Little Big Man

by Katy Regan

  It’s a shame the video they took had already got shown around a few people – including Aidan’s brother and his friends who are in Year 8 – so now I’m known as ‘bra boy’. It’s embarrassing, but it’s not ruined my life. I’ve got Teagan and I’ve got Connor, and I’ve got all the truth about my dad now and even though I’d never have chosen to have Aidan and his mates do what they did, and even though I’d never say it out loud to anyone, not even Mum, it was sort of worth it, because if they hadn’t, then maybe she wouldn’t have told me the truth. I still want to find him. I’ve still got my mission. He might turn out to not want to know me, but at least I’ll know.

  ‘Right,’ said Mrs Bond. She was in her normal non-teacher clothes because she was coming on the school trip with us; she didn’t look like a head teacher anymore, she just looked like a mum. ‘Can everyone find a partner, please, that you don’t mind sitting next to on a coach for the next hour?’

  I was already standing next to Teagan; she’s the only person I’d ever want to sit next to. And anyway, she’s so little, it’s not a squeeze. If I sit next to anyone else, I have to clench my bum cheeks in and worry all the time that my arm’s touching theirs and annoying them. Then I can’t relax for the whole time I’m there, which is really annoying for me.

  We all put our bags in the special drawer under the bus then we had to stand behind our coach partner so we were all in a line and get onto the bus. Teagan was in front of me and Connor was behind.

  ‘You might regret sitting next to me today, I’ve got a really bad cold,’ said Teagan, as we got on the bus. You could tell as well, she was coughing a lot.

  ‘Have you got your puffers?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Wasn’t your mum worried about you coming to school if you’re poorly?’

  ‘Yeah, but I didn’t want to miss the trip. I already missed Skegness – I’m bored of it.’

  ‘Oh, right. Well, don’t worry about sitting next to me. I don’t catch colds; it’s ’cause I eat loads of tangerines, my mum says.’

  ‘No, it’s because you eat loads of everything,’ Connor said behind me, but I just told him to shut up. I didn’t mind. It was even quite funny.

  Bolingbroke Castle is just ruins now – I looked it up. It was built by Ranulf de Blondeville – his name is very funny. You can’t believe how old the castle is or that there were real people living in it, doing normal stuff like eating their breakfast and brushing their teeth eight hundred years ago – even though they didn’t have toothbrushes in 1220; they just had sticks to poke the bits of food out. We were going to look at the old walls of the castle, then go walking around the gardens and the woods. I sat down next to Teagan. Connor poked his head between our seats and stuck his tongue out so we turned around. ‘I’ve got a good idea,’ he said in one of his silly voices (he’s got loads), pulling a silly face. ‘Let’s go an hour away to look at a wall, shall we? Even though I’ve got one in front of my house.’ I laughed but in secret, I was excited. It was going to be more fun than normal school anyway.

  It took about an hour and a half to get there – it would have taken only an hour but Emily Macdonald was travel-sick and so we had to stop. She tried to get it all in the paper bag, but it overflowed and went on Miss Farrell’s lap and she had to pretend she didn’t mind. Teagan didn’t feel well either, but it was because of her cold, not feeling sick. She had to keep telling Connor to shut up behind us, so she could lean her head on the window and close her eyes. It felt weird not to talk about the dad mission when that’s all we’ve talked about for ages but I didn’t feel like Teagan was in the mood, not just because she was poorly but because she thinks I should leave looking for my dad for a bit. She thinks I’ve got enough to worry about and that if my dad did get drunk and do fighting, that he might not be a good dad after all. I think another reason she’s not in a good mood about it is because of her own dad. She’s dead upset about him. She’s not showing it, but I know.

  The castle was pretty epic even though there wasn’t any castle there anymore, just walls. But we stood where the courtyard would have been and imagined all the rooms that went off it, then we went to where the main big hall would have been, while a lady with a really quiet voice gave us a talk about the history of the castle.

  ‘And Ranulf de Blondeville built this castle when he came back from the Crusades in the 1220s …’

  Next to me, you could hear Teagan’s breathing. It sounded like she was whistling. I could even hear it over the lady’s talking.

  ‘… and eventually, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, inherited the castle and he became the guardian of Richard II, when he became king at just ten years old.’

  ‘Gosh, can you imagine that, children?’ said Mrs Bond. ‘The responsibility of being king at your age?’

  None of us could.

  We saw the remains of the towers, and where the moats used to be, and even the room where King Henry IV would probably have been born. It didn’t look that comfy.

  After the talk, we went for a walk in some woods and fields around the house. We had to go in our pairs, so I went with Teagan but she couldn’t walk that fast because her cold meant her asthma was bad and she was getting out of breath. She didn’t want anyone to notice, though, so we walked a bit away from everyone, even though Mrs Bond kept saying, ‘Zac and Teagan, keep with the group, please.’

  The walk was quite good. We had to do a nature trail, ticking off different names of trees and flowers, and I did a competition in my own head as to how many different ones I saw, but I couldn’t really concentrate, because Teagan wasn’t well. ‘I’m all right,’ she kept saying, but she was coughing loads and had to keep stopping to take her puffer – only it didn’t seem to be working. And you could hear her making the whistling noise when she breathed, which was happening when she breathed out and when she breathed in. I tried to chat to her to take her mind off it and at first she was joining in, but then I realized she’d gone quiet. You need to worry when Teagan goes quiet.

  ‘I think I should go and get the teacher,’ I said, looking to see if I could see our group because we were getting further and further behind. ‘You don’t seem well at all.’

  ‘No, Zac, it’s all right, I’m all right.’ Teagan can be stubborn as anything, she never wants to give up, but sometimes it’s not sensible. ‘Just stop looking at me. Just ignore me,’ she said. But how can you ignore someone who can’t breathe?

  We carried on walking but Teagan was coughing almost all the time now and kept having to stop. Then she started crying. ‘Right, I’m getting Mrs Bond,’ I said. I didn’t care that Teagan might be angry with me anymore, I just wanted to get someone to help. ‘You stay here.’ My heart was pounding then – what if she died? What if she died right here and I couldn’t save her life? I was probably more scared than I’d ever been in my life, but I couldn’t show it because it wouldn’t help Teagan if she knew I was panicking. Then Teagan sat down on the floor, but not like she meant to, more like she couldn’t even stand any more, and I had to try really hard not to cry too then, because she couldn’t breathe, she just couldn’t. She was trying to take in oxygen – you could see her ribs through her T-shirt going up and down – but the more she tried, the less she could do it.

  ‘Don’t cry, Teagan.’ I crouched down next to her. ‘You’ll make it worse.’ I didn’t want to leave her now, so I looked around for if I could see anyone. I could see a group that looked like ours, but they were ages away. ‘You’re going to be OK, OK?’ I knew what I had to do then. ‘I’m going to carry you.’

  I put my hands under her bum and I lifted her up. She was so light, it was easy as anything, and I carried her through the bushes and trees and down the track towards the others who I could see in the distance. The time seemed to stretch. You could just hear my footsteps and Teagan’s horrible whistling and the breeze blowing through the trees, like it was trying to breathe for her. And I was trying to talk to her, to say anything to make her calm down. ‘Think about o
ur mission, Teagan.’ I was walking as quick as I could with her in my arms, her legs banging against my side, but it was OK, it didn’t even hurt. ‘You have to get better because we’ve still not found my dad, have we? We still have to do the mission. I need you.’ And then Mrs Bond was there, I could see her standing with some of the other children, and I was so relieved, I nearly burst out crying. They were just standing, watching me carry her all the way up the track with their mouths open. They couldn’t believe this was happening, you could tell. Then Mrs Bond was walking quickly towards us, then she was running. ‘Miss!’ I stopped and, using my knee, bumped Teagan back up in my arms because she was slipping. ‘You have to call an ambulance, she’s having an asthma attack.’

  It was like the ambulance knew we were going to call because it arrived in literally five minutes. A lady and a man in green suits got out; they didn’t take Teagan in the ambulance straight away, though, they just came and knelt down next to her. One put a blanket round her and one a mask on her face, and they were talking so nice to her: ‘All right, sweetheart, just keep calm, my love, we’re going to get you breathing easier in no time at all …’ It made me feel better.

  Mrs Bond told everyone to stand back and give Teagan and the ambulance people some space. Everyone was silent, we were just watching, even though it was scary as hell, and the muscles in Teagan’s neck and stomach were sucking in, trying to get some air, and there was nothing you could do. It was the worst moment of my life. Then Connor started shouting: ‘She’s fucking dying, you mangoes!’ and Miss Huxley had to take him away. It’s not his fault and he doesn’t mean it, his Tourette’s gets worse when he’s stressed. But right then, I wanted to gag him. I put my hands over my ears. I just wanted him to shut up.

  They normally only let one person in the ambulance with the patient, and Mrs Bond had to go, but then Joe Hilditch said, ‘Zac saved her life, he should definitely be allowed to go,’ and then other people joined in, saying that I’d saved her life because I’d carried her to Mrs Bond so they could call an ambulance.

  I’d always wanted to go in an ambulance with the siren going, until it happened to me, then I realized that the sirens only go if it’s an emergency and emergencies are only terrifying, not exciting.

  They had the mask over Teagan’s face still. It was making a noise like Darth Vader and steam was coming out of some holes in the side of it.

  ‘I know it looks scary,’ said the lady paramedic, ‘but it’s really going to help her breathe. It’s called a nebulizer.’ I just nodded my head – I couldn’t speak – and I tried to make Teagan’s eyes look at mine over her mask, and I tried, really hard, to smile.

  We got to the hospital, but the medicine in the mask hadn’t worked as much as they’d hoped and so they had to give her another one, then move her to another part of the hospital where they could look after her better. And all the time that this was going on, I was just concentrating on not showing I was upset, because it’s really important to be calm if someone’s having an asthma attack, but it was getting harder and harder not to, because I seriously thought she was going to die.

  Then, after they’d given her an injection and the second Darth Vader mask, she started to get better – it was a miracle. Her ribs weren’t going up and down so much, she was doing so well! And I was doing a secret prayer in my head to God for saving her life. Then her mum turned up.

  She was crying her eyes out already and I don’t blame her, she must have been really worried about her child – but it was annoying because Teagan was calm and now her mum was here, getting all emotional, and trying to hug her with her cigarette-scented coat on. Hugs and cigarettes are both bad for asthma.

  ‘Hello, baby girl!’ She was stroking Teagan’s hair with one hand and wiping away her tears with another. ‘Oh baby, I was so worried. I thought I was going to lose you. I knew I shouldn’t have let you go on that trip, I knew …’ Then her mum turned and smiled at me, even though she was crying. ‘And you, Zac. You saved Teagan’s life.’

  ‘Oh no, no, I didn’t.’

  ‘I think you did,’ said Teagan, through the mask. I was so happy she could talk again, but then she started asking after her dad.

  ‘Did you tell him?’ she said to her mum. ‘That I was in hospital? Is he coming?’

  Her mum looked sort of embarrassed and sad at the same time then. ‘I did ring him, baby,’ she said. ‘And I told him you were in the hospital. I told him to get down here, to see you … to be a father for once in his life, but what can I do? What can I do, Teagan?’ She stopped talking. I was pleased. I didn’t want Teagan getting all upset.

  ‘And? So what did he say?’ said Teagan. She could take her mask off now but she was really tired after the asthma attack, and she needed to be as relaxed as possible.

  ‘He said to tell you that he loves you,’ her mum said, after a long pause. ‘And that he’s thinking of you.’ The way she said it, the expression on her face, she was dead mad at Teagan’s dad, you could tell.

  After a bit, Teagan’s mum went to find the doctor to talk to. That was when Teagan burst into tears, because she’s like me, she doesn’t like crying in front of her mum, she doesn’t like upsetting her or worrying her. She was looking away from me, trying not to cry in front of me too, because she always wants to be brave, does Teagan. But I knew why she was upset.

  ‘You wish … you want your dad to be here, don’t you?’ I said after a bit and she nodded.

  ‘I miss him,’ she said. ‘I really miss him, Zac. I just wish I didn’t miss him so much, because it really hurts.’

  ‘I know,’ I said, because I missed my dad and I’d never even met him so I couldn’t even imagine how Teagan must feel.

  ‘But …’ I knew what I had to do now. It came to me in a brainwave. ‘Don’t be sad, because when we find my dad – and we will find him, I promise – I’ll share him. Like, maybe he can be sort of your dad too?’

  She laughed then, even though she was still crying. ‘OK,’ she said. And I was laughing a bit too. I think it was because I was nervous and happy, and relieved she wasn’t going to die, all in one. ‘All right, that would be good.’

  I had to do it now, I had to find my dad. Not just for me and Mum, but for Teagan too.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Juliet

  ‘Dad? It’s me, Jules.’

  ‘Hello, love.’ There’s a pause. ‘Everything all right?’

  ‘Yeah, everything’s fine.’

  ‘Good. I’ll just get your mum, shall I?’

  I’m lying on my bed and I hit the mattress in frustration as I hear him draw breath, about to yell down the hall. ‘No, Dad,’ I say.

  ‘Oh, what?’

  ‘Actually, it was you I wanted to speak to.’

  I thought I’d be able to handle everything on my own. For a short while after I told Zac everything, I felt so light, so unburdened. I felt like this was the beginning of a new life for us; one without this secret weighing down on me, waiting for me in the small hours of the night and at the end of Zac’s questions; hovering over us all at Christmas and birthdays and, yes, especially at Easter. He went instantly pale when I first began to explain everything. He was quiet for a very long time. And then came the questions.

  ZAC: ‘Was my dad a murderer then?’

  ME: ‘No, Zac, absolutely not!’

  ZAC: ‘Do you blame him for Uncle Jamie dying?’

  ME: ‘No, not anymore. I think he was stupid for getting so drunk and fighting, but I don’t blame him, no. It was just a tragic accident and Uncle Jamie was just terribly unlucky. You know, things like that happening are very, very rare.’

  ZAC: ‘But Nan and Grandad blame him, don’t they?’

  ME: ‘Yes, they did – and I did too at first – but that’s why he left, darling, not because he didn’t want you, but because it was so hard for him to stay in Grimsby.’

  And just because Nan and Grandad (Nan in particular) still blamed him, it didn’t make him necessarily guilty, I sai
d – of anything other than being reckless – and it was like this conversation wasn’t as difficult as I’d feared; what had I been worried about for ten years? But then it was Zac, later that evening when he’d mulled it all over, who delivered the killer question, reminding me of exactly what I’d been worried about, deep down.

  ‘But if Nan still hates him and maybe Grandad too, then even if we do find him, how is he going to be able to be my dad? How is he going to be able to come to Grimsby and come round to Nan and Grandad’s for Sunday dinner and see me, and maybe live with us, and be in our family?’

  And, of course, I didn’t have an answer to that, and so just like that I fell apart, I couldn’t handle it anymore: the responsibility, the feeling that it was just me and Zac and this humongous secret like a wild animal unleashed. Teagan being in hospital made everything feel even more fragile, more precarious, even though I have never been prouder of my son for doing what he did that day. But I needed somebody else to know the secret was out there and Dad seemed to be the only person to tell. I was fully prepared for him to go ballistic: How could you do this to your mother, Juliet? After everything she’s been through? But I was desperate. I felt I’d reached the edge and there was nowhere else to go. At the end of the day, Mum and Dad weren’t the ones living with Zac every day, feeling his sadness and rejection. They weren’t the ones alone with him on this journey; this quest to find Liam and to get answers to all the questions that had no doubt already done untold damage over the years, eating away at him and eroding his confidence. Ten years of not knowing who your dad is, or where he is, or if he loves you – I’d like to see my parents deal with that as well as Zac has. In fact, I’d like to see myself deal with that as well as Zac has.