Charlie and Me

by Mark Lowery

No understanding of danger whatsoever.

  “Hey, Marty,” he says, switching the conversation again like nothing just happened. “Why did we have to leave without telling Mum and Dad?”

  I bite my lip. I knew he’d ask sooner or later, so I’d already prepared my answer. “I didn’t want to wake them. Dad didn’t get in from work until after midnight.”

  He scrunches up his face. “Are you sure we’re allowed out this early?”

  “Yep. It’s fine. Anyway, I’ll text them when we’re on the train.”

  “How will you do that?” he sniffs.

  “My phone, of course.”

  “But I saw you hide your phone in your sock drawer when I was getting dressed.”

  I say nothing, focusing hard on my finger as it jabs the button again and again. I told you. He sees everything. CCTV in his belly button. And probably satellite dishes on his nipples.

  “Why would you do that, Marty?” he continues. “It’s like you don’t want anyone to be able to get ahold of us. And if you are going to hide something, you really should close the drawer afterward, you know.”

  The walking signal flashes, and I pull Charlie across the road. “Have another Jammie Dodger,” I mutter. I need to keep calm and positive, so for the rest of the journey into town, I try to think up a poem in my head.

  You Only Live Once

  A Haiku

  You only live once

  So you might as well just eat

  Cookies for breakfast.

  By Martin Tompkins

  Age 13

  Stage 2

  Preston Railway Station Ticket Office

  to the Bathrooms on Platform Three

  and Back Again

  Distance–820 feet (approx.)

  Walking

  The Station

  I’m not happy about how busy the station is: three young soldiers pretending not to struggle with their massive duffel bags; a homeless guy sitting on the floor between the ticket windows, head down between his knees and cap by his feet; two confused foreign students squinting at the departure screen; a cluster of Preston North End fans off to an away game, some of them chugging cans of cider even though it’s only seven o’clock in the morning; and, worst of all, two police officers watching them carefully from sixty feet away.

  In the line for the ticket window, I take my notebook out of my bag, but I can’t find the piece of paper I tucked in there with all the train times on it. I check again, then double-check inside my backpack. For a moment, I think I’ve seen it. There’s a loose bit of paper, but when I pull it out, I’m disappointed. It’s just this mileage chart thing I printed off that tells you how much distance there is between all the towns. Whenever we’re going on a long journey, I like to know how far we’ve traveled and how far’s left to go. Like I said, everything seems easier when you break it down into little pieces. Even so, it’s not going to help me know which train to catch.

  Great start.

  I put my notebook and the mileage chart away again and notice my hands are shaking. All the people and the police are making me nervous.

  Keep calm. Look normal.

  I reach the window and smile at the woman behind the counter. Her badge says “Sue—Trainee.” Big, brown hair. Pink lipstick. Round face. Charlie’s off to the side. He’s found a timetable-holder that spins and he’s whizzing it around and around.

  What am I supposed to do now? Sue leans forward and nods as if to say, “Get on with it.” With a deep breath, I speak into the microphone. “Hi, Sue,” I say. Am I meant to use her name? “We’d . . . er . . . like to go to St. Bernards.”

  The microphone amplifies my voice, like it’s trying to announce where we’re going to the police behind me. The last thing I need is them sniffing around asking me questions.

  Sue’s painted-on eyebrows rise up her forehead. “As in St. Bernards in Cornwall?”

  She says Cornwall like it’s somewhere near Jupiter.

  I’m about to say yes when Charlie looks over. “ST. BERNARDS?!” he cries. “No way! Oh wow!”

  Before I can stop him, his sweater’s up over his face and he’s running around the station like he’s just scored a goal at Wembley Stadium.

  I told you he’d get excited.

  “Don’t worry about my brother. He’s got an inside-out brain,” I say to Sue, rubbing my neck and trying not to look agitated.

  She looks at me like I’m the weird one. “You do know how far that is . . . ?”

  I peep over my shoulder. Charlie is looping around the foreign students, arms out like an airplane. They’re too busy to have noticed him yet, which would be funny except for the fact that sooner or later someone will notice him. I was hoping we could keep this low-key.

  “Three hundred and seventy miles,” I reply, turning back to Sue and doing my best to remain calm and level. “I checked on my mileage chart. We went there on vacation last year with our mum and dad. Charlie chose it because he liked the name; he said it sounds like one of those dogs. You know the massive ones they use in the mountains to rescue people. But it turns out it’s a lovely place. They’ve got a lighthouse. Have you ever been?”

  I’m talking too much. Shut up. Shut up.

  Sue taps away at her computer. “No, sadly not. . . . Single or return?” she says. There’s a hint of bored frustration in her voice.

  “Oh,” I say. My palms are sweaty. I practiced this conversation over and over in front of the mirror so I’d sound natural, but this isn’t a question I’d been expecting. I push my knuckle into my eye to try to ease the throbbing pain that’s building up. This isn’t going to plan. “I’m . . . er . . . not sure.”

  As soon as the words come out of my mouth, I realize exactly what she meant. Simple question: “Are you coming back or not?” I feel like a complete idiot. Sue nods toward the people behind me. “Well, I’ve got a line, so . . .”

  Even though I know the answer to the question now, I shuffle to the side, head down like a slapped dog. An older woman steps up to the window and starts jabbering away about quiet coaches and super-saver advances and aisle seats. There’s a whole language for buying train tickets that I’ve never heard of. How do people know all this stuff? Why don’t they teach us it in school? All we learn is triangles and books and swimming and . . . why am I thinking about swimming?

  My whole body feels shaky, like I’m standing on top of a rickety fence in the wind. I’m taking deep breaths and trying to calm myself, and it’s made worse because Charlie’s back at my shoulder going on and on and on about how St. Bernards is the best place in the world and how he can’t believe we’re going back there. His questions are endless. Will we go to the beach? Will I buy him fish and chips? Do you think we’ll see the dolphin? And I can feel one of my headaches coming on because we’re not even out of the station and it’s all starting to go wrong, and my hands are over my ears and my eyes are clamped shut and the lights are flashing in my head.

  I feel a hand on my shoulder. It makes me jump, and when I turn around, a policewoman’s standing there asking me if I’m all right. I swallow down the huge egg in my throat and splutter: “Just a headache. Need to splash some water on my face.”

  And I manage to hold it together long enough to grab Charlie and stumble down the ramp to the bathroom on platform three.

  St. Bernards

  Of course I knew Charlie would get excited. It’s not his fault. I mean, he’s the whole reason for us going to St. Bernards in the first place.

  We went there on vacation last summer and it was amazing. That was fourteen months ago—when we still did things as a family. Back before things got a bit crummy at home. Back before Dad started working a Charlillion hours a week and Mum started sleeping in.

  It was a Friday night, and summer break had officially begun. Mum was preparing for vacation by cleaning the whole house. Dad joked she was making it clean for the burglars. I’d just finished helping Charlie pack his bag (No, I had to tell him, you can’t put an open carton of yogurt in
there. I don’t care if Big Ted gets hungry. . . .) when Dad called us together on the sofa. He said now that we were getting older, we might not have many more family vacations so we should make it a good one. A proper adventure. After all, it’d taken him two years to save up for it so being miserable was not an option.

  Charlie saluted with his tongue sticking out. “Yes, sir!” he barked.

  Dad grinned and ruffled Charlie’s hair.

  We set off at 10:30 that night to miss the traffic. All four of us crammed into our little Fiesta with the roof rack on and “School’s Out” blaring from the stereo. The back end of the car was so weighed down it was practically dragging along the road. Charlie was bouncing around in his booster seat like a flea with an itchy backside. I’d never seen him so full of it. Munching sweets. Singing. Telling jokes. Me, I guess I prefer to sit back a bit and let him shine. I had a road atlas on my knees and I slowly followed the M6 south with my finger, checking off the junctions as we passed them and flicking back to the mileage chart at the front to see how far there was until the next big town.

  At around 2:00 a.m. we pulled up at the rest stop to sleep in the car. It was just like Dad said, a proper adventure. Well, for a couple of hours, anyway. Until some security guard knocked on the car window and told us to cough up twenty pounds or get lost.

  We got lost, with Charlie mooning out of the rear window. Dad said he was awake now, so he might as well drive straight through. He’s used to night shifts driving the forklift, so it didn’t bother him. The rest of us slept on and off, and we arrived red-eyed in St. Bernards at 7:30 in the morning. Our RV wasn’t going to be ready until the afternoon, so Dad parked the car and wandered off to find some breakfast.

  The town was just waking up: the smell of fresh bread from bakeries, shopkeepers dragging racks of flip-flops and beach balls out of shops called Wild Bill’s Surf Shack or Bob’s Budget Beach Hut, street cleaners emptying trash cans and aiming half-hearted kicks at the cocky seagulls that scrounged around the cobblestones.

  We’d been wandering around for a few minutes before we caught a glimpse of the ocean, a narrow strip of blue squeezed between two cottages. “Might as well have a peek,” Dad said. We followed a steep lane until it opened out onto the seafront and WOW!

  It was incredible.

  The town nestled above a bay, about a quarter of a mile wide. It was a perfect semicircle, like the sea had taken a great big bite out of the land. Colorful cottages seemed to tumble topsy-turvy down the slope toward it. The tide was in, and fishing boats bobbed up and down on a sparkling sheet of turquoise. To our right, the bay was fringed by jagged rocks that concealed the rest of the coast. At the far side, over to the left, an old stone jetty stretched out to sea, with a small, white lighthouse perched at the end of it.

  Dad whistled.

  Mum squeezed his hand and said, “Beautiful.”

  “What are they looking at?” said Charlie, squinting at a huddle of people on the other side of the road. There were about seven of them standing along the railings and pointing out to sea.

  Charlie didn’t wait for an answer from us. He darted across the road, right in front of a car that screeched to a halt just in time. The rest of us chased after him. Mum grabbed him by the arm. “Don’t you ever do that again! I couldn’t bear—”

  But Charlie wasn’t listening. “Wow!” he said, pointing over Mum’s shoulder. “Look at that!”

  “What?” said Mum, her fingers instinctively relaxing as she turned to look.

  Charlie wriggled out of her grasp, peeled off his eye patch, and pressed himself up against the railings. “That! Behind that big, blue boat. Next to the dinghy.”

  Poetry

  I’ve been sitting on the lid of the toilet for five minutes, just breathing in and out with my head pressed against the cold, metal wall. This eventually calms me down, in spite of the horrible smell in here.

  Things got a bit wobbly at the ticket office, but I managed to avoid a total disaster and everything’s okay now.

  Except it’s not.

  Not really. I’ve sneaked out of my house and I’ve kidnapped my brother, and now we’re running away to the far end of the country for the weekend. If—sorry, when—Mum and Dad find out, they’ll murder me. That’s if the police at the station don’t arrest me first.

  I rub my face and sit up straight. Pull yourself together. We’ve made it here, so we’ve successfully accomplished stage one. The hardest part is the next bit: buying the tickets and getting on the train. Once we do that, we’re on our way.

  I pull the notebook with the picture of a dolphin on the front out of my backpack. The book’s almost finished—maybe eight more pages—so it takes a while to flick through to a blank page. I fold back the cover and jot down the poem I’d been thinking of on the way into town. A haiku. Five syllables. Seven syllables. Five syllables. Just like Mr. Hendrix taught me in poetry club. There’s something neat and symmetrical about it that reassures me that everything’s all right. The poem itself is a stupid one about cookies. Not one of my best. But writing it down and concentrating on the tip of my pen as it moves across the page makes my worries melt away.

  There’s a knock on the stall door. Charlie. “Have you fallen in?”

  I slip the notebook back into the backpack and open the door. I could hear him messing around with the hand dryers the whole time I’ve been in here. He loves a good bathroom.

  “Word up, brother,” I say, feeling a lot more chipper now.

  We stride back up the ramp to the ticket window. Making up poems always helps me figure things out, even though it’s not like I’m great at it. Mr. Hendrix says it’s the best way to get stuff out of your brain. He says that when he’s stressed, he writes poems standing on his head. I don’t think he’d like doing that in a filthy railway station bathroom.

  “Decided yet?” says Sue. She’s trying to look indulgent, like she cares, but I can tell she’s bored stiff. The homeless guy by the window gives me a thumbs-up and a toothless smile, like he wants me to succeed. Maybe he knows we’re running away and understands. This gives me a little confidence boost, and I nod back at him.

  “Two child tickets to St. Bernards, coming back tomorrow,” I say to Sue in my most impressive voice. On the way back up the ramp, I’d noticed that the police had followed the football fans down to a platform. The station feels a lot more comfortable without them around.

  “This is so awesome!” says Charlie, leaning back against the wall next to the window, his arms spread out like a star.

  “Two children?” Sue squawks. “You mean you’re traveling all the way to St. Bernards without an adult?”

  “I’m fifteen,” I lie. “Mum said it was okay for us to go as long as we’re back tomorrow.”

  Sue frowns. “I’m not sure about this. It’s a really long way. I’ve only worked here a week. Maybe I need to speak to my manager.”

  “No!” I exclaim, surprised by how loud my voice is.

  Sue moves her head back from the speaker. The homeless guy and the customer at the next window glance over at me.

  “Actually, I forgot. I’m an adult. One adult round-trip ticket to St. Bernards coming back tomorrow,” I say, firmly but more quietly. I’m breathing so hard my breath crackles on the microphone. In. Out. Calm.

  Sue and Charlie both speak at the same time.

  “I thought you were a child?”

  “One adult? You can’t leave me here.”

  “Shut up!” I hiss.

  “Pardon?” says Sue sharply.

  I realize that Charlie’s hidden from her view because of where he’s standing.

  “I was talking to my brother,” I explain, trying to smile.

  “Hmm . . .” says Sue.

  I press my forehead against the cool glass. Got to keep things under wraps this time. Think, think. “I’m sixteen. I just had a birthday.”

  “What? This exact minute?”

  “Yep. I was born at eight minutes past seven, so technicall
y I just turned sixteen. Whoops. Silly me. Wish I’d got here ten minutes ago.” I force a laugh.

  I’m rambling again.

  Sue frowns at me. “What about your brother?”

  “Yeah, what about me?” pipes up Charlie.

  “He can stay here.”

  Sue shrugs as she taps her keyboard.

  “That’s not fair!” cries Charlie, so I shush him.

  “That’ll be a hundred and seventy-seven pounds and thirty pence,” says Sue. Is it me or is her smile a bit cruel?

  I feel my knees wobble. “Really?” I squeak, gulping back the urge to cry. That’ll leave me with less than ten pounds. Why didn’t I check the price online? I feel like such an amateur.

  “Yes. Really,” says Sue, getting fed up now. “If you want to travel, you’ve got to pay.”

  I count out a stack of twenties and some coins, and drop them into the drawer. Sue pulls the lever toward her, then makes a massive deal out of checking every single penny before she shoves my tickets and my change back at me. It’s like a really horrible magic trick—marvel as I turn your life savings into a couple of orange-and-green bits of card and a few pathetic coins.

  “You’d better get a move on,” says Sue. “You’ll be wanting the Birmingham train. Leaves platform four in two minutes.”

  Moving

  You think that resting

  Is peaceful.

  But

  When you stay still

  Thoughts swarm

  Around your head

  Like a plague of wasps

  Trapped in a jam jar.

  Each one stinging

  Your brain in a desperate

  Attempt to be noticed.

  But

  When you move,

  You rock them to sleep.

  Cute and harmless

  Like a million tiny babies.

  By Martin Tompkins

  Age 13

  Stage 3a

  Preston Station to Wolverhampton Station