helper said.

  We were going to see an exhibition. The painter’s name was Munch; though, disappointingly, his first name was Edvard, not Monster. The helper gave us a talk about him and handed out sheets to the pairs, things we had to tick off. Billy and I looked at the paintings, which, unlike the Jackson Pollocks, were of actual people. People who were really bummed off. A woman was staring out across a lake like someone had just thrown her schoolbag in it. In another one this guy sitting on a bed looked like one of the Rotherham fans after Johnnie Jackson’s winner. I wanted to tell him to cheer up but I couldn’t of course and so my eyes found New Name Because Of New-Dad Boy instead. I wanted to tell him why I’d lied. How I’d never been swimming and how scared I was when Miss Phillips said we were going. I wanted to say I was sorry and that I couldn’t wait until Saturday. I left Billy and walked over to him, but the helper called us in together and led us to one of the paintings.

  When we were all sitting on the floor she told us that the painting we were looking at was Munch’s most famous one. This was probably because the person in it looked even more miserable than the people in the other ones. The painting was called The Scream and was of this woman who was walking down a road towards the painter. ‘Freaky’ does not do enough to describe her. She had no proper face for a start, and there were these colours swirling around her head like Billy’s multicoloured eye. She was screaming SO LOUD you could sort of hear her even though she was in a painting. The terrible thing, though, was that the people walking behind her were not miserable. They were laughing. And they couldn’t see that she was miserable. The only person who could see that was you, the viewer – but you couldn’t help her because you were outside the painting.

  I stared, shaking my head, and then I looked at Lance again. And nodded. We weren’t separate. We were in the same school, which meant that we could see each other and we did know how we were feeling. And – that being true – we could help each other.

  Like friends do.

  I stared at the picture until the helper asked who would like to make a comment. I so wanted to say what I’d just thought, so that Lance could hear it too. My hand hit the sky but Veronique put hers up and so did Vi Delap and Elizabeth Fisher (though she just needed a wee). But the helper’s eyes went behind us.

  ‘Bradley,’ she said, squinting at his nametag.

  Bradley? We didn’t have a Bradley. It was only when I turned round that I knew who she meant. So that was his new name.

  ‘What does this painting make you think of?’

  Bradley/Lance stood up and I nodded, knowing what he was going to say. It was what I’d been thinking too, that it looks like the secret pain we all carry around with us, and which we need our friends to share.

  Wrong.

  ‘It looks like Cym’s mum,’ Lance said. ‘It looks just like his mum did at the swimming pool.’

  There was silence.

  Then someone giggled.

  I don’t know who.

  Then that person started to snigger and someone else did. And then more. I don’t know who laughed and who didn’t. But there were a lot who did. Marcus Breen said, ‘Yeah, that’s your mum, Cymbeline.’ But though I heard it I didn’t really hear it. Because I was moving. I didn’t mean to move. This feeling in my stomach just sort of lifted me up towards Lance, who was laughing his head off at the reaction he’d got, but then he stopped. He looked worried. Then he looked scared as I launched myself towards him and pushed him over and then started to punch him really, really, REALLY hard.

  Mrs Johnson called Auntie Mill from the office. Auntie Mill stormed in wearing a short white dress, trainers and this visor thing. Mrs Johnson said ‘disgraceful’ and ‘shaming the whole school’ and ‘no excuse, whatever the situation at home,’ and Auntie Mill so did not stick up for me. She just apologised for the behaviour of her sister’s son and told me to sit in the car.

  ‘And don’t touch anything! Four–one to me in the deciding set and then you have to … Ooh!’

  When we got to their house, she sent me up to the spare room and told me I had to stay there all night. It was yesterday’s pizza for supper and Clay brought it up, pretending to be terrified when he passed me the plate. I ate it on the bed on my own and pushed the artichoke bits down the plughole. There wasn’t any pudding.

  Yesterday I’d been lonely. But now I felt terrible. Even looking at pictures of Mum on her tablet didn’t make it any better. She didn’t look like her somehow. She looked like my dad did on the mantelpiece. Just someone. Snizzling the fake Mr Fluffy didn’t help either. I stared at the door, desperate for my mum. Knowing I couldn’t have her I wanted to go downstairs instead and say I was sorry, really sorry. I just wanted to be with someone. Even if Juni or Clay didn’t want to be with me, I’d join Auntie Mill on the sofa. I’d watch the cake programme, no problem, though had Auntie Mill seen Incredible Edibles? If she liked the cake thing, she might like that. I was about to go and ask her when there was this huge

  on the bedroom window.

  I stared at the turquoise curtains. It happened again.

  I dived beneath the duvet

  and pulled it up to my chin.

  What was happening? Were we under attack? I had no idea, though my first thought was that it might be Bradlance coming to get his own back. That was unlikely, however, and I had no idea who, or what, was outside. When the next whack came – even louder than the others – I knew that I had a choice. I could stay there, forever, hiding under the duvet like a big fat coward, or I could leap out, run over to the curtains and face the THING head on!

  I stayed there under the duvet.

  Then I stayed there some more. Then more, but the whacking didn’t stop. I realised that Auntie Mill might hear it and come up and tell me off, and that was what forced me out of bed. I swallowed, and winced, then edged over to the window, picturing some hideous monster, all swirling eyes and dark colours like The Scream, with a head like Mrs Johnson’s when she shouted at me. But when I finally plucked up the courage to peek through the curtains I saw …

  A tennis ball.

  The tennis ball was flying towards me, stopped by the window in front of my face before bouncing back towards a window in the house opposite.

  Veronique caught it.

  Veronique’s house was really close to Auntie
Mill’s and Veronique was standing in her bedroom with the window open. The tennis ball was in her hand. She was about to throw it but she stopped when she saw me, and I just swallowed. When she signalled for me to open my window I did it, even though I was sure she was going to laugh at me for the swimming pool, or tell me I was crazy for what I’d done in the Tate. But instead she said, ‘Are you going to the moon?’

  I was not expecting that and I stared at her. But then I remembered that I was wearing my astronaut pyjamas, which Uncle Bill once got me from the Science Museum.

  ‘I was just sitting here.’

  ‘Who’s that?’ Veronique asked, her gaze moving to the teddy that was still in my hand.

  ‘Not Mr Fluffy,’ I said.

  ‘Then what is he called?’

  ‘No, that’s his name. “Not Mr Fluffy”.’

  ‘That’s a good name as he’s not very fluffy, is he?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Though Mr Fluffy is.’

  ‘Well, that’s all right then.’

  I put Not Mr Fluffy down and held my hands out. ‘Go on then.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Throw the ball. Didn’t you want to play catch?’

  ‘No, silly. That was just to get your attention.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I want to come across.’

  ‘Across?’

  ‘Yes, a-cross,’ Veronique said again, as if it should be very obvious.

  ‘Across’ was not obvious, but I soon found out what it meant. Veronique stepped back into her room and reappeared with a metal ladder.

  ‘It’s for going up in our loft,’ she explained. ‘But it also works for this.’

  This was pure madness and so

  Veronique slid the ladder out of her window until the near end was resting on my windowsill. After Veronique made sure that both ends were wedged in tight, she started crawling along it, across the gap between the two houses! I just stared, but when she held out her hand I pulled her in.

  ‘Do you …? Do this a lot?’