by Phil Earle
Every single inch of me cringed. The scene unfolded in my head, but I didn’t want it there, especially as I knew what was coming next.
“Mom was okay, just grazes to her legs and arms, but Dora had taken the full impact, and she didn’t have a helmet on. No one wore them back then.”
My head was full of the steel rhino, how cripplingly nervous Mom had been when she gave it to me, the demands she’d made about helmets and lights and stuff. It all started to make sense.
“Dora didn’t wake up for a long time, Charlie. Months. The doctors weren’t sure she ever would. They could see that her brain was still active but didn’t know how badly it had been damaged.”
The room was completely still. My legs had stopped bouncing. I could smell soy sauce wafting from Dad’s clothes.
“What happened to Mom after the crash?”
“We hadn’t met then,” he said, and sighed, “so I only know what she’s told me, but she blamed herself completely—for going too fast, for not making Dora walk, for not seeing the pothole. She took all the responsibility on her shoulders and carried it everywhere.”
“But Grandma and Granddad…They must have told her it wasn’t her fault?”
Dad shook his head. “They were strange people. Hard. Were more interested in Dora after the crash than before it, and blamed Mom. They had so many chances to make her feel better, but they never did. As a result, your mom blamed herself more and more.”
“So that’s it? Dora’s been in Oakview ever since? That’s, like, twenty years.”
“Almost. There was one other hospital before your grandparents died, but after they died Mom decided to move away. She was paranoid everyone in town knew about the crash, and was convinced that everyone blamed her. It upset her so much that she moved here, miles away from all the prying eyes, and found Oakview for Dora, knowing it would use up every penny her parents left her. We met a few months after.”
“But she told you about her right away, right?”
“Nope. Not until the night I asked her to marry me.”
“So she lied to you too?”
Dad looked mildly cross. “No, she didn’t lie to me. She just didn’t know how to tell me. What you have to understand is how guilty she feels. Her parents had told her so often that it was all her fault that she believed it. She thought if she told me I’d run the other way.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No, of course I didn’t. I accepted her for who she is.”
“So why didn’t she tell me too?”
“Charlie, I wish I had twenty dollars for every time I’ve asked her to. We wouldn’t be living here, that’s for sure. Your mom is complicated, and proud and scared, so scared of what everyone thinks of her. The only way she could deal with it was to bury the truth from everyone, including you.”
“But she must have known that I’d find out in the end.”
“I knew that. But she refused to believe it. I gave her my word that I’d keep her secret. It was wrong of me, but I did.”
I felt weird, like someone had stuffed me full of truths that I didn’t want to hear, truths that didn’t fit inside me. It was the most Dad had said to me in my whole life, and I wished it could’ve been about something else, but at least I knew Mom was wrong about one thing: he could speak as well as he cooked.
“So what do we do now?” I asked, still angry but sad as well, about everything.
“I wish I knew,” he sighed.
“I’ll speak to Mom when she gets back.”
“No, don’t,” he blurted out. “Not tonight. Let it settle.”
“You don’t want me to lie about it too, Dad, do you? Because I don’t think—”
“No more lying. I just need time, and so does she. Dora’s been so sick lately that it’s eating her up. Let Dora settle; then I’ll tackle your mom, I promise.”
“You really will?”
He crossed his heart with his rough, burnt fingers and smiled.
“Absolutely. And in the meantime, you need to think what’ll make you feel happier. Anything you want, son, I’ll do it for you.”
There wasn’t anything I wanted, except for all this to be a dream, and I knew Dad couldn’t fix that. So instead, I gave him a hug, feeling his body shake slightly against mine, making me squeeze him that much harder.
As we finally parted, I thanked him for telling me everything—and meant it.
Not just for telling me the truth, but also for volunteering to play a part in the crazy plan that followed.
School rocked. I loved it. Everything about it.
Well, it beat being at home, anyway. It beat how I felt when I had to spend time with Mom.
I didn’t know how to react when she was around me. I was this mad, fizzing cocktail of feelings. I didn’t know it was possible to feel angry, confused, sad, and pitiful at the same time, and I definitely didn’t enjoy it. I felt like a can of Coke that was continually being kicked down the stairs.
Fortunately, she was so wrapped up in her “night class” that she didn’t realize how I was feeling; it was like no one but Dora existed.
Two weeks had passed since the seizure that led me to her, but according to Dad, things at Oakview were no better.
The fits had continued almost daily, and the doctors were starting to worry about Dora’s heart, whether it could cope with the pummeling it was taking. There was an increased chance of a stroke too. I’d only met her once, but I didn’t think her cracked shell of a body could cope with that. I tried to find positives: at least I knew now; at least Dad was apparently trying to work everything out. But at the same time I was feeling a real sense of urgency. Like if Dad didn’t do something soon, it might be too late.
With all the gloom at home, I almost skipped to school every morning. Even though I still took the occasional walk, courtesy of the other kids, their blows bounced off me now, nothing in comparison to the bullets that were fired back at Special Fried Nice.
Sinus kept me sane too, although something strange seemed to be happening to him. Quelle surprise. At first I thought Dora’s story had been too much for him, but it wasn’t that. He was acting, well, borderline normal.
I caught him having conversations with kids around school, actual real conversations where they spoke and he listened, and vice versa. They looked as surprised as me. Rumors went around of him being the first living recipient of a brain transplant, but when he heard them he just laughed them off. No signs of bitterness or resentment. Nothing.
The whole notebook thing was different too: it still got whipped out, of course, but not all the time. He’d walk without his nose being thrust into it; he’d look around him, chest out, nodding at other kids as they walked by.
It was weird, different, scary.
He wasn’t the only thing changing at school either.
There was something else going on, something everyone noticed.
There was graffiti going up everywhere. Wherever there was space, there it was. It had started on the big wall by the yard, with that massive B, which over the next week turned into BW, then BWB.
And that was the craziest thing about the graffiti: it was always those same letters appearing. They were sprayed differently on each wall, different colors and types of lettering, but appearing so often that everyone would stop and talk about them.
It was weird how three simple letters started transforming the walls, making the building look like it had a heartbeat of its own. There wasn’t a single kid who didn’t stop, take it in, and raise their eyebrows in approval.
Teachers weren’t so keen, though. Emergency assemblies were called to discuss the graffiti.
“Vandalism!” hollered our principal, Mr. Peach. “Mindless vandalism.”
He challenged the guilty party to “stand up and be judged,” but no one did, even though they would have gotten a standing ovation from every kid in the auditorium. This was hero territory: whoever the artist was, they would be beating the opposite sex off with a stick!
The first thing that hit you, as always, was the letters—seven feet high in green, red, and blue spray paint.
But to their left was the silhouette of a boy in profile, pursing his lips as he blew a succession of small bubbles over the letters. The bubbles weren’t moving, of course, but they were sprayed with such intensity that they seemed to shimmer in the light as you walked past.
Not that people did just walk past. EVERYONE stopped and stared. Me included. I was mesmerized. Only stopped staring when I was ushered into class.
I came back at break, though, then at lunch and the end of the day, brain itching hard without me quite being able to scratch it.
“Can’t take your eyes off it, can you?” a voice behind me asked.
I spun to find Sinus, looking very pleased with himself. He must have finally figured out how to make millions from his wall fetish.
“It’s amazing,” I said. “The coolest thing. Must have taken them forever.”
“Him, not them,” he said, sighing.
“What?”
“There is no them, only him,” he bragged. “Well, me, actually.”
I was staring too hard at the wall to take in what he said at first, but finally my brain caught up.
“What?” I grunted again, Sinus-esque in my vagueness. “What did you say?”
“I said the artist works alone. Always. Because anyone else’s input would merely water down my vision.”
“Your vision?”
He flicked me a look that said Work it out, imbecile, and I did, all the evidence falling into a completed puzzle that simply said: “Sinus is the artist.”
His unsettling fascination with bricks, then the notebook and the endless scribbling…It all made sense now. Well, kind of. I still couldn’t quite believe that my friend, my awkward sidekick, could have this kind of talent. But why would he lie?
I jumped on him in excitement, hugging him, trying in vain to lift him into the air. From a distance it must have looked like the Concorde had made an unsuccessful comeback.
“Get off me, will you?” He was blushing. “I hoped this might make me irresistible, but not to you!”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I said. “Why hide something as awesome as this?”
He shrugged, trying to look cool again, although the tips of his lips were curving into a full-on beaming grin.
“Told you I’d do it when I was ready, didn’t I? And that I’d surprise you.”
“Well, you’ve definitely done that! Aren’t you worried that Peach will find out? And what’s with the BWB? It’s everywhere.”
“Peach doesn’t scare me,” he bragged. “Not when it’s on behalf of a friend who’s desperate.”
I felt myself deflate slightly. After all the abuse he’d dished at me for wanting new friends, here he was wooing some older kid, or, knowing Sinus, probably some girl.
“Who is it, then?” I tried not to sound hurt.
“Have you even looked at this?” he laughed, forcing my head back in the wall’s direction.
“Of course I have. All day, pretty much.”
“And have you not noticed what’s going on in it?”
“Yeah, there’s a kid. And there’s bubbles. Loads of them.”
“And which kid do you know of who’s had a lot of bubbles in his life lately?”
I looked at him blankly and he stared right back. Deeper and harder, until…WHAM! It slammed me right between the eyebrows.
Not the end of his nose, but the answer.
Me. He was talking about me. Of course he was. I’d had more bubbles than a king-sized Jacuzzi.
“This is for me? But why? I don’t get it, Sinus.”
He answered in a voice that was supposed to be Yoda but sounded more like his grandmother on helium. “Many questions you have. Time this will take. But trust in Sinus you must.”
Impatient, I punched him. “Talk normally, you idiot.”
He punched me back but at least talked normally. “Hey! Don’t hurt the talent,” he grunted. “Especially when you’re my muse. I am doing all this for you.”
“So you said, but what do you MEAN?” I was confused to the point of exploding.
“Operation Bubble Wrap, dude. By the time I’m finished, you’ll be almost as cool as me.”
Ten minutes before, that comment would’ve been a massive disappointment. A crushing blow.
But now? With Sinus’s new skills?
Maybe, just maybe, he was on to something.
“It’s fair to say you’re a laughingstock right now,” Sinus began helpfully.
This didn’t sound like much of a plan so far. Not one that would help, anyway.
“But it doesn’t have to be like this,” he continued.
Whew. That sounded more like it.
Sinus whipped a piece of dog-eared paper from his pocket. It looked like it had been there for weeks, including three trips through the washing machine.
“I presume you’ve seen this?”
“Depends what it is. Strangely enough, I’ve seen a few things lately. I use these things called eyes—you might have heard of them?”
He unfolded it with a flourish. I strained to make out the lettering, all melded and morphed into a language that could have been ancient Sanskrit but equally could have been drunken gibberish.
“What is it?” I asked, twisting my head to one side to try to decipher it. “Some kind of holy scripture or something? Because I don’t really believe in that stuff.”
He smacked me with the paper impatiently. “And you call me stupid? Have you not looked at the bulletin boards around school, seen what’s coming up in just over two months’ time?”
I shrugged. I’d spent most of the time lately looking at the floor after the other kids knocked me down.
“This is your shot, Charlie. Redemption. This is your chance to reclaim the cool you’d built up. This is what the BWB is all about, why I’ve been spraying it everywhere.”
I didn’t get it. He might as well have been speaking Swahili, for all the sense he was making.
“It’s Skatefest, you idiot. A festival of skating. Tricks, half-pipe competitions, races, all sponsored by a skate company.”
“Where?” I peered at the poster but still couldn’t make anything out.
“On top of the London Eye. Where d’you think? In the park, of course! They’re building a whole day around it. Stuff for everyone. Fair rides, fireworks, everything under the sun.”
I knew what he was saying, but couldn’t see how it helped me. I didn’t have a board, and even if I did, Mom wouldn’t let me out of her sight. Oh, and there was the fact that all the kids had humiliated me last time I set foot on the ramp.
I tried to suggest all these small factors, but he waved them away dismissively.
“Mere details,” he scoffed. “Point one—you have a board. The apes gave you one on the day they mummified you.”
“But it’s a piece of crap,” I protested.
“Then we’ll fix it up. You have savings. Use them! Point two—your mom is so distracted by all things Dora that she wouldn’t notice if you rode out of the takeout on the back of an elephant. Plus your dad promised you ANYTHING to make you happy. Dude, that’s like a golden ticket. Why you haven’t tapped him up for every PS3 game known to man, I don’t know. But use him—get him to help keep the secret. It’s not like he hasn’t kept one from you….”
He was right. It felt weird to use Dad like that, but he had promised.
Sinus wasn’t finished. “And point three. They may have made fun of you that day at the ramp, but that wasn’t because you couldn’t skate—it was because your mom’s weird.
“You can skate—it pains me to say it, but you can. You may be the Bubble Wrap Boy at the moment, rather than the nice nickname they gave you first, but we can change all that, reclaim the name, make it something cool, something to be
proud of.”
I looked around at the walls, covered in his art. The design was amazing, but I still wasn’t sure if he was right.
“I don’t know, Sinus. It all seems kind of unlikely. Aren’t they going to laugh me off the ramp as soon as I set foot on it? And what about Mom? If this festival’s as big a deal as you say, then she’ll see the posters. And if she does, she’ll be suspicious. You know what she’s like.”
Sinus fixed me with an evil look. “I can’t believe you’re saying this after all the grief you gave me. You tore me apart for not showing off what I’m good at, and here you are, coming up with every excuse you can to not do something you love!”
“But it’s different for me.”
“Yeah, it would be, wouldn’t it?” He turned on his heel, threatening to leave. “Because you think you’re better than me—you always have. But I’ll tell you something, Charlie Han. I’m going to keep putting the designs up there. Not because I want them to like me. Just so they’ll finally notice that I’ve been laughing behind their backs for years.”
Wow, he meant it. Suddenly he had all these crusading morals that I never knew about.
“Plus…if I get a girlfriend out of it, then even better! I have needs, you know.”
Ha! That was more like it.
“But trust me, Charlie. By the time I’m done, ‘Bubble Wrap Boy’ will be the most uttered words in the school. Now, if you don’t want to make the most of it, then fine. That’s up to you. But I’ll tell you what—you’ll never have as good a chance as this again. So think about it, okay?”
And he poked me roughly on the shoulder before slinking off to scope out a new wall, leaving me with an awful lot of thinking to do.
I had no clue what to do.
Sinus’s plan was huge. And exciting and potentially game-changing. But it came with huge risks. Especially when you factored Mom into it. I was tiptoeing around her still, studying her every facial expression for evidence that Dad had told her what I knew, but all I got was the same mixture of glacial annoyance and distracted worry.
Did I dare go ahead with Sinus when there were already way too many secrets? I’d tried to tackle Dad about Dora again but got absolutely nowhere.