by Polly Ho-Yen
Tiber snapped. ‘Disgusted by my behaviour. What about your behaviour? You never knew I wasn’t here because you weren’t here.’
‘That’s neither here nor there,’ Mum said. ‘It’s the only job I could get …’
Back home Mum used to work in a law office. She wasn’t one of the lawyers, but Dad said that without her the whole place would fall apart and that she could have been a lawyer if she wanted to. Whenever he said this, Mum would sigh as though she wanted him to change the subject, and when I asked her why, she would say something that didn’t seem to answer the question.
‘Sometimes you have to start looking forwards, not back,’ Mum would say, in a final sort of way that I knew meant she thought there was nothing more to say on the matter.
Now, in the face of Tiber’s rage, which seemed to shoot around the room, knocking against the walls, ricocheting off corners, Mum continued to plead: ‘If I could find something that didn’t mean I had to be out every night, I would have taken it. I would be here if I could.’
As she spoke, tears started to spring from Mum’s eyes, but Tiber was exploding with anger now. I imagined it like the fireworks I had seen bursting in the sky in every direction on bonfire night. They had come one after the other, like gunshots, filling the air with their colour and their noise.
I had been at Bo’s house, and we had hugged Dog to comfort him. He trembled at the sound; his whole body a shaking mass of grey.
‘You left Dad behind,’ Tiber shouted. ‘You made us leave him.’
‘It was for the bes—’
‘No! No!’ he screamed. ‘It’s not – it’s not for the best. It’s for the worst. We should never have come here. But we are here now, and I … I’m making the best I can of it.’
With that, he ran out of the house.
‘Tiber! Tiber! Come back, come home!’ Mum shouted and shouted.
Over and over.
He didn’t come back.
31
Mum picked me up from school the day after Tiber left and pretended that everything was normal. But she jumped at every sound and kept looking around as we walked. Later, I realized she was looking out for Tiber.
Her flu had got worse. Her eyes and nose were red, and she sneezed in a way that made her whole body jolt and start.
‘Where’s Tiber?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know, Leelu. I’m not sure. He went to school. But he wouldn’t come home with me. He said he’d be back later, whatever that means.’
The house seemed very empty without him stretched across the sofa. I used to hate it when he did that because it didn’t leave room for anyone else. But now, sitting there next to Mum, I wished he was there, taking up all the space.
‘I’m staying home tonight,’ Mum told me as she cooked dinner. She was making her special jollof rice, and the smell should have made me feel better but my stomach turned over. I thought instead of Bo, and Betsy waiting to hear the door slams of Mum and Tiber leaving.
A veil of mystery surrounded Tiber now. The friends he spoke of seemed like dark, shadowy figures. I wondered, not for the first time, how he’d got hold of the expensive phone I’d found. Had he stolen it? But from where? Surely he didn’t have the money to buy it. And I remembered how differently he acted now. How distant he was when he was with us, like he was somewhere else. His new friends had taken him away from us – or perhaps, I thought, it was just Tiber himself who had done that.
And I couldn’t stop worrying about Mum. She was pretending that everything was normal when it felt like it was falling apart. I noticed that she kept having to stop cooking to hold her head in her hands.
‘It’s just a headache,’ she reassured me as I hovered around her anxiously. ‘It’s a splitting one.’
I hated it when Mum said that about her headaches. Like the pain was so bad, her head was going to crack and break into two pieces.
Then we heard Tiber open the door.
He was there in front of us, and for a moment he smiled at me. Like everything was OK really. He was the same smiling joker. My big brother.
I ran over and threw my arms around him. I felt his close around me tightly for just a second. But when I released him, I could see that he had stopped smiling. He and Mum were staring at each other, their faces as blank and solid as a wall.
Finally Mum spoke. One word.
‘Hungry?’
Tiber nodded.
Mum made up three plates. I was glad to hear the comforting kitchen sounds of the spoon scraping along the saucepan, the plates chiming against each other as she unstacked them. It was almost like things were normal again.
Then we all sat eating, balancing the plates on our knees. Tiber ate everything on his plate, but I could only manage some of mine and Mum didn’t eat very much at all. Forkfuls of food almost made it to her mouth, and then it was like she had forgotten what she was doing and they ended up back on her plate again.
It was the quietest dinner I could remember us having. There were only the sounds of our chomping and chewing, forks knocking against plates and Mum’s occasional sneezes and coughs.
‘You not going to work?’ Tiber said in the end, a scraped-clean plate in front of him.
‘Not tonight,’ Mum said. ‘I’m here. I thought we could try and call Dad. See if we can get hold of him.’
‘OK,’ Tiber said.
But when we tried to ring him, it went straight to voicemail, so we left a rather strange message: we all went quiet and Mum just asked him to call us back and then Tiber said that we missed him. Before I was able to say anything, the message time had run out.
It seemed like the only way Mum and Tiber could get along was if they didn’t speak to each other much. The next night Mum didn’t say anything as, still off work, she watched him leave the house to see his friends. And Tiber didn’t make any comment when Mum said that she was going back to work because she was feeling better.
Mum was worried about leaving me, now she knew that Tiber went out and that I would be on my own. I had to look away when she told me not to answer the door, wrote down her number at work for emergencies and asked me again and again if I was sure I didn’t mind.
‘We really need the money,’ Mum said. ‘Otherwise I’d never leave you alone, but …’ She couldn’t finish the sentence and left it dangling there. So I didn’t have to lie to her about going round to see Bo with Betsy; I just looked the other way and Mum thought that I was upset with her.
‘I’m sorry, Leelu. I don’t know what else to say,’ she said quietly, and then she left for work and closed the door behind her carefully so that it didn’t slam as much as normal.
It was like it always was, except that no one was speaking to anyone else.
32
The next time I saw Bo it was just me; Betsy hadn’t come round that night and I wondered if her dad had come back.
Bo didn’t come to the door when I arrived. It had been left ajar for me. I closed it behind me and wondered how long it had been like that.
Some of the piles in the hallway had fallen over, so there wasn’t room to walk past any more. I tucked them away as best I could, but they were teetering and fragile and looked like they might overbalance if you touched them.
I called out, ‘I’m here, Bo. I’m just piling the things up – they’ve fallen down.’
‘Hello, Leelu,’ he said when I reached him. He was sitting a little stiffly in his armchair, his eyes unusually bright. Dog was pleased to see me; he stood up and walked round in circles for a bit and then sat down again. He did it three times in a row.
‘Hi, Bo, how’s it going?’ I said, ruffling the sticky-up fur on Dog’s head from side to side the way he likes. It was unusual not to see Bo springing around the house, rummaging and searching for things.
‘Oh, you know. Sew and sew, needle and thread,’ said Bo. ‘Only … only …’
I looked at him.
He spoke very slowly. ‘I had a bit of a stumble this morning.’
‘
Bo!’ I cried out, and went to his side. ‘Did you try to fly again?’
‘I had to, Leelu,’ he said, a bit gruffly. ‘I know you said to wait for you and Betsy, but I was sure it was going to work. I even wrote you a note.’
There was a piece of paper with the message: Gone flying. Gone home. Bo & Dog. He’d done a drawing of himself flying through the sky.
‘I’m sure I’ll feel right as raindrops soon,’ he said.
‘Can’t you use one of the wonders to help you?’ I asked him anxiously.
‘It only lasts for a little, piffly bit and I can’t keep doing it,’ he said. ‘I’ll be betterer soon, I know I will. It’s just that I wasn’t able to take Dog for his walk.’ Dog looked up, his ears pricked. ‘And you know how much he likes his walk. I wondered if you and Betsy might be able to take him out for a quick run-around. Not far – just to stretch his legs.’
It was night outside already, and though I would have done anything to help Bo, I couldn’t help feeling frightened at the thought of walking the dark streets alone. Bo looked at me anxiously, his face even whiter than usual. Just then, he shifted creakily in his chair, and though he tried to stifle it, I heard him cry out in pain. He stared down at his legs in alarm, and then a look of tiredness, of defeat, came across his face. His expression crumpled in on itself like a dried-out, brown leaf that has become curly with age.
‘Of course I will,’ I said quickly. I thought, I won’t be on my own – I’ll have Dog. ‘I’m not sure where Betsy is, but I can do it.’
‘Thank you, Leelu,’ said Bo. ‘I told Dog that you would. Didn’t I, Dog? I told you not to worry because Leelu would look after you.’
‘I’ll go now,’ I said, before I could change my mind. ‘Come on, Dog.’
Dog got up immediately and bounded towards the door. It was like he had fully understood everything Bo and I had just said.
We walked in the direction of the park. Dog didn’t really need to wear a collar and lead, but Bo had told me that he had to have them because otherwise people were funny about it.
We stopped at a tree, a street corner and a lamppost that Dog liked the smell of. I tried to run a bit to give him more exercise, but I couldn’t see round the corners in the darkness, so I slowed down.
The streets were narrow, and bent this way and that like a maze. We came out by a large block with lots of windows. Some were dark, some were lit up, but I felt like I was being watched through each one.
I was about to turn back when I glimpsed a group of people; one stood out among the others. It was something about the way they moved that stopped me. A tall, thin figure. Leaning forward in such a way that I knew for certain it was Tiber.
I stopped. I wanted to run up to him. I wanted to look into the eyes of his friends, but I couldn’t see their faces because they were wearing hoods pulled up over their heads.
They were laughing about something. The sound seemed to jump towards me and hit me in the face. I realized that they were laughing at me.
‘What is that, a wolf?’
‘Walkies! Walkies!’
‘Dog Girl!’ one of them called out. ‘What you staring at?’
They all began to shout that: ‘Dog Girl, Dog Girl!’ in a chant.
Dog began to whine a bit and pulled gently on his lead to go back the way we’d come.
‘Tiber,’ I whispered. I watched him closely. He was still just a shape, but I was sure it was him.
‘Hey, can I have your dog?’ another of his friends shouted. ‘We need a guard dog.’
There was more laughing. I strained my ears to hear Tiber’s chuckle, so like Dad’s, among the others.
‘Yeah, let’s take the dog,’ said the one who’d first called me Dog Girl. ‘We could train him up. To attack.’
I looked down at Dog. He was standing very still, his eyes fixed on them.
‘Let’s go, Dog,’ I said, and we turned away.
‘Where you going?’
‘Dog Girl, come back.’
‘Hey, come back.’
I heard footsteps behind me and turned to see that Tiber and his friends had started to follow us.
‘Run, Dog, run!’ I said.
My feet pounded the pavement. I heard them slapping down hard on the concrete. They sounded desperate, frantic. And beyond them I could hear the footsteps and shouts of the figures chasing us. They were getting louder; they were getting nearer.
My breath caught as I tried to run faster. Dog ran with an ease I did not possess. His stride lengthened, he accelerated, and I struggled to keep up with him.
I could feel his pull on the lead, and though I tried to keep hold of him, suddenly he was free.
‘Dog!’ I cried, but it came out as a gasp. He bounded lightly away from me, his lead trailing on the ground, and the shouts and jeers of the boys seemed to surround me.
I knew it would be only moments before they caught up with me.
I reached into my pocket. There was only one acorn left that wasn’t used up. I rubbed it, and then clenched it tight.
Make me as fast as Dog. Let me outrun everyone.
It didn’t feel like I was running any faster; if anything, I was putting in less effort now. My breath came easily and my feet flew across the ground, my stride lengthening and extending, as though my legs had grown.
The shouts got quieter and quieter; if I’d turned round, I knew I would have seen the boys far behind. They couldn’t keep up with me. I had outrun them all.
But I didn’t want to look back. I didn’t want to see Tiber’s face. As Dog charged on ahead of me, I kept running. Only when I got back to the corner leading to our street did I begin to slow down. Dog loped back to me. I picked up his lead limply, but then I collapsed onto him. He was solid beneath me, panting and warm.
He let me hold on to him, my fingers tangled in his fur. I felt weak now; slack and empty. Dog turned and looked up at me with those gentle, gentle eyes. He nudged me lightly. His nose felt wet and cold.
Come on, he seemed to be saying.
I stood up unsteadily, and started to walk. Together, side by side, we returned to Bo’s house.
I closed the door behind us, pushing my weight against it until I heard the lock clicking into place.
I told myself that I wasn’t hurt. It was true: there was not a mark on me. My legs throbbed slightly from sprinting, but other than that I was unchanged.
I told myself that I was safe now.
But I didn’t believe it.
33
The next day it was the weekend and so we were all there together – Mum, Tiber and me – eating soup and toast for supper. Mum said she was too tired to cook anything else.
The toast was a bit overdone. Some of the corners were so brown they were almost black. It sounded loud, crunchy, as we took bites. None of us spoke much.
As I ate, I thought about the night before. I kept looking over my shoulder. I kept thinking there was someone there even when there wasn’t. But I couldn’t stop looking round, just in case.
‘What’s got into you?’ Mum said, noticing.
‘Nothing,’ I said.
She shrugged and took a large bite of her toast; a piece fell off onto the floor.
I took a tiny peek at Tiber. He was staring straight ahead in a fixed sort of way, but then he saw me looking, and for a moment his eyes darted to meet mine. They seemed dark today; I couldn’t read them. Then he looked down at the blackened crusts on his plate.
We hadn’t spoken about it, but I was sure he was with the group of boys who’d chased Dog and me down the street. And I was sure he knew it was me. It was unspoken between us, like so many things.
As Tiber started stacking his pieces of burnt toast, there was a knock at the door. It was loud; it pounded. His hand faltered and his little pile of toast teetered and fell over. Mum gave a jump when she heard it. She looked from me to Tiber as though checking that it wasn’t one of us rapping on the door.
Outside stood two police officers.
‘Does a Tiber Olawale live here?’ said one. She had short blonde hair and clear blue eyes that kept looking around.
‘Yes,’ said Mum.
‘Are you …’ The woman’s radio crackled and I heard someone’s voice at the other end. She turned a little dial on the radio and it faded. ‘Sorry. Are you Tiber’s mother?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can we come in, ma’am? We have a couple of questions for him.’
Mum stepped out of the way so that the police officers could come in. She glared furiously at Tiber.
‘Leelu. Upstairs,’ she said.
I obeyed, and quickly ran up the stairs towards my bedroom. But I didn’t go in. I opened and shut the door so that Mum would think I was inside, but instead I waited out on the landing, listening to what was being said.
‘What’s this about?’ Mum said. ‘Is he in trouble?’
‘We wanted to have a little chat about something that occurred last night,’ said the other police officer. His voice was very deep. It did not sound friendly.
I wondered if the police had come because the boys had chased me. But then I realized that nobody knew about that apart from Dog and me. I hadn’t even told Bo. I didn’t want him to feel bad; after all, it had happened because he’d asked me to walk Dog.
Tiber didn’t speak.
‘Tiber? Come and sit down here,’ the woman said. ‘I’m Officer Rawley; this is Officer Peterson. We’ve just been talking to someone who says they saw you last night. Trip Matieson. Do you know who that is?’
‘What’s Trip been saying?’ I heard Tiber say.
‘What do you think he’s been saying?’ she said back, without missing a beat.
‘I dunno,’ Tiber said.
There was a silence where no one spoke.
Then I heard Mum. Her voice trembled. ‘What’s happened?’
I imagined her sitting there, squeezing her hands, clenching one and then the other, over and over. She always did that when she was nervous.
‘Where were you last night, ma’am?’ the policewoman asked.
‘I was …’ Mum hesitated; she paused. She didn’t want to tell them the truth, I was sure of it. But then I imagined her saying to herself that it was no good lying. ‘I was … I was at work. I work nights.’