The Boy Who Sailed the Ocean in an Armchair

by Lara Williamson

  We heard the woman say she was going to paint the walls in Pigeon Grey. Billy whispered to me that this might be a clue. I said I had no idea how that was a clue to why Pearl wasn’t there. Billy said he had no idea either, but it sounded like something a spy would say.

  FACT NUMBER TWO: There was a man with her. We heard the name Harry. We didn’t think it was a red herring – he really was called Harry, because she kept saying it over and over. Harry grunted a lot. At first, Billy thought he might be a gorilla. (He wasn’t.)

  FACT NUMBER THREE: They were on the move downstairs and so we needed a good hiding place. There were three options:

  a) the bathroom, but if we locked the door they might think we were intruders and ring the police.

  b) we could sneak out our bedroom window and shimmy down a pipe. I looked out to see how far down the garden was. No way, too dangerous, I decided. (I saw something else though. Pearl’s portrait was lying in the garden with a huge hole punched right through her face. It made my stomach feel bubbly.)

  c) the airing cupboard.

  Billy suggested another option: how about we closed our eyes and then no one would see us? Well, it was a suggestion, but I went with my own choice and so c) it was.

  At this stage, once we’d got in the airing cupboard, Billy said the people downstairs were robbers in our house.

  I said they were not, because robbers do not usually talk about painting the walls.

  Billy said they might be robbers who cleaned up after themselves by painting the walls with a pigeon.

  I ignored him. What else could I do?

  Billy said spies in SNOOP did not ignore each other. I said they did if one spy had jelly for brains. Billy nudged me in the guts.

  Note: it hurt. I squealed.

  Billy said it was his invisible elbow that attacked me.

  I said there was no such thing as an invisible elbow.

  Billy said it was as real as his invisible tackle earlier.

  I said he was not very funny.

  Billy said I was not very funny either.

  FACT NUMBER FOUR: As we argued, someone discovered our hiding place. Still, spies can control any situation they’re presented with, so we pretended it was perfectly normal for one boy in a balaclava and another dressed as a sheep to be in an airing cupboard. At this point, Billy says he told the woman he was a spy with SNOOP. He has asked me to write that down although no one could hear him say it through the balaclava so I can’t present this as fact as there were no witnesses.

  Description of woman: Brown hair scraped back in a ponytail, neck scarf that looked like a midnight sky, pregnant (or has swallowed a bowling ball).

  Description of man, Harry: Not an actual ape, although definitely from the same family, judging by the amount of hair poking out of the neck of his shirt.

  Quick rundown of what happened next:

  Billy said we lived there.

  Woman said we didn’t. Woman said the people who lived there had done a flit because the estate agent they visited this morning told them so. He also said he’d like someone to move in straight away and the previous tenants left behind their old furniture. Woman said she liked it here very much and it would be perfect when they had the baby and she’d tell the estate agent so when she contacted him later.

  Billy, who wasn’t in the slightest bit interested, asked where Pearl was, because she had been living here with us for the past two years and now she’d disappeared. Billy said Pearl used to love us to the moon and back and that was a lot of love. He couldn’t remember how many kilometres worth. But I could, 768,800.

  The woman asked if Pearl was our mother.

  Billy said she was our number two mummy.

  The man said maybe he should ring our number one mummy and sort this mess out.

  I was so angry I told him that could be tricky unless he had a hotline to God. The man said I was very lippy indeed. After that I wanted to say he had more cheek than a hamster but instead I said thank you very much, then decided this was the time to do a ewe-turn. (Actually I meant U-turn, but when writing these notes I realized ewe-turn was funnier so went with that.)

  Anyway, I turned around and told Billy to run.

  Billy did nothing. So I shouted “RUN!” at the top of my lungs. Billy still didn’t move, but I started running anyway and dragged him behind me by the top of his balaclava, which incidentally came off and gave away his identity. Billy has since said it doesn’t matter because he pulled a funny face at the time and that meant no one could recognize him in future.

  The woman yelled, “Leave your key on the way out. I don’t want to find you popping up in the toilet next time.” I thought that only happened with rats. I didn’t tell her that though, because I was too busy trying to run away as if I was a sheep escaping a sheepdog.

  I threw the key into the air; it arced like a tiny silver rainbow and then fell to the floor with a tinkle like a heart shattering.

  As we ran down the road, Billy huffed, “When we find Pearl, I’m going to ask her.”

  “Ask her what?” I puffed back.

  “Ask her why everyone leaves us in the end.” Billy put his balaclava back on and that was that.

  This is the end of my notes on the first SNOOP secret mission to 22 Cavalier Approach, Honeydown Hills.

  No doubt about it, our first SNOOP secret mission was a failure. Billy said it was because Pearl had probably run off to the circus: SMART BILLY’S, apparently. I said I thought he’d got the name the wrong way round. No, Billy told me, he’d made up the circus name himself after someone he knew very well and it was definitely Smart Billy. Well, I didn’t think he knew anyone smart by the name of Billy but I didn’t like to say so. Instead, I told Billy there was no way Pearl could be at a circus and he said she might be because he once heard her say she had to walk a tightrope. I said that it was just a turn of phrase, but Billy wasn’t listening because he was too busy getting out his animals and pretending they were in Smart Billy’s circus. Billy made the hippo a trapeze artist and the plastic dinosaur the clown. To be honest, if I came face-to-face with a dinosaur I’m not sure I’d be laughing.

  I decide that we might have failed at our first attempt to bring Pearl back but we’re going to keep trying because Billy’s not the same without Pearl. Last night, before bed, he drew Pearl inside a heart and asked me if she still loved him. I said she did and nothing would change that and it didn’t matter if we failed the first time round because we could always try again. I’m not going to fail on my plan to say goodbye to Mum either. Not having said goodbye to her is like a tiny splinter under my skin. Sometimes I don’t notice it and other times I feel it’s there and I know I have to deal with it or it’ll stay there for ever.

  I’m sitting in Mum’s favourite armchair now and it feels warm, safe and comforting, and I’m writing THE GOODBYE LIST. It is a list of ways to say goodbye to Mum and I’m going to make it really special. I have decided I will come up with ten ways to say goodbye and I’ll try each and every one of them and I’ll know when I hit on the right one because I’ll have that fizzy feeling in my tummy as if I’ve been eating mega sour sweets.

  THE GOODBYE LIST

  1. Write a poem called “Goodbye”

  2. Write the word out in sparklers

  3. Create a little shrine

  4. Draw a picture

  5. Send a balloon into the sky

  6. Name a star

  7. Design my own tattoo

  8. Plant a seed

  9. Just say goodbye

  10. Can’t think of a number ten so will say nothing here until I have an idea

  The rest of the half-term holiday I get busy trying out THE GOODBYE LIST. For starters I try number three and build a shrine to Mum using Billy’s building bricks. Only by the time I go to the toilet and come back, Billy has already pulled it apart and says I’m not allowed to play with his toys. I say I wasn’t and Billy says it’s nothing to be embarrassed about because Dad never is when he plays with that
remote control helicopter he keeps under his bed. Thing is, I don’t bother trying to build another shrine to Mum, because somehow a few plastic bricks don’t seem to be good enough. Nope, a shrine is definitely not how I want to say goodbye to my mum.

  Next, I try writing a poem.

  Goodbye, didn’t the time fly?

  You had to go, I don’t know why.

  I still think of you and sigh.

  This is my poem to say goodbye.

  In the end that doesn’t feel right either and it makes me sad. So sad that Dad comes into the bedroom and says I shouldn’t be moping about. I say I like moping about and Dad says there is plenty of time for that when I’m a teenager.

  “Dad?” My voice goes so high only dogs can hear it. “Do you think I could have some sparklers?” Number two on THE GOODBYE LIST, here I come. But then there I go, because Dad replies, “Remember, remember, it’s nowhere near the fifth of November.”

  Then he says, “Becket?” and his voice goes even higher than mine. “Sit down. I have something to tell you.”

  I have a feeling I’m not going to like this.

  I am right.

  “I know this will be a little shock but now the half-term break is almost over and we’re settled into this new flat, I’ve arranged for you both to go to a new school. It’s called Bleeding Heart and it’s closer to this flat than your old school. You can walk home together now.” Dad reaches out and tries to take my hand, only I pull away.

  Little shock? No, a little shock is when you touch a door handle and you get a tiny jolt of static. This is a huge shock, nearly enough to blow me right off my feet and give me crazy hair, like when you rub your head with a balloon. Well, I don’t mind saying that my jaw is on the floor, along with my stomach. After I’ve recovered, I tell Dad I won’t be going to a new school. Isn’t it bad enough that we’re in a new flat?

  Dad, his voice as soft as butter, says, “You will.” Then he adds that he’s heard it’s very nice there. Who has he heard that from? I ask him. Dad says the head. At this point, I’m so angry I have to check my own pulse.

  “Look, Dad!” I wail. “The stress is sending my heart rate sky-high.” Dad says I have the heart of an ox and I say I don’t actually. I have the heart of a ten-year-old human and right now it’s about to explode into one million pieces. I add, “What about my mates at my old school? Will I see them again?”

  Dad says I’ll make new friends.

  What kind of living hell is this? I haven’t said goodbye to Mum, I haven’t said goodbye to Pearl and now I haven’t said goodbye to my mates either.

  Later on Billy has a nightmare and nudges me awake at five forty-three in the morning. I crawl out of bed, saying I can tell him a story to make him fall asleep again. It’s just what Mum used to do for me. Billy says he’d like that and we both sit in Mum’s armchair, curled up like two little prawn crackers.

  At first I don’t have a clue what sort of story to tell, but that’s when I have an idea.

  “Let me tell you a story,” I say, “of two boys – two brothers – who were making a journey, a journey in an armchair.” I look down. “An armchair just like this. Let me tell you how they survived the most terrible storm and how the armchair made sure they travelled safely to their destination.”

  Billy swallows and looks up at me. “Okay.”

  “A long time ago, two boys set off on a journey, along with many others. They weren’t sure what the land they were going to was like, but they knew they could no longer stay on the land they had lived on for many years, because it was disappearing. So they had to move forward to survive. They bundled up all their belongings, which wasn’t much, just what they were wearing and an old armchair. They climbed on board the armchair and pushed it off into the ocean. Others did the same, with their own vessels. It was sunny for the longest time and after a while the two boys could see the new land in the distance. Everything was going exactly as they’d hoped. They were going to make it.”

  “I like this story,” says Billy. “The armchair was safe.”

  “It was,” I reply, “for a while. But when they were halfway across the ocean, the air changed and the clouds got heavy and dark. There was a storm coming.” Billy cuddles closer to me. “The rain came first and it felt like lots of tiny swords because it was so sharp. Then there was thunder, loud like thousands of party poppers going off all at once. And the lightning lit up the land in front of them and it seemed further away than they’d first thought. One of the brothers wanted to turn back, but the land behind them had disappeared for good.”

  “I don’t like the storm in this story,” whispers Billy, slumping down in the armchair.

  “All they could do was hope the storm would pass. Only it didn’t pass as quickly as they thought it would. They clung onto the chair, afraid of what would happen to them. They waved at others who were making the journey too, but they were invisible to those around them, because everyone else had troubles of their own riding out the storm.”

  Billy’s face slackens and he bends forward. “They were invisible?”

  “Well, not actually invisible,” I reply. “But others didn’t notice them even though they were crying out for help. Perhaps they couldn’t hear because the wind was so loud. Again the boys called out. They called to the sky, the air and the sea.”

  Shaking his head, Billy responds, “Did anyone hear?”

  “Oh, yes. Someone heard.”

  “Godzilla,” says Billy, perking up. “I mean, the Loch Ness Monster.”

  “Neither,” I reply. “They couldn’t see who it was but they heard a voice, carried on the wind, saying: I am the whisper in the wind, the rustle of the leaves, the shiver of winter and the warm breath of summer, I am the cloud galleon that sails the sky and the moon that skips across the surface of the water.” I put on a whole new voice for this bit, imagining myself winning an Oscar for storytelling.

  “Ooh,” says Billy. I smile, thinking he’s impressed with my storytelling. Perhaps I’m as good at it as Mum was. Billy’s eyes droop. “I don’t like that silly whispering wind stuff though,” he murmurs. Billy puts his thumb into his mouth and begins to drift back to sleep.

  “I promise to tell you who the voice belongs to another night,” I whisper, as Billy lets out a tiny sigh. “I promise you this story will have a happy-ever-after.”

  The half-term break is over and we have not found Pearl and I have not discovered how to say goodbye to Mum no matter how much I want to. Saying goodbye to someone you wish you could stay with every minute is the hardest thing ever. I’ve thought about it so much my head feels muffled and that is no good because today is my first day at Bleeding Heart School and my eleventh birthday and Dad is shouting at me to hurry up and open my cards.

  I trudge into the kitchen, where Billy is waving five cards in my face. The first one is from Dad. It has a picture of a man playing golf on a hilly green. I do not like golf. It says: Happy 40th. You’re not quite over the hill yet. Dad shrugs and says he was in a hurry, sorry.

  Card two is from Ibiza Nana. Dad says he gave her our new address straight away because she didn’t want to miss my special day. The card she’s sent has a blue bear on the front. She still thinks I’m about two.

  The third card is from Billy. He lets me open that one myself. There’s a brown smudge on the front. When he sees my horrified face he says it’s nothing yucky, just a squashed worm.

  Card four is from Cat Woman. She has written that a little bird told her it was my birthday. That little bird must have been a bald headed eagle because Dad admits it was him who mentioned it when he popped down to Crops and Bobbers when we were out playing invisible football.

  Card five has to be from Pearl. Tearing the envelope apart, I stare at the contents. The message says: COME VISIT BIFFO’S WAREHOUSE. It’s just one of those stupid flyers that companies send out.

  I’m not going to cry. I’m not. I don’t. I want to though. I want to cry because today is my birthday and it’s supposed t
o be brilliant and already it isn’t.

  When Dad sees I’m disappointed he claps his hands together and says it is presents next. He sets them on the table. I’m guessing I haven’t got the life-size plastic skeleton I wanted, unless Dad has wrapped the skeleton bone by bone. Present one is a hardback notebook. Billy is totally disgusted with this, by the way, which serves him right for opening my birthday gifts in the first place.

  “For your medical notes,” says Dad, slurping tea from his Top Dad mug. I try to nod my head, only it’s hard with the weight of disappointment on my shoulders.

  Present two: a second-hand medical book about healing herbs. Someone has written notes in the margin. When I mention that I’d rather have a new one, Dad says money is a bit tight and new things don’t grow on trees. But that’s a lie because new leaves grow on trees every spring – that’s all I’m saying.

  Present three: Ibiza Nana has sent me a knitted cardigan. There is a place for cardigans, and also musical Christmas jumpers, scarves and mittens that would fit a long-fingered gorilla, and it is under the bed. Clearly the idea of buying something suitable for an eleven-year-old has passed Ibiza Nana by, like computers, non-alcoholic drinks, mobile phones and tablets (unless they’re in small pots with the days of the week on them).

  Present four: Billy gives me a collection of dead flies in a matchbox. He’s always rescuing bugs and making sure they’re okay. Not these flies. They are less than okay. They are dead. Billy points inside the box and says fly number one, the one without wings, is Mr Walk. I nod. Fly two, without wings or legs: Mr Roll Around. I say it’s the best present I’ve ever had. Billy says he could get me some more bugs. I say I’m not sure my heart can take the excitement.

  As we’re about to leave for school, Dad pulls me to one side. “There’s a present five,” he whispers, his voice wheezy with excitement. “I didn’t give it to you at the table. This is the present you’ve been waiting for, son.”

  Hallelujah! The life-size skeleton is hidden in a cupboard. I knew it was. Dad will whip it out at any moment and I’ll declare it to be called Mr Bones. All those other presents I’ve just opened were tasters, because the main present is yet to come. I’ll act surprised. Of course I will.