Fly Me Home

by Polly Ho-Yen

  I strained my eyes, looking for some colour, some character in those blank boxy rooms, but there was none; only thin walls; beige, stained spaces.

  While Mum was talking to Mr Abenezzi about money, and Tiber had gone out to the small, dank patch of concrete that Mr Abenezzi had called ‘great outside space’, I sneaked away. Upstairs, I looked round the little room that would become mine and Tiber’s. Neither of us wanted to share a room, but as we’d walked between the two bedrooms upstairs and realized that one was for Mum and the other for us, Mum had simply shrugged her shoulders and said, ‘We’ll have to make do.’

  We whined and groaned, but nothing we said made another bedroom magically appear.

  The room we’d share was a very small rectangle, full of flimsy fake-wood furniture. When I sat on the bed by the window, the mattress wheezed and creaked as though it was complaining. The headboard bumped against the wall in an alarming rattle.

  That was when I saw it.

  Just next to the bed there was a tear in the thin, stained carpet, which pulled back easily to show the dusty floorboards underneath. With a bit of wiggling, one of the small, crooked boards came loose to reveal a little hiding place under the floor.

  It was dark in there, and when I first put my hand into the black hole, I thought I felt something furry and pulled it back in shock. But when I looked more closely, I saw that it was only a thick layer of grey dust that stuck together when I lifted it out. It disintegrated in my fingers and scattered over the carpet.

  The space under the floorboard was not much bigger than a shoebox, but it was more than enough for me to hide a few things, out of Tiber’s reach, away from Mum’s eyes. It would be a little place of my own, here, in a home where we did not belong.

  As I studied it, I heard voices approaching up the stairs. I quickly put back the floorboard and covered it all up with the carpet, just as I had found it. When Mum appeared, I was sitting on the bed, looking out of the window.

  ‘You like it here, Leelu?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s OK,’ I said slowly. It was just that: OK. Not terrible. Not wonderful. And definitely not home.

  ‘I think we’re going to have to take it,’ Mum said, staring at the carpet. ‘I know it’s not ideal with you two sharing a room, but it’s all we can afford.’ She leaned against the chest of drawers, and as she did so, it made a shifting, buckling sound. She stood up again quickly, unsettled.

  ‘If we do live here … can I have this bed?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t see why not,’ Mum said.

  ‘No, that’s my bed,’ Tiber said, appearing at the door, smiling.

  And’s that how it all started, with Mum doing the coin toss.

  The coin was spinning, spinning in the air as though suspended there, and then it began to fall.

  Suddenly I knew that the coin would land and it would be heads. Tiber would win.

  He would stroll over to the bed and jump onto it in a single movement, like a cat, except that his weight would make the bed frame creak and shudder.

  I had to do something. I looked around for a distraction; in desperation, I even delved into my pockets.

  That was when I felt the walnut.

  The walnut I had found between the bin and the lamppost.

  It felt reassuringly hard, and as I clasped it, I thought I felt it twitch, although I knew that was impossible.

  It was just the tiniest little shift, and then it was over.

  Tails, tails, tails, I thought. And then: Please let me have the bed so that I can look at the moon and be closer to Dad. I miss him so much.

  The walnut gave another twitch, more definite this time.

  As I felt its vibration, I swiftly released it.

  The coin landed on Mum’s open hand.

  She deftly smacked her palm over it so we couldn’t see which way up it was. Tiber leaned in closer.

  Mum drew her hand away.

  I didn’t look.

  I knew it was tails.

  I knew that the bed was mine.

  ‘Tails. Leelu gets the bed,’ Mum said.

  ‘Best of three?’ Tiber asked.

  ‘Nice try,’ she said, walking away.

  I lay down on the bed, my bed, and Tiber stalked off, muttering something about fairness or unfairness.

  I took the walnut out of my pocket and held it carefully in my hand.

  It lay quite still. It didn’t move again.

  It looked just like an ordinary walnut.

  5

  A few days after I found the walnut I saw something else lodged in exactly the same place, just between the bin and the lamppost.

  At first I thought it was another walnut. It looked roughly the same size and shape, but as I approached, I saw that it wasn’t honey-coloured. It was darker. It collected more shadows.

  Its wooden, ridged body looked a little like the armour worn by the characters in Tiber’s old comics. Only brown of course. Not colourful and loud.

  I took it, as I had the walnut, looking around to see where it might have come from.

  It could have fallen from a tree, but the ones that grew on our street, tall and sheltering, with yellow and brown bark that looked like it was falling off, didn’t grow anything like this.

  Or walnuts, for that matter.

  Someone had placed it there very carefully. They had wedged it into the space between the bin and the lamppost so that it wouldn’t fall.

  Did they want it to be found? Had they known what the walnut could do?

  At that moment Tiber came bursting out of the house behind me so I hid it deep in my pocket. I ran my fingers over its ridges, which felt like miniature mountains and valleys.

  ‘Wotcha doing?’ Tiber looked at me with his head slightly cocked to one side.

  ‘Nothing,’ I replied, letting go of whatever it was. I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear unnecessarily, nervously, to give my hand something to do.

  ‘Looks like you’re up to something,’ Tiber said. I wondered, not for the first time, how, even when I was doing everything I could to keep a secret from him, he could know me so well.

  ‘Nope.’ I kept my face blank.

  I didn’t want to share it with him in case he lobbed it in the air and it flew away from me for ever. Tiber’s very fond of throwing things, especially if they don’t belong to him.

  Just then we heard loud music start up in the house next to us. It was inhabited by people we called the Noisy Neighbours; there were so many of them living there – I couldn’t understand how they all managed to fit in.

  ‘Right on time,’ Tiber said as the bass started to throb in the air. We hadn’t met our neighbours properly, but we had come to know them from looking out of the window and hearing them. The Noisy Neighbours were on one side; on the other lived a very old man. We never heard any noise coming from his house, but we knew he had a huge, hairy grey dog, as big as a wolf, which looked like it might bite you if it got the chance. I refused to go out when I saw the old man shuffling along the street with his dog.

  There were voices coming from the Noisy Neighbours’ house, and what sounded like a cat screeching in pain. Suddenly their front door flew open and a group of boys spilled out, chasing a football between them. They ran across the pavement and into the road.

  They all looked alike, their skin golden brown, their hair tousled and dark. They moved together, like a pack: a single creature with multiple skinny legs and arms.

  Just then a car came speeding round the corner towards them. I heard Tiber suck his teeth as it careened down the road, tyres screeching, engine roaring.

  All but one of the boys dashed back onto the pavement as it charged towards them. All but the smallest, who chased after the football, which had rolled out into the middle of the road.

  ‘Hey! Betsy!’ one of the boys shouted out. ‘Leave it! Get out of the road!’

  The smallest boy, I realized, was not a boy at all.

  She leaned back, glanced towards the pavement, a laughing look
on her face, and then, about as fast as I had seen anyone move, sprinted towards the ball, which had dribbled its way into the path of the car.

  She caught up with it before the car met her. Then, in what looked like one movement, neatly hooked her foot around the ball, stopping it in its tracks, and kicked it forcefully back towards us.

  The car rushed past in a blur, obliterating the girl from view.

  ‘Betsy!’ another of the boys shouted, his voice panicked.

  ‘What’s the problem?’ she said, stepping out from the other side of the road, arms and eyebrows raised quizzically.

  The boys grumbled something in a language I did not understand.

  ‘Come on, let’s play,’ said Betsy.

  There was more grumbling, but the ball was dropped on the ground again and the boys chased it down, moving as one, each face indistinguishable from the others.

  We heard their shouts long after they had disappeared round the corner. I was sure I heard more dismayed cries of ‘Betsy!’ and wondered what dangerous thing that small, scruffy-haired girl was up to now. She was so utterly fearless, I couldn’t help but be fascinated by her.

  Then Mum suddenly appeared in the doorway.

  Her nose wrinkled at the sight of the new lot of rubbish abandoned by the bin and she looked determinedly away from it. She hurried us down the street, simultaneously taking my hand and removing from Tiber’s an old can that he had picked up off the pavement and was about to chuck across the road.

  ‘Let’s get to know this place,’ she said.

  We walked down one of the roads and Mum muttered something like, ‘Yes, this is the right way,’ but to me, each street looked identical. Dark and grey, with nothing to distinguish one from another. The blocks of flats that surrounded us looked the same from every angle; large brown boxy buildings.

  Our feet slapped down hard on the tarmac pavement, and for some reason the sound of our footsteps made me feel very tired.

  ‘Nearly there,’ trilled Mum when we heard cars ahead of us.

  We walked down a road that heaved and groaned with cars in search of something to eat, some place warm to sit.

  6

  We stopped at the first place we came to. It was a fried-chicken shop.

  Tiber bolted his portion, and then started begging us to give him some of ours.

  ‘You’ve had enough,’ Mum said, but he continued to plead and beg until I tossed him one of my chicken legs just to keep him quiet.

  ‘Thanks, Lulu,’ he said. ‘You’re my favourite sister.’

  ‘I’m your only sister,’ I said back.

  The chicken was greasy and left slippery patches of oil on our fingers. After just one piece I no longer felt hungry and let Tiber have the rest – and my chips too. He scoffed them down; it was hard to hear the words ‘thank you’ through all the chewing.

  Mum didn’t eat much either, and elbowed her paper plate towards Tiber; delighted, he worked his way through most of her dinner as well.

  ‘Not hungry, Mum?’ I asked her.

  ‘Not too much,’ she said, smiling at me. It was a quick, small smile, peeking out like the sun does here when it appears from behind one cloud, only to disappear behind another.

  Mum looked around the restaurant. It was very bright, lit by long fluorescent tubes. One of them flickered every now and again; each time it did, Mum shivered and closed her eyes.

  ‘Let’s go …’ she said when Tiber had sucked clean the last of the chicken bones, but she didn’t finish the sentence. In the end she said, ‘Let’s go … back.’

  She didn’t want to call the house we lived in now our home, and I understood why. Everything was so different here.

  I felt as though I hadn’t seen colour, not properly, since we arrived. I wondered if colour like we had at home would be able to survive in these grey concrete streets. Everything was brighter there. The sunshine, the colour of the grass. The paint on the houses, the clothes. The gleam in everyone’s eyes. In London there seemed to be only tones of grey, as though everything was awash with it. From the roads to the trees to the faces of the people we passed.

  Maybe if we saw colour now, it would blind us. It would be too bright; our eyes weren’t accustomed to it any more.

  Perhaps we had got too used to the grey already.

  ‘Do you miss home, Mum?’ I asked her as we were walking back to our little house.

  ‘This is our home now, Leelu,’ she said. ‘You’ll feel different in a few weeks’ time. There’s just been so much to adjust to.’

  ‘How long will it be before Dad comes?’ I asked. Mum and Dad had both become very good at dodging this question, I’d noticed.

  ‘Oh, you know, when his work thing is wrapped up, he’ll be here right away, I’m sure.’

  ‘But how long will it take for the work thing to finish? How many more days?’

  ‘Oh,’ said Mum. ‘It won’t be too lo— Tiber! Come back!’

  All of a sudden Tiber had jogged into the middle of the road and bent down to pick something up.

  ‘What were you thinking? Picking old rubbish up off the street!’ Mum asked as he ran back, leaping lightly onto the pavement beside us.

  ‘I found a phone,’ he said, holding up an old, battered mobile. ‘Now we can call Dad.’

  Mum looked at him doubtfully. ‘Someone must have dropped it. We should hand it in.’

  ‘Come on, Mum,’ said Tiber. ‘We can’t hand it in around here. It looks like it might be broken. Someone probably just threw it away. People do that on this street. You know that.’

  Mum hesitated. ‘Well, if it’s broken, what do you want with it?’

  ‘I’m sure I can fix it,’ Tiber said. ‘Anyway, I may as well try rather than leaving it in the road to get run over.’

  He smiled convincingly. I’d often seen him do this with Mum and Dad when he wanted his way. I’ve got to say it usually worked.

  ‘Well, all right,’ Mum said. ‘I suppose it can’t hurt. But if you find something on there that tells you who it belongs to, then we need to try and find them and give it back. OK?’

  ‘OK,’ Tiber said. His eyes were wide, he looked very innocent, but I saw him crossing two fingers discreetly behind his back.

  We carried on walking, but this time Tiber was bent over the old phone, taking the back off, examining the battery.

  Later, when we were getting ready for bed, I asked him if he really thought he could fix the phone.

  ‘Of course I can, Lulu. It’ll be easy. We’ll be talking to Dad before you know it,’ he said. ‘You believe in me, don’t you?’

  I shrugged a little but nodded. I wanted to believe that Tiber could do it, although he had been trying to fix it all evening and hadn’t got very far.

  That night, when Tiber was snoring in that funny whistling way he does when he’s deeply asleep, I looked at the moon. It wasn’t full, just a tiny toenail clipping of a moon. I couldn’t see the crater. But I thought hard about Tiber fixing the phone.

  Let Tiber fix the phone, I thought. Let Tiber fix the phone. And then: Let Tiber fix the phone so we can talk to Dad.

  Over and over, until the words seemed to blend together.

  And then I had a thought: I reached for the thing I had found in between the bin and the lamppost and clasped it tightly in my hand.

  Once again I thought I felt a slight movement, but I had to admit that I wasn’t sure it had really happened.

  I held it with a clenched fist and thought again: Please let Tiber fix the phone. Please let Tiber fix the phone. Please let us be able to talk to Dad. Let me hear his voice and know that he’s all right.

  This time there was a definite quiver.

  I quickly looked over at Tiber, who was snoring in the other bed, and the phone that lay beside him. Tiber’s fingers were still touching it; he had been playing with it right up to the moment he fell asleep.

  Nothing about the phone, or the thing, seemed to have changed, and in the end I fell asleep thinking that perhaps
I’d imagined the walnut changing the coin toss; perhaps I hadn’t felt those things move on my palm.

  Perhaps there was no such thing as magic or powers, just the plain old world in front of us and nothing more to it.

  7

  ‘Leelu! It’s Dad! Dad’s on the phone!’

  I tried to shake the fogginess from my head but it refused to shift, hanging in my mind, suspended and still.

  ‘Tiber did it,’ Mum said with a grin.

  ‘I told you I’d fix it!’ Tiber said. His smile was even wider than Mum’s.

  ‘We’ll leave you to it, shall we?’ Mum said. She shut the door behind them.

  Through the little holes at the top of the phone I could distantly hear Dad’s voice. He was saying my name. I grabbed hold of it.

  ‘Dad?’ I heard myself say. I still felt a bit drowsy and disbelieving, but that was what woke me – the sound of my voice, which didn’t sound so sleep-ridden after all but normal, alert and bright.

  ‘Leelu?’ came Dad’s voice from the small black plastic phone.

  ‘It worked,’ I whispered, remembering last night. In spite of all my doubts, it had worked.

  ‘Leelu, are you there? I can’t hear you. Leelu?’

  Dad was the one who’d first called me Leelu. The smudged printed writing on my birth certificate reads Lillian Elvira Olawale, but no one calls me that. When I was very small, Tiber couldn’t say ‘Lillian’ properly, so Dad had just come out with it one day. Since then, it had stuck.

  It’s always Leelu this and Leelu that. Tiber calls me Lulu sometimes, usually when he wants something, but mostly it’s just Leelu.

  ‘I’m here, Dad!’

  ‘Leelu!’ he shouted down the phone to me. He laughed. His chuckling made my heart swell. It made me think of bubbles trickling into the air, leaves dancing in the wind. ‘How are you?’

  His voice sounded so tiny, so very far away. I found it hard to imagine that the words from the phone were actually coming out of the mouth on the dear round face I knew so well.

  ‘We miss you – when are you coming?’

  ‘I’m working on it, Leelu.’