“My Dad made it up,” I said. “Well, sort of.”
“Sort of?”
“When I was born Mum had had a hard time, and she was ill afterward. It was all a bit tough, I think. I was born premature. Really premature…”
“That’s why she can’t—“
“Benjamin!” I snapped. I knew what he was about to say. I must have sounded horrible, but he mustn’t say it, I knew he mustn’t.
I forced a laugh.
“Always interrupting stories,” I said.
“I am not!”
I paused.
“Anyway, Mum said to Dad that he could choose a name, anything at all, because she was too tired to think about it, and if a writer couldn’t choose a good name then what was the point of being married to one?”
“Your Dad’s a writer?”
“Uh-huh,” said Benjamin.
“Benjamin,” I said warningly.
“He is,” said Benjamin, quickly. “His name’s Jack Peak. Have you read his books?”
I loved how proud he sounded. Sam was quiet for a second, as if he were thinking.
“Peak? Jack Peak … Didn’t he write The Fifth Gate?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Oh, yeah. Yeah. But I liked his earlier books. The funny ones.”
“Most people do,” I said, before Benjamin could say anything.
“So he made up the name? Laureth?” asked Sam.
“No, he found it.”
“How do you find a name?”
“In this case, on a shampoo bottle. It’s from one of the ingredients; Sodium Laureth Sulphate. He thought it was a beautiful word and sounded like a name.”
“He’s right.”
“Mum didn’t think so. He swears he told her at the time where it came from, and maybe he did, but she was too ill to remember. I was seven when she found out, and then she hit the roof. ‘You named our daughter after a chemical!’ That kind of thing.”
“I still think it’s a cool name,” said Sam, and I could hear the smile in his voice. It was a soft voice, too. I liked it.
“And very beautiful,” he added.
“Thank you,” I said, feeling a little warm inside.
“And that’s why I have such a boring name,” said Benjamin.
“Oh, hey,” said Sam. “That’s a cool name, too.”
“No it’s not,” said Benjamin. “There are two Bens in my class. Mum said she was going to choose my name when I was born. Dad wasn’t allowed. So I got a boring name. But that’s why Stan’s called Stan.”
“Because you wanted him to have a boring name, too?”
“Stan’s not a boring name. It’s short for Stannous.”
“Stannous?”
“Stannous Chloride,” I said. “It’s a chemical. It was on a tube of toothpaste.”
Sam laughed.
“Mum hit the roof,” said Benjamin, proudly.
* * *
We chatted for a bit, and every time the conversation went anywhere near why we were going to New York, or Dad, I steered it away again as fast as I could. Sam turned out to be a student. I thought his voice was young but it’s sometimes hard to tell. He’d been in London for a few weeks having a holiday and now he was heading home to somewhere called Riverhead to spend the rest of the summer with his folks, as he called them.
He was studying English literature, which is cool because that’s what I want to study. If I can get to university, I mean.
I could tell Benjamin was getting bored, and I felt bad, but I was enjoying talking to Sam. I was talking about lots of things but avoiding others, and he was asking all about me, about where I went to school, so I told him about King’s College, and I must have mentioned my room.
“You go to boarding school?” he asked, and then I tried to change the subject because although King’s College is a boarding school, it’s not the usual kind and I didn’t want to get into that. I asked him where he went to university and so on, and then I think Sam guessed that Benjamin was bored, too.
“Hey, big guy,” he said, and I decided I was very happy talking to Sam. “Hey, why don’t you watch a film or something? You can play games on here, too.”
Benjamin sounded unsure.
“Laureth?” he said, but Sam wasn’t listening.
“Sure,” he said. “Look, you use this control here, or it’s touch-screen, too. Got it? You press here … There. There’s all the movies. Like anything?’”
“Oh, that’s okay,” I said. “I don’t think he wants to watch a film.”
“Yes. I do,” said Benjamin.
“There you go. That’s it. You do it. Just press on the film you want. There are some headsets, somewhere, and … oh.”
He stopped.
Benjamin made an unhappy squeak, and I knew what had happened. He’d touched the screen.
“That’s odd,” said Sam. “Looks like it’s crashed.”
Benjamin went quiet, and I didn’t know how to stop Sam. He called an attendant, and they began to try and fix it. The attendant went away and came back and said that everyone else’s in-flight entertainment systems were working fine, it was just this one.
Then Sam insisted that he and Benjamin swap seats so he could use his instead, which they did, and then Sam was sitting next to me. I could feel how tall he was from where his arm touched my shoulder. He felt strong, somehow, and he smelled great.
He was just getting Benjamin fixed up to watch some superhero film when they both went quiet.
“That’s odd,” said Sam again, and I knew it was no good. The Benjamin Effect had struck.
The next thing was that I heard people’s call bells pinging on all around us.
Everyone’s systems had crashed. No movies for anyone. Cabin crew came and went, trying to calm everyone down and you would think that they were in mortal peril when all that had happened was that they couldn’t watch TV anymore. They tried a few times to fix it, and then they made an announcement saying that the system seemed to have crashed beyond repair and they were very sorry. There was nearly a riot.
Benjamin was still quiet.
Sam sighed.
“There are these amazing things called books,” he said. “Never need winding. Maybe these guys could try reading.”
“That’s a good idea,” I said. ‘Benjamin, would you like your comics?”
Benjamin sounded very fed up.
“Yes,” he said, but I knew what he was really feeling. He was feeling something we all feel once in a while: why me?
THE FIZZY TIST
You should probably know a bit more about my little brother.
Mr. Woodell would probably give me a hard time about my vocabulary, but Benjamin has this … thing. As much as Mum wanted him to have a normal name and be normal, too, her wishes were ignored, because although she managed to give him an everyday name, Benjamin has a very weird thing about him indeed.
I feel sorry for Mum, two children and neither of them is “nice and normal.” After she had me, she must have thought her bad luck was over. She’s never once made me feel it, nor Dad. I know they love me. I know they love me as I am, but I know it was hard. It’s harder for them than it is for me, because to me, not being able to see is normal. Very few people are born without any sight at all, and I happen to be one of them. I have only the slightest light perception, so I can tell a bright window in a dark room, for example, but that’s about it.
I think when the doctors broke the news to Mum and Dad it was a terrible shock. They’ve never told me that, but my charming cousins have said some mean things over the years. They told me that Mum and Dad wanted to give me up to be adopted. I don’t believe that for a second.
My cousins like to do stupid things, too, like ask me how many fingers they’re holding up, or tell me it’s clear to walk through a room, and then put something in my way. Once we were at Auntie Sarah’s and Mum found me crying, and I think she knew what was going on, but she couldn’t bring herself to say it.
So
I said it for her.
“It’s okay. They’re just idiots. Can’t handle someone who’s a bit different.”
And Mum started crying then and told me how sorry she was, but I told her not to be, because you can’t miss what you’ve never had. Because I’m not unhappy with the way I am, because I don’t mind being blind. What I mind is people treating me as if I’m stupid.
So I know it was hard for them, especially at first, when I was a baby. When I was little.
They’d got used to it by the time Benjamin arrived, and they must have thought everything would be fine. And it is, except for one weird thing, which is the effect that Benjamin has on electronics.
It doesn’t happen all the time, but it happens enough for me never to let him hold my iPhone, for example. If he wants to watch TV, we have to put it on for him and he has to keep his distance. He can’t play computer games, and he’s not allowed on the Mac.
It’s hard for him, because all his friends play games, and he can’t join in, in case the device goes haywire, and then everyone hates him.
It’s made him different from other children his age. For one thing, he reads a lot, because books can’t crash, and that’s good. But it’s made him a bit odd, too. Most seven-year-olds have stopped walking around with fluffy animals, but ever since Dad brought Stan back from the Natural History Museum in Gothenburg, Benjamin will not be parted from him. Benjamin is a loner; he’s ended up that way because lots of other kids find him strange. And I love Benjamin to bits, but I’m away at school during the week, and then he’s more or less on his own. So Stan is sort of an imaginary friend, although as Benjamin would be the first to point out, he’s not entirely imaginary.
* * *
That’s how things were, and then, some time last year, Dad was reading a book on the sofa one night and he suddenly roared in delight.
“Benjamin!”
He called upstairs.
“Benjamin! Come down here!”
He was so excited that Mum and I came in to see what was going on.
“I’ve found something,” Dad said. “I’ve found someone else like you! A famous man! He’s one of the most famous scientists ever. He was called Wolfgang Pauli, from Austria. A physicist.”
Benjamin was excited, too.
“A what?” he asked.
“A physicist is a man who figures out how the universe works, down at the very smallest level. Atoms and things. And Pauli was one of the most important ones, ever. And he had the same thing as you! All through his career, things would break around him—in the lab, at home. Equipment would fail and stuff would break and if he walked into another scientist’s lab they’d scream at him to get out!”
“And he was a famous fizzy tist?” asked Benjamin.
Dad laughed.
“The best! Once he was only passing through a town in Switzerland on a train, a town where another scientist was working, and right at that moment the scientist’s equipment collapsed! They gave this thing a name; they called it the Pauli Effect.”
Mum and I laughed, too.
“There you are then, Benjamin,” she said. “Now we know what to call it. The Benjamin Effect!”
And that’s a weird thing, because just giving it a name made Benjamin much happier about it. Some of the time I even think he’s proud of it.
Until he crashes the TV screens of five hundred people on a jumbo jet, and then, for his sake, I want him to be just like everyone else, staring at their movie with their headset on, without a care or a thought in the world.
THE BLIND HERO
“Might be an idea to have a nap,” I said to Benjamin.
“I want my comic,” he said, grumpily, but I didn’t blame him.
Learn something the hard way, Mum says, and you won’t forget it. By which she means that if you make a complete monkey of yourself doing something and the embarrassment is almost more than you can bear, you won’t do it again. I know what she means, because I had practical examples to follow, from my own experience. Like once when I was young and playing with my cousins I decided I could do everything they could do. That’s why I cycled into a tree and now have a nifty little scar on my forehead.
People sometimes ask me if I want to be able to see, and I say no, I don’t. I know they don’t believe me but then they ask if I’ve ever wanted to, and I try and explain that it’s a meaningless question. It’s as meaningless as that other question I get all the time: what color means to me. I’ve never known what these things are, so how can I know if I want them or not?
Mum says my scar doesn’t look as big as it feels when I run my fingertip over it, and although I hate to admit it, it did make me more careful, that cycling thing. I wanted to go on doing everything everyone else does. But I’ve never got on a bike since then.
You won’t do that again, I remember Mum saying. Learn something the hard way …
It’s an interesting theory but one that requires greater fieldwork and more rigorous testing, at least it does according to my subconscious.
* * *
As it turned out, Benjamin had only brought one comic with him.
I’d thrown some underwear and socks in his bag, his toothbrush, and some pajamas, too. His clothes were easy to find; thanks to Mum, they’re always in the same drawer, and since seven-year-olds are not renowned for their fashion sense, I knew he wouldn’t mind if his socks didn’t match his underpants. His toothbrush is smaller than anyone else’s, and he was wearing his pajamas when I woke him up. So that was all pretty easy. But we were running a bit late by the time we’d finished first breakfast, so we were out of the door, and I didn’t have time to check what Benjamin had brought with him.
So then came the issue of standing up, finding Benjamin’s Watchmen bag and fishing out his comics and trying to do all that without giving the game away to Sam, or anyone else watching for that matter.
I’d heard Benjamin’s bag thump above my head and I knew there were simple latches in the middle of each overhead compartment. I waited until Sam was asking Benjamin what comics he liked, and then I stroked along with my hands until I found the latch. Benjamin’s bag was right there; it’s easy to find because there’s a big rubber smiley face on the back of it; I can feel the holes for the eyes and the mouth. Mum says Benjamin’s too young for Watchmen but Dad got the bag at Comic-Con and it’s really rare. I don’t know if he gets all of it, but he loves it anyway, and you don’t have to understand everything about something to love it, do you? In fact sometimes that can make you love something more.
I fished inside the bag and found only one comic.
“Is that all you brought?” I said, sitting down and holding the comic out across Sam, hoping I wouldn’t punch him in the jaw, but airline seats are very helpful; you know pretty much where everyone is at any given time.
Benjamin practically snatched the comic out of my hands.
“It’s a long way to New York, and you only brought one comic?”
“You didn’t tell me to bring lots,” Benjamin said defensively.
“I told you it was a long journey,” I said. “Oh, Benjamin…”
I groaned.
There were at least six hours left. One boy—widely known to be a fast reader—and one comic.
“What did you bring, anyway?” I asked.
“Just a … comic,” said Benjamin, vaguely.
Benjamin is a huge fan of American comics. He bought his first ones on our trip two years before, when he could barely read. But he loved the pictures, and Dad would read them to him. He pretty much learned to read with comics, which is probably why he has such a peculiar vocabulary, and knows words like radioactive and nemesis. He can probably spell abduction, too.
“Which one?”
“Just an old one,” he said, and Sam must have seen it too because he started talking to Benjamin again.
“Oh, Daredevil! Cool.”
Then I knew why Benjamin didn’t want to tell me which one, because he knows it bothers me.
&
nbsp; “Have you seen the episodes with Elektra?” said Sam.
“Do you know Daredevil?” asked Benjamin.
“Not personally,” said Sam, “but I’ve read just about every Marvel comic ever printed.”
So they were off into geek heaven for about half an hour, leaving me to wonder why it is that in books and films and comics there are only two kinds of blind people.
There are the pathetic helpless figures of woe, only in the plot probably because the writer thought it would be really heartbreaking to have a poor blind person not see something terrible happening right under their nose. Sometimes the author seems to go to great lengths to demonstrate that blindness is worse than death. You’d be amazed at the writers who’ve done that.
Outcomes for this kind of blind character fall into two camps: Either their sight is miraculously restored, hooray! Or they die. Well at least then they’re not blind anymore.
I blame the Ancient Greeks. They started it. Their stories are full of blind prophets. They can’t see in this world, but they can see in others.
And then there are the superheroes. Like Daredevil. I saw the film version with Benjamin one Saturday afternoon on TV. I didn’t know what it was about and I’m guessing Benjamin didn’t to start with, but it’s about this man who’s blinded by toxic waste, which also enhances his other senses so that he turns into a superhero. He is of course also amazingly handsome and is soon quickening the heart of Elektra.
I went off to my room after half an hour, and left Benjamin to it.
The idea of other senses being enhanced is not unique to Daredevil.
I think people like the idea that if you went blind, your other four senses might become super-powered, but that’s not how it is. Well, not for me, at least. I think I pay more attention to the senses I do have. I don’t use echolocation like Harry, but I can tell when I’m near a wall, or a bookcase, or something big, just from the way sounds are different.
Anyway, people are wrong when they think we only have five senses. There are lots of others, but for some reason the concept of five seems to be all we ever talk about. Sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell. But there are others, and no, I’m not talking about the sixth sense, ESP, or whatever you want to call it. I’m talking about other senses. Like the sense of balance. The sense of temperature. The sense of the passage of time. The sense of the relative positions of your body parts to each other; that’s why you can touch your nose in the dark.
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