Do it. I’m serious.
We have a lot to get through.
Done?
Ready?
All right, then. Let’s get back to the story.
Sitting by myself in the busy hall that Monday lunchtime eating my apple, I could feel people staring. Hear them whispering.
‘Psst. Yo. Yo. That’s him. The kid . . . What kid? . . . With the dad. His dad. And the story. The mission . . . What mission? . . . The secret mission!’
Now, you might think it’d feel weird. Sitting there, eating your apple, everybody watching you, muttering to themselves, but it didn’t. It felt great. Like I said, I felt a power. And something else. Sitting there, eating my apple, all eyes on me, I felt something I’d never felt before.
I felt cool.
Then Dominic crashed into the seat opposite me, out of breath, carrying a small stack of printer paper.
‘Where’ve you been?’ I said, still feeling like I was on stage as I spoke.
Dominic just gasped for breath and slid a piece of paper across the table that had this on it:
‘What’s this?’ I said, holding the paper.
Dominic stared right at me, fire in his eyes and said, ‘That’s us!’
‘What?’
‘Me and you,’ he said, making a fist in the air between us. ‘Full Force!’
I looked at the wobbly picture, then back at him. ‘What?’
Dom grinned. ‘Talent-show winners. School legends. Me and you. Full Force!’
‘What’s full force?’
‘Me and you! Are you listening? Talent-show winners! I’ve put them up all over school. We’ve got to create a buzz. We’re gonna win! Full Force!’
Every time he said the words, his fist shook like it was about to explode.
‘What the heck is Full Force?’ I said.
Dom smiled his crooked smile.
Stop.
Right there. Look at the picture.
If he’d slid a piece of paper with that wobbly drawing and those words on it to you, what would you think it meant? Any ideas? What was Dominic’s big idea for me and him to win the end-of-year talent show? It’s not obvious, is it?
I’ll tell you.
Dancing.
Yep.
Dancing.
Now, if you knew Dominic Clarke as well as I do, your face would be screwed up like a confused squirrel sucking a lemon.
Dominic Clarke can’t dance. At all.
I’m sorry, he’s my oldest friend, and it’s not like I’m the greatest mover myself, but at least I can hold a rhythm. Dominic, though, is fully awful.
Think of the worst dancer you know. Your crazy uncle who has too much to drink at New Year’s. Your mum or your dad with their weird parent two-step zombie shuffle at a birthday party. Whoever you’re thinking of, Dominic was worse. Way worse.
Let me give an example.
Christmas holidays, Year 5. We went to his Aunt Sheila’s wedding.
He brought me along for the cake.
Now, you know that part of a wedding after all the boring promises and the kissing, when everyone watches the new bride and groom share the first dance, and claps and cries, then the DJ shouts, ‘OK, everybody on the dance floor!’ and everyone rushes on to cut some rug, and it’s a big party, right?
Well, at Aunt Sheila’s wedding, we watched the bride and groom share their dance; they finished, we all clapped, some people cried, then the DJ shouted for everyone to join them, so we did, everyone on the dance floor, throwing some shapes, and roughly two minutes later, everyone (including the new bride and groom) stopped, just to watch Dominic. And not because he was good. Trust me. It was crazy. Wherever the beat was, Dominic was nowhere near it. He looked like he was trying to wrestle a ghost.
So, knowing this and being handed a poster advertising me and Dominic ‘The Ghost Wrestler’ Clarke as a dance duo that he thought was going to win the end-of-year talent show, you can imagine my response.
I looked straight at my oldest friend and calmly said, ‘Are you mad?’
But, before he could respond, Marcia Brown & Lucy Cheung were standing next to our table, staring right at me.
Sometimes, two people almost seem to occupy the same space.
Like each of them is just half of one larger, more powerful being. Trying to picture one without the other is like trying to picture a head without a face, or a bird without wings. You can do it, but it’s really hard and, to be honest, it feels weird.
That’s what these two were like. From the very first day of reception, I honestly have no recollection of ever seeing Marcia without Lucy, or vice versa.
Even now, as I write this, I’m saying their names out loud as though it is one long name rather than two: MarciaBrownandLucyCheung.
Marcia had hair that shot out of her head like curly, bark-coloured streamers.
Lucy’s hung just above her shoulders like shiny black ribbon.
They had matching trainers. Matching coats. Matching bags. And matching frowns. They’d do this thing when you were speaking, where they’d look at each other and pout, then look right at you and shake their heads, which meant they didn’t approve.
As the coolest girls in school, they had the power to make or break the reputation and social standing of anyone, teachers included.
They skipped around the school, steps fully synchronized, filling everyone they came close to with a combination of complete adulation and stone-cold dread.
If Marcia & Lucy gave you the thumbs up, it felt like someone had coloured you in with a highlighter pen. And if they gave you the thumbs down, you felt like you’d been sent to the corner.
Now here they were, standing right next to our table, staring down at me.
I quickly pushed the Full Force drawing back towards Dominic and smiled the least nervous smile I could manage.
Marcia & Lucy didn’t even acknowledge Dom. They kept their eyes on me and said, ‘Is it true? About your dad?’
Dominic looked at me, then at them, and started to say, ‘What? Of course it’s n—’
But I stopped him by cutting in.
‘Yeah,’ I said, looking up at them and ignoring my oldest friend. ‘Yeah. It’s true.’
There was a weird kind of pause, during which I tried to ignore the confused look Dominic was giving me and concentrate on Marcia & Lucy. They looked at each other and pouted, then turned to me and, speaking at exactly the same time, said:
‘That’s pretty cool.’
Then they both smiled, turned and walked away.
Question:
Have you ever had two girls (who happen to be super cool) speak to you at exactly the same time?
If you have, you’ll understand. It does something to your brain. A kind of cross between an electric shock and a massage.
I couldn’t believe it. That just happened. In the busy lunch hall. In front of Dominic. And everyone else. Marcia Brown & Lucy Cheung thought I was cool. The coolest girls in school! It was like my body was floating up out of my seat.
My brain felt like it was swimming in candyfloss. I almost couldn’t breathe. ‘They think I’m cool,’ I said.
‘What?’ said Dom.
I could almost taste the words as I repeated them. ‘They think I’m cool.’
Dom’s face wrinkled up. ‘Who does? The girls? Who cares?’
But I did. I cared.
The coolest girls in school thought I was cool. Me! Because of something that I made up about Dad . . .
. . . something that wasn’t true.
I felt the cold fingers of panic slip around my throat and start to squeeze. It wasn’t true. What if they asked questions? Tighter. Wanted details? Tighter. Answers that I didn’t have? They’d find out. Tighter. That I made it up. Tighter. And I’d be some stupid kid who made up a stupid story to try and be cool. No air. I’d be torn to shreds like a teddy bear in a tiger pit. Can’t breathe.
No.
I couldn’t let that happen. If people thought it was true
, I had to be sure it felt that way.
I had to research Australia and other places. I had to know loads about everywhere, so that if anyone asked me about Dad’s mission and where he was, I would have an answer.
I looked at Dom.
‘Library. I need to go to the library.’
‘What for?’
‘Research.’
‘About what?’
‘Australia. Dad’s mission.’
‘But it’s not true. Why did you make that up anyway?’
‘I dunno. I need to go.’
Dom shrugged. ‘Cool. I’ll come with you.’
But looking at him, I knew he didn’t get it. He didn’t feel what I felt. In Dom’s world, being cool didn’t matter. He didn’t care what people thought. He stood up.
‘We can start planning for Full Force while we’re there.’
In Dom’s detached-from-reality world, we were going to spend five weeks perfecting a dance routine and then get on stage in front of the whole school on the last day and actually win the talent show. Ludicrous.
I stood up and shook my head. ‘No, Dom. I’m going by myself.’
Has your school got a library?
Maybe you have a library not too far from your house? Maybe you have a library actually in your house, I don’t know. (If you do, by the way, that’s crazy.)
I think libraries are incredible.
They’re like secret, magical treasure rooms hidden in plain view. Shelves and shelves full of gateways to other worlds, kept in order by strange, magical creatures called librarians who, when they get to know you, somehow know exactly the kind of book you love. I still don’t know why Marvel hasn’t created a supernatural superhero called ‘The Librarian’. They could basically call on any power of any character from any book ever. The evil bad guy could be the monster who’s closing libraries down and turning them into expensive gyms.
I’d watch that movie.
It’s funny though because, for some people, libraries are torture.
For some people, the library is a dusty old place where an old woman who seems to hate human beings tells you to whisper or get out.
If you’re not a library person, that’s OK. But if you’ve never been in one, I can recommend it.
Our school library was a light, open-plan space next to the staffroom. It had a thin lime-green carpet and smelt of furniture polish and quiet. Our librarian’s name was Thelma. She was like that auntie who sneakily gives you a fiver when your mum isn’t watching.
Me and Dom spent a lot of lunchtimes there. Sometimes we’d help Thelma shelve books or order new stock, but most days, we’d just sit and reread old comics, debating who was the best superhero. Dom said Spider-Man, but anybody who gives it any real thought knows the correct answer is the Incredible Hulk.
One of our favourite things to do in there was read the Guinness Book of World Records, looking for the weird or funny ones. Do you know how big the biggest cookie ever made in the whole world was? Have a guess.
You wouldn’t believe it. You can look it up later.
Let’s just say you’d need a lot of milk to go with it.
(Feel free to take a biscuit break here. I am.)
So that lunchtime, when I got to the library, it was empty.
Nothing unusual about that.
Thelma was probably eating her sandwiches in her cupboard office. I headed straight to the Geography section to find a book on Australia to research details in case anyone asked me questions about Dad and his ‘mission’.
And then something stopped me dead in my tracks.
Him.
Sitting there, in the corner. Face buried in a book. So engrossed he didn’t even look up.
Danny Jones.
In the library.
Whatever the opposite of a ‘library person’ is, Danny Jones would’ve been the king of them. But there he was. And I couldn’t believe it.
I didn’t even know he knew where the library was. Not once had I ever seen him in that room and, standing there silently that lunchtime, it felt a little bit like the universe had cracked. Then fear started to fill my body like ice-water.
This wasn’t good.
Danny Jones had a reputation. The tough-guy character he had crafted for himself was clear, and it did not involve me catching him in the library by himself at lunchtime. He would have absolutely no problem erasing me from existence to avoid anyone finding out. I knew I should run, but my feet wouldn’t move. It was like my curiosity had more control over my body than my fear.
Then he looked up and saw me.
Our eyes met and my stomach fell into my feet. Convinced I was about to die, I froze as he started to stand.
Then I noticed the title of the book in his hand.
I looked at the book, then at him.
He looked at the book, then at me. Right at me. And said:
‘Is it true, about your dad?’
His face was stone-cold serious. My mouth felt as dry as a pharaoh’s sock and the ticking in my stomach was back. Low down, behind my belly button. What to say? What the hell was happening?
My hands slid into my pockets and my fingertips dug into my thighs. I managed to force a swallow. ‘Yeah, Danny,’ I said. ‘It is.’
He wanted to know everything.
Exactly where Dad was. Where he planned to go to next. How long he stayed in each place. And more than anything, he wanted to help.
Danny Jones . . . wanted to help me, help Dad on his ‘mission’.
Danny Jones! The boy who, one time, poured a whole tub of glue into my PE bag and gave me a wedgie. The boy who, at the Year 5 disco, threatened to actually fold me in half and put me in the bins behind the bike sheds. He wanted to help me, help Dad with his writing mission.
I couldn’t believe it.
We sat at one of the little round tables and spent the whole of lunchtime talking. I made up details about Dad and how his mission worked. The weird thing was, it kind of didn’t even feel like pretending. Words just kept falling out of my mouth like some part of me believed them. Danny sucked up all the details like a hoover, and then, before I knew what was happening, he was speaking, sharing things, like a regular human being.
Here’s what I learned:
1. Danny Jones’s dream was to travel the world. He’d never been out of the country, but he had a list of places on his bedroom wall that he planned to go to when he was old enough. Top of that list? You guessed it. Australia.
2. Turned out, Danny’s dad had left too. When he was in Year 2. He lived with his mum and older brother in the flats halfway between our house and school.
3. His birthday was 18 September. The same day as Donna’s.
4. He was a dog person. They had a Jack Russell at home called Razor.
5. His mum was a nurse. Just like mine. In fact she worked in the exact same hospital!
My head was swimming.
All this stuff I had in common with Danny Jones. Unbelievable. Something about him telling me his dad had left felt like it changed things. Like it somehow made him look different. Move different. Less like a celebrity and more like . . . me?
Anyway, it was, at the time, easily the most surreal lunch hour of my life.
At one point, Thelma came in, took one look at Danny and me sitting together, and fell over the photocopier.
When the bell went, me and Danny walked back to class side by side. People couldn’t believe their eyes. They kept doing double-takes and bumping into walls as they stared at us.
Whispers of ‘Why are they together?’ and ‘What the hell is going on?’ floated past us and, if I’m honest, it felt amazing. Like whatever magic cool dust he’d been sprinkled with was rubbing off on me. I was walking side by side with ‘the’ Danny Jones. Football captain. Tough guy. And just because I was next to him, I was cool.
I can still remember Dominic’s face, when me and Danny walked back into class together. It looked like he was trying to chew a scorpion. There’s me, Jason Gardner, his o
ldest friend, walking next to the evil super-villain kid who had terrorized us since the infants. But I knew stuff now. New stuff about Danny that made things different. Made it cool.
‘Yo!’ Dom said, leaning over, trying to whisper as everyone sat down for afternoon register. ‘Since when are you friends with Danny Jones?’
I watched my oldest friend trying (and failing) to compute this new information, and shrugged. The pair of us looked across the room at Danny, who gave me a thumbs up and a smile. Dom nearly fell off his chair. I held a thumb up to Danny and leaned back in my seat like I’d watched him do a million times.
‘Don’t worry, Dom,’ I said. ‘It’s cool.’
That evening, at home, sitting at the dinner table, things felt different.
This might sound stupid, but I felt bigger. Like I’d grown.
All afternoon in class, people had been watching me, whispering to themselves, smiling and nodding at me like they wanted me to smile back. At one point I got up to sharpen my pencil and, when I’d finished, it felt like the whole room almost gave me a round of applause.
I smiled to myself, as Bob Marley sang about three little birds through the living-room stereo speakers.
‘Are you OK, love?’ asked Mum, glancing at Donna for back-up.
I could tell they sensed something was different, but they had no idea about my day.
I figured they were waiting for more questions from me about Dad. Maybe another tantrum. But I just sat there, crafting a fish-finger Australia in a sea of garden peas. My new-found power hidden under my skin.
‘Jay?’ asked Mum, smiling kindly.
I smiled back and nodded. ‘I’m fine.’
‘How was your day?’ said Donna, in that voice that teachers use when you fall over and cut your knee. I got flashes of standing in front of the class. Walking with Danny. Marcia & Lucy smiling at me.
‘Yeah. Fine,’ I said, stabbing the Great Barrier Reef with my fork.
My Big Mouth Page 3