The Terrible Thing That Happened to Barnaby Brocket

by John Boyne

  Barnaby thought of the mummies he’d read about in history class and tried to imagine what it would be like to be wrapped up like that; he wasn’t able to.

  “I was in hospital for months. And when they took the bandages off, I looked even worse than I do now, as the scars were still spreading and hadn’t fully settled down yet. Even the nurses couldn’t bear to look at me, and they were used to dealing with burn victims. So there were operations, operations, endless operations. I turned nine years old on the ward, and as I was growing, the skin on my face started to stretch too and my face only became worse. And my parents, who had always set so much store by physical beauty … well, they simply couldn’t believe what their son looked like now. I started to realize that while at first they had come to visit me every day, their visits had begun to grow less frequent, and soon I was only seeing them once a week; then they began to take it in turns to come. My mother would say that my father had a collection to deliver, or my father would say that my mother was spending the day taking photographs of a group of film stars eating lunch together and comparing hairstyles. Eva never came, except once, when she screamed so loudly that she had to be taken away before she upset the other patients. Then the visits dwindled to once a month. Then they were replaced by phone calls. Then I got the occasional letter. And finally I stopped hearing from them altogether.”

  “But that’s terrible,” said Barnaby.

  “I wasn’t one of them anymore, you see,” continued Charles. “I was too different. The hospital relocated me to a children’s residential home, and it was as if my family had decided that I didn’t exist. And so the morning I turned sixteen, I got up early, packed a bag, and moved to Canada. I started a new life there with people who saw who I was on the inside rather than this burned creature on the outside. I made a life for myself, and when I started to gain recognition in the circles my family moved in, that’s when they got back in touch. Last year they even started talking about me in interviews. But I don’t speak to them. I won’t take their calls, I don’t reply to their letters, and I certainly won’t let them ‘friend’ me or whatever it is people do on their computers these days, however much effort they make.”

  Barnaby glanced at the photograph of the model once again—and it was true, she was very beautiful, but she looked miserable, as if there was something missing in her life. And when he turned the page to see the picture of Mr. and Mrs. Etheridge, they were deep in conversation with the head of the United Nations, but there was an unhappy expression on their faces too.

  “How did you survive in Canada?” asked Barnaby, who suddenly felt very far from home and completely alone. “If you didn’t know anyone, I mean.”

  “Sometimes there are lucky moments in life,” replied Charles, looking out of the window now and smiling at a happy memory, stronger than those sad ones. “I saw an advertisement for a room to rent in the city, and for the next five or six years ended up living in the home of a wonderful Spanish couple who ran a veterinary practice from an office attached to their house. They had no children of their own and treated me like a son. They didn’t care what I looked like, didn’t mind that I was different. Why, if someone stared at me in the street, they would fly into a rage to defend me. They were good people. But look—we should get some sleep. It’s getting late and we have a few hours to go yet. Are you tired?”

  “I am, in fact,” said Barnaby.

  “Well, close your eyes, and when you wake up, you’ll be in Toronto, the most magnificent city in the world.”

  “Actually, that’s Sydney,” said Barnaby, feeling sleep begin to arrive already. “But it’s a common mistake.”

  The train pulled into the station early the following morning, and Charles and Barnaby woke up, looking around with sleepy eyes as the conductor called out: “Toronto! Last stop!”

  “Better put this on,” said Charles, reaching up to the overhead rack for Barnaby’s iron-weighted rucksack and helping him into it. They ignored Betty-Ann and her mother as they stepped off the train and made their way through the station and out onto the busy street, pleased to be able to stretch their legs again.

  “We’ll hail you a taxi. All you have to do is ask for the International Airport,” said Charles. “Here’s your ticket. It’s a long flight, I’m afraid, but at least you’ll be on your way home.”

  “I don’t mind,” said Barnaby. “As long as I get there.”

  “I’m curious …,” said Charles, taking the boy aside and sitting down next to him on a bench. “I know what your parents did to you, and yet you still want to go home.”

  “Of course I do,” said Barnaby.

  “But why—when they sent you away like they did?”

  “Because they’re my family,” said Barnaby with a shrug.

  “But they didn’t want you.”

  “But they’re still my family,” repeated Barnaby, as if this was the most obvious thing in the world. “And it’s not like I’m ever going to have another mum and dad, is it?”

  Charles nodded and thought about this. “And what if they send you away again?” he asked, and Barnaby frowned.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I haven’t thought that far ahead. All I do know is that they’re in Sydney, and no matter what they did to me, I still want to go home. Maybe they’ll tell me they’re sorry. And maybe they’ll even mean it. If they do that much, well, then, that will probably be enough for me. Everyone makes mistakes, don’t they?”

  Charles smiled but was unable to argue with the boy’s simple logic. “All right, then,” he said, standing up. “Let’s get you that taxi.”

  He put his hand in the air and one pulled over almost immediately.

  Barnaby jumped in. “Thanks again,” he said.

  “You’re welcome. Have a safe flight home.”

  The taxi drove off and Barnaby looked round, expecting to see Charles making his way toward his office, but to his surprise, his friend had sat down again and was looking at his mobile phone. His fingers hovered over it for a long time before he seemed to make a decision and started dialing a number.

  Barnaby smiled and turned round again, sure that Charles and his family would soon be reunited, just like he would be with his.

  And it was at that moment that his heart skipped a little beat as he realized that he had his rucksack, he had his iron weights, he had his plane ticket … but there was one very important thing that he didn’t have that he would most certainly need for this taxi driver.

  “I don’t have any money,” he said aloud, and a moment later the taxi had pulled in to the curb, the back door was opened, and Barnaby Brocket was promptly pushed out again onto an unfamiliar Canadian street.

  Chapter 16

  The Little Jelly That Caused So Much Trouble

  Before Barnaby could even think what to do next, a great crowd started to sweep along the street toward him. There were hundreds of people, all wearing identical blue-and-white shirts with a large A in the center. He fell among them, clutching his rucksack firmly on his back as they passed the harborfront on the left before taking a sharp right turn, whereupon the entire throng began to pour into an enormous sports stadium with an open roof. As the fans dispersed to different parts of the arena, Barnaby found an empty seat at the end of a row and looked up toward the magnificent tower that stood next to the stadium, its great spire pushing up into the sky above.

  Barnaby had always loved sport, although he’d never once been taken to a football match—Eleanor said that normal people did not want to have their afternoon spoiled by a little boy floating out of his seat and obstructing their view. So he usually only got to watch it on television, trying to keep track of the action as he lay pressed against his mattress on the living-room ceiling.

  As the stadium began to fill up, Barnaby pulled a postcard out of his rucksack and started to write. He was only halfway through when a family squeezed past him and took the next three seats—two enormous parents and a rather skinny little boy of around Barnaby’s ag
e. All three were carrying so much food—giant cartons of popcorn, a couple of dozen hot dogs, liters and liters of fizzy drinks, bags of chocolates and sweets—that Barnaby feared they might explode if they ate it all. He put the unfinished postcard in his back pocket, trying not to stare at them.

  “Don’t you have anything to eat?” asked the boy sitting next to him, and Barnaby shook his head.

  “I don’t have any money,” he said.

  “Well, you can have some of mine if you want,” said the little boy, pushing some food Barnaby’s way. “I’ll never eat it all anyway. My parents always buy too much. They think there’s something wrong with me because I’m so skinny. My name’s Wilson Wendell.”

  “I’m Barnaby Brocket,” said Barnaby, happy to take a carton of popcorn, some hot dogs, a bag of jellies, and a huge four-liter container of something black, cold, and sweet that he sucked through a straw and that sent a fizzy sensation through his body. In fact, the food was so heavy that Barnaby thought it might be safe to take his rucksack off, and he placed it under his feet.

  “Eat your dinner, Wilson,” said the boy’s mother as she dug into the bottom of a bucket of popcorn for a finger-coating of salt.

  “You’re fading away,” said the father, licking the ketchup-and-mustard mixture that had spilled onto the hot dog wrapper.

  “I am eating,” said Wilson, putting a single piece of popcorn in his mouth and chewing it carefully. “I hate all this junk,” he added in a whisper, turning to Barnaby. “They won’t be happy until I look just like them.”

  “Well, you can’t eat like this all the time,” agreed Barnaby, enjoying every bite. “But when you’re hungry, like I am—”

  “You have a funny accent,” said Wilson, interrupting him. “What’s the matter with your voice?”

  “Nothing,” said Barnaby. “I’m Australian.”

  “I have an aunt who lives in Melbourne,” said Wilson. “Although I’ve never been there. Is it true that the water in the toilet goes the wrong way round there?”

  “It depends what you think the right way is, I suppose,” said Barnaby.

  Wilson thought about this and gave a little grunt of agreement. “Who’s your favorite football player?” he asked after a moment.

  “Kieren Jack,” said Barnaby, who had watched the number fifteen play many times on television and had a poster of him on his bedroom wall. “I’m a Sydney Swans man.”

  “Never heard of him,” said Wilson. “Never heard of them either.”

  “Well, he’s only the greatest footballer in the history of the world,” said Barnaby.

  “I like Cody Harper,” said Wilson, pointing down at the team that had just run out onto the field—to massive cheers from the crowd. “The greatest kicker the Argonauts have ever had.”

  “Which one’s he?” asked Barnaby.

  “Number seven,” said Wilson. “Although he’s having a rotten season. The fans all want the manager to drop him. Not me, though. I know he’ll come good one of these days. What the—?”

  A great groan came from the crowd as the sky suddenly opened and the rain began. There was a powerful heaving sound, and the motors on either side of the open roof kicked into gear to close it. Barnaby looked up in disappointment. He quite liked being able to gaze up at the tower looming over them.

  “That’s where all the tourists go,” said Wilson, seeing where Barnaby’s eyes were focused. “They take the elevator to the top, then walk out onto a glass floor and look down over the city. One more jelly, I think,” he added, reaching into the bag of sweets that was sitting on Barnaby’s lap and picking out the smallest, most delicious-looking jelly. It couldn’t have weighed more than a gram, but it must have been the difference between balancing Barnaby and unbalancing Barnaby, because the moment Wilson took it, Barnaby felt that familiar floating feeling begin to overtake him, and his legs started to rise off the ground.

  “Uh-oh,” he said, reaching down for his rucksack—but either he’d pushed it too far back under the seat or he’d already risen too high, because he couldn’t grab it, and before long he was airborne.

  “Fantastic!” cried Wilson as the rest of the crowd, even those on the field, turned to look up at Barnaby. Ignoring the commotion, Cody Harper scored a quick goal—his first in ages—but as no one witnessed it, it didn’t count. And Barnaby’s unfinished postcard fell out of his pocket and landed in Wilson’s lap.

  Barnaby heard the roar of the crowd and waved down to them, but their cheers soon turned into gasps, for as he rose higher, so the two sides of the roof were closing in on each other.

  There were only three things that could happen now.

  The first was that it would close before he reached the top.

  The second was that Barnaby would make it through before they met.

  The third—which was the worst option of all—was that it would close just as he got there and Barnaby Brocket would be sliced in two.

  And unfortunately for him, that’s exactly what happened.

  Don’t worry—it didn’t.

  For just at the moment when the two halves were about to seal the stadium, Barnaby slipped through the small gap that remained—a gap only big enough for an eight-year-old boy—and found himself looking down on the SkyDome from outside, the white roof growing smaller beneath him as he rose.

  “Help!” he shouted, waving his hands toward the tourists in the tower; they all waved back as if this was just another entertainment laid on for them by the mayor of Toronto.

  A small viewing platform at the top came into sight, and Barnaby noticed a black-suited figure running up the stairs inside and pulling open the door; he was carrying what looked like a fishing rod and casting it out into the air. It blew around in the wind, and Barnaby realized that it wasn’t a fishing rod at all; it was a whip.

  “Grab ahold of it!” shouted the man, and Barnaby pushed himself as hard as he could to the right as he reached out for it, catching it by his fingertips and holding on tightly as the man dragged him over the top of the rail and immediately sat on him so he couldn’t float away again.

  “Thank you,” said Barnaby, looking up in relief.

  “You’re very welcome,” said the man, looking at the boy as if he wanted to eat him whole. “I saved your life, young man. That means it belongs to me now.”

  Barnaby stared at him in surprise.

  “Just kidding,” he said, smiling in a rather nasty way, and the tone of his voice made Barnaby think that he wasn’t kidding at all. After a moment the man stood up, pulled the boy to his feet, and they went inside. Barnaby felt less than comfortable because the man had locked arms with him and was holding him very tightly so he couldn’t escape even if he wanted to.

  “What a trauma for you,” he said, shaking his head. “Let’s get you some water, shall we?”

  “I’m fine,” said Barnaby, thinking of all the planes in Toronto preparing to fly to the Southern Hemisphere. “I should be going, really.”

  “Nonsense,” said the man. “Where would you go?”

  “Home, of course,” said Barnaby.

  “And where is home?”

  “Sydney, Australia.”

  The man smiled. “You’re not from Toronto?” he asked.

  “No. And could you let go of my arm, please? You’re hurting me.”

  “Oh no, I couldn’t do that,” said the man. “You might float away on me again, and we can’t have that, can we? I told you, your life belongs to me now.”

  “But you said you were kidding.”

  “And I’m still kidding,” said the man with a nasty smile. He had a very pale face, greasy dark hair, and was dressed in what looked like a black tuxedo with red ribbing on the lapels. He made a funny cracking motion with his wrist, and the whip that he had used to reel Barnaby in rolled up perfectly as he returned it to a pouch beside his leg.

  “Why do you carry a whip with you?” asked Barnaby.

  “It’s part of my job. You’ve been to the circus, I presume?�
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  “No,” said Barnaby, shaking his head. Alistair wouldn’t let him go to the circus when it came to Sydney, for much the same reason that Eleanor wouldn’t let him go to football matches. “But I’ve seen one on television.”

  “Well, I work in a circus. Of sorts,” explained the man. “A very special type of circus. I mean, we don’t have lions or tigers or clowns, nothing like that.”

  “Then what type of circus is it?” asked Barnaby.

  “Oh, that would be telling, wouldn’t it? Now here …,” he said, opening a small bottle of water that he was carrying in his inside pocket and handing it across to Barnaby. “Drink this, why don’t you? You’ll feel better for it after all your excitement.”

  “But I’m not thirsty,” said Barnaby. “And I haven’t had any excitement.”

  “Drink it,” repeated the man, and something in his tone made Barnaby feel that he’d better do as he was told or there might be trouble ahead. And so he lifted the bottle, put it to his lips, and swallowed it all in one draft. It tasted like regular water, only with a sort of sweet aroma and a bitter aftertaste. So actually, nothing like regular water, really. “Good boy,” said the man, smiling again as he returned the empty bottle to his inside pocket. “Now, let’s just wait a moment or two and then we can go.”

  Barnaby nodded and started to yawn; he was getting tired now. I’ll just wait until we stand up again, he thought. Then I’ll thank the man for saving me and be on my way.

  But as he thought this, his eyelids became even heavier, his legs started to feel like jelly, and his head grew dizzy. He thought he was going to collapse onto the table, but before that could happen, the man picked him up and threw him over his shoulder.

  The last thing he heard before he fell into a deep sleep was the man’s voice calling, “Out of my way, please. My son has fallen ill,” as he ran down the tower steps, circling over and over until all of Toronto seemed to disappear into a sort of dream world, a place that Barnaby could not have awoken from even if he’d wanted to.