‘Ah, Ma, come on, please? It’s my birthday. Can’t we finish early, just for today? This isn’t even a real school, Ma.’
She looks at me. ‘And you’re better off for it. Real school is poxy.’
I think of arguing but she’s already giving me her egg-sucking face. I decide on a different tactic. Bargain.
‘Tell you what, Ma,’ I say. ‘I’ll finish this whole page of sums – every single one of them – and I won’t look up till I’ve finished and I won’t say anything unless I need help. And when I’m finished, I’ll take a science book outside with me and I’ll read it while you sit in the sun.’ I shove my head into my book till my nose is almost hitting the page and I don’t look up again.
I hear her sigh and I know that sigh. It means I’ve won.
THE BIRTHDAY PRESENT
I finally finished all my sums and now we’re in the backyard. I’m building a brick castle. It’s massive. So big that I can crawl into it. I used bricks to build the walls and I put a crate on top for the roof. It’s not enough, though. I need it to be waterproof in case it rains.
There’s an island of rubbish floating down the canal. I bet there’s loads of good stuff in it, but it’s too far away to reach. There’s something closer, though. It’s white and square, like a big piece of paper. It’s caught just past the corner of the mill.
I grab the stick we use for fishing stuff out of the canal, which is the same one we use for fishing food out of the skip. It’s standing beside the door to the kitchen.
I kneel on our beach and lean out and catch it. Drag it in. It’s plastic and hard. I grab it by the corner and pick it up. It’s one of those posters they stuck up on all the lamp posts last month. It has a picture of a baldy man with a fake smile. It says,
VOTE KELLY
NO. 1
FOR REAL CHANGE
It’s perfect. I slide it in between the gaps in the crate. Now all I need is a few more and my roof will be waterproof.
I watch the canal. I don’t see another one anywhere. But I bet one will float by in the next few days.
I turn and look at Ma. She’s on the couch reading an old newspaper. There’s a half-eaten birthday cake on the table in front of her.
I wonder if I should tell her about the ghost coins. But maybe I’m being silly. Maybe it’s not really a ghost. Something took those coins, though. Which means I have to investigate again. But this time, I’ll stay on the second floor, not hide on the fourth. That way I’ll be sure I see it and not just hear it.
Ma must feel me watching her cos she looks up and smiles. Then she looks past me. ‘What’s that?’ she says, pointing to the canal. Something else is floating along.
I try to catch it but it’s pretty far out.
‘Careful,’ Ma says, and I know she means ‘Don’t fall in’, but she also means ‘Don’t let anyone see you’. Usually no one can see me cos straight across the canal from the backyard are just warehouses. But when I lean right out, people in offices or crossing the bridge could see me.
Ma comes over and helps me and right then the wind changes and whatever it is floats towards us and we have it.
Ma squeezes out the canal water. ‘It’s a hoody,’ she says, and she stretches out the arms. ‘And a bloody good one too.’ She holds it up against me and I stand tall and roll my shoulders back. ‘Like it was made for you.’ She grins like she’s just won the lotto and then goes to the tap and fills the bucket and starts washing it.
The way she scrubs it, you’d swear she’d rub a hole straight through it, and when she’s done, she twists it as tight as a rope and hangs it on the line beside a blanket that’s been there since morning and is probably bone dry by now. Then she takes a step back and puts her hands on her hips and says, ‘Not a thing wrong with it.’
Ma turns to me. ‘Happy birthday, love. Which reminds me . . .’ She disappears inside and when she comes back, she’s holding a plastic bag and she hands it to me.
Inside the bag is a box and I recognize it. It was in the skip weeks ago but when I went to fish it out, it was gone. Ma must have gotten to it before me and was hiding it all this time.
‘What is it, Ma?’ I ask, but she doesn’t say so I open the box. ‘Binoculars!’
Ma smiles and nods.
They’re amazing. Real old. The strap is all hairy and the plastic’s cracked. I bet they used to belong to an explorer. They’ve probably been all over the world.
I hold them up and I lean out and look over the canal at the offices there. ‘It’s all blurry,’ I say, but she shows me how to move the wheel and then I can see everything!
‘Hey Ma, there’s a man typing and I can see a cup beside him and it has writing on it that says “I love . . .” something. Spreadsheets! It says “I love spreadsheets”. What’s a spreadsheet?’ Ma doesn’t answer and I don’t really care. I lean further. ‘Ma! I can see the boys jumping off the bridge. This is deadly!’
They’re wearing wetsuits and they have runners on. There are always boys jumping off the bridges and the buildings into the canal on sunny days. I don’t think they care about all the rubbish in the water. Maybe their wetsuits protect them from catching their death.
I don’t think they’re allowed to be jumping cos sometimes the Authorities arrive in their yellow jackets. I’ve seen them. When they turn up, I always duck in case they see me. But the boys are real brave. They just shout at the Yellow Jackets and swim to the other side of the canal and run away before the Authorities can get them. Maybe it’s cos there are loads of boys and they know that together they could fight the Authorities away.
There’s only one of me, though, and I’m dead small.
One of the boys who is standing on the bridge pushes another who is standing on the railing and he goes flying forwards into the water, and the others are all shouting and laughing. I see him hit the water but it’s a second before I hear the splash! and I laugh too.
I can even read the word ‘Reebok’ on the side of one of their runners and I realize something.
‘Hey, Ma, now I’ll be able to see right across the city and I might find Gran’s house and my old school! And maybe we can move back there when I’m grown and the Authorities aren’t after me any more!’ And I turn to show her that I think this is the best present ever but the look on her face stops me dead.
It’s her eyes. They’re sinking. The way they used to when she got sad.
What did I do that for? Why did I mention Gran’s house and the Authorities?
‘Don’t worry, Ma. The Authorities don’t know I’m here. And with the binoculars, I can watch out for them coming. I’ll see them a mile off. So we’ll be able to prepare. I’ll be like a soldier, guarding the Castle. They’ll never get as close as they did in the alleyway that night.’
It’s out before I can even think of what I’m saying. She stares at me like I’m on fire or something.
‘It’s grand, Ma. They didn’t get me! You got back in the nick of time, remember?’
Ma’s eyes sink even deeper. I need to shut up.
‘You shouldn’t be here,’ she says.
‘But the Castle’s the best place we ever lived in,’ I say. Even though it’s a lie. Gran’s was better.
She’s staring at me but I don’t think she’s really seeing me. It’s like she’s looking through me. The same as the people on the streets. Like I’m invisible. But it’s different. Cos they see nothing when they’re looking through me. Right now, though, Ma’s seeing something. I can tell.
I remember that look. I’ve seen it before.
It’s the same look I saw on Gran’s face when Ma was dragging me away from her house. Like she’d been walking all day and had just realized she’d taken a wrong turn and was back where she started.
Ma walks away and plonks herself down on the couch.
I don’t know what to say so I just say, ‘Ma,’ which doesn’t help, cos she looks up like she’s waiting for me to say something to make her feel better and I just stand there.
She shoves her thumbs into her eyes. ‘This is all wrong. All wrong. Got to move on.’ She’s not talking to me, though. She’s talking to herself.
I’m so dumb. It’s been one year and eight months since we found this place. One year and eight months since they almost got me. And not once has Ma got stressed out. Not once has she got drunk. Or worse.
‘Don’t be stressed, Ma, it’s okay,’ I say, and I go over and sit down beside her. I rest my head on her shoulder. ‘The Castle’s deadly, Ma. It’s huge. It’s ours. And it has a moat.’ I point to the canal. ‘No one can get in.’
‘Or out,’ she says. She puts her arm around me.
‘’Zactly. You promised you’d find me a castle and I promised I’d never leave.’ I nod. Cos it was a deal.
After ages has passed, Ma takes her arm away. I want to ask her what that look meant. But I can’t. Cos she won’t know what I’m talking about and I don’t know how to explain. The words would come out all wrong and it’d probably stress her out more. So I stay quiet.
I want to see her eyes so I lean forwards. But when I do, I nearly gasp.
They’re as deep as the canal.
‘Ma?’
Ma stands up. She bites her nails. ‘I’m going out.’
‘No, Ma!’ I say. I don’t want her going out there with her eyes like that. Cos I know what that means.
She gives me a watery smile. ‘Relax, I’ll be back, I promise,’ she says. Then her smile melts away. ‘Stay here, yeah? Don’t go out.’
I nod.
Then Ma empties half of the begging cup into her hand and turns and walks into the kitchen.
A SICK MOON
They were real loud, the men that turned up on the beach that night. Shouting and laughing. There were five of them. Maybe six. They were carrying plastic bags and they sat down on the sand and started drinking from cans. Ma didn’t know them cos she didn’t say hi or anything.
‘Ma, I’m hungry,’ I said, cos I didn’t want to be there any more, listening to those men. It was getting dark anyway so we walked back up to the tent and grabbed our plastic bottles for getting water. We carried them to the tap in the shipyard behind the harbour wall to fill them. I brought the small one back and Ma took the big one. The small one was for drinking and the big one was for washing.
We ate some bread and those blocks of cheese where you tear off the wax coat and inside they look like little wheels. Then I brushed my teeth and got into my pyjamas. I was real tired then, so we climbed into the tent and I pulled the sleeping bag around me, and I didn’t ask Ma when we were going back to Gran’s. Instead I asked her to tell me a story about a castle.
Ma made sure my sleeping bag was zipped up tight and then she said, ‘There once was a princess who lived in a castle. ’Cept she didn’t know she was a princess.’
‘Why not?’
‘Cos no one had ever told her.’ She paused for dramatic effect. Then she said, ‘The princess didn’t know that she lived in a castle neither.’
‘How could she not know?’
‘Cos it was old and run-down and she’d never lived anywhere else. How could she know it was a castle and not just an ordinary house if she had never seen or been anywhere else?’
‘Why didn’t her friends tell her?’
‘She didn’t have any friends. Just a harp that sang when the princess played it.’
‘Oh,’ I said. I wanted to ask why the princess had never been anywhere else but my head was starting to get all droopy.
‘There was an old forest around the castle. And the trees had scars where branches used to grow. And in the scars were eyes.’ She made another pause for dramatic effect.
‘If the princess went for a walk, the eyes of the trees would follow her . . .’
I thought that was cool. It was real creepy. But I don’t know what happened to the princess cos while she was wandering through the forest I fell asleep. And I never found out what the Moral was cos when I woke up, there were voices outside the tent. I could hear Ma too. But now she sounded like she was playing that game where you chew a biscuit and then try to talk without spraying crumbs everywhere. And I knew that meant she was drunk.
Ma must’ve invited the men on the beach up to our tent. I couldn’t believe it. How could she? It was our dune. There weren’t supposed to be other people in it.
They had lit a fire. I could see their shadows on the side of the tent. Then I felt the twang of someone tripping over the rope of the tent. Something came crashing into the side of it. It was squashing me. The whole tent was bending. I squeezed out from under it and unzipped the door.
That’s when I saw him.
A huge man. He’d fallen into the side of the tent. Everyone was breaking their hearts laughing. One guy tried to help him get up, but the huge man fell back down again. He dragged the other guy with him till they were both lying on the side of the tent. I heard the snap of the centre pole breaking.
Then he stood up. The sound of his laugh mixed with the spitting of the fire.
I jumped back.
He had three eyebrows cos one was cut in half by a scar. He was tall. Square shoulders, so big they almost touched his ears. His hair was as red as the fire’s flames and his skin as white as the foam on the waves. He was an evil red devil monkey.
And Ma was laughing along with him. They all were.
He was massive compared to the others. They just looked like hungry chickens, all stooped over and cackling, with their eyes darting all over the place.
My eyes started stinging. I turned cos I didn’t want them to see me crying. I ran away and I was halfway to the harbour wall when Ma caught me.
‘Here, stop – what are you doing?’ she said, and she grabbed a handful of my pyjamas.
‘What are you doing, Ma?’ I said and I wiped my eyes so she wouldn’t see me crying cos I knew she’d tell me I was being silly.
‘Nothing, just having a laugh with a few mates.’
She tried to take my arm but I pulled away. ‘They’re not your mates, Ma.’
‘They are now,’ she said, real happy with herself. ‘Ah, come on, don’t be silly.’
‘I don’t want to be here any more, Ma.’ And I didn’t. Cos Ma and her new mates had ruined it. ‘I want to be in Gran’s house.’
‘Ah, love, they’re only having a few cans. It’s Saturday night.’
But I didn’t see what Saturday had to do with it. ‘I don’t want to be here any more.’
‘What are you talking about? You love the beach. And we had a laugh today, didn’t we?’
I didn’t answer her.
‘Look, I’m sorry about the tent. I’ll get us a new one tomorrow – a bigger one.’
I didn’t care about the tent. I didn’t want a bigger one.
‘Come on, you can’t stay out here. It’s late. Just go back to sleep and we’ll fix the tent in the morning, okay?’
‘Can we go back to Gran’s tomorrow?’ I asked.
But then Ma’s voice went all hard, the way it goes when she’s had enough. ‘Look, don’t start stressing me out, okay? I’ve enough going on. I just needed to relax, all right?’ I didn’t answer cos it didn’t make sense. She’d spent the whole day relaxing on the beach. ‘I’ll get them to move so you can sleep, okay?’ She meant Monkey Man and the chickens. ‘They’re leaving soon anyway. Now come on, stop whinging, all right?’
Ma grabbed my hand and I tried to pull away but Ma’s real strong. She dragged me back to the tent, even though I kept saying I didn’t want to go. When we got there, Monkey Man was standing over it and he’d tied something to the top.
‘Just like new!’ he said, and he smiled. But it wasn’t a nice smile.
‘See?’ Ma said. ‘All fixed! Now, lads, do yis mind if we move away from the tent so madam here can get some sleep?’
They all started standing up and saying, ‘Not a bother,’ and they went off down the beach. Ma looked at me real proud, like she’d just made everything all better, but the
n she left too. I didn’t know what she meant by ‘madam’ but she said it in the same voice she used to tell me I was being silly. It made me want to shout at her. But I didn’t say anything, cos there was no point. There never was when Ma had been drinking.
I just crawled back into the tent where the poles were broken and the side was all floppy. I lay there for ages trying to sleep. But I couldn’t cos every time I heard the wind moving through the grass, I thought it was Monkey Man crawling around outside, glowing like a sick moon.
I couldn’t believe Ma would bring them to our dune. I was so angry that it stung my fingers and toes. I hated her and her stupid laugh and her stupid drinking.
I still wished that she was there with me, though.
But even when it started getting light, I could hear her laughing from the beach.
SARDINES AND CAKE
I’m sitting in the backyard with two slices of birthday cake in my hand. Ma’s gone out. Into the streets. With eyes as deep as the canal.
She says she’ll be back. She promised. And Ma always comes back. But I still feel like a bag of spiders is crawling around inside me.
I take the blanket that’s drying off the line and fold it nice. I put a clothes peg on it and the slices of cake and I pick up the bar of soap that Ma was using. It’s already dry on the top so I put it on the blanket with the dry part facing down and I go inside.
I sneak up beneath the window in the basement that looks into the space where Caretaker lives. I climb up onto the windowsill and peek over the boards.
Below me is Caretaker and his trolley and his books and his blankets. I can’t see him. All I can see is a massive heap of blankets against the wall. But the shape of the heap tells me he’s in there. On my left, behind his head, there’s a wall, and it’s real important cos when there’s a storm, the canal sometimes floods, and the wall stops the water coming in and drowning Caretaker.
Caretaker likes lots of blankets cos he doesn’t like being wet. Even on a windy day, when the rain is slanty and comes in off the street, he stays dry. Cos even if the top few blankets get wet, it’d be impossible for the water to get through every single blanket.
The Girl in Between Page 5