by Judi Curtin
And what the heck was all that about her mother being a famous chef? How could anyone be famous for making gravy? Wasn’t that just powder mixed with hot water? What a load of rubbish – famous for making gravy. At least his horse story sounded like it might be true.
He addressed the envelope and stuck the stamp on while he was thinking about what to write. The picture on the stamp was some kind of modern art painting that looked exactly the same upside down.
He lay on his bed and thought for a while. Then he sat up, pulled the notebook onto his lap and began.
Dear Penfriend,
It’s been the worst week of my life. On Tuesday Rocket fell while he was in training and broke his leg, and had to be put down. The whole family is devastated. Rocket’s trainer said he’d never have another horse like him. I’m too upset to even talk about the race now.
You asked about my sister having long hair as a baby. I’m wondering what on earth that would have to do with her being a model now. Anyway I haven’t a clue what kind of hair she had when she was small – I just said that I didn’t think babies had long hair. No biggie – get over it.
My dad and I had a brilliant mid-term break in the Pyrenees. We had two excellent climbs, and we stayed in a 5-star hotel with a Jacuzzi in the bathroom. I had octopus for dinner on the first night. It was a bit salty but OK. I like to try new food whenever I travel.
Speaking of food, I never heard of someone being famous for making gravy. You learn something new every day – although if I was famous for something I cooked, I’d rather it was something a bit more exciting than gravy.
Sorry, but I’m just not in the mood to write any more. I keep thinking about Rocket.
Luke
PS I’ve never heard of a pop star who played the violin. Maybe you should just join a world famous orchestra instead.
ELMA
Elma smiled to herself as Mrs Lawrence handed her the letter. Once again the stamp was upside down, though it was a modern art stamp and she had to look carefully to be sure. This upside-down thing couldn’t be an accident, could it? Surely no one could be that stupid? Maybe Luke Mitchell was trying to send her a secret message.
Of course Tara got yet another beautiful envelope – this time it was all covered in mauve and blue stars. Still, Elma thought to herself, Tara’s penfriend sounded really boring, always going on about schoolwork and history projects and stuff, and at least that couldn’t be said about Luke Mitchell. She could think of lots of bad things to say about him – he was vain and boastful and a big fat liar, but at least he wasn’t boring.
She wondered if there was any truth in the story about Rocket. She knew he’d never won at Leopardstown, but maybe he had existed. Maybe he really had died, and maybe Luke was really sad. If Snowball was a cat instead of a monster-dog, Elma would miss him if he died. Maybe it was time to stop going on about Rocket, just in case.
And maybe it was time to stop arguing about Jessica’s hair, too. Since Jessica didn’t actually exist, maybe it was best not to spend too long arguing about how long her hair was?
When Elma got home, she quickly forgot about Luke Mitchell and his strange letters with the upside-down stamp. The kitchen was filthy, just like she had left it in the rush for school that morning. Clearly, Dad had once again spent the whole day in bed, watching television.
Elma was really cross as she tried to tidy up. So cross that she kept banging doors and slamming things into cupboards. So cross that Dylan and Zac didn’t argue once. So cross that they even tried to help her without being asked. Dylan vacuumed the living room, while Elma and Zac washed the breakfast stuff. It was really hard because all the food was dried up and stuck on to the dishes.
Zac chatted away about his teacher as he dried the glasses. Then he struggled to reach the cupboard to put them away. Elma wiped her hands.
‘Wait a sec,’ she said. ‘I’ll help you.’
Zac grinned at her. ‘’s OK, Elma. I’m big. I can do it.’
He scrambled on to the kitchen counter. Elma laughed as he did a little wriggle of victory. But then, as he reached for the first glass, disaster struck. He lost his balance and tumbled towards the floor.
Elma watched as if it were happening in slow motion. Zac’s small, grubby hand grabbed for the counter, but missed, and knocked the glass to the floor, where it smashed into tiny pieces. A second later Zac fell on top of it with a dull thud. There was a moment’s silence before the screaming started. Elma hauled Zac to his feet, and felt a sudden cold chill when she saw that there was a deep cut on his cheek. She grabbed the damp and rather smelly tea towel and held it to his face. Dylan came in to see what the screaming was about.
‘Quick,’ Elma said. ‘Run up and wake Daddy, and tell him Zac has hurt his face.’
Seconds later Dylan was back. ‘Daddy said to put a plaster on it, and to make him stop crying because Daddy has a sore head and needs his sleep.’
By now the bleeding had almost stopped, and Zac’s crying had turned to small, quiet sobs. Elma felt like crying now.
How could her dad be so mean?
Didn’t he even care that Zac was hurt? Didn’t he care enough to drag himself out of bed to see how bad the cut was? Didn’t he care about anything or anyone beside himself?
Elma sat Zac on the couch and dialled her mother’s mobile. She’d been warned to do that only in an emergency, and surely this was an emergency?
A few hours later, Zac was home from hospital, with three painful-looking stitches in his cheek and a huge lollipop in his mouth. Elma’s mother went upstairs, and minutes later the shouting started.
Elma could only hear bits of it, all in her mother’s voice.
‘… the poor child could have been scarred for life …’
‘… threatening us with social services …’
‘… he kept saying his big sister was minding him …’
‘… she’s only eleven …’
‘… stupid layabout father …’
‘… no good to any of us …’
Zac and Dylan were huddled on the couch, looking frightened. Elma closed the door and turned the television up loud. Poor Zac and Dylan couldn’t really remember the time before the accident, when they were a normal happy family. Sometimes Elma had to struggle to remember it herself.
Back in those happy times, Dad went out to work as a plumber every day and Mum stayed home and minded the children. They were like a happy-ever-after family in a storybook. And then one day the happy-ever-after came to a sudden end.
A lorry arrived on the building site where her dad was working, and the back of the lorry opened unexpectedly, and three toilets fell out. Two of the toilets smashed to pieces on a patch of dried concrete. The third toilet knocked Dad to the ground, injuring his back. He spent three weeks in hospital, and hadn’t been able to work ever since.
So, as well as having a sick dad, Elma also had to put up with the teasing at school. Why couldn’t Dad have had a less embarrassing accident? She was now the girl whose dad couldn’t work because a toilet fell on him. Harry’s dad lost a leg in Iraq, and he was treated like a hero, and all Elma got was mockery. It just wasn’t fair.
Dad’s back got a bit better after a while, but it was like something had switched off in him. The doctor had told him his days as a plumber were over. He would never again be able to do a job that involved bending down to get at awkward pipes. But he could still work – if he wanted to. There were still lots of jobs he could do.
A man from the job centre dropped in a huge bundle of leaflets about retraining courses. They were still in a corner of the living room – unopened. (Sometimes Dylan And Zac used them for making paper planes.)
And now Dad didn’t want to do anything except lie around in bed, or on the couch, watching TV. So that’s what he did. All day. Every day. The National Geographic Channel had become the centre of his universe.
Life had been pretty bad ever since the accident. Elma didn’t like school much, but it was better than be
ing home with Dad. Mid-term had been awful. Really, really awful. Mum didn’t have to do school dinners, but she did extra hours at her cleaning jobs. So Elma just hung around the house with the boys, and brought stuff upstairs, or into the living room for her dad, and counted the days to when she could go back to school and some kind of normality.
Both boys were asleep by the time Elma got around to writing her letter. Zac was snoring, and she could see a big bruise forming on his forehead. She’d have liked to tell Luke about what happened, but how could she? As far as Luke was concerned, Zac didn’t even exist, so how could he have fallen down and cut himself badly? She wished she hadn’t lied, but it was too late now.
She addressed her envelope first – the boring bit – best to get it over with. She wrote ‘Luke’ and then on a sudden whim, finished the ‘e’ with a curly line. It was meant to look kind of cool, but ended up looking a bit like a pig’s tail. She hoped he wouldn’t mind. When she’d finished writing the address, she grinned to herself as she peeled her stamp from its backing paper, and placed it firmly upside down on the envelope. She hoped the Queen wouldn’t mind standing on her head. And she really, really hoped there wasn’t a law against that kind of thing. Still, too late now, Mrs Lawrence had given her only one stamp, so it would have to do.
Would Luke notice?
If so, what would he think?
And why did she care what stupid liar Luke thought anyway?
Dear Luke,
I’m so sorry to hear about Rocket. I would be very sad if anything ever happened to Snowball. She’s lying next to me now, purring. Her fur is all soft and warm.
Jessica got her hair cut last week. It’s not so long now, but she’s still cute.
I’m glad you enjoyed your mountain climbing. The only mountain I was on was Space Mountain in Disneyland Paris. It was soooo scary. I went on everything three times because my dad got special passes. Jessica’s favourite ride was ‘It’s a Small World’.
Making gravy might not sound exciting, but believe me, it is. Mum’s thinking of writing a book about it. She says gravy is the heart of every meal. I bet if you had tried some of my mum’s gravy on your octopus it would have tasted much nicer.
Is it just you and your dad and your sister in your family? I didn’t tell you about my dad yet, did I? He’s great – really funny and exciting. He can’t work at the moment. He had a terrible accident. A little girl wandered onto a building site and got trapped under a big heap of planks. She nearly died, but Dad heard her screams, and rescued her. The planks fell on him, and he hurt his back very badly. We hope he’s going to be better soon, though.
Have to go now. Time for ballet class.
Your penfriend,
Elma
PS If you’ve never heard of a pop star playing violin, maybe you should get out more. Ever heard of Vanessa-Mae????????
There’s NO way I’d ever play in an orchestra. It would be much too boring for me – more like the kind of thing for someone who wanted to be a brain surgeon.
LUKE
The horse butted his head impatiently against Luke’s coat. This close, his body smelt like straw. He pushed his long nose up under Luke’s armpit, snorting loudly.
‘Hang on, hang on.’ Luke pulled an apple out of his pocket and held it flat in his palm, just under the horse’s nose. The horse sniffed it and then took it whole into his mouth and crunched it loudly. Little bits of apple flew out of his mouth.
Luke watched him, his hand wrapped around another apple in his pocket. He wondered what his mother would say if she knew that he saved his lunchbox apples so that he could feed them to a horse. He thought she’d probably go mad.
The horse wasn’t sleek and graceful, like a racehorse. He was a big, heavy farm horse with a shaggy mane and enormous strong legs, and his name was Chestnut. He belonged to Luke’s uncle Jack, who lived a few miles out of town, in the farmhouse he and Luke’s father had grown up in.
Chestnut didn’t work any more. For as long as Luke could remember, he’d spent his days in the field, pulling up the grass with his strong yellow teeth.
‘What kind of work did he do?’ Luke had asked Jack, when they were out visiting the farm one Sunday a few months ago.
‘Everything the tractor does now. Ploughing, dragging, lifting – he was a strong old fellow in his time.’
Luke looked up at the huge horse. ‘Did anyone ever ride him?’ He imagined sitting way up there, his legs pressed against Chestnut’s warm body, hanging on to the shaggy mane.
Jack nodded. ‘Charlie did a bit, when she was younger.’ Charlie was Jack’s daughter, away at college now. ‘But nobody’s been up on his back for a long time.’ He looked at Luke. ‘Would you fancy it? He’s very quiet – you’d be fine.’
Luke nodded, suddenly afraid to say anything.
‘Right, tell you what – I’ll collect you next Saturday, on my way home from the market. That’ll give me a chance to track down the saddle.’ He paused. ‘And if you stay around after and give me a hand with the cleaning-up in the yard, I’ll give you a few euro for your trouble.’
And that was what happened, the next Saturday and most Saturdays since then. Jack called around to Luke’s house after dropping Luke’s aunt Maureen into the farmer’s market, where she sold fruit cakes and apple tarts. The two of them drove out to the farm, where Luke spent his first hour riding Chestnut around the field, and the next two helping Jack to hose down and scrub out the yard, and change the straw in the stable where Chestnut lived, and feed the pigs, and do anything else that needed doing, before Jack drove him home again, on his way to collect Maureen.
Luke got fifteen euro from Jack every Saturday. When he tried to give it back the first time, feeling awkward, Jack said, ‘If I got a stranger to help me, I’d pay him. Why wouldn’t I pay you, just because you’re family?’ So Luke took it, and brought it home and hid it in an old custard tin at the back of his wardrobe.
And now, eighteen weeks later, he had two hundred and seventy euro saved. Still a long way to go for what he wanted.
On the way home, he asked Jack to drop him in town. ‘I have things to get.’
‘Fair enough.’
Luke walked down the main street, past the straggle of market stalls. He stopped outside Brady’s Electrical and looked in the window, and there it was.
Snow white, shining, with two neat rows of buttons running along its top panel, and a round glass door like a stomach in the middle of it. The door was open, and a blue towel was hanging halfway out of the stomach. The folded piece of card sitting on the top still said €409 in black marker – one hundred and thirty-nine euro more than Luke had saved.
It was the washing machine he was going to buy for his mother, to replace the one that was worn out from washing Anne’s wet sheets so often – or maybe just because it was so old, a wedding present from Granny and Grandpa Mitchell. It hadn’t actually given up yet, but it clanked and rattled every time it was switched on, and Luke’s mother lived in dread of it breaking down. Luke hoped he could save enough before that happened, but at the rate he was going, it would be well after Christmas, which was only six weeks away, by the time he had enough.
He turned to walk home, thinking hard. Was there anything else he could do to get more money? He passed a newsagent’s, and paused. What about a paper round? How much did they pay?
He walked in. There was a tall, dark-haired man behind the counter, serving a teenage girl with lots of studs in her ears. Luke waited until the teenager walked out, and then he said, ‘I was looking for a paper round.’
The man shook his head. ‘Sorry, son – I have my regulars for that.’
‘OK.’ Luke turned to go. He should have known it wouldn’t be that easy.
‘Hang on–’ The man rubbed his cheek. ‘I could do with getting my car washed, if you’re interested in making a few quid. No short cuts though – I’d expect a proper job.’
Luke stopped. He could wash a car; he’d often washed his mother’s one.
‘How much would you pay?’
The man considered. ‘If you do a proper job, I’ll give you a fiver.’
It didn’t sound like brilliant pay to Luke. If the man had a big car, ‘a proper job’ could take quite a while. But it was worth a try. ‘OK.’
It was a medium-sized Toyota, not too dirty-looking. It took Luke forty minutes to earn his five euro, and the man told him to call back once a week if he wanted.
When Luke got home, he sat in front of the ancient computer in a corner of his father’s downstairs bedroom and typed:
Car Washing
A proper job guaranteed.
Reasonable price.
You won’t be disappointed.
At the bottom he put his name and phone number, and then he printed it out. The printer creaked and groaned as the page appeared bit by bit.
‘What’s that?’ asked his father from the armchair he spent most of the day in.
‘My new job,’ Luke told him. ‘Car washing.’
‘Car washing.’ His father turned and looked out the window. The small blue hatchback Luke’s mother had bought with the insurance money sat in the driveway. Luke wondered if his father remembered anything about the accident, or his life before it.
He thought again how strange that his penfriend’s father should have been in an accident too. The difference was, it sounded like her father was going to get better.
Not like his, who would never be back to the way he was before. ‘His brain was damaged,’ their mother told the three children. ‘That’s why he can’t remember things, and why it’s a bit hard to talk to him the way we used to.’
‘Is he still our dad?’ Anne asked.
Helen snorted. ‘Course he is, dummy.’ But Luke knew what Anne meant.
He took the page about the car washing to his mother. ‘Could you copy this at work for me?’