by Polly Ho-Yen
‘And another!’ cried the old man, and he whisked the feather from me, squirrelling it away. ‘You’ve got an ear for this!’
‘Those are the ones that have power. The magic ones,’ I said finally when the old man had taken another feather I’d been lingering over.
‘The wonders,’ he corrected me.
‘But how do I see it? How do I know that?’
‘How many times do I have to tell you? Because you need it,’ he said. ‘You need it, and so it needs you. The magic wants to be wanted and used. It calls out to you because it knows you’ll use it.’
‘And you need it too?’ I asked.
‘I think that’s fairly oblivious,’ said the old man. Suddenly he looked very small among all the things that surrounded him.
‘I am trying,’ he went on, ‘to do something quite splentacular …’ All of a sudden he stopped talking and, sniffing something in the air, turned to a corner of the room and started burrowing amidst the boxes to retrieve something.
‘What are you trying to do?’ I asked.
The old man didn’t bother answering but I didn’t ask again. I had realized by now that he would answer me eventually, if I waited.
It was when he was lining up a bundle of twigs that the reply came.
He looked right at me with his brown, bright eyes as though seeing me for the very first time.
‘I am trying to fly,’ he told me.
26
Mum had started to shout.
I sat in our bedroom with my hands tightly covering my ears, but I could still hear everything she was saying. She’d found Tiber in the chicken shop we’d gone to together and marched him back to the house, holding his arm so tightly that it seemed she would never let go.
I’d got back before they had, only just in time to see them walking down the street, Mum half dragging Tiber alongside her.
‘… and your sister!’ she was shrieking now. ‘How do you think this will look to her?’
I heard Tiber mumble something, and though I couldn’t hear what exactly, I could tell that it made Mum very angry. Her voice rose and she spat out her words in shrieks.
‘You do not … you do not speak like that,’ she shouted. Every loud word hit me like a brick. I tried to block out the sound by holding my pillow over my ears but it didn’t seem to make any difference. All the magic I had felt at the old man’s house seemed to leak away. Nothing glowed; everything looked dull, grey.
If Betsy and her family were back, they would have heard it all. They would be the ones calling us the Noisy Neighbours. I wished I could tell Mum and Tiber what I was thinking; it might make Mum stop shouting for a moment; it might even make them smile. But the shouting continued.
‘I will not accept this … this … this behaviour!’ she yelled.
I wondered if the old man could hear her. Dog was probably looking up, his eyes searching worriedly for the source of the angry voices. I decided that they probably wouldn’t be able to hear because of all the things piled up against the walls. They would block out the sound, stop it from getting through.
I hoped they would.
‘Get up to your room,’ Mum shouted. ‘And stay there!’
Tiber came bursting through the door, as strong as a wind, and slammed it behind him. One of its hinges gave way so it didn’t shut properly and hung crookedly.
‘Stupid!’ he yelled. I don’t know who he was talking about. Mum. The door. Himself.
He threw himself down on his bed, falling like a stone. It creaked and strained with the weight and I wondered if it would break too. Tiber lay so still, face down, that I wondered how he could breathe properly.
But Tiber was not one for staying still, and a moment later he was up again, pacing the room as though it was a cage and he a lion.
‘Are you all right?’ I asked him.
He looked over as though he had only just noticed I was there.
‘I’m just … I’m just …’ Tiber said, but he was shaking as he spoke, too angry to find the right words. Then he started speaking so fast I didn’t think he would ever stop.
‘They didn’t ask us, did they? Didn’t ask us if we wanted to come here, did they? Didn’t ask us if we wanted to leave Dad behind. We wouldn’t have left him, Leelu, would we? If we’d been given the choice, we wouldn’t have gone without him, would we? You miss him as much as I do, don’t you? I see you looking out at the sky every night. You’re looking for the moon, aren’t you? Because Dad told you that stupid thing about being together on the moon. But none of it’s true. He’s not really with you when you look at the moon. He’s far away, he’s back at home. Where we should be.’
‘Stop it,’ I said. ‘Stop it.’ I wished I could block out his shouting, like I’d wished to block out Mum’s before.
Just then, Mum came into the bedroom. She looked at me, seeing the tears that had started to build in my eyes.
‘Don’t you go upsetting Leelu now,’ she told Tiber, and pulled me out of bed and out of the room.
She tried to shut the door behind us, but because of the hinge it still wouldn’t close properly and got stuck on the carpet.
‘It’s OK, Leelu,’ Mum said to me when we were downstairs. She brought both hands up to her face for a moment, as though hiding from me or unable to look at me. I thought she might start to cry. But then she brought her hands down again and stared hard at the wall. ‘It’ll be OK,’ she said in the end.
She made me a drink of squash and found some digestives in the cupboard, which I ate because I didn’t know what to say. Mum ate one too, and then there was just the sound of us crunching the powdery, dust-like biscuits.
I drank my squash, although Mum had put too much syrup in and it tasted very sweet. ‘Do you feel better?’ she asked me after we had eaten two biscuits each.
I looked at her over the rim of my glass and nodded ever so slightly.
I sipped at the too-sweet drink and I didn’t tell her what I was really thinking.
I didn’t tell her that she’d been shouting just as loudly as Tiber.
I didn’t tell her that it wasn’t Tiber who had upset me.
I didn’t tell her that it was because what he’d said was true.
If anyone had asked us, we would not have left Dad behind.
27
The next night, almost as soon as Mum had gone to work, Tiber took the keys and went to open the front door.
‘Where are you going?’ I asked him.
‘I’ve got to get out, Leelu,’ he said. ‘I feel trapped in here. I’ll make sure I’m back before she is. She’ll never know. You won’t say anything, will you?’
All day, Mum and Tiber hadn’t spoken to each other properly. They’d fall silent if the other came into the room; they wouldn’t even look at one another. It was as though they didn’t even exist for each other any more. There was a thick silence, a tension strung across the air, before they started talking to me in overloud voices about nothing important.
‘Just make sure you’re back before she is,’ I said. ‘And be careful’ – remembering why Mum had shouted the night before. Part of me didn’t want Tiber to leave, but then, with him out, I could go and see the old man again, unnoticed too. I wanted to go. Partly because I hadn’t asked all the questions I had for him, but also because he still needed help. I remembered the rotting smells in the kitchen, the encrusted plates piled up. No one ever visited him. I wondered if he was lonely sitting in his funny sitting room with all those things he had collected for company.
As soon as Tiber had disappeared down the street, hands in pockets, head down as though he was worried that Mum might jump out at him, I left too. I’d found a way to stop the door from locking when I closed it by twisting a little button. I tested it out a few times to make sure that it worked and then slipped across to the old man’s front door.
‘Hello,’ I called through the letter box. ‘It’s me; it’s Leelu.’ I didn’t even know his name and I had never told him mine, but surely he’
d recognize my voice.
I could see Dog running up and down the hallway. He pressed his wet nose to my fingers, which were peeking through the letter box. Saying hello.
Behind him the old man was walking towards the door.
‘Come in, come in,’ he said, a little impatiently, when he opened it. He hurried back to the sitting room, with Dog following, tail held high.
The room seemed even more chaotic than before. There were so many piles on the floor that there was hardly anywhere to stand. I tiptoed round the edge and perched on a little stool that I spotted amidst the piles.
‘I’m trying something; I’m trying sums and things,’ the old man said.
‘You’re trying to fly?’ I asked.
‘Well, yes, that’s the wonder. And this might be the right mix of stuff. This could be it. Do you want to stay?’ he said. ‘It might not work.’
‘Yes,’ I said, and then, ‘Don’t worry if it doesn’t work. One of my teachers at school says that mistakes are magic. They help you learn.’
Ms Doyle was always saying that, and though at first I hadn’t understood what she meant, now I was getting the hang of it. If I got something wrong, Ms Doyle and I would work out what it was I didn’t understand, and that helped me to remember the right way for the next time.
‘OK,’ said the old man. ‘Here we go.’
He gathered the neat piles of things – sticks covered in light green fuzz, moss, dried-out leaves, pine cones, walnuts – into one big mess, and then, kneeling down because there was so much of it, he brought his arms around it all and started whispering.
He spoke so quietly that I couldn’t make out what he was saying. They were disjointed half-words that I could not decipher.
The mass of things twitched, vibrated, and then, like the ball of moss on the night of the storm, it started to shake more violently.
The old man struggled to keep his arms around it. He held on to it desperately as though it was struggling in his embrace like a squirming creature that was trying to escape. Then a look came over him in a wave, one of total tranquillity, and his whole face relaxed.
It didn’t seem like anything was happening, but when I looked at his feet, I saw, in between them and the floor, the smallest of gaps. He was floating above the carpet, just by a whisker. If I hadn’t looked closely, I wouldn’t have seen it.
I looked away and then back again, unable to believe that what I was seeing was true.
Then, like a helium balloon released into the air, the old man began to float upwards.
Not just a little: he rose further and further off the floor.
He rose past my nose so I had to tilt my head upwards to look at him, then further still.
Up, up he went as he held the mass of things in his hands.
He laughed as he rose. It made me think of Dad laughing like it couldn’t be contained; laughter that made you feel brighter.
I heard myself laughing out loud too, just like Dad, astonished and bewildered and amazed. I was light with excitement, as though I too was rising upwards like a stream of bubbles that played in the air.
When he had almost reached the ceiling, the old man let go of the bundle of stuff, and then, very suddenly, he dropped to the floor with a loud thud, disturbing a pile of boxes and causing a tower of jars to topple and crash around him.
It was the same crashing sound I’d heard the previous evening.
I ran to his side once more. ‘Are you all right?’ I said urgently. ‘Can you hear me?’
He was muttering something, and I had to bring my ear close to the floor to hear what he was saying.
‘Did you see me?’ he asked. ‘Did you see me fly?’
‘Yes, I did,’ I said. ‘You did it! You flew. For a little bit anyway.’
‘I just can’t make it last for a song. There’s something up with the mix of wonders. I’m missing something.’
‘Are you hurt? Can you get up?’
‘I’m all right,’ he said a little impatiently, but he looked very white.
‘Maybe you shouldn’t try to fly again unless I’m here to help. In case you hurt yourself.’
‘Maybe,’ the old man said. ‘Maybe.’
‘What do you think you are missing from the mix? Do you want me to help you find it?’ I asked.
He didn’t answer at first but looked like he was thinking hard about something. Then he said, ‘Yes, please. I’m not sure I’m going to be able to find it on my ownsome. And then it might be too late. Tick-tock, tick-tock.’
‘OK …’ I hesitated over what to call him. ‘What’s your name? I’m called Leelu.’
‘Leelu,’ he said as though he had always known what I was called. ‘My name’s the same as it was before.’
‘What was it before, then?’
‘Bo,’ he said. ‘My name’s Bo.’
28
‘What’s going on, little fish?’
Betsy was at our front door, looking even browner than she had before.
It had been two weeks since we’d seen each other, and suddenly there seemed too much to tell her, too much that had happened while she was away. And not all of it was good. I felt my voice catch in my throat, and for a moment I thought I might start to cry.
‘Come on, let’s play,’ Betsy said, taking in my face. ‘No problem made worse by football. Apart from broken leg. Do you have broken leg?’
I smiled and shook my head.
‘Come on then!’ she said. ‘We have to keep warm in this grey, cold place. It’s so cold here after Colombia! But we can bring the warmth ourselves, hey?’
Betsy wanted us to practise dribbling and passing the ball to one another, and Mum said we could play in the small concrete park just across the road from our house as long as we stayed where she could see us.
‘We have to kick right to each other,’ Betsy insisted. ‘So the person does not have to move even a little bit.’
I was terrible at first, but after a while we became quite good at kicking the ball straight to each other so that we did not have to move even a little bit. When Betsy was satisfied that we were doing it well enough, we stopped. She brought out some cake that she had brought back from Colombia and wanted me to try.
I dusted the sweet crumbs from my mouth and told her everything that had happened.
I told her about Tiber disappearing on the night of the storm; how he and Mum were fighting all the time; and also, of course, about Bo.
Betsy’s eyes bulged when I told her about him stopping the storm and flying in his overcrowded little sitting room.
‘But someone cannot fly. Aeroplanes fly. And birds. And superheroes. It’s not real, someone flying?’ She cocked her head to the side.
‘I’m telling you, Betsy. It really did happen.’ My voice came out louder than I’d meant. ‘He was using the wonders to do it. Just like I used them to make things happen. But flying is much harder: you have to have the right mix of wonders. He just floated up off the ground; he flew!’
‘OK, OK, little fish. I don’t not believe you; it’s just that I never see this before. But if you say it’s true, I know it’s true.’
‘It is true,’ I said. ‘I know it sounds like it can’t be real but I saw it happen, I swear to you.’
‘I believe. I believe you.’ Betsy suddenly reached out for my hand and squeezed it tightly.
‘Can I meet Bo?’ she said. ‘I want to have the power too. I could use against my brothers when they gang up on me.’
I told her that I would go and see him once Mum had left for work, after Tiber had gone out with his friends.
‘I come tonight,’ she said. ‘My father is at work. My grandma will not notice if I am careful.’
We passed the ball to one another a couple more times, but at first Betsy kept missing the ball. Once we were in the swing of it, though, we sent the ball right to each other’s feet – and then we went our separate ways, arranging to meet up later that evening. Betsy was going to listen out for our door slamming tw
ice – once for Mum leaving and a second time for Tiber – and then come round so we could go and see Bo.
It was very cold that night. I wished I was wearing something warmer as we knocked gently on Bo’s front door.
I heard the heavy tread of Dog coming along the hall and knew that Bo would not be far behind.
‘This is Betsy,’ I told him when he opened the door. ‘She’s come to help as well.’ He did not seem surprised to see her with me.
‘Hello, Mr Bo,’ Betsy said.
‘I’m not sure if it’s going to work tonight,’ Bo said as though we had asked him a question. ‘It doesn’t feel quite right. I’m forgetting something, but I can’t remember what it is I’m forgetting.’
‘Don’t worry. We’ll help,’ I said.
‘Yes, we help,’ Betsy echoed.
Bo directed us to one of the upstairs rooms to find more wonders that could still be used. The rooms were small but were made smaller still because every wall was lined with boxes right up to the ceiling.
‘My, Mr Bo,’ Betsy said. ‘Where does he get all this stuff?’
‘I’m not sure.’
We started looking at boxes and sifting through their contents. I quickly found a walnut that I knew would work, but Betsy was having trouble.
‘I don’t know what I look for,’ she said.
I tried to explain about the glow, but then I saw her discarding a pine cone that I saw very clearly would work, and realized that she just couldn’t see it.
‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Let’s go back downstairs. Let’s see if Bo will let us use some of these things.’
As before, he had made piles on the floor. He was counting them and then turning a thing over in his hands, carefully inspecting it.
‘Bo? Bo?’ I said. ‘Can we show Betsy how to use the things? She’s not seen it before.’
‘It’s still not quite right,’ he said. ‘I don’t think I’ll fly tonight. You can use the wonders I’m not using.’ He gestured to a small pile of things he’d put to one side. ‘You won’t be able to do all that much. They’re not that powerful. They come from a bit away from the middle of the place. A little to the left of the right.’