Fly Me Home

by Polly Ho-Yen

  ‘So you would not be able to confirm the whereabouts of your son at around eleven p.m. last night?’

  ‘No,’ Mum said quietly.

  ‘Were you with Trip last night?’ Officer Peterson asked. His voice filled our little house.

  ‘I dunno,’ Tiber said. ‘Don’t remember.’

  ‘You can’t remember what you did last night?’ the policeman boomed. He was mocking Tiber; he sounded like he was about to start laughing.

  ‘Can you tell us what happened last night?’ Officer Rawley said. There was an urgency in her voice – I could hear it, cutting through everything else.

  ‘Nothing happened.’

  ‘Because Trip Matieson has made some pretty serious allegations about what you were doing last night. What you did … together,’ the policeman said.

  ‘He’s lying,’ Tiber said, and then, all in a rush, as though he’d been holding the words in his mouth all this time and they were suddenly escaping, ‘It’s only because I didn’t want to do it.’

  ‘Do what?’ Officer Peterson asked quickly.

  ‘Nothing,’ he said.

  ‘Tiber,’ Mum said softly. ‘Just tell us what happened.’

  ‘Your mum’s right,’ said Officer Rawley. ‘It will help you if you can just tell us what happened.’

  ‘Nothing,’ Tiber said again.

  I could hear it in his voice now – the stubbornness set in. He wouldn’t say anything to the police officers, whatever they said to him. Once, when we were playing hide-and-seek, Tiber wouldn’t tell me where he’d hidden. I had looked for him everywhere. In the end I shouted out that I was giving up and went to watch television with Dad.

  Not long afterwards Tiber had sauntered down the stairs, a swagger to his step. I begged and begged him to tell me where he had been, but he refused. After a while Dad had put an end to it and told me to go and find something else to do. ‘He won’t tell you now, love,’ he had said. ‘Can’t you hear it in his voice? His mind is made up.’

  ‘Tiber?’ Officer Rawley said. ‘We would like to ask you some more questions about this down at the station. Will you come voluntarily?’

  Tiber didn’t answer.

  ‘It would really be in his best interests if he came willingly,’ the policewoman said to Mum.

  ‘Tiber? Do you hear what these police officers are saying? This is serious.’

  Tiber shrugged. Mum knew it was as close to a yes as she was going to get.

  ‘And can you come with him?’ Officer Rawley asked. ‘He needs to have an appropriate adult present.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mum. ‘But my daughter …’

  ‘We can appoint another appropriate adult, but it would be better if it was you. Can you arrange for someone to look after your daughter?’

  ‘There’s no—’ Mum started to say. ‘Hold on. Give me a minute, will you? Leelu?’

  I ran down the stairs so fast that for a moment I wondered if I would trip and fall. I forgot to open my bedroom door and pretend I was in there and just ran; ran to where everyone was standing in a small circle. Tiber was with Officer Peterson, his head low, bowed down, defeated. He didn’t meet my stare.

  ‘Leelu, come with me,’ Mum said. She held my hand tightly; too tightly.

  ‘Tiber!’ I called out as she marched me out of the house. ‘Tibe—’

  She knocked on the front door of Betsy’s house.

  Mum gripped my hand firmly as we heard movement behind the door. I could see that she had started to cry. The tears ran silently down her cheeks. She wiped them away roughly with her other hand, and then, when we heard the door opening, she dropped my hand quickly so she could use both of hers to wipe her face fiercely.

  Then she grabbed hold of my hand again: as the door opened, that was how we were standing, hand in hand, with Mum’s face a little shiny from the tears.

  ‘Maria?’ Mum asked, a little uncertainly.

  ‘Come in, come in.’ It was Betsy’s grandmother; I’d not properly met her before. She looked quite old, but not as old as Bo. She had caramel-coloured hair that was wavy and springy and wiry, sitting up, away from her head. She was wearing a long T-shirt with a cartoon cat on it.

  ‘We can’t come in. But … can I ask you a huge favour?’

  ‘Favour?’ she said. I could see from her face that she didn’t understand.

  ‘Can you help me?’ Mum said urgently.

  ‘Help? Sure,’ Maria said. She smiled. Some of her teeth were missing but it made her smile seem kinder somehow. ‘What can I do?’

  ‘Please, can you look after Leelu? Can she stay with you? Can you look after her? It won’t be for long,’ Mum said. ‘We are having some trouble and I need to go.’

  ‘Sure, sure,’ Maria said, still smiling toothily. ‘Leelu? Come in. You hungry?’ she asked me as Mum half pushed and she half pulled me in.

  ‘I’ll be as quick as I can,’ I heard Mum say, and then the door slammed behind me. It was over too quickly and Mum was gone.

  ‘Come, come,’ Maria said to me. ‘Betsy? Betsy?’ She had to shout over the sound of the music, which filled the small hallway.

  She herded me into the sitting room, where there were lots of kids jumping on the sofa in time to the music. There seemed too many to count, but later on I realized there were only six.

  ‘Leelu!’ Betsy clattered down the stairs towards me. ‘What’s happened? Why you here?’

  ‘It’s Tiber,’ I told her. ‘He’s in trouble – the police are here. They’re taking him now. I didn’t even get a chance to speak to him.’

  Betsy grabbed me by the hand and pulled me out of the front door again.

  Tiber was getting into the police car. Mum was behind him, looking around anxiously. She noticed me and her mouth opened as though she was going to shout out something like, Go back inside or Shut the door, but she didn’t. She gave me a funny little wave with her arm only half raised, as though she was too embarrassed to do it properly.

  Tiber did not look at me at all. I heard the police car start up. They were about to drive away.

  ‘Tiber,’ I murmured. I suddenly remembered how Dog hung his head when he was worried he had done something wrong. That was what Tiber reminded me of, sitting in the police car. But Dog had never done anything wrong; it was normally just an accident that he thought he was to blame for.

  I ran over to the police car and banged my hand hard against Tiber’s window. He jumped and turned his head but, seeing me, quickly dropped his eyes.

  ‘Tiber!’ I shouted. ‘You didn’t do anything wrong, did you? You must tell them what happened.’

  As the police car drove away, I felt Betsy link her arm through mine and I leaned towards her.

  ‘Don’t worry, Leelu,’ she said to me. ‘We will find a way to help Tiber. I have an idea.’

  34

  Betsy and I had a plan.

  We were going to wait until her grandmother fell asleep in front of the television and then sneak over to Bo’s house. Her grandmother was keeping a close eye on us both, probably because Mum had been so upset, so we would have to wait a while.

  ‘Bo can help with his wonders, with his powers. He can do something,’ Betsy said confidently.

  We waited a long time. Maria was watching a programme that never seemed to end, and then, when it had finished and we thought we’d be able to leave, there was a knock on the door and some of Betsy’s aunties appeared. We waited and waited, hovering on the landing and hiding in Betsy’s bedroom, until finally everyone had left, Maria had shut herself in her bedroom and the house was still.

  But when we were finally able to go round, we found that Bo’s front door was shut.

  I frowned when I saw the door. In my head, it had been left open, waiting for us to arrive.

  I knocked on it gently and poked my fingers through the letter box. I thought I could make out a faint light coming from the end of the hall, but when I looked again, I couldn’t be sure.

  ‘Bo? Dog?’ I called softly through the l
etter box. ‘It’s us.’

  Nothing.

  ‘Have you got something you could use?’ Betsy asked.

  I reached into my pocket, but I realized that the acorns were all used up now.

  ‘Dog? Bo?’ I tried again, a little louder.

  Then I heard a scuffling and saw Dog coming towards us, tail wagging from side to side as he loped up to the door. Behind him I saw the figure of Bo shuffling along much more slowly.

  ‘Leelu, Betsy, it’s later than never,’ Bo said once he’d opened the door.

  ‘It’s …’ I started to say. ‘Tiber’s been …’ I tried again, but then I started to cry. There was nothing I could do to stop myself.

  ‘You got to help us, Mr Bo,’ Betsy said.

  ‘Come in, come in.’ Bo ushered us inside and we settled in the peace of his sitting room, softly lit by only a couple of candles. They cast flickering shadows on walls that seemed to crowd in around us, as though they too wanted to be part of the conversation. Bo had cleared up a lot of his piles of things from the floor.

  ‘What’s happened?’ he asked.

  ‘Leelu’s brother. He’s in trouble with the police,’ Betsy explained.

  Bo’s face creased with concern. ‘Police?’ he said.

  ‘Can you do something?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Bo said uncomfortably. ‘That would need a lot of power, and the truth is, I’ve almost run out. I’m almost out of wonders.’

  ‘Can’t we get some more?’ Betsy said.

  ‘But Bo is trying to get back home, to the place, and if he can’t get there, then …’ My voice petered out.

  ‘No more wonders,’ Bo said loudly. ‘And no more home.’

  We all fell silent.

  ‘There has to be another way,’ Betsy insisted. ‘Another way back. What did you say? It is far away or it is close, depending on where you are?’

  Bo scrunched up his face so his nose was wrinkled and squashed. ‘There might be another way. I’ve been getting a feeling about something – now, I don’t know if it will work, of course, a horse.’

  ‘Bo, how is there another way? Can it really work?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s only an inkling, Leelu. It might not work. We need to go outside.’

  ‘Let’s try, let’s try,’ Betsy said, racing towards the door.

  We ran outside, Bo following us more slowly, and almost collided with Mum and Tiber, who were walking with tired, plodding steps towards our house.

  Mum had a hand on Tiber’s shoulder, as though worried that he wouldn’t be able to walk in a straight line to the door; that he might topple over.

  ‘Mum!’ I shouted. ‘Tiber!’

  I threw my arms around them; I was so glad to see them. But Mum did not return my hug. She released Tiber and held me too by my shoulders, away from her so that she could look directly into my eyes.

  ‘Leelu? Betsy? Why did you just come out of that house?’ she asked.

  35

  I was in Big Trouble.

  Even though I wasn’t arrested or taken to the police station or anything like that, it was like I was in more trouble than Tiber.

  When Mum found out that Betsy and I had been going to Bo’s, her nostrils flared so much that I was sure smoke would come out of them.

  She banned me from seeing Betsy, saying she was a bad influence, and marched Betsy back to her house. She banged her fist against the door so hard that I was sure she was going to break it.

  ‘Maria, did you have any idea that the girls were off doing who knows what at this time of night?’ she asked when Betsy’s grandmother appeared.

  Maria opened her mouth in astonishment, making me think of a goldfish gulping for air, but before she could speak Mum had already started up again.

  ‘Anything could have happened to them. Anything. Thankfully I found them before this nonsense got any worse. Leelu will not be coming round any more – no more playing football, no more hanging out. That’s it. If you do see my daughter with Betsy, I trust that you will tell me immediately.’

  When Maria did speak, it wasn’t in the harsh shouting tone Mum had used; it was ever so soft, almost like a murmur.

  ‘Betsy, Betsy,’ she said.

  I wasn’t sure if it was in disappointment or sadness, but when I looked at my friend, I saw that Betsy – Betsy, who’d rather kick a ball than talk about her feelings; Betsy, who’d stand up to all her brothers even though she was half their size; Betsy, who wasn’t afraid of anyone, not even her father, whose anger was so great that it controlled him – had begun to cry.

  ‘Say goodbye, Leelu,’ Mum said.

  ‘Betsy, I—’ I managed to say before I was dragged away. The last thing I saw as Mum pulled me back into our house was Betsy’s face, so crumpled with tears that for a moment I couldn’t remember what she looked like when she was not crying.

  As soon as we got back Mum kept on asking me why I’d thought it was all right to visit Bo.

  ‘What have I told you about strangers?’ she said. ‘Anything could have happened, Leelu. Anything. This isn’t like you.’

  ‘He’s my friend,’ I tried to say. ‘He needs—’

  ‘He’s most certainly not your friend,’ Mum cut in. ‘Absolutely not. I forbid it.’

  ‘But, Mum—’ I said.

  ‘No. No,’ Mum said. ‘No buts. You must never go there again, do you understand?’

  ‘But Dog needs—’

  ‘Leelu! Enough! Things are changing around here. No more sneaking out. No more spending time in strangers’ houses. No more hanging out on street corners.’ Mum looked meaningfully at Tiber. ‘Things are going to be … different.’

  Tiber looked tired. His eyes seemed to droop even when he looked up at Mum; his skin was greyish. I had no words for Mum any more; she wouldn’t have listened to anything anyway. I stamped upstairs to my bedroom, making each step louder than the last, and only when I’d closed the door behind me did I let myself crumple into a ball. Making myself small, wishing myself in another time and space, one where I could see my friends, one where we could be together.

  ‘What happened at the police station?’ I asked Tiber when he came to bed.

  ‘I don’t really want to talk about it,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Are you going to keep seeing them?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The boys – your friends. The ones who chased me.’

  ‘You know they wouldn’t have hurt you,’ Tiber said in a rush. ‘It was just a bit of fun, you know? A joke. I had no idea you could run that fast, though.’

  I didn’t answer.

  ‘But no, I won’t be. Mum says I can’t see them any more. She says she’s changing her job so she’ll be in all the time. So she’ll know what’s going on. But anyway, after what happened I won’t be able to go back to them. I failed.’

  ‘Failed at what?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Tiber. ‘It’s over now.’

  ‘So Mum won’t be working nights any more?’

  ‘That’s what she says.’

  Mum meant what she’d said to Tiber. The next day she told her boss that she wouldn’t be coming back to work – for family reasons.

  ‘There, that’s done,’ she said when she got off the phone. ‘I told you that things would be different. No more staying out all night, no more wandering off. We are going to stick together from now on.’

  I felt like there was a part of me that was missing. I knew that I was just the same really. I looked the same when I saw myself in the mirror. My voice sounded no different. I went to school like I always did, putting one foot in front of the other, doing what was asked of me without question until it was time to leave again. But I ached with missing Betsy and Bo. I felt it like a hole that gaped and widened with each heartbeat.

  There were times when I forgot, and then I’d remember that I couldn’t see them any more, and it took my breath away. I heard myself gasp out loud, as though I was short of air, starved of oxygen.

  I told
myself that I would go and see them as soon as Mum went out. If she didn’t want me to, then she didn’t have to know. But Mum was always there. She watched us closely and insisted we did everything together.

  She made both Tiber and me talk to Dad on the phone by ourselves. Tiber went first. He headed upstairs to our bedroom and closed the door behind him.

  Mum said that he needed privacy.

  When he came back downstairs, his eyes were blotchy from crying. He wouldn’t meet my gaze when he passed me the phone.

  ‘Leelu?’ Dad said sternly when I put it to my ear. I had rarely heard him speak to me like that before. It was like his voice had lost all its laughter. ‘Your mum says you have been sneaking out of the house and going to see some stranger who no one knows. Is that true?’

  ‘Dad, yes, but he’s not some stranger to me. He’s my friend. First he needed help – he’d fallen over and couldn’t get up – and then, well … we became friends.’

  I heard Dad sigh heavily. ‘Sweetheart, you can’t just go making friends with people like that. We don’t know who this man is. You knew it wasn’t the right thing to do – that’s why you kept it secret from Mum, right?’

  I didn’t answer.

  ‘You must promise me you won’t go round there again,’ Dad continued.

  ‘But, Dad, he needs help. Dog—’

  ‘Leelu, you are probably right: he might need help. But you are not going to be the one to give it to him, OK?’

  ‘But you always say that you must help someone if you can.’

  I couldn’t count the number of times Dad had told us this. I could see him now, sitting across the kitchen table from me, our dinner plates scraped clean and pushed aside.

  ‘If everyone helped out one other person who needs it,’ Dad would say, bringing two fingertips together so they touched. ‘If we all did this one simple thing, the world would be a much better place. We all have the capacity to do it. We all have the power in us to make a tiny difference, or sometimes a big one. It’s about being brave enough to take that step.’