Mom’s too soft on Wills. When he came in late one day and she had to throw his dinner away, I wanted her to give him such ENORMOUS punishment that he would be shocked into doing what he was told. If she did it just once it might help. But Mom doesn’t have a hard button and her angry button is more marshmallow than rock. Wills only has to give her a big soppy grin, pat her on the head, and tell her she worries too much, then she thinks what he has done isn’t so bad after all. She forgets about all the times the teachers call her about his bad behavior, and about the times she has to apologize for him when we are out, and about the times he makes her cry.
I think she’s tougher on me than on Wills, because she expects me to be good. She tells her friends I’m her little superstar and she doesn’t know what she’d do without me. Sometimes I think it’s not fair. I don’t see why Wills should get away with doing absolutely what he likes, which means that I have to behave or otherwise it would be too much for Mom to cope with. Sometimes I feel like rampaging around the house myself, especially when Wills has been in my room and turned it upside down. Sometimes I feel like shouting rude words and doing rude gestures and not caring what anyone thinks of me. Sometimes I want to yell at the top of my voice: “I’M HERE TOO AND I’VE GOT FEELINGS, BIG FEELINGS, AND I’M FED UP WITH YOU RUINING MY LIFE.” But I don’t. I carry on being Mom’s little superstar because she doesn’t know what she’d do without me, especially now that Dad’s gone as well.
Then one day I looked into a store and there was Wills. I was thinking about knocking on the window to make him jump, when I saw him grab a handful of chocolate bars and stuff them in his coat pocket. He saw me see him. For a moment he just stood and stared at me. And I just stared at him. Then he charged out of the store, followed by his ginger and dark-haired friends, who had been hidden by the shelves, and ran off down the road.
The store owner came to the door. “Did you get a good look at them?” he demanded. He didn’t wait for an answer, thank goodness. “Stupid kids,” he spat. “I’ll get them next time. Just keep out of my store, do you hear me?” and he went back inside.
I ran away from there as fast as I could and didn’t stop until I’d gone around a corner. I fell against a wall, struggling for breath. My stomach had gone all nervy like it did when I had to take a test at school, and like it did when I went on a scary ride, except that I didn’t mind the scary ride sort of nervy. The sort of nervy I had now didn’t turn into rollercoaster screams of excitement. This sort of nervy turned into feeling sick and wanting the ground to swallow me up in one big, enormous gulp.
My brother was a thief.
Even as I thought it and tried to tell myself that taking chocolate bars wasn’t that big a deal, I remembered the ammonite. He’d stolen that too, I was sure of it. My brother was a thief! What was I supposed to do now that I knew that? What would you do if you knew your brother was a thief? A hand grabbed my shoulder. I swung around into the leering face of Wills’s ginger-haired friend.
“Hello, little boy,” he said. “Something wrong, huh?”
I shook my head.
“Are you sure?” said the boy. “You look as if you’ve seen something you shouldn’t have seen. You didn’t see anything, did you?”
I heard a snigger from behind me and looked around to see Wills and his other friend poking their heads out from a doorway.
I shook my head. “No, I haven’t seen anything, now leave me alone, will you?”
I tried to pull away, but the boy’s grip was too strong.
“As long as you’re sure,” he said. “I wouldn’t want you to suffer.”
“I’m sure. Just let me go,” I growled.
He let go, jostled me on the head like I was his best friend, and told me to take good care of myself. The sniggers from the doorway followed me as I ran away.
I kept running until I reached the library. I checked that I wasn’t being watched and dashed inside, where I grabbed a book from a shelf, sat down, and buried my head in it. I tried to read the words to take my mind off what had happened, but they all blurred into one and I couldn’t make any sense of them.
“No ‘hello’ today, then?” Penny sat down next to me. “That’s heavy reading for an eleven-year-old, isn’t it?” she grinned.
I looked at the cover of the book and read: THE SILENT WEAPON: POISONS AND ANTIDOTES IN THE MIDDLE AGES.
“And they say the school curriculum is getting easier,” Penny scoffed. “Not judging by that book, or are you looking for something to use yourself?”
I managed to smile, but I didn’t know if I wanted to talk about what had happened.
“Let me guess,” said Penny. “Someone’s upset you, so you’re looking for a poison that you can put in their drink without their knowing.”
“I wish,” I said.
“I think you need something more up-to-date,” Penny laughed. “Poisons have come a long way since the Middle Ages. Talking about poison, and since there’s no one else around, how about a cup of the library’s best tea?”
“I’d rather have the poison.” I grinned in spite of myself.
“That’s better,” said Penny. “I’ve never seen you looking so glum. Has that brother of yours been upsetting you again? I’ll be after him on my broomstick if he’s not careful.”
“Isn’t it boring in here when nobody comes in? I mean, what’s the point in being a librarian in a library nobody visits?” I was desperate to change the subject but I thought I might be being rude.
“You visit,” said Penny, “and I have my other regulars.”
“Not many,” I continued.
“You’re right.” Penny grimaced. “I wish we could drag people in off the streets so that we could show them what they’re missing. Stuck on shelves, books just gather dust. But when you open them up, the dust falls away and the most wonderful imaginary worlds are waiting there to be explored. Not that I need to tell you that.”
“I’d like to be a writer,” I said. I wondered immediately where that thought had come from, because I hadn’t had it before. And then I felt stupid for saying it, because the chances of someone like me becoming a writer were absolutely ZERO. I’d probably end up in an office like Dad and turn into a bowling pin.
“There’s no reason why you shouldn’t be,” Penny said. “As long as you have plenty of imagination, an urge to share the world that’s inside your head, and an ability to bring it all to life with words. It sounds easy put like that, doesn’t it? It’s not of course, and I can’t do it, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t try.”
“My teacher says I’ve got a good imagination.”
“Well, there you are, then, that’s a start.” Penny smiled. “Who knows, one day I might be recommending your books to my readers. Speaking of which, I’ve been keeping this new novel aside for you. It’s being heralded as the book of the year. Tell me what you think.”
I thanked her and stood up to go.
“Talk to someone, Chris, if things are getting too much for you. Don’t bottle it all up.”
“What, tell on my brother? He’d never let me hear the end of it.”
I almost blurted it all out to Penny there and then because she was being so nice to me and because I was dreading going home and seeing Wills. I was dreading seeing Mom too, because of all the guilty secrets that were piling up inside me. I didn’t blurt anything out. If I had started I think I would have gone all blubbery, and I didn’t want Penny to think I was a crybaby. And what could she do? Anyway, Wills was my brother, till death us do part, worst luck.
When I got home, Mom and Wills were sitting on the sofa and Wills was being all butter-wouldn’t-melt lovey-dovey. Mom looked happy like she does when Wills isn’t being a nightmare, so I tried not to be grumpy even though I felt as grumpy as a hungry giant. Wills stayed lovey-dovey all evening and we managed to watch a film on the television without him leaping up and down every five minutes. It made me feel sick though, Wills being like that with Mom—and acting as if he was my best
friend. He couldn’t just pretend nothing had happened because I’d seen him and I knew, and no matter how much his friends threatened me it wouldn’t stop me knowing.
I WANTED TO HIT HIM. I wanted to wipe that soppy grin off his face and make him pay for what he’d done, like he was making me pay.
I went up to bed early. Mom followed me.
“Is there anything wrong, Chris?” she said. “You’re very quiet tonight.”
“I’m a bit tired, that’s all, Mom,” I mumbled.
“It’s good to have Wills so calm,” she said brightly. “It makes all the difference. I expect it’s the calm before another storm, but it’s been a nice evening.”
I nodded and said goodnight. But it wouldn’t be a good night—Wills would come in, I was sure of it.
It was two o’clock when he woke me by plunking himself on my bed.
“Are you asleep, Chris?” I heard.
“I was until some great oaf landed on my bed,” I growled.
“It wasn’t my fault,” he said. “They made me do it. Said I was a big wuss if I didn’t do it. Said they wouldn’t be my friends if I didn’t do it.”
“Who needs friends like that?” I said.
“Most people don’t like me,” Wills muttered.
“I’d rather not have any friends than have friends who make me do things I don’t want to,” I replied.
“You don’t understand what it’s like,” said Wills.
He was trying to make me feel sorry for him! He should feel sorry for me! But I did feel sort of sorry for him in a way, because most people kept away from him. They couldn’t cope with his Acts Dumb and Dumber. They were embarrassed by it. At least they didn’t have to live with it though.
“Mom would die if she knew what you’d done,” I said.
“She doesn’t have to know, and you’re not going to tell her, are you?” He was half pleading and half threatening.
“What else have you stolen?” I asked, and immediately wished I hadn’t.
“Nothing,” Wills spat. “What d’you take me for? Just because I did it once, doesn’t make me a fulltime crook.”
“Keep me out of it, that’s all,” I hissed. “And keep your horrible friends away from me.”
“I was going to give you a chocolate bar, but I won’t now,” he hissed back. “Serves you right.”
“Jeez, leave me alone, will you.”
Wills sloped away, but seconds later he was back at the door saying, “Please don’t say anything to Mom, Chrissy Chrissy. I promise I won’t do it again.”
“You’re always promising,” I growled.
“I mean it this time,” he said, as though he meant it.
“I won’t tell Mom, but only because I don’t want her to be upset, that’s all. Now go back to bed and let me sleep.”
I turned my back on him to put an end to the conversation. It was doing my head in. He was doing my head in. Let alone my stomach, which was all nervy again. He would do it again. I knew he would. His horrible friends would make sure of that. Wills wouldn’t be able to say no, and they probably thought it was a great big joke to get him to do bad things. I wondered if I should tell Dad. But telling Dad would make it worse and Mom would still find out. I was scared for Wills too, because I didn’t want him to have the sort of punishment he would get if Dad knew. It would be like one of those big fights in the movies where everyone shoots at each other and everyone dies.
I was so tired I didn’t want to get up for school the next morning, and I could hear Mom having her usual battle to get Wills out of bed. I dragged myself to my feet.
“Why don’t you just leave him there, Mom?” I called. “He’ll be the one to get into trouble, and serves him right.”
“Unfortunately, if he doesn’t go to school he won’t be the only one to get into trouble, I will as well.”
Wills was snorting underneath the duvet. He thought he was being funny, but Mom didn’t and neither did I. I ran in and pulled the covers off him.
“Get up, you freak!” I yelled. “Give Mom a break for a change.”
“You’re so scary!” he mocked. “Save me from him, Mommy, save me!”
I launched myself at him, but he wriggled from underneath me and tore off along the landing into the bathroom.
“Beat you to it!” he shouted and slammed the door.
“I hate you!” I screamed after him. I stopped when I saw Mom’s face.
“Don’t, Chris,” she said.
She fled downstairs, leaving behind the look on her face to scold me over and over. I sank down on to the top stair and thought about hurling myself to the bottom.
At school that day, Jack wanted to know what was wrong with me.
“What do you think’s wrong?” I snapped.
“I’ve never known you this grumpy before,” he said. “Even Homer Simpson doesn’t get this grumpy.”
“Homer Simpson doesn’t have to live with Wills. If he did, he would be even grumpier.”
“What’s Wills done that’s so bad this time, apart from being alive?”
“Everything he does is so bad, and then I get into trouble for it,” I said.
“If I had a brother like Wills, I’d either kill him or kill myself,” Jack threw a punch at me, before launching himself across the playground to join in with a game of soccer.
Chapter Eight
We got into a sort of routine with the going to Dad’s. Every other Saturday he picked us up at ten o’clock and we went straight to the supermarket to stock up with ready-made meals. However much Dad protested, Wills didn’t give him much choice over what else went into the cart.
“We’re from a broken home,” Wills said. “We need treats to help us get over our broken hearts.”
“What a load of nonsense,” snorted Dad. “Whoever heard of chips and ice cream mending a broken heart?”
“Without them,” said Wills, “I might fall to the floor, and all people will see is a blubbering heap of misery.”
That did it for Dad because he knew that’s exactly what Wills would do, right in the middle of the supermarket, and it would be just as embarrassing as the pickled onions. So Dad gave in, and Wills wound up with all the junk food that Mom said he shouldn’t have because it made his Acts Dumb and Dumber worse.
It’s always so neat and tidy at Dad’s you wouldn’t think anybody lived there. It can’t be that he tidies up especially for us—NO WAY JOSE!—so it must be how he likes to live when he’s not being our dad, which means it must be hard for him when he’s being our dad and having to live with a mess. Maybe that’s why he left home—Mom’s home. His new place doesn’t stay tidy for long when we’re there. I think he must dread us coming because of the mess, and the noise, and the thumping on the ceiling.
I dread going there. Wills knows exactly which buttons to push to wind Dad up, and Dad’s fuse grows shorter and shorter. There’s no Mom to help keep the peace, so I’m on my own, trying to think of things we can do that will occupy Wills and keep him out of Dad’s hair—what’s left of it. Dad gave in to Wills during our second visit and bought a game console—GREAT!—race games in a pea pod, just what I always wanted. The other thing Wills has decided he likes is Monopoly and he wants to play it all the time, except that he only likes it if he’s winning. As soon as anybody buys a property that he wants, or charges him rent for landing on their property, or if he is sent directly to jail—DO NOT PASS GO, DO NOT COLLECT $200—he throws his money around the room and doesn’t want to play anymore.
There’s nowhere to kick a ball around like we did with Dad at home, so Dad takes us to the park if the weather’s all right. Those are the best times. As long as Dad threatens Wills beforehand that there will be no basketball the next day unless he behaves, it’s good fun, apart from when Wills trips me, which he does too often. I wonder for how long the no basketball threat will work, because Dad uses it all the time.
“If you don’t clean that mess up off the floor, William, there’ll be no basketball tomor
row.” Or, “If you use language like that again, William, there’ll be no basketball in the morning.” Or, “If you don’t do as I say now, William, I shall stop you from going to basketball, and I mean it.”
I don’t think Dad does mean it, because for an hour of the weekend he can leave us to Clingon while he goes home to read the Sunday paper, which is his favorite thing to do on a Sunday. I bet Wills knows Dad doesn’t mean it, but so far he’s not pushing it, which shows he can behave if he wants to. He sometimes sniggers though when he sees Dad is about to make his threat, and he leaps in first.
“I know, Daddy-waddy,” he says. “If Wills isn’t a good little boy, then Big Daddy won’t let him go to basketball. Waahhh!”
When we watch sports at Dad’s, it’s like being at home, except there’s no Mom to bring us a cup of cocoa, and Dad tries not to yell at the television because of the thumping on the ceiling. It’s like being wrapped up in a cocoon in Dad’s tiny living room. It’s all nice and cozy, except when Wills bounces up and down on the sofa or drops food on the floor or swears at the television, which upsets Dad. Then the last place I want to be is in that cocoon, but I think how good it would be if it was just me and Dad in there.
The nighttime is the worst. I bet you nobody could sleep in the same room as Wills. I’ve moved out on to the couch in the living room. At least there I can read myself to sleep without being interrupted every other word. It’s a bit small and every time I turn over the comforter falls off, but anything’s better than hippo snorts. I still get woken up though, when Wills goes for his midnight feast and comes in crunching chips to watch the television. He sits on me because he thinks it’s funny, and showers my bed with soggy crumbs. I try to ignore him and pretend to be asleep when he speaks to me. Eventually he gets bored and goes back to his bed. It takes me ages to get back to sleep then. I lie there, wondering how Mom is and if she’s missing us, or if she would rather be on her own all the time because it’s so peaceful.
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