by Janis Mackay
Me and Aarne walked up the track, through the pine woods and back into the main school building. ‘Welcome back to the Wild School,’ Aarne said, holding the door for me. I waited for him to pipe up with, ‘And make the most of it,’ but he didn’t. He went with me along the echoing corridor to my old room. When we got there I couldn’t believe it - sitting like they were waiting for me, just by the door, were my red Converse trainers. ‘Seems even your shoes missed you,’ Aarne said. ‘We found them washed up on the beach.’
I grabbed them and laughed. They were faded but still tied together. I looked around my little room. I had only been gone four days, but it felt like four months. Nothing had changed but it all looked so different. I said so to Aarne.
‘It’s you, Niilo,’ he said. ‘Nothing’s changed here. You have.’
The very next day, my mum turned up. She was hugging me and I couldn’t believe how emotional she was being. Every time I looked at her I imagined her screaming and holding me tight in a boat … a long time ago. My forgotten story kept throbbing in my head and I knew there were things I needed to ask her, but sitting in the office didn’t seem like the place for storytelling. I was kind of stunned anyway, seeing her suddenly turn up at the Wild School, and didn’t really know what to say to her. She just kept gazing at me and saying, ‘Thank God you’re alive.’ Then she went off later on the staff ferry, saying she would see me very soon, and how my brother missed me, and my father missed me. After she left, in a whirlwind, I felt a bit sad.
In the Wild School I had some explaining to do. Plus, there was some kind of payback scheme drawn up. The Finnish government had spent thousands of euros searching for me. So what was I going to do for Finland?
I had no idea. Swim in the Olympic Games maybe? But that wasn’t what they had in mind. Community service was what they meant. In other words: work. I told them I was only thirteen. Old enough, they said, to work in the fields. So off I went again. But it was different this time.
They put me in a team with Riku. He mucked about. He made faces behind the staff’s back. He spat, and swore and winked at me. But in between that, he worked, and so I did too. It was okay. I pulled a few weeds and harvested a few carrots and onions. ‘Me and you are best friends,’ he said, biting into a bright orange carrot. ‘Niilo, you are one serious hero.’ The way he said it, like he was making a speech, made it sound absolutely true.
‘I would have died of a heart attack without the grease, though,’ I told him. I could see how he looked proud about that. How he had been part of my escape.
‘Yeah, I know,’ he said. ‘And I didn’t want you to die. Because you and me’s best pals.’ I couldn’t help grinning at that.
Hannu must have put in a word about the drumming because I joined the Wild School band and, like you can imagine, it’s pretty wild. I thrash the drums till I’m sweating, and Riku – who is the singer in the band, and into techno punk – says it’s great having no neighbours. Nobody tells us to shut up!
Then there were the endless sessions of sitting in circles. Usually it was a riot. Boys broke chairs. They yelled. They punched at leather bags swinging from the ceiling. And we had to do these breathing exercises. But I didn’t need that stuff. I was fine. Sometimes I told the other boys stories, about seals and dolphins and magic elk pounding over snow. They said I was a brilliant storyteller now, because I’d survived four days in the wild on my own. I had survived the real Wild School, they said and looked at me like I was some kind of superhero.
But the staff still wanted me to sit in circles and talk all the same. ‘So, Niilo, would you like to tell us three things you don’t like about the Wild School.’
I could have given them thirty. ‘We’re stuck here. We’re forever picking berries. We can’t get off the island. Everything’s organised. We have to talk about our feelings. We have to put up with stupid folk. Like, some boys are seriously deranged here. And there’s no computer games. We only get to watch a film once a week, and they’re baby kind of films. And we have to—’
‘Thank you, Niilo, that’s fine,’ Aarne said. ‘And what about three things you like?’
‘Like the berries,’ I mumbled.
‘Thought you said you didn’t?’
‘I said, I didn’t like having to pick berries. I don’t mind picking them, but I don’t like that I have to do it. There’s a difference. Do you get it?’
‘There’s no need to be cheeky, Niilo. Yes, I get the difference.’ Aarne took a deep breath, and carried on, ‘So, anything else you like?’
I made him wait, before admitting I liked the films on Friday night. Some of the films. Not the really babyish ones. Aarne nodded, and waited for a third like. ‘I learnt to swim,’ I said, and grinned.
‘You sure did. And you like that?’
‘I like that. I’m skilled at that.’ I gazed out of the window, at the clear blue sky, and thought about the seal. I wondered where it was. I had heard it howling in the night. I had lain awake half the night listening to the seal. When the boat had overturned, that seal had broken open my lost story. Now the image of the boat and the sea and the screaming was never far away. Whenever I closed my eyes it was there. I had a story, but it was vague, like a dream. And though Aarne was an okay guy, I couldn’t tell him about it. So I tried to piece it together in my head, like a jigsaw, but so many pieces were missing. The sound of Aarne’s voice pulled me back. ‘What?’ I said, blinking at him. I must have zoned out. I shook my head. ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘What did you say?’
‘Your mother said you could go home for two weeks’ holiday. She’d like you home, and your father and brother really want to see you. And we really encourage our students to take holidays, to spend time at home if they can. That’s a good thing, isn’t it, Niilo? To go home? And when you return to the Wild School, you can join the swim team.’ Aarne smiled across at me. ‘If it’s fine with you, you’ll be taken home tomorrow morning.’
So soon? I felt my chest tighten at the thought of going home. Back to the sterile house, Mum’s weeping, my dad’s cold silences, my brother’s successes. But this wasn’t my dad – well, I didn’t think it was. Maybe somewhere I had always known that? Now I felt it deep down inside. I’d had a real dad, and a twin, and they had both gone. And my mum hadn’t told me, or maybe she had always been trying to and I had never wanted to hear. If there was any reason to go home it was to find the other half of it – to get the truth. I was ready to listen now.
‘How do you feel about going home?’
‘Home?’ I shrugged. I felt a shiver shoot up my spine. Where was home? My island had felt like home. ‘Dunno,’ I muttered.
‘If it doesn’t work out you can come straight back here,’ Aarne said. ‘Okay?’
I shrugged again. ‘Okay,’ I said, but it didn’t feel okay.
That night I couldn’t eat dinner, even though it was fried chicken, and even though I sat next to Riku and he kept nudging me and accidentally on purpose spilling salt all over the table. I felt my insides knot up. After dinner I didn’t join in with table tennis but sat at the side, biting my nails down to the quick. I watched Riku play and he was a devil at table tennis. I just sat and chewed the ragged skin around my nails. Riku slammed the table-tennis ball into my lap. ‘Give me a game,’ he said. Ordered, more like.
I shook my head. I wasn’t a great player.
But Riku yanked me up and thrust a bat into my hand. ‘I serve first,’ he said, and next thing I was at the end of the green table with this little white ball flying towards me. Miraculously my bat hit the ball. It sent the white ball flying back. That was a fluke. The next few shots I missed. ‘Flick your wrist,’ Riku yelled, ‘like you do with a flick-knife.’ Not that I had ever flicked a flick-knife, but I didn’t tell Riku that. I hit it that time, and I liked that pop-pop noise of the ball. ‘Hey! You’re ace at this,’ Riku yelled, and we were soon hitting it back and forward hard.
I could feel this red seething anger rise up through me and I smashed that bal
l so hard. Why did they lie? Even knowing a really sad story is better than not knowing. It’s better than having no story at all. I whacked that ball.
A crowd had gathered around the table. Clucking Boy was clucking away. Everyone else held their breath. Somebody was counting … fifteen, twenty. We went to twenty-seven, then Riku slammed it so fast off to the side that I missed. The crowd cheered. Riku had won. He galloped round and round the green table with his bat in the air, whooping like mad. I was exhausted. But inside I was on fire. And I knew in that moment that more than anything I wanted to know the truth. I wanted my story. All of it.
Before I went to bed that night I blurted it out to Riku. ‘Do you get the feeling that you lost a story? I mean, your story? Like – there’s stuff about yourself nobody’s telling you.’
He looked at me. His scar wasn’t so scary. His dark eyes weren’t so hard. He nodded. ‘Like, finding your wild song?’
How did he know that? Was he psychic? My heart missed a beat. ‘Yeah, yeah … that’s it,’ I said, practically stammering. Then I suddenly got it. Hannu had been Riku’s one-to-one worker before me. It all made sense. ‘Yeah,’ I said again. ‘The wild song.’
Chapter Twenty-six
The next morning, early, I was on the boat with Sam and Matti, the ferryman. It was August now, and apart from my four days’ escape I had been on the Wild School island nearly four months. My insides were in knots thinking about going to Helsinki. Matti cracked a few jokes as we set off. Maybe he saw how nervous I was? ‘Hey, Niilo, want to dive overboard and swim alongside the ferryboat?’ But I didn’t laugh. I had gone quiet again and said nothing. Sam suggested he give me some peace, so Matti’s jokes quickly dried up and we crossed the sea to Helsinki in silence, apart from the screaming gulls above and the throb of the engine.
After half an hour or so, the skyline of Helsinki with the huge copper dome of the cathedral came into view. It wasn’t long after that Matti moored the boat at the market square and bade farewell to me and Sam. ‘Have a good holiday, Niilo,’ he said.
It was still tourist season and crowds were milling around the market stalls. The market was in full swing, so everything felt busy and noisy. I recognised the stall holders, even the stuff they were selling – I knew it all so well. I looked around in a daze, feeling Sam’s hand gently gripping my forearm. What did he think? That I would take off and pilfer a few tourist pockets?
Sam steered me through the crowd and on up towards the bus station. Music from a raw saxophone echoed down the street and I pulled back to listen and Sam let me. The aching sadness of the music cut right through me and I heard it like I’d never heard it before. It seemed another lifetime when I had been king of this market square, zipping up and down these streets, listening to street performers, doing a bit of business, and going to see a horror film if I felt like it.
‘Seponkatu?’ Sam asked when the tune faded. ‘That’s the name of your street, isn’t it?’
I nodded, but it seemed like a foreign country. Seponkatu! It wasn’t my street – it had never been my street. Maybe I slept there, that was all.
‘We better get on.’ Sam steered me up the busy esplanade and over the road to the number six bus stop. He had done his homework – the metro would have been quicker, but it would be easier to escape on the metro. And now I was famed as an escape artist. But he had no idea … escaping was the last thing on my mind. As we stood at the bus stop Sam said, just to make small talk, ‘So, Niilo, what number on Seponkatu?’
I didn’t bother to reply. Sam knew perfectly well it was Seponkatu, number 39. Just then the bus pulled up. Sam paid the bus fares. ‘One adult,’ he said to the driver, ‘and one child.’ Still with his hand on my arm he steered me down the bus aisle and into two free seats. I flashed my eyes around the bus, scared I might see someone I knew. But then I felt this strange empty feeling inside. I knew no one, not in Helsinki anyway. I knew a few people in the Wild School. I had a best friend in the Wild School, but here I knew no one.
The bus took off and I pressed my face to the glass, smudging my nose down flat and peering out. Helsinki rolled past – the busy centre, the high stone buildings, the park, the lake, the statues. Happy people, walking or cycling. People who had their story. They carried it around inside them, knowing who they were, where they were from. I swallowed hard, thinking of my mum, and what would I say to her? How would I come out with it? As we journeyed through the suburbs there were more trees and fewer big buildings, fewer people.
We were nearly at our stop when Sam rummaged in his jacket pocket. ‘Oh, I nearly forgot,’ he said, pulling out a white envelope. ‘This is for you.’ He thrust the envelope into my hands. ‘It’s a wedding invitation,’ he said, ‘from Hannu.’
I stuffed the envelope into my jeans pocket.
The bus drew to a halt, the brakes hissed and the doors opened. ‘Our stop,’ Sam said, attaching himself to me like glue and manoeuvring me off the bus. It felt like for ever as we walked up leafy Seponkatu. Twenty-seven, twenty-nine, thirty-one … ‘Your mum’s at the door, waiting,’ Sam said, though he didn’t need to. I could see her, standing in the doorway, her blond hair lifted up from her face. Sam paused for a moment and tightened his grip on my arm. ‘We’ll keep checks on how it’s going, Niilo. If it doesn’t work out, we’ll come and get you. But hopefully it’ll be fine.’ He turned to face me, nodded and smiled. ‘Have a good holiday, okay?’
I nodded. Already my mum had started to wave. Then I glimpsed my dad, hovering in the hallway behind, like Security. I felt secretly pleased that my own mother looked nervous of me. It was pretty clear she didn’t know what to expect – how I was going to be. Neither did I, but I knew I had changed. And I also knew that the man there with the blond hair who I had always thought was my dad wasn’t my dad. Suddenly the image of the black seal flashed into my mind, and for some reason I felt better. My heart stopped kicking as I stepped towards the house. I took a deep breath.
‘Wave to her,’ Sam whispered in my ear. I lifted a hand and moved it mechanically through the air. We were halfway up the path that led to the front door. Like the time I had overturned the table in the canteen, time shifted into slow motion. Each step lasted an hour. I saw my mum falter in her step towards me; I saw the lines at the corners of her eyes. She seemed older. I saw the red dots on her white dress, the dark roots in the yellow-blond of her dyed hair …
I felt my mother’s hand clasp my shoulder. ‘Welcome home, Niilo.’ She reached out to give me a hug, but I tensed my shoulders and she must have felt that. She stepped back. Then a shadow darkened the path and my father was there next to her. Except it wasn’t my father.
‘Welcome home, Niilo,’ he said. ‘Thank heavens you’re safe and well. That was quite an adventure you had.’
I said nothing and Sam cut through the awkwardness. ‘Now then, a few formalities. It won’t take long,’ he said. ‘Just a few papers to sign. And I’ll be off. Nice place you’ve got here.’ And the attention shifted away from me. Dad was eager to talk to Sam about the garden, the squirrels and the hares that were frequent visitors, and how his youngest son loved leaving titbits out for the animals.
Meanwhile Mum was talking twenty to the dozen, like she did when she was nervous, and in company. The four of us moved up the garden path and into the house, like a babbling river. ‘We didn’t change your room. Left up your posters. All these funny bands you like. Tuomas can’t wait to see you. They’re letting him away from school early. Then I thought we could go to the swimming pool later. Fancy that, you turning into a swimmer. Of course, I won’t go in, to the pool, I mean, but Dad said he would go in with you. Course, it won’t be the same. Same as in the sea, I mean …’
I still hadn’t spoken, not since leaving the Wild School. I didn’t think Mum noticed though – she couldn’t stop speaking, or gazing at me, half laughing, half crying, shaking her head like she couldn’t believe I was in the house, standing in front of her. I hardly heard what she was saying – her wo
rds just washed over me. It was my words I wanted to get out, but I didn’t know what to say, how to start. I sat down by the kitchen table and still she was chattering on. ‘You suit a suntan, Niilo, you really do. You’ve only been gone four months but I swear you’ve grown. You’re almost as tall as …’ I looked up at her. She hesitated and looked down at her hands that she was wringing together. ‘A man.’ She looked up and forced a smile. ‘Something to drink, Niilo? I made some fresh lemonade.’
Sam had gone. Dad was in the garden, but assured her he was close in case he was needed. Mum seemed glad to have a task, even if it was just pouring glasses of lemonade. She fussed around the kitchen, opening and closing cupboards as though she wasn’t sure where things were. ‘Nice man, that Sam,’ she wittered. ‘I knew … you’d be in good hands. Oh, Niilo, I was at my wits’ end. Thank God they found you. Thank God you came back.’
I still hadn’t spoken, and I knew that made her nervous. I scanned the kitchen, noting that the hole in the wall, where I had punched it, had been filled in. I stared at my mother as she stirred sugar into the glasses of lemonade and carried them over to the table.
She put the glasses on the table, then hurried over to the fridge. ‘As this is a special occasion …’ She opened the fridge door and bent down, obviously trying to manoeuvre something out of the fridge. ‘Da-da!’ she sang as she stood up and swung round, stretching her arms forward to show the enormous cake she had baked. ‘It’s your favourite.’ Her voice was breaking. ‘Chocolate cake, with strawberries and cream.’
I looked at her, expecting her to burst into ‘Happy Birthday’ and me, a little boy of two years old, with my whole life ahead of me, would bounce up and blow out the candles. But there would have been two cakes then, wouldn’t there? Because once upon a time I had a twin, didn’t I? And she didn’t tell me, did she? For a second I felt a stab of emptiness.