by Polly Ho-Yen
‘So some wonders hold more power than others?’ I asked, ignoring Bo’s riddles.
‘Of course, a horse,’ he said. ‘That’s why I have to use certain things to make me fly, but this little acorn, well, this could take those feathers for a spin.’
‘Show us, Mr Bo,’ Betsy said. ‘Show us the feather spin.’
‘All right,’ he said. He took the acorn in his hand and whispered to himself. This time, of course, we didn’t see it twitch in his fist, but I thought I could tell when it did because his expression changed a little.
All of a sudden the pile of feathers flew into the air like they were the flock of birds they had come from.
They flew upwards, one after the other, perfectly synchronized, and then fanned out around Betsy and me so we were surrounded by darting blurs of white and grey and black. Then they fell around us, gently resting the end of each tip upon another to make a circle of feathers on the floor.
‘Wow! Mr Bo!’ Betsy squealed delightedly. ‘That was something!’
‘That was nothing, nothing,’ Bo said, puffing out his chest a bit as though he was secretly pleased.
‘Leelu, why don’t you do something?’ He passed me another acorn.
I suddenly felt nervous. I held the acorn carefully in my fist and then thought with all my might. Feeling the little twist of movement, I opened my eyes to see the piles of leaves whipping around and around on themselves in fury. Like a tornado that spun and spun. The spiral of leaves travelled across the room and around each of us, before stacking themselves on top of one another in a teetering, fragile pile in Betsy’s open hand.
‘Leelu! That’s amazing!’ she cried out.
‘That was quite beautiful,’ Bo added.
And I – I couldn’t stop smiling.
29
Much to her annoyance, Betsy couldn’t make the things do anything for her.
Bo said simply that she didn’t need to – that was why it didn’t happen – although it didn’t stop Betsy from trying. Every time we went to Bo’s house she spent some portion of the evening holding the last acorn, fist clenched and eyes closed, her cheeks flushed red, trying to make something fly.
The weather became colder and colder.
The season was changing.
As though affected by the weather, Mum seemed greyer too. Like the overcast sky, promising nothing more than a cold wind. She and Tiber spoke a little more now – they’d stopped ignoring each other completely – but there was still a distance between them. Each time they talked Mum’s face became pinched and drained of colour, much like the trees outside, which had shed their leaves, their bare branches growing in sharp angles.
Whenever I was outside I had to be wrapped up in jumpers, coats, scarves and gloves; it was difficult to move, being so bundled up. But nothing seemed to keep the cold from whistling down my neck and settling in my bones. The feeling of stiffness, of tightness, stayed with me, and I ached even more for the warmth of home, where the sun’s rays beat down upon you, urging you to relax, to open up, to slow in its fierce heat.
It was such a long time since we’d seen Dad.
It was the end of summer when we’d first arrived here, but now the days were darker, colder; I couldn’t ignore how long it had been. Despite Mum and Dad’s protests that he would come soon, months had passed, and still no one knew when it would be.
‘Stop asking me about your father!’ Mum had exploded one day when I questioned her.
She stepped away from me and put her hands on the kitchen sink, letting her head drop. She looked like she was trembling. A moment later she turned back to me.
‘I’m sorry – I didn’t mean to shout. But there’s nothing I can do about it.’
‘I just wish he was here,’ I said.
‘I know,’ Mum said. ‘I know. I miss him too.’
There was so much more I wanted to say. I wanted to ask why we had come without him. Why it was taking so long. What was it that Mum could do nothing about? But I didn’t want her to yell again. She was like that so often these days. Silent, grey and unspeaking, and then shouting at the top of her voice as if everything was always boiling away just under the surface. Ready, at any moment, to spill over.
Although I still missed Dad as much as I had when we first arrived, I realized I didn’t have as much time to miss him as I once did. Tiber said we were getting used to him not being there and that it wasn’t a good thing. Mum would get upset when she heard Tiber saying that, and Tiber would cock his head to one side and reply, ‘But it’s the truth, isn’t it?’
Ms Doyle told me that I was doing really well, and though I felt I was improving when I was with her, every time I returned to my class I wasn’t so sure.
Mrs Winters was making us practise for the tests we had to take at the end of the year. We had to sit in silence when we did them. Whenever we did the practice tests everyone else seemed very busy writing. They scribbled knowingly, and I came to hate the sound of their pencils scratching away. It was the sound of everyone knowing what to do, while I felt clueless; I just didn’t understand.
I was getting better though. My marks began to improve, slowly at first, and then one day we were taking a test and I realized that I hadn’t been listening to the others writing; I’d been too busy working on my answers. After that, the dread I felt at the work lessened, although I still felt shy around my classmates. I didn’t know how I could possibly start talking to them after I’d been so quiet all this time.
It was different when I was at Bo’s with Betsy. Bo was excited by all the wonders I’d been able to find, and Betsy was even trying to teach him to play football.
‘No magic!’ she demanded when Bo used one of the walnuts to make the football jump from his foot and dance across the ceiling. It wasn’t the best place to play football because there was so much stuff around, but it was good that Betsy could show us something that she was good at while we were able to show her our powers.
Every time Tiber left the house I would go over to Bo’s. When her father was working nights, Betsy would come too. I tried not to think how angry Mum would be if she knew that I was sneaking out. I told myself that she would not know anything was different.
Tiber went out most evenings. I never saw him come back, and I still had no idea what he was doing on those long, cold nights. One morning, though, I saw him playing around with the phone – but when he noticed me, he sat up and quickly stuffed it under his pillow. He made a great show of picking at one of the stickers that had been welded to the headboard of his bed by a previous owner. He had a detached look on his face that reminded me of the hard concrete buildings that surrounded us. I pretended not to notice anything and delivered the message from Mum that breakfast was ready.
I sneaked back when we were all eating, pretending I needed to go to the toilet, and discovered what it was he was hiding from me. He had a brand-new phone, black, shiny, impossibly thin. It was light and cool in my hands. I covered the sleek screen with my fingerprints, which I tried to wipe off with my sleeve. I knew it was expensive – I couldn’t understand how Tiber could possibly have paid for it. I stuck it back under his pillow, but when I looked for it later, it had gone. I didn’t see it again, and though part of me wanted to forget that I had ever seen it, another part couldn’t leave it alone. How had Tiber got hold of a phone like that? And where had it gone now?
After I had found the phone I thought Tiber looked a bit different. There was something about him that had changed, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.
Mum had taken on more shifts and worked every night now, even over the weekend. When I got to see her, she was so tired after being up all night that I sometimes felt like she was a different person.
She was slower at doing things, more tearful. She would get upset over little accidents, like when she knocked over a mug and it smashed on the floor. When I spoke to her, it was like she couldn’t hear me properly or wasn’t really listening. It made me feel a bit like I had at school
; like there was glass or an invisible line between us.
I felt more like myself when I was with Bo and Betsy.
‘Now, the walnuts,’ Bo said to us one evening. It was almost dark by the time I got back from school now. Bo always lit lots and lots of candles instead of using electric lights, and we sat bathed in their warm glow. ‘The walnuts are from right in the middle. The very, very centre.’
He talked like this a lot and we didn’t really understand what he meant. Betsy and I looked at each other, confused.
‘What do you mean?’ I asked. ‘The middle of what?’
‘Of the place,’ he said.
‘What place?’
‘The one I’ve been telling you all about.’ Bo laughed. The sound was light, tinkling like a bell.
We had been going round like this in circles for days.
‘Where do you mean?’ Betsy asked.
‘The place, the place.’ His eyes twinkled.
‘That’s where you got the things from?’ I asked.
Bo nodded. ‘The things come from the place. They slip between the crackles and the holes. I collect up everything I can and try to work out what is a wonder and what is not.’
‘Where is this place, Mr Bo?’ Betsy asked again.
‘It can be close. But it can be far. Depending on where you are, of course,’ he said.
Betsy and I both sighed in frustration. Sometimes, just as Bo seemed about to tell us something, he would veer off in another direction where we couldn’t follow.
Bo revealed things about the place that made it seem impossible that it could be real.
He told us that the trees could move; that they used their branches like arms and could pick you up so you were far, far off the ground. High above everything else.
He told us that there were little lights floating in the air around you like dandelion seeds. They followed you about, and the more you walked, the more you collected, so you could always find the path you’d taken by the trail of lights behind you. I imagined the lights zigzagging and looping, making a whirling, dazzling scribble.
He spoke of a great walnut tree that was at the centre of it all. The most powerful things came from close to the walnut tree, and the further you got from it, the less powerful things were.
The place was full of birds, although you could only rarely see them because they were incredibly shy and hid among the trees, out of sight. Bo had only ever seen one there, but he had collected their feathers of course.
Bo had taught me how to look at the things he had collected; I could tell which were more powerful by the way they glowed. It was to do with the brightness of the glow, the feel of its shine.
We were getting ready for Bo to try to fly again. He wanted to find a place outside – he thought being closer to trees and nature would help, so on some nights we went out with Dog to try and find the perfect spot.
‘Why do you want to fly, Mr Bo?’ Betsy asked one day after we’d looked at some trees planted in a circle which Bo had dismissed because they were too close to the houses. Looking at the buildings that surrounded us, I wondered if we would ever find the right place; I always felt overlooked, wherever we were in this city.
‘Because I want to go home, of course, a horse,’ Bo answered.
‘Where do you come from, Bo? Where’s home?’ I asked.
‘I come from a long way away, a journey and a day.’
‘Like us!’ Betsy exclaimed.
‘I suppose. But you know the way back to your place, don’t you?’
Betsy giggled. ‘Well, our parents know. But maybe, Mr Bo, there is a more simple way. I go back home to my country on an aeroplane.’
‘There’s no way other than the way I came. At least, I don’t think there is. I left it a long time ago, and I’ve been trying to fly home ever since. But I definitely didn’t come by aeroplane,’ Bo replied. ‘Flying is the only way I can get my bones home. And Dog’s too – don’t forget about Dog.’
Betsy reached down to rub one of Dog’s ears; she looked as though she was pondering something.
‘Will Dog fly too?’ I asked.
‘Of course, a horse,’ Bo said. ‘I certainly can’t carry him all that way back.’ He made a humphing sort of sound. ‘I’d never get home.’
‘Well, Mr Bo,’ Betsy said. ‘We have to get you both flying then.’
30
‘Leelu, Leelu, wake up,’ Mum said to me urgently. ‘Have you seen your brother?’
I shook myself awake and looked over at Tiber’s bed. His duvet was still neatly pulled up. He had not slept there. Mum’s eyes were wide with panic.
‘Mum? You’re back?’
‘They sent me home, said I had the flu. But forget about that. Tiber – where is he? When did you last see him?’
‘He’s gone out,’ I said. I knew there was no point lying now.
‘What do you mean, gone out?’
‘He … He sometimes goes out when you go to work. He always comes back.’
‘Where does he go? Wait – you knew about this?’ Mum’s voice rose.
‘I’m sorry, Mum,’ I said. ‘I just … I couldn’t stop him. And he always comes back. He’s there when I wake up.’
Mum exhaled heavily. ‘I don’t believe this,’ she said. ‘I’m calling the police.’
‘He’ll come back, Mum,’ I said again. I wiped my eyes properly to wake myself up. ‘He’ll be here really soon. He always comes back.’
‘How long? How long has this been going on?’
‘Erm, for a little while. Since you started working nights, I suppose.’
‘So from the very beginning then. What time? What time does he come home?’
‘I don’t know. I’m always asleep.’
‘OK, fine,’ Mum said. She sounded dangerously calm. ‘Go back to sleep.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘I am going to wait for him to come home,’ she said. She sneezed violently five times without stopping, and I remembered that she had come back from work because she wasn’t well.
‘Are you OK?’ I asked her, but she didn’t answer and left the room. I could hear the anger in every footstep as she stamped down the stairs. Don’t be cross with me, I wanted to shout. Tiber is the one who went out.
But I knew that I was not being truthful, not even to myself. I dreaded to think what would happen if Mum found out that I went to see Bo every night when Tiber left the house. Even though I was perfectly safe, I knew that Mum wouldn’t like it and would stop me from going.
I was fully awake now. Outside it was as dark as it could get, with the orange streetlights that never went out. I had the feeling that it was still a long time until morning.
It looked chilly on the street, the trees bare for winter. I wondered, as I imagined Mum did, where Tiber would go on such a cold, dark night.
He had always been an adventurer. Dad used to tell us that as soon as Tiber could walk he would go exploring.
‘He’s just worked out what his legs are for,’ he would say. ‘I turned my back for maybe a minute and he was gone. I couldn’t find him anywhere. You know where he was? Outside, down the garden.’
Tiber would let Dad ruffle his hair but he’d mock-complain, ‘Not the hair! Not the hair!’ though I think he liked Dad doing it and telling that story. It was about who Tiber was.
I slipped out of bed. It was chilly, so I pulled on a pair of socks and my school jumper, which was lying on the floor. I tiptoed out of the bedroom and looked down the stairs. There were no lights on. Mum must have been sitting in the dark.
I sat on the top step of the narrow staircase and hugged my arms around me to keep warm. Part of me wanted to go down to Mum, to climb onto her lap like Tiber and I used to, but I knew that, even if she hadn’t been so angry with me, I was too big now; I wouldn’t fit.
We waited there in the darkness, me and Mum, for what felt like hours and hours. Maybe it was because it was cold and the lights weren’t on that it felt so long. Time stretche
d out in front of me like a black pool; it had no end, no edges.
Finally I heard Tiber’s key scratching at the lock and heard his light tread on the carpet. He closed the door softly and started to climb the stairs, stretching out his legs so he could take three steps at a time.
He saw me sitting at the top, but just as he started to say my name, Mum spoke.
Her voice cut through everything.
‘Why bother going to bed?’ she said.
‘Mum,’ Tiber stammered.
‘Yes? You have something else to say to me?’
‘I … I … always come home.’
‘Home? This isn’t a home to you. You don’t treat it like one. Why bother coming back at all?’
‘Maybe I shouldn’t,’ Tiber said, although his voice trembled a little. I could see him staring at Mum, frozen where he was when she first spoke, halfway up the stairs. Then something seemed to release inside him, like the air escaping from a balloon, and he turned and sat on the steps. Crumpled, defeated.
‘Where have you been?’ Mum said quietly.
‘Just out.’
‘Out? Where is that? What do you mean, Tiber? Out? Tell me the truth.’
‘I meet up with friends,’ Tiber said. ‘Friends from school.’
‘At this time of night? What are you doing with these so-called friends?’
‘You know, just stuff.’
‘No, I don’t know,’ Mum said. ‘I don’t know you any more. My Tiber would not do this to me, to Leelu. You were meant to be looking after your little sister. What if she needed you? What if she went out looking for you?’
I held my breath. I wondered if Tiber would tell Mum about the night of the storm when he’d found me outside.
He hung his head. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
This was the bit where Mum would say she was sorry too. She would say she was sorry that she’d moved us here, that we’d had to leave Dad behind, that she hadn’t been here because she was always at work. But that was not what she said.
‘I am disgusted by your behaviour.’