Knock, knock.
‘Mum, I said I’m coming.’
‘No, Alex, it’s me. Hurry up, I need to pee.’ It’s my little sister, Lizzie. ‘Come on. I’m going to do it. I’m going to do it!’
‘No! Don’t! I’m coming!’ I bend down and push my elbow against the door handle. It flips down and springs back up again.
‘Alex! I’m going to go.’
‘No! Don’t!’
I have to get out. I knock the handle again, pull it quickly towards me at the same time and the door springs open. Lizzie’s on the landing with her legs crossed.
‘At last!’
She rushes past me and sits on the toilet. She smiles with relief as her pee trickles into the toilet.
‘That’s gross,’ I say. ‘You didn’t even close the door.’
She grins and says something back, but I don’t hear because Mum’s standing beside me with my school bag in her hands.
‘Quick,’ she says. ‘You can still catch them.’ She hangs my bag around my neck like a medal. ‘Go on,’ she says. ‘Your wipes are in there and your gloves are on the kitchen table.’
‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Be safe.’
‘Alex. We’ve not got time for that now.’
‘You have to say it. Be safe. I can’t go unless you do.’
Mum sighs. ‘Okay, be safe. Now off you go.’
If she didn’t say ‘be safe’, lots of bad things could happen: a row of display shelves could fall on her at work, or she could get run over by a delivery truck; Lizzie might fall over in the playground playing netball, or the office that Dad guards could collapse and he’d be trapped under the bricks and glass. Mum, Dad and Dr Patrick say these things won’t happen, that it’s just bad thoughts playing tricks, and I know that’s true, but I still can’t stop the thoughts jumping into my mind. But at least my class didn’t die at the aquarium yesterday because there was nothing about it on the news last night.
I hurry down the stairs, keeping my hands clear of the banister as I jump the last four and run into the kitchen. My gloves are on the table just like Mum said. I put them on and then run round the side of the house. Elliott’s dad’s car isn’t there. I run out into the street, but I’m too late because all I can see are the red tail lights of the car as it turns out onto the main road. I sigh. He did warn me he can’t wait past eight because he’ll be late for work. I’ll have to walk to school now, but it takes ages. I’ll miss registration again and have to walk into history when they’re halfway through the lesson. I hate doing that. Everyone turns and looks at me like I’ve just arrived from Mars.
‘Alex! Alex!’ Mum’s shouting at me from her bedroom window. ‘Come back in. I’ll give you some money for the bus.’
‘It’s okay. I’ll walk.’
‘It’s not okay. You can’t afford to miss any more lessons.’
Mum’s right, but I don’t want to catch the bus because it’s full of people’s germs on the windows and on the stop button. I can’t touch that button. The last time I was on it the bus went two stops past the school before someone pressed it. I was lucky because if no one had been on the bus, I’d have ended up at my nan and grandad’s in Worthing. I like going there but I won’t learn anything useful. All Nan talks about is her neighbours and Granddad is always busy washing his car.
I walk back to the house, checking the pavement for bird and dog poo. There’s two new white marks since last night and a brown skid mark where someone has spread poo across the pavement. Was it me? Did I step on it as I was rushing out? I check the bottoms of my shoes. The front soles are clean, but there’s something brown in the groove on my left heel.
I pass Lizzie’s friend, Molly, waiting by the gate with her mum. Her mum says something, but I’m too busy looking at the ground. I walk past them, down the side of our house. Lizzie comes towards me with her school bag on her back. She’s in Year Six at the school I used to go to.
‘Why are you looking at your shoes?’ she says. ‘Have you got poo on them?’
‘I think so.’
‘Eew!’
I tell her to shush. It’s bad enough having poo on me without her going, ‘Eew!’
‘Sorry,’ she whispers. ‘Mum says it’s Mr King’s fault because he doesn’t take his dog to the park. I’ll tell him if you want.’
‘It’s okay.’
‘I will. I don’t mind.’ My sister is very loud and very annoying but she does care about me lots.
I start to walk on. ‘I’ll see you later.’
‘Can we play LittleBigPlanet later?’
And she’s good to play LittleBigPlanet with.
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Maybe.’
‘Great!’ Lizzie runs off without even looking where she’s going and I wish I could do the same.
I open the back gate. Mum’s standing at the door.
‘What’s wrong?’
I point at my shoe. ‘I think I trod in poo.’
‘Let me see.’
‘You’re not supposed to help,’ I say.
‘I’ll only look.’
‘But Dr Patrick said.’
‘I know what he said, but you’ll never make it to school if I don’t.’
She’s right. I won’t be able to walk another step if I don’t wash my shoe, but she isn’t supposed to help. Dr Patrick says it’s like she’s making my OCD and my worries okay if she does. But Mum can’t help it. She says she hates to see me struggle. She says it makes her feel like a bad mum, but she’s not a bad mum: she’s the best mum in the world.
I slip my shoes off. She picks one up and lifts it up to her—
‘Don’t sniff— Oh, Mum! Gross!’
‘It’s okay,’ she says. ‘I think it’s a leaf.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you really?’
‘Alex!’
‘Sorry.’ I lean against the worktop. This is the second time I’ve been late this week and I was late twice last week as well. If only I had been five seconds quicker. If I hadn’t washed my hands for one last time, I would have been in the car, swapping Euro cards with Elliott instead of watching Mum clean poo, that she says is a leaf, from my shoe. My shoe! It brushed against my trousers as I walked; now the poo’s on my other trouser leg, on my socks, on my skin.
‘Alex, where are you going now?’
‘Umm.’ I’m halfway across the kitchen towards the hall. ‘There’s something I’ve got to do.’
‘What?’
Dog-poo-trousers-legs-socks-skin.Dog-poo-trousers-legs-socks-skin. My thoughts tumble round and round in my head like my clothes in a washing machine.
‘Alex, no. Not the bathroom again.’
‘But—’
‘You can’t, love. It’ll be another hour before you come out.’
‘Can I just write it down then?’
‘Okay. But promise: not the bathroom.’
‘I promise.’
‘Okay. I’ll check the other shoe and then call the school.’
I climb the stairs and walk past my sister’s bedroom. I wish I could just get up like she does, then get dressed, get washed, eat breakfast, go to school on time. It sounds dead simple. It’s only four things, but I can’t do any of them without being late.
I sit down on my bed with my pencil and pad. This is my worry pad. I have to write all my worries down when things get really bad. Dr Patrick told me I had to note down the first things that come into my head because that way I identify the real worries. I rip last night’s worry page out. It doesn’t count if I just read the old list. My worries don’t stay the same: they change all the time.
My Worry List
1. Everyone is going to die.
2. Dan and Sophie will be waiting to pick on me as soon as I walk into registration.
3. Mr Hammond will lean too close to me in maths and his breath and spit will go on my face and clothes.
4. I might have to sit at the desk at the front by the window in history. The one with c
hewing gum underneath.
5. Mum and Lizzie are going to trip over the loose floorboard on the landing, fall down the stairs and die.
6. Lizzie doesn’t wash her hands after going to the toilet so there are germs everywhere at home.
7. Dan and Sophie will get me at break.
8. The bricks are loose in the wall at school where Mr Francis parks his car. The wall will topple over and trap him underneath and he’ll run out of oxygen and die.
9. Dad never disinfects the steering wheel and he’ll try to hug me if he comes round tonight.
10. Everyone is going to die.
I stop writing and read the list again and again, like I’m revising for an exam, but I’m supposed to forget the thoughts, not remember them. I’d get a hundred percent if there was an exam on worries. It’s my speciality subject, like people who go on quiz shows on TV. Other contestants have specialities like ‘Characters in Harry Potter Novels’ or ‘The Life and Times of Shakespeare’. I’d sit in a chair and all the lights would go out except for the big bright one shining in my eyes.
‘Your name?’
‘Alex Jones.’
‘And your speciality subject is?’
‘How to pour big bottles of disinfectant into smaller bottles so I can use them at school.’
‘Excellent. Your time starts now.’
I rip my list up into tiny pieces like Dr Patrick told me. Out of sight, out of mind. Sometimes I think of using Mum’s shredder just in case she goes through the bins and puts the pieces back together. I don’t want her to see what’s in my head.
She’s drinking coffee in the kitchen when I go back down.
‘You need to get up earlier, love,’ she says.
‘But it’s already dark when I get up.’
‘I know. Maybe you should go to bed at a reasonable time.’
‘I can’t. I keep trying, but every night I get stuck in the bathroom.’
She stands up. ‘Come here,’ she says. ‘Give Mum a hug.’ I walk towards her and she wraps her arms round me. I want a hug, but I can’t bear her to touch me because she might have germs on her clothes and hands. I stand stiff like a lump of ice.
‘Alex.’ She tilts her head and looks at me like she can see my worries in my eyes.
‘Yes?’
She brushes my fringe off my face.
‘Do you think you’d like to go and see Dr Patrick again?’
I nod but I’m not sure Dr Patrick can help me. All he does is listen and then tells me to write my Worry List. One time he told me to imagine all my problems were ants. It didn’t take my problems away, but it helped for a while until I started to imagine the ants crawling all over me while I was asleep.
‘I’ll call him during my lunch break,’ Mum says.
‘What about Dad? It costs loads.’
‘I know but he’ll be fine. He’d rather pay for that than have you flooding the kitchen again.’
I look up at the brown stain on the ceiling and feel guilty. Last month I stayed in the shower so long it sprayed over the edge of the bath and flooded the floor. I try to forget about it, but the stain seems to be getting darker and bigger every time I look.
Mum hands me my gloves. ‘Here,’ she says, giving me my bus money at the same time. ‘I know you don’t like catching it, but it’s too late to walk.’
I try to smile, before I leave.
Outside the sun is shining, making a rainbow on the patch of oil where Dad used to park his car before him and Mum separated. I step round it.
‘Oh, Alex! Wait!’ Mum shouts and comes running out with my guitar.
‘You’d forget your head if it wasn’t stuck on,’ she says.
I wish I could!
Mum smiles as she helps me put my arms through the straps. ‘Why are you wearing this old hoodie?’ She holds on to my sleeve.
‘The other one’s dirty,’ I say. ‘And it’s got a hole in the arm.’
‘What? It was brand-new! How did that happen?’
I can’t tell her.
‘Alex, how did you do it?’
‘I fell over on the way home.’
‘And one of the straps is missing on your bag.’
‘It broke off when I fell.’
Mum shakes her head. ‘Alex, can’t you be more careful? I can’t do anything about the strap until the weekend, but I’ll sew the hoodie. We can’t afford to keep buying new clothes all the time.’
‘Okay.’ I start to walk towards the gate. I wish I could tell Mum how it really happened, but I can’t because the people who did it will do it even more if anyone finds out, and Mum will have to buy me a whole new uniform before long. I open the gate. Mum’s still standing at the door.
‘What now?’ she asks when I turn to look at her.
‘Are you cleaning the house this afternoon?’
‘Yes, it’s my half-day at work.’
‘Can you not move Chewbacca? He doesn’t like standing next to Yoda.’
‘Okay.’
‘And put Han Solo back on the windowsill.’
‘Alex!’
‘Sorry. I’m going, I’m going.’ I hitch my guitar up onto my back and wave. ‘Be safe.’
Mum smiles. ‘Be safe.’
As I walk down the path, I try to block out what will happen when I get to school. I think about all the other Star Wars characters lined up on my windowsill – six Storm Troopers, three of them guarding each end, with Princess Leia, C-3PO and all the other characters in between. They used to get knocked over when the wind blew my curtains. I asked Dad if I could stick them down with superglue, but he said it would rip off the paint so I use Blu-Tack instead. It gets a bit germy, but it’s okay because I spray them all with disinfectant, although I think I’ve been doing it too much because last week Finn’s lightsaber fell off.
I reach the bus stop and look at my watch. It’s 8.50. I’ve missed registration already. I can’t turn back and save all my Star Wars characters now. If I had a phone I’d text mum, but she says we can’t afford it and I wouldn’t want the battery in my pocket anyway. The 205 bus comes along the road towards me. I screw my hands into a fist – germy buttons, germy money, germy breath on the windows, babies with their fingers in their mouths who then wipe them on the seats—
I start walking.
Dan: The boy from outer space
‘Dan?’
‘Yes, miss.’
‘Michael?’
‘Yes, miss.’
‘Sarah?’
‘Yes, miss.’
‘Elliott?’
‘Yes, miss.’
‘Alex?’
No answer.
‘No Alex?’ Miss Harris looks up from her computer.
‘No …? Okay, James?’
Sophie leans across me. She must have had chips for tea last night because her clothes smell of cooking oil.
‘The idiot’s not coming in,’ she whispers.
‘He’s just late, like he always is.’
I look out of the window as the cars and buses pass the school on their way to town.
‘Maybe he’s left and gone to another school.’
‘Sophie, can you please be quiet while I’m doing this,’ Miss Harris snaps.
‘So-rry, miss,’ Sophie says in a sing-song voice. Then she turns to me and whispers, ‘Or maybe he’s told his mum and dad what we did to him the day before yester—’
‘No, he’s late … Look.’ I point out of the window. ‘Told you.’
‘Ha,’ Sophie sneers. ‘Oh yeah, look at him. Weirdo.’
I watch as Alex Jones walks across the zebra crossing in front of the school, then steps onto the pavement. He walks quickly with his eyes superglued to the ground. Every once in a while, he takes a giant stride and his guitar bounces up and down on his back.
‘He looks sooooo weird!’ says Sophie. ‘It’s like he’s jumping over invisible puddles.’
‘Yeah,’ I chuckle as Alex turns towards the main school gates.
‘Okay, Year Seve
n, where were we?’ Miss Harris claps her hands.
‘Brighton,’ someone says. The class laugh, but I’m too busy watching Alex standing by the front doors, looking up at the building like he’s been locked out. Miss Harris says something about the last lesson and the homework she set us. Alex waits by the doors.
‘Dan?’
‘Yes, miss?’
She sighs. ‘If you’d stop looking outside, you’d be turning to page forty-three like everyone else.’
I open my history book. Miss Harris sits on her desk, and starts to read about the Black Death. Sophie nudges my elbow. Out of the corner of my eye I see her loading a piece of rubber onto a ruler and aiming it at the back of Katie Wright’s head. We’re sitting near the front so Miss Harris could easily see her but Sophie doesn’t care.
‘Shall I?’
I nod. She lets go of the ruler. The rubber flies past Katie’s head. She puts her hand up to her ear like a fly just buzzed in it. Me and Sophie snigger.
Miss Harris glares at us. ‘Is there a problem?’
‘No, miss,’ we both say at the same time.
‘Then look at your books, please.’
Sophie puts the ruler down and rests her chin on her hand. ‘God, this is so boring.’
I sort of smile, then start reading my book. I like messing around, but I don’t actually think history is boring. Last term we did the Romans and learnt how they built straight roads and marched thousands of soldiers along them. How they built big cities and had gladiator fights in the coliseums. I like reading about the Black Death as well, but it’s more fun to mess around.
I hear a knock. We all look up from our books. Alex is standing in the doorway with his guitar on his back and his brown gloves on his hands. He never takes them off. I used to imagine it was because his hands had superpowers, like how Cyclops wears dark glasses to protect his eyes.
‘Come in, Alex, and sit down,’ says Miss Harris.
It’s not fair. If it was me that was late, I’d be asked why or made to stay behind late. But none of the teachers ever ask Alex. It’s like he’s got a free pass to come to school when he likes.
He brushes his hair out of his eyes. I reckon he thinks he’s Alex Rider. He does look a bit like him, but he’s nowhere near so brave because as he walks into class he’s as jumpy and nervous as Rex, my hamster. His guitar bangs against the door and a poster falls onto the floor. Some of the class laugh. Harry Reynolds picks the poster up and sticks it back on the wall. Alex scrunches his face. He does that all the time. It’s like he’s in pain or got a bad smell up his nose.
All the Things That Could Go Wrong Page 2