The Terrible Thing That Happened to Barnaby Brocket

by John Boyne

And with that, he released his hand and Barnaby floated upward and was left stranded on the ceiling. The room immediately became a lightning storm of flashbulbs and television cameras.

  “Amazing!” cried the journalists.

  “Extraordinary!”

  “Horrible, utterly horrible!”

  This last cry didn’t come from anyone at the press conference, but from Eleanor Brocket as she watched the news later that night.

  “They think he’s a freak. They think we’re all freaks!” She turned to her husband in despair and looked out of the front window, where news vans had been gathered since the late afternoon. “He’s making a mockery of our family. The whole thing is mortifying.”

  “You simply can’t be trusted, can you?” snapped Alistair, wagging his finger up at his son, who was pressed against his David Jones Bellissimo plush medium mattress on the ceiling. “Look at all the unwelcome attention you’ve brought our way. How many times do we have to tell you?”

  “But it wasn’t my fault,” protested Barnaby.

  “Oh, it’s always your fault,” insisted Alistair. “I was at work—at work, Barnaby!—and your antics appeared on the television. Do you have any idea what that was like for me? Everyone looking in my direction? Whispering about me? Talking about me behind my back?”

  “I’m sorry,” said Barnaby, feeling tears beginning to form behind his eyes.

  “What good is sorry?” said Alistair, turning away and sitting down, burying his face in his hands. “All I ever wanted was to live a normal life, with a normal family and normal children. And then you came along and ruined everything.”

  Eleanor looked at her husband and understood his anger, for she felt it in equal measure. Staring up at her son, she breathed heavily through her nose like a dragon preparing to incinerate a group of untidy villagers and spoke with barely controlled rage.

  “We will not put up with this a moment longer,” she declared. “Eight years is eight years too many. We will not have a son who is different—do you understand me, Barnaby? Something has to be done. Either you become normal or … or …” She thought about it, wondering how she could finish this sentence. “Or we will put an end to your selfishness once and for all ourselves.”

  Chapter 6

  The Terrible Thing That Happened at

  Mrs. Macquarie’s Chair

  It was almost a week before the journalists and news crews grew tired of sitting outside the Brocket house and went away to bother other people instead. Eleanor hadn’t dared to venture outside during all that time but had brooded indoors instead, saying little, her resentment toward Barnaby growing all the time. Alistair had taken a few days off work, something he had never done before, as normal people, he announced, didn’t call in sick; they worked five days a week, nine to five, and undertook a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay. Finally, on a gloomy Thursday night, they sat in the kitchen together with the door closed. Henry and Melanie were sent to their rooms. Barnaby was left floating on the mattress in the living room. Even Captain W. E. Johns was exiled to the garden, despite the fact that he had conducted his private business earlier in a concealed area behind an apple tree and had nothing further to add.

  Eleanor began the conversation, telling Alistair about an idea that had come to her recently. (Actually, it hadn’t come to her recently at all; it had come to her in the back of the taxi cab eight years earlier when she was returning from the hospital, but she didn’t want to admit that.)

  Alistair thought that her idea had some merit but suggested a few changes of his own.

  Eleanor agreed to these changes and added a few more, one of which they agreed to discard as being unnecessary and only there for comic effect.

  Alistair threw in one final proposal, and Eleanor ran to the kitchen drawer to make sure that her sharpest pair of steel scissors could be found in the usual place.

  “They’re here,” she said, holding them up and letting the light from the setting sun, which was coming through the window, gleam off the blades in a satisfactory manner.

  And it was then that their terrible decision was reached.

  “Are we sure about this?” asked Eleanor.

  “I’m sure if you’re sure,” said Alistair.

  “Yes,” said Eleanor decisively. “I’m one hundred percent sure.”

  “There’ll be no turning back, you understand that?”

  “Alistair, he has no one to blame but himself. Did you put your parents through this nightmare? Did I?”

  “Should we shake on it?” asked Alistair, extending his hand.

  “I don’t think so,” replied Eleanor, unwilling to engage in such a common act. “We’re not underworld criminals.”

  The following morning broke with a burst of sunshine and a group of six red-eyed common koels making temporary nests in the Brocket garden, much to the displeasure of Captain W. E. Johns, who guarded his patch with an authority not seen since the heyday of the Roman centurions. The family was gathered in the kitchen as usual, finishing breakfast, the children full of beans, the parents unusually subdued.

  “Barnaby’s not wearing his uniform,” said Melanie, looking up at the ceiling. “Isn’t he going back to school today?”

  “Not today, dear, no,” replied Eleanor.

  “But all the reporters have left. His brain will grow soggy if he sits around the house much longer.”

  “We’ll decide that, young lady,” said Alistair. “Not you.”

  “And we have decided,” said Eleanor, staring fiercely at her husband, wanting to be absolutely certain that there were no faint hearts this morning. “Haven’t we?”

  “Yes,” replied Alistair. “I can confidently say that this is the best decision I’ve ever made in my life.”

  “That’s a little over the top, don’t you think?” asked Melanie, looking at her father in surprise. “All you’re doing is keeping Barnaby off school for another day.”

  “Everyone in my class thinks Barnaby’s brilliant,” remarked Henry, reaching across for one more piece of toast, his seventh of the morning, and wondering whether he could fit in an eighth before leaving the table. “They want to know whether I can float too.”

  “You see?” said Eleanor triumphantly, pleased that one of her predictions had come true, even if it meant bother for her elder son. “Are they bullying you?”

  “Of course not,” he replied. “I mean, have you seen me?” He had a point. Henry was fifteen years old by now and played a lot of sports. It was unlikely that any of his classmates would think of picking on him. Even all that marmalade couldn’t break through so much muscle. “And, anyway, what do I care if they think I float like Barnaby? It doesn’t matter what other people think.”

  “It matters an enormous amount,” said Alistair, putting his coffee down with an exasperated sigh as he picked up Barnaby’s dropped copy of A Tale of Two Cities and handed it back up to him. “Why, you wouldn’t want people to go around saying that you were a—I don’t know … a piece of Swiss cheese, would you? Or an ornamental teapot? When it wasn’t true?”

  Melanie sniggered. The idea of her elder brother as either a piece of Swiss cheese or an ornamental teapot was one that clearly tickled her. Even Captain W. E. Johns barked in delight, rolling over on his back and kicking his legs in the air triumphantly.

  “They can say what they like about me,” said Henry, ignoring them both. “Sticks and stones and all that garbage.”

  “Are you actually telling me,” began Alistair, leaning forward and staring at his elder son as if he barely knew him. “Are you actually telling me that having all your friends know this terrible thing about your brother is not a source of embarrassment to you?”

  Henry thought about it for a moment. “Yes,” he said, nodding his head. “That’s what I’m telling you.”

  “Even though most of them probably think that you’re just a repressed floating boy yourself?”

  “Maybe I am,” said Henry with a shrug. “I’ve never felt any great urge
to float, but who knows, if the mood took me, under the right circumstances—”

  “Henry, are you deliberately trying to upset me?” asked Eleanor, putting her coffee down in exhaustion.

  “I’m only telling the truth,” said Henry. “It doesn’t matter to me that Barnaby floats. It never has mattered. Good luck to him, that’s what I say.”

  “Same goes for me,” said Melanie, looking at her elder brother with a sense of pride; Henry could be terribly annoying sometimes, but good Lord, that boy had a heart of gold and wasn’t afraid to show it.

  “I’d better go to work,” said Alistair, standing up and looking at his children in despair. “Sometimes I wonder where I went wrong, do you know that? Where we both went wrong, Eleanor.” He leaned over, kissed his wife on the cheek, and they stared at each other meaningfully. “You’re sure you don’t want me with you today?” he asked quietly.

  “I think it will be easier on my own,” she replied, looking down into the dregs of her coffee cup.

  “All right, then.”

  “What will be easier on your own?” asked Melanie.

  “Nothing,” said Alistair, reaching for his briefcase. “I’ll see you all tonight.” He looked up at Barnaby and hesitated, unable to look the boy fully in the eye. “You’ll be all right,” he said before turning away and leaving for work, his head bowed low as if a part of him knew that he had committed a most shameful act of cruelty.

  “I think I could probably go back to school today,” said Barnaby when Henry and Melanie left a few minutes later and Captain W. E. Johns was chasing a squirrel that had had the temerity to stop for a breather in their garden. (It was his intention to put manners on that squirrel.) “I don’t want to spend the entire day on the ceiling.”

  “I thought we might go for a walk,” replied Eleanor. “It’s such a beautiful day, after all, and neither of us has left the house in more than a week. What do you think—doesn’t that sound like a good idea?”

  “You’re not going to put me on a leash, are you?” asked Barnaby.

  “It’s your choice,” said Eleanor. “The leash or the sandbags.”

  Barnaby thought about it. “I’ll take the sandbags,” he said.

  The sky was perfectly blue and clear as Eleanor, Barnaby, and Captain W. E. Johns left the house together, the latter having a good nose in all the bushes and hedgerows they passed in case any strange dogs had gone by in the night and left their scent as a deliberate provocation. They made their way south toward the apartments that overlooked the harbor before heading in the direction of the bridge. Barnaby looked up toward the two flags at its northernmost point—the flag of the Australians and the flag of the Aborigines—and found it hard to believe that just over a week before, he had been standing directly beneath them. He could see a line of tiny figures making their way up the side in their blue-and-gray jumpsuits and wondered whether or not Daz was guiding this particular group to the top.

  “We’re not going back up the bridge, are we?” he asked, and Eleanor shook her head.

  “Goodness me, no,” she said. “I think we’ve had quite enough trouble with that bridge for one lifetime, don’t you? It’s a menace. They should take it down.”

  “But then how would people get from one side of Sydney to the other?”

  “They managed for a hundred years before it was built,” said Eleanor. “I’m sure they’d find a way.”

  Barnaby was already starting to feel a little tired, as it had been nine days since he’d last worn his sandbag rucksack and it was weighing heavily on his shoulders. And his ears were hurting again, the way they did whenever he was forced to stay on the ground.

  “Well, if we’re not climbing it, where are we going?” he asked as they ascended the steps on the left-hand side onto the long pedestrian walkway that stretched across the water.

  “Just for a little exercise, that’s all,” replied Eleanor. “We’ll take a turn around the Opera House and head into the Botanic Gardens. Do you know, I haven’t set foot in there in years. Your father used to take me there all the time when we were young and didn’t have the problems we have today.”

  Barnaby, who knew that he was at the top of that particular list, said nothing to this and simply stared into the harbor as they walked, wishing he’d brought a bottle of water with him to quench his thirst. When they had almost reached the other side, Eleanor stopped and knelt to tie one of her laces and Barnaby turned to his left, looking down at the umbrellas over the tables on the rooftop terrace of the Glenmore Hotel, imagining what it would be like to sit there with his family over lunch without having to float on the underside of the canopy. But as Eleanor stood up again, there was a clanging sound of something heavy dropping out of her pocket onto the steel walkway below, and she quickly reached down to retrieve it.

  “What was that?” asked Barnaby, turning back and seeing the glint of something metallic in her hands.

  “Silly me,” she said, showing him the pair of sharp kitchen scissors that she had been carrying in her pocket since they left the house. “I was using these earlier and must have forgotten to put them back in the drawer.”

  “That’s dangerous,” said Barnaby.

  “Yes, I know. But don’t worry, I’ll be careful with them.”

  “Bark,” barked Captain W. E. Johns, who knew when something fishy was afoot. “Bark bark bark!”

  “Oh, do be quiet,” said Eleanor, tugging at his lead.

  Descending the staircase into The Rocks, they made their way through the early-morning coffee drinkers before descending another, steeper staircase toward Circular Quay, stopping briefly when Barnaby wanted to listen to an elderly Aborigine man playing the didgeridoo in front of the wharf entrances.

  “Come along, Barnaby,” said Eleanor irritably.

  “I want to hear him play.”

  “We don’t have time. Come along, please.”

  Barnaby sighed and turned away just as the man finished blowing, and they looked at each other without exchanging a word, leaving the boy feeling rather unsettled. There was something not quite right about today.

  When they reached the front of the Opera House, they stopped for a moment to watch the tourists running up and down the steps taking photographs. Barnaby had always been fascinated by the building’s design. It reminded him of a ship setting forth on the ocean. “How many operas have you been to there?” he asked.

  “Oh, none,” said Eleanor. “No one goes to the opera anymore. It’s not normal. If I feel like a bit of culture, I turn on MasterChef like normal people. Now come along, let’s keep walking.”

  They followed the path round and entered the Botanic Gardens through one of the great iron gates. There weren’t many people there, just a few mothers with young babies in their strollers. An ice cream van stood in the corner and a young girl sat in the window, engrossed in a book and looking up occasionally in search of customers.

  “Perfect,” said Eleanor, appearing pleased by how quiet it was.

  “I’m getting tired,” said Barnaby. “Can’t we stop for a while?”

  “Not just yet,” replied Eleanor. “A nice walk around the cove and then we can take a break, I promise.”

  They joined up with a path running through the center of the gardens, and Barnaby looked across at Woolloomooloo Bay, the water sparkling in the morning light, sending a rainbow of color splashing along the surface like a coin skimming across the tops of the waves. There were a few yachts already taking to the water; he could see families on board, mothers and fathers together with their children, all enjoying a happy morning. It was just like it was at the Glenmore. Families together, happy. No one embarrassed by their children.

  “Is it much farther?” he asked after another ten minutes had passed, but Eleanor said nothing, simply continued with all the purpose and suppressed rage of a power-walker.

  “We can stop now,” she said finally as Barnaby collapsed onto a large rock with a seating platform while Captain W. E. Johns fell at his feet wi
th a dramatic grunt and began to pant loudly. “We’re here.”

  “Where?” asked Barnaby, looking around.

  “Mrs. Macquarie’s Chair,” said Eleanor. “You’ve read about it in school, haven’t you?”

  “No.”

  “Astonishing,” she said with a sigh. “What do they teach you children these days anyway? It’s part of your history.”

  Barnaby shrugged. “Maybe I was sick that day,” he suggested. “Or being kept off.”

  “There’s always an excuse,” said Eleanor. “Well, if that teacher of yours was any good at his job, he’d be bringing you on day-trips to places like this, not dragging you up and down bridges just to get your face in the papers. This is where everything started for Australia. Right here. This is where we all come from.” She looked out to sea and breathed in deeply, as if there might be some memories of the lives and times gone by in the flowing scents of the distant Pacific Ocean. “Two hundred years ago,” she explained, “Lachlan Macquarie, the governor of New South Wales, lived near here. His wife, Elizabeth, liked to wander down to this very point every morning to watch the ships arrive from England. She would sit here, exactly where you’re sitting right now on that rock, and just watch them, day after day. They named this place after her. They called it Mrs. Macquarie’s Chair.”

  Barnaby stood up and looked behind him, worried that he might have stolen a ghost’s seat.

  “They used to ship the convicts here from England,” continued Eleanor. “You know all about that, don’t you?”

  “Oh yes,” said Barnaby, who had learned this much at least in history class.

  “And those ships didn’t just contain men and women, you know. There were children sent here too. Some of them quite young. As young as you, in fact. They arrived after a long voyage across the ocean to start a new life here in Australia. They didn’t know what was in store for them, but they made the best of things and they made it work.”

  Barnaby tried to imagine what it must have been like for an eight-year-old boy like him to wake up on a ship one morning and see Sydney Harbour coming into view, not knowing what type of life he might end up living on this new continent.