A Boy Called Hope

by Lara Williamson

  “Not that,” I reply. “For not telling Mum it was me who asked you to check your car tyres.”

  “Oh.” Big Dave sighs. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’ve got a terrible memory.” He winks and swings open the gate to 10 Paradise Parade.

  Grace isn’t so forgiving though. When she gets me alone upstairs after dinner, she asks me why I’m sucking up to Big Dave. “You know he’s got a wife and child,” she spits. To reinforce her point she pulls me into her bedroom and puts on the pink silk dressing gown. “Have you forgotten this?”

  “No,” I mutter. “But I’m allowed to play football.”

  “Sure.” Grace bites her lip. “Make the most of it, because when Mum finds out what he’s been up to she’s going to bin him for definite. So play your football because, before long, he’ll be out on his ear and the football will be going after him.”

  “Do you know what?” I say, anger crackling in my chest. “You can be pretty mean, even in your state.”

  “What state is that?” Grace twirls around in the dressing gown.

  “Nothing, forget it,” I reply as the dressing gown cord whips me in the stomach. “Pretend I never spoke.”

  “I already have,” she mutters, smoothing down the silk.

  “Big Dave told me about his son, Kit. I don’t think it’s a secret that he’s got a child any more. There’s talk of them moving into our house because his house got burned.” I fold my arms.

  Grace blows a raspberry. “That’s what I think of that. I bet he didn’t mention Caroline 1973, did he?” I shrug and Grace goes, “So, are you saying he didn’t talk about his wife and they’re still moving in with us? What kind of a two-timing monster is he?” Grace moves on to chewing the corner of her lip. “I mean there’s no way you could have got things mixed up, is there?”

  “Me?” My voice is so high I reckon all the dogs in the neighbourhood have just pricked up their ears. “What about you?”

  “Well,” says Grace defiantly, “my female intuition tells me he’s still a sneaky cheater. A woman is never wrong. You’ll learn that when you get older.” She laughs as though she’s given me some pearls of wisdom and then says, “You’re welcome.”

  “You’d better take that dressing gown off before Mum catches you in it,” I reply. “Wonder how easy it’ll be to explain that you were in Big Dave’s house just before it caught on fire. I mean, if you hadn’t knocked over the candle in the first place, then Big Dave wouldn’t have to move in with us.” I stare at her before adding, “You’re welcome.”

  For once Grace actually looks as if she’s been slapped in the face. It appears I have out-ninjaed the ninja. Slowly, she unpeels the dressing gown, folds it up and stuffs it back into her wardrobe. “Okay, you’ve made your point. It wasn’t my fault that a candle got knocked over. Caroline shouldn’t have been with Big Dave and then none of this would have happened. Anyway, forget about the fire. No one died and we’ve still got to tell Mum the truth.”

  “Not just yet,” I plead. “Come downstairs in a minute and let’s think about what to do next. I’ll even pour you a juice.” Grace’s eyes narrow but when I flash a big gummy smile she nods. In the face of Dan Hope’s intelligence, his enemies crumble. Well almost, because Grace says if I spit in her juice she will come into my bedroom when I’m sleeping and shave off my eyebrows.

  “I can honestly say I will not spit in it,” I reply.

  I’m surprised that I forgot to do this and I’m also surprised at how easy it is to slip the crushed-up folic acid tablets into her glass. Grace isn’t going to know a thing and from this point on she’s going to be happy and healthy. “Here you go,” I say when Grace comes into the kitchen. “A lovely freshly squeezed orange juice.” I pass her the glass of juice and she takes a sip.

  “What are you two up to?” asks Mum, wandering into the kitchen.

  “Nothing,” I reply, giving Mum my saintliest pose, as remembered from the poster of Saint Aloysius Gonzaga on Jo’s wall. Admittedly, it’s not easy to look towards heaven when you’re trying to keep one eye on your sister.

  Grace drinks from her glass and pulls a face. She takes another glug as I pretend not to notice her coughing and chewing. When it becomes impossible to ignore, Mum says, “What’s wrong with you?”

  “It’s this orange juice, Mum. It’s all gritty, I swear.”

  Mum reaches into the fridge and pulls out the carton of juice and reads the sell-by date. “It’s not off. Anyway, it’s orange juice with bits. That’s what it says here. Bits.” Mum taps the carton with her fingertip before shoving it back in the fridge.

  “Not added bits that taste like the bottom of a budgie’s cage.” Grace plonks the glass down on the table.

  Before I can stop her, Mum does something silly. Marching over to the table, she picks up the glass of juice and then downs it in one. “Doesn’t taste too bad,” she says, looking unconvinced. Mum coughs a few times. “Perhaps it’s a little gritty.”

  I appear to have poisoned my mother.

  poison

  n 1 a substance that causes illness or death 2 something that has a destructive influence

  v 1 give poison to a person or animal 2 contaminate with poison 3 have a detrimental effect on another person: to poison a person’s mind

  Last night I spent hours listening to Mum snoring, just to make sure she hadn’t died. I even got up at one in the morning, tiptoed downstairs, found the dictionary and brought it back to my bedroom to read the definition of poison. I think I fell asleep just after that, because I woke up in a dried puddle of drool with the word poison printed on my cheek. I tried to wash it off but some of it had set like concrete.

  “You’re alive,” I say as Mum walks into the kitchen and pours herself a cup of tea.

  “Just,” replies Mum. “You haven’t got rid of me yet.”

  I choke on my cereal and Grace thumps me on the back, saying, “I’ve just saved you from death by puffed rice. Don’t feel you have to thank me. But if you want to, I’ve seen a new pair of pink tweezers you could buy me as a gift.”

  “Bushy eyebrows are in,” I wheeze. “Don’t you read anything in those magazines?”

  “I would if I could get them off my little brother.”

  Just as I open my mouth to answer back Mum says, “Well, this chatter about eyebrows is just riveting and I’d love to stay and join in, but I’ve got a hospital appointment in an hour.” Mum drains the last bit of tea and sets the cup down.

  What? Did Mum just say she’s got to go to the hospital this morning? Not only has she been feeling ill for ages but yesterday I just about finished her off by poisoning her with two folic acid tablets. This can’t be good.

  “After my appointment I’m going to put up all the Christmas decorations, and when you get home from school I’d like to have a lovely chat.” Mum’s eyes glitter with tears. It must be a symptom of poisoning. “Don’t press me for information on what we’ll be talking about though. My lips are zipped.” Mum then snorts with laughter, which I take to mean the tablets have turned her hysterical. “Right, I’ve got to get off now or I’ll be late for my appointment, but be good and if you can’t be good, be amazing. Oh, and Dan, I’m not sure you can be totally amazing if you’ve got a tiny print of the word POO on your cheek.”

  As Mum leaves the house I wipe my cheek with my sleeve and ask Ninja Grace what she thinks is wrong. “You don’t think she’s been poisoned, do you?”

  Grace has a bit of cereal stuck to her chin. It makes her look like a witch and I don’t tell her it’s there (which is the most fun I’m going to get for the day). Grace’s eyes narrow. “Give me strength. Get rid of those detective stories you’re always reading and get with the real world. It’s probably women’s troubles.”

  I don’t ask what those troubles are because I’ve got enough men’s troubles of my own. The most pressing one being: poisoning a woman with troubles.

  I have to make sure Mum’s okay. Grabbing my school bag, I leap up from
the kitchen table, telling Grace it’s already eight thirty-five so I’m off to school. I swear she’s still shouting that I never go to school on time when I slam the front door behind me.

  Up ahead, I see that Mum’s only just made it to the end of Paradise Parade. I dive behind a privet hedge as she turns the corner. Thankfully, she doesn’t spot me. And she still doesn’t see me flinging my body behind wheelie bins and fences as she takes the alleyway towards the Ireland estate. I’m going in. I’m slipping through the shadows of the alleyway like Mum’s much thinner shadow. Occasionally, Mum looks behind her, but I’m too quick to be spotted.

  The Princess Rose Hospital is a huge university hospital three miles further east. It is in no way close to the houses on the Ireland estate. In fact, you can’t even catch the 237 hospital bus from here. Mum hoists her bag further up her shoulder before heading down Carnation Road in the general direction of Big Dave’s house. So far, she hasn’t clocked me. She turns into Big Dave’s street. As I’m hunkered down in a garden, I hear a doorbell parp further down the road. I bob up and then down again.

  There’s going to be a massive showdown. Mum has pitched up at Big Dave’s house, as I suspected. Any minute now, Caroline 1973 is going to answer the parping doorbell and find my mum standing there with her fancy sequined handbag and give her what for. All that’s going be left of Mum will be sequins on the front lawn. My nose rests on the edge of a hedge as the front door flies open. One eye squeezes shut in a wince. Big Dave steps out into the daylight and snogs Mum full-frontal. Curtains all the way down the road twitch like a Mexican wave. Then they jump into his car and zoom away like two lovebirds in a…um…Mondeo.

  Like Grace has said many times before, Big Dave is up to something, but I can’t work it out. Where was Caroline? Didn’t she mind Mum kissing her husband on the doorstep? The whole thing makes my head rotate and that’s no good when you’ve got maths first thing.

  Mrs Parfitt isn’t impressed when I hand in my unfinished lines and then she asks why I didn’t stay in the library to complete them. Mrs Parfitt, it seems, has spies everywhere. So I have to lie and say the inferno in Kevin’s guts spread like wildfire and ended up in mine and I spent the rest of the afternoon on the toilet. Mrs Parfitt says the next time something like that happens can I please let a teacher know where I am. But I tell her that when you could poo through the eye of a needle you don’t have time to let anyone know.

  Kevin looks at me as if to say, What the actual flip are you on about? But we both know he can’t argue because he used exactly the same story on Mrs Parfitt and if he says I’m lying then he must have been lying too.

  Mrs Parfitt stays annoyed with me the whole morning. She says that as soon as she opens her mouth in the maths lesson, I switch off. And she says I’ll get more lines if I don’t start listening, pronto. She doesn’t actually say pronto but that’s what she means. But how can I take in mathematical problems when I’m trying to solve a problem of my own?

  “Daniel, I won’t tell you again.”

  The pressure builds up inside me as if I’m a dropped bottle of fizzy pop.

  “Please pay attention.”

  I might explode with all these worries in my head. And if I’m fizzy pop, am I cola or lemonade?

  “Daniel Hope. Are you listening?”

  “Yes, of cola,” I say. “I mean, of course.” I feel my cheeks burn before I look over at Jo. Without smiling, she turns away. Ever since I tried to give the medal back and told her I didn’t need her, she’s been avoiding me.

  “That was funny,” whispers Christopher. I could swear he’s happy that Jo is ignoring me.

  “Right class – including you, Daniel – listen up. I have some phenomenal news that I’ve been saving for the right moment.” Mrs Parfitt perches on the edge of her desk, her long skirt spilling down to the floor. “I told you you’d want to work hard on Project Eco Everywhere. There was a reason for that, and now I can reveal it: Project Eco Everywhere is going to be on TV.”

  The school roof is nearly taken off by a big whoop from the whole class.

  “The local TV station have heard about Project Eco Everywhere and think it’s a great idea, particularly at Christmas time when we waste so much. They want to come to the Amandine Hotel and film it. I imagine it will only be a small slot at the end of the news, but nonetheless this is fantastic. We might even see their new presenter at the show. Now, what’s his name again?” Mrs Parfitt shuffles through a deck of papers.

  And then she says it: Malcolm Maynard. There’s a firework display inside my head.

  It’s going to be the best moment ever. Things couldn’t have worked out better if I’d planned them myself. When he saw me at the TV office it was a shock, which is why he ran off, but if I’m onstage he’ll get the chance to see me properly.

  Then rockets turn into damp squibs. I’ve just remembered I’m not going to be on the stage.

  “Miss, Miss, Miss!” I raise my hand as high as it’ll go.

  “Yes, what can I do for you?”

  “Please, Miss, do you think that I could go onstage instead of being behind the scenes? If I promise to be good, Miss. Please, Miss.”

  Mrs Parfitt says, “No, Dan, I do not think you can go onstage. I gave both you and Christopher a punishment and that still stands. Nothing has changed just because the TV cameras will be there.”

  Everything has changed, I tell myself. I try to hypnotize Mrs Parfitt because I remember Jo saying God helps those who help themselves. For ages I stare into Mrs Parfitt’s eyes, trying to communicate my desperation. Her eyes are the colour of a stag beetle’s back and she blinks rapidly, as if blocking my mega mindwaves. When I start pulling strained faces and staring even harder, she asks me if the gut inferno is still raging and do I need the toilet. I shake my head and look away, swallowed up by embarrassment and anger that God was no help whatsoever.

  Someone behind me clears their throat. “Excuse me, Miss. What if we weren’t fighting? What if you…” Christopher clears his throat again, “…were mistaken? What if we were play-fighting and it was a game?”

  Mrs Parfitt looks baffled and then says, “Are you telling me I didn’t look out the school window and see you fighting? Are you actually being truthful?”

  Christopher flares red and it travels right up to the tips of his ears. “It was fun, not fighting.”

  “Don’t be preposterous. I saw it with my own eyes and it was anything but fun.” Mrs Parfitt adjusts her glasses. “That is my final word on it.”

  I repeat, “Please.”

  “No,” Mrs Parfitt replies firmly.

  “So no is your final word on it?” I ask.

  “Yes.”

  “So yes is your final word on it?”

  Apparently, “If you don’t be quiet, you’ll be going to the head’s office” is her actual final word on it.

  We are told to bring out our Project Eco Everywhere costumes and continue working on them. Even though I’m not going on the stage, I’ve made a pair of glasses from the cut-off bottoms of two plastic water bottles. When I put them on, not only do I look like a bluebottle, but I can see nine classrooms. Dad would be impressed. Nine Jos approach me with red half-blown-up balloons in one hand and scrunched-up tissues and pictures of a fire ripped from a celebrity magazine in the other.

  “What’s that?” I take off the plastic glasses and try to make conversation as Jo passes my desk.

  “It’s the sacred heart of Mary. I’m going to make tissue roses and wrap them round the balloon. Not that it’s any of your business.”

  “What’s with the fire picture from a magazine?” I ask. “I’m not sure the Virgin Mary would be interested in gossip.”

  “No,” says Jo. “But her heart was burning so this is the closest I could get. And can you please stop talking to me as I’m very busy.” She puts a tea towel on her head before walking away.

  Meanwhile, Kevin has a pair of holey underpants on over his trousers and is cutting up an old furry blanket, whi
le Mrs Parfitt moves in to stop him, horrified that he’s using his lap as a cutting table. Saleem is struggling with loads of toilet roll (unused). And Christopher is drawing on his arm. I take a bit of wrapping foil and make a star and then squeeze it between my fingers until it crumples and I feel better.

  At lunchtime Jo blanks me but Christopher waves me over to the gravel football pitch. “Come and play footie with us. We’re a man down. You can go in goal.”

  I throw my scarf and gloves into a small heap and run towards Christopher. “Thanks,” I say.

  “On me head, Saleem,” he shouts, bobbing up. “On me head.” Saleem kicks the ball and it travels towards Christopher, before he heads it away again. “Kick it in their goal. Awww, c’mon, are you blind?”

  “Thank you,” I echo. “For telling Mrs Parfitt we were just playing.”

  “Ref! That was handball.” Then to me: “We were, weren’t we?” Christopher skirts around the edge of the goal and I wave my arms about as though I’m swatting a cloud of flies. “Anyway, why are you so desperate to be in the Project Eco Everywhere show?” Christopher stops.

  “I just wanted to be on TV, that’s all,” I say indignantly. When the football comes bombing in my direction it takes me by surprise. I forget to swat the flies and don’t manage to catch the ball with my hands, although I do save it with my stomach.

  “Well saved,” says Christopher, helping me up. “It didn’t work anyway. We’ve still got to stay behind the scenes and it’s going to be boring.”

  “Perhaps it doesn’t have to be,” I say, grinning through the agony. “I have the brightest idea ever.”

  When we get home that afternoon, tinsel drapes from the ceiling and flutters down the walls, and the soft thump of a Christmas CD fills the living room. And in the corner, near the front window, a lopsided fir tree has appeared, with lots of coloured boxes underneath. I’ve definitely given up on getting a new bike, which is just as well, because the small present with my name on it is only the size of my palm. Riding a bike that tiny would qualify me to join a flea circus. A comforting waft of warm, spicy gingerbread comes from the kitchen – Mum has lit the fire and flames crackle and lick up the chimney.