‘You didn’t hear voices? Another car pull up? We’re wondering how they got up here, you see.’
‘Nothing like that,’ I said.
‘There’s no one been round the garage lately who’s a bit unsavoury? A bit of a criminal type?’
As soon as he said that word, I looked at Minnie. She looked like she might be about to say, ‘Tom.’ I jumped in and said, ‘No. Definitely not.’
‘Definitely not?’
‘Definitely not.’
He looked at Dad. ‘And the car itself, just to be sure, was a Mini Cooper S, in racing red.’
‘That’s it.’
I said, ‘With faux walnut interior, leather knob on the gearstick and alloy trims.’ They looked at me. ‘Dad put alloy trims on the wheels. They looked immense. He was trying to sell it, you see, to Mr Morgan’s daughter, to get money for petrol. That’s why he wanted to make it look smart. But she didn’t like the colour. Isn’t that right, Dad?’
Dad nodded. The two men were looking quite pleased, so maybe what I’d said was a good clue.
‘Any questions?’ said Barry.
I said, ‘Is it true that the Jaguar’s got height sensors that lower the ride by fifteen millimetres at speeds over a hundred mph, improving aerodynamic efficiency, vehicle stability and fuel economy during high-speed cruising?’
‘We don’t know,’ said Tone.
‘It’s illegal to go over a hundred mph.’
‘And we never do anything illegal.’
They thanked me anyway and told me to ring if I thought of anything else. Barry gave me a pen with his phone number on the side in gold writing. What a nice man!
After they’d gone, Dad went into the workshop, even though everyone in Manod knew there was no car in there to work on. When Mam took a cup of tea out to him, he wouldn’t let her in. He still hadn’t come out when I went out to chase the hens back into their rabbit hutch. I was about to go in when the door of the workshop opened and Dad stood there, looking at me.
I said, ‘Night, then.’
He said, ‘Night, son.’
It didn’t look like he was going to say any more. So I said, ‘Dad, I’m really sorry I didn’t realize they were robbers.’
He still didn’t say anything.
‘If I had a wish, I’d wish to find the car, Dad.’
He stared at me and he said, ‘Want a game of penalties?’
How random is that?! I couldn’t have been more surprised if he’d asked me to do an oil change. I mean, he does play penalties with me sometimes, but only if I’ve asked him about a gazillion times. He went in goal for the first ten. Then I went in for the next ten, then we swapped back and then back again and we kept going until we couldn’t see the ball any more, just a pale smudge in the dark. It was completely hectic and I won 83 to 77. Then we sat on the step for a while, looking at the moon moving through the clouds. He said, ‘You know, if you go anywhere on a train, you should always take a zebra with you.’
‘What?’
‘It’s about probabilities. You know insurance companies? They make their money by working out how likely it is that something is going to happen. For instance, everyone has to pay car insurance because it’s quite likely that one day you’ll crash your car. Say it’s a hundred to one. But if you go on a train, the chance is slimmer. Like a million to one. But the chances of a zebra being hurt on a train are almost non-existent. Zebras are almost never hurt on trains. So if you go on a train, take a zebra and you won’t get hurt. Understand?’
‘Not really.’
‘What I’m saying is, look after yourself. OK?’
It seemed like a bit of a roundabout way of saying it. But it was definitely a one-for-the-scrapbook night.
The penalties were so surprising that I wasn’t as surprised as you’d think when I came down next morning and found that Mam was already up and that Dad had gone away.
26 April
Cars today:
JAGUAR 4.2 – Barry and Tone
Weather – heavy rain
Note: EXTREME FOOTBALL
This morning sticks in my mind mostly because of the breakfast. We were in the shop before school when Barry and Tone pulled up in their Jaguar 4.2. They wanted to speak to Dad. Mam came down and said, ‘I’m afraid Mr Hughes has gone away on business.’ Then she took Max and went back to bed.
We all looked at each other. Dad had never gone away on business before. And Mam had never gone back to bed before.
I said, ‘What’re we going to do?’
‘I’ll tell you what we’re going to do,’ said Marie. ‘We’re going to have a decent breakfast instead of that stuff that makes the milk go yellow.’ And she took one of the satay Pot Noodles and squirted boiling water into it from the Gaggia.
I didn’t think this was right in the circumstances, but it did smell good. ‘What’s it like?’ I said.
‘Like a mixture of hot peanut butter and string. It’s good.’
Minnie said, ‘Maybe we should all have one, to get our brains going. We need to make a plan.’
‘Does Pot Noodle really get your brains going?’
Minnie read a list of all the chemicals and E-numbers from the side of the carton and said, ‘If that lot doesn’t make you think, nothing will.’
So I had one. And when Tom came, he had one too. Through a mouthful of noodles, he said, ‘Where’s Mr Hughes gone then?’
‘He’s gone away on business,’ said Marie, ‘because this garage isn’t making enough money. Which is completely Dylan’s fault. Because he let the robbers stroll off with the Mini.’
Like I didn’t know that.
‘I wonder what kind of business he’s gone on?’ said Tom.
‘It doesn’t matter what, or whose fault it is,’ said Marie. ‘The point is, the garage isn’t making enough money. If we want Dad to come back, we have to get the garage to make more money.’
When you put it like that, it sounded simple.
‘We could turn to crime,’ said Minnie.
‘Not me,’ said Tom.
‘Oh, come on, Tom. Just because it went wrong once, doesn’t mean you can’t do it. Try, try and try again. And we’d be helping you this time.’
‘Yeah, but I’m reformed now, see.’
‘Right then,’ said Minnie. ‘We’ve had it.’
‘Have we?’ said Tom. He looked worried. ‘If it’s going to make things difficult, maybe I could do just one crime.’
‘No need,’ said Marie. ‘Think about it. The men are still up the mountain. They still have to drive over the forecourt. They’re still a potential market. All we have to do is figure out what to sell them. Any suggestions?’
No one had any suggestions.
I just sat there wishing I’d stopped the robbers. Or that I could find the car. Or even just a clue.
Tom said, ‘I could sell my boxed set of poseable Turtle action figures. They’re highly collectable.’
‘It’s very good of you,’ said Marie, ‘but you’ve already sold enough Turtle stuff, Tom. Thanks all the same.’
Tom said, ‘Phew.’
‘We couldn’t have a party, I don’t suppose?’ Marie went on. ‘It’d be nice to have a party. I’ve often thought about it. Dad’s workshop would make a great party room. We could have music and dancing, and I’m sure people from school would come.’
‘And that would generate income how?’ asked Minnie.
‘All right,’ snapped Marie. ‘It was just a thought.’
Then Minnie said, ‘Cakes.’
Everyone gasped. The fact is, she is a genius. As Tom said, ‘I love cakes. And so does everyone, really.’
‘We know they’ve got cajun chicken wings,’ said Minnie, ‘but have they got cake? Probably not. We can make the cakes ourselves, so no overheads.’
‘Yeah, but what kind of cakes, though?’ said Tom. ‘Because ginger cake’s not nice, for instance.’
‘We’ll do like a menu, so they can order and we don’t have to bake a thing
unless they want to buy it. And this is the master stroke. We’ll invent cakes. Special cakes specially designed for men who work up a mountain with works of art.’
So that’s how Picasso Pie was invented. And Titian Tart and Tintoretto Turnover. And Crispy Choc Constables. All morning Minnie kept coming up with more names of painters and Marie kept matching them with cakes. Even Tom helped. They sat down at the computer, giggling and laughing and playing with the fonts and colours. I didn’t know the names of any painters. Or cakes. Or fonts. So I left them to it.
‘Next time one of them comes down,’ said Marie, ‘we’ll give him the menu.’
It was good to see Team Hughes working again. Even if the captain was away. And the team manager was in bed. And I was stuck on the bench.
Mam stayed in her room most of the morning because she was missing Dad, which was understandable. I remembered how much the Pot Noodles had cheered us up, so I looked in Coffee Cavalcade and decided to make her a mochaccino – a mixture of coffee and chocolate and milk. We didn’t have any actual hot chocolate left, so I crumbled a Flake into the mixture and took it up to her room. She seemed to like it.
I said, ‘How long will he be there?’
‘Who?’
‘Dad.’
‘Oh. Dad. What about him?’
‘How long will he be away?’
‘Where?’
‘Away on business. You said he was away on business.’
‘Oh. I don’t know. A while.’ She carried on looking out of the window.
‘What kind of business is he away on?’
‘Hmm?’
‘Has he gone to work on the New Barrier?’
‘Hmm.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘can’t stand here chatting all day.’
Actually I could have, because there was nothing else to do. But Mam didn’t try and stop me, so I went.
Donatello had laid an egg!
On top of one of the butane canisters. It had a feather stuck to it and it was still warm. Immense! But also pointless. I was going to run and tell the others – but then I thought, How much difference does one egg make, really? And then I thought how sad it was that this hen had gone to all this trouble to lay an egg that wasn’t going to make any difference. Just like I wasn’t going to make any difference. And then it came to me. Something that Dad said: customer relations is about going the extra mile.
Why should we wait until one of them comes down to give them the menu? I could take the menu up to them. All right, we didn’t have a car. But our grandads all walked up that mountain to go to work. I could do the same.
I ran into the shop. The menus were piled up next to the printer. They looked completely legend: yellow letters on a blue background. There was no sign of the girls. Tom was in the back. I took a menu and a cagoule, and I went. I was going to climb the mountain. I was going to do my bit to make the garage pay. I took my match ball, in case there was any chance of a game.
It was good, walking up. I’d only ever been up in a car before, which is why I hadn’t noticed the white stones until now. Every couple of minutes you’d pass one. It was like one of those puzzles where you look at a picture for ages trying to see the hidden face, and then suddenly you can see it, and then you can’t stop seeing it. It was just like that. Once I’d spotted a few of the stones, I could see a whole line of them leading up into the clouds like a piece of string. When I’d been walking for ages, I looked back and realized I hadn’t gone that far. I could still read the writing on the Oasis Auto Marvel sign. I nearly gave up then, but I thought about the four thousand grandads who did the walk every morning and I thought, It can’t be that far if they did it before they even started work for the day. I dropped the ball and started to dribble it up the path. I kept thinking how good it would be when there was someone who could kick it back to me.
I don’t remember walking into the cloud. I just remember that suddenly it was colder and wetter than before and I couldn’t really see any more, and the stones beneath my feet were slippy. I picked up the ball and thought about turning back, but then I saw another white stone up ahead. I walked over to it and from there I could see the next one, and from there I could see the next one and then the next one, and on and on. Then I saw something else. It was about the size of a house but it had hair growing out of it – thick, spiky hair. I stayed quiet. So did the hairy thing. So did everything. It was like the whole world had gone quiet. Or vanished. There was just me, two white stones (one ahead and one behind) and this big hairy Thing. I took a step backwards. I slipped. I lost my grip on the ball. It went rolling off down the mountain. You could hear the crunch of the pebbles for ages after it had disappeared. The Thing must’ve heard it. But it didn’t move. As I straightened up, the cloud around the Thing sort of unswirled for a moment.
It was a big block of slate, a huge block of slate with moss growing all over the top of it. One side of it was smooth as a windscreen when you touched it. I wondered what it was doing there. Maybe it was the last big piece of slate that they had cut. Maybe the mine closed before they had time to split it into Wide Ladies or whatever. When you looked closer, you could see that there were arrow markings and bits of writing on it, like instructions maybe for when they would turn it into slates. And there were little drawings, too, cut into it but so lightly that it felt like if you just wiped your hand over them, they’d disappear. It was a row of faces, all looking up towards the corner of the rock. I couldn’t see what they were looking at, unless they were all really, really interested in moss. So it wasn’t a big hairy thing, it was just a rock, which was good. Though I’d lost my football, which was not good. But I still had the menu, which was the point.
Walking out of the cloud and into the sunshine was completely mint. Now I know how a car feels when the car wash stops and the hot air blower starts. I could feel myself drying out. I could see everything getting brighter and clearer. The slate was blue. The moss looked like it was made of gold, and men’s voices up ahead were the best sound ever, like a party where everyone is waiting for you to arrive. Then, as I got nearer, a ball came rolling towards me down the hill. I looked up. Two men in overalls were standing by the canteen, yelling. A third man was running towards me, chasing the ball. He nearly had it, but it hit a rock, bounced up and came curving down towards me. I got right under it, chested it on to my right foot and volleyed it. It dropped dead, right at his feet. He trapped it, shouted, ‘Nice one!’ and waited for me to catch up with him. When I did, he said my favourite sentence: ‘Fancy a game?’
It was a game for the scrapbook. We played five-aside, but the ground was so rocky and bumpy it was like there were a hundred invisible players on the pitch. You’d lay off a nice long pass to someone and suddenly the ball would turn round and come back at you, or it would veer off to the left all of a sudden and you’d have to go after it again. It was extreme football. It felt like we were playing against the mountain. It was completely hectic and we lost 5–3. I hit one ball that would have been a textbook goal if it had just gone in. I did Team Hughes proud.
Afterwards, one of them got me a can of Sprite and we all sat on a rock and watched the sun go down. The moment it dipped behind Blaenau Mountain, all the cloud in the valley turned hazard-light red, as if someone had thrown a switch. And a voice behind me said, ‘Pure Turner. Almost makes it worth being in Wales, a sunset like that.’ It was Lester.
I looked around. He was very surprised to see me. ‘How on earth did you get up here?’ he said.
One of the men explained that I’d walked up.
‘You walked all the way up here?’ He made it sound like I’d walked to the moon.
‘We wondered if you’d like some cakes?’
‘What?’
‘I’ve got a list here . . .’ I passed him the menu, but he passed it to the man who had asked me if I wanted a game. ‘We have our own caterers. We don’t need anything.’
The football man said, ‘If he’s walked all this way, though . . .’
The man shouted after me, ‘I’ll pin this up on the canteen wall, then.’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Lester, not looking back and not slowing down.
I didn’t mind. I was interested to see inside the dome, and if he asked me about Michelangelo again, that was fine. I’d know the answer. Probably.
The dome was disappointing inside. It was full of computers and phones and chairs, like a proper HQ, but it didn’t have a massive screen on the wall showing you satellite pictures of your enemies or any Mouser Robots or a secret store of mutagen, just a man in a white shirt talking on the phone. In the corner there was an easel with a painting on it and a light shining on the painting. Lester said to the man, ‘This is the boy I was telling you about. The one with the eye. He’s walked up here, would you believe. Walked. Like Raphael. Did you know that Raphael walked from Urbino to Rome to see Michelangelo’s drawings?’
The one with the eye. I was starting to like the sound of that. I walked over to the painting. I imagined myself saying, ‘Ah yes, the Sistine Chapel,’ or, ‘No one celebrates the beauty of the human form like Michelangelo,’ but when I got there, I froze. This picture was different. Whatever it was of, it wasn’t the human form. And I had a nasty feeling it wasn’t Michelangelo either. It was a whole picture of nothing but fruit and stuff – and some nuts. They looked really real, but they were just, well, shopping. It might have been an advert, except who would do an advert for nuts?
Lester was on the phone, talking to Tom. ‘Yes, he’s up here now. He’s walked the whole way. I can’t let him walk down. It’ll be dark and I can’t really spare a driver to take him down. Could you possibly come and collect him? You could? Marvellous.’
I thought, yes, and make it quick. I mean, nuts? What are you supposed to say about nuts?
Lester came and stood behind me and started telling me about how even though the National Gallery was closed owing to insurance problems, they had decided to show one painting a week in a special room there. ‘Things are quite difficult in London at the moment, so the idea is to send paintings that are uplifting or morale boosting. What do you think? Will this do the trick?’
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