by Stuart David
“You’re a spunky one,” Uncle Ray laughs. “I want you to watch this boy while he’s here, Harry. Get versed in some of his ways. Let some of his spunk rub off on you.”
Harry looks appalled. “Dad!” he says. “That doesn’t mean what you think it means.”
“Don’t tell me what I think I mean,” Uncle Ray shouts, banging his beer bottle down on the table. “I’ll show you exactly what I’m talking about, son. Tell him, Jack. Tell him what your favorite subject in school is.”
“French,” I say, trying to give Harry a sympathetic look.
“Exactly,” Uncle Ray shouts. “Now tell him why.”
“Because the French class has got the best view of the trains.”
Uncle Ray gets a major crease on. He starts slapping the table. “You see, Harry?” he says. “You see? That’s what I’m talking about. Spunk! Now tell him what your second favorite subject is, Jack.”
“Arithmetic,” I say.
“For why?” Uncle Ray asks theatrically.
“Because it’s got the best view of the river.”
Uncle Ray has heard all this a hundred times before. Mainly because he’s asked me it ninety-nine times now, after I told him about it the first time. But he still laughs as if it’s a brand new joke with a brand new punch line, and he points his fork at Harry while he’s laughing. Harry just stares at him, screwing up his mouth.
“Have I told you what this one’s been getting up to recently?” Uncle Ray says to me. “Did you hear what I found him doing the other night when I walked into his room?”
“Shut up, Dad!” Harry says, and Uncle Ray’s black eye starts to bulge and throb.
“Don’t you dare tell me to shut up!” he shouts. “Maybe when you’ve got a bit of your cousin’s zest you can try something like that, but not while you’re still choosing to behave like a titmouse. No way.”
And then it all kicks off properly. Uncle Ray gets going on a mad purple rant about the kind of food Harry wants to learn to make at university or something, while Harry just sits there staring at the table.
“Choux pastry!” Uncle Ray shouts. “What in the name of God is wrong with you, son? You’ve been watching too many of those morons on the telly. Prima donnas. Is my food not good enough for you or something?”
I look down at my plate and try to drown everything out by making an attempt at guessing what we’re actually having for dinner. I’m pretty certain it’s not a thing, but that’s all I can work out about it. At least with pizza and peas you know there’s pizza involved, and you know there are peas. You know it’s not a thing, but you know what it’s made up of. With Uncle Ray’s Something Special, I can’t even get that far.
It tastes all right, though.
The whole titmouse thing carries on for quite a while, until I don’t have very much of the Something Special left on my plate. The noise is insane. The televisions, the radio, the shouting and the banging of cups and cutlery. But in amongst it all I still manage to make out another noise, a noise that wasn’t there before. And after a minute I recognize it’s my phone. I pull it out of my pocket and see it’s my mum calling. I hold it up to Uncle Ray and tell him I have to go and talk to her. He doesn’t stop shouting at Harry, but he nods while he’s doing it, and I get up from the table and clear out of there. Then I head for the front door and go and stand outside, just to give myself half a chance of hearing whatever she’s got to say.
24
I answer my phone full of hope that the Special Occasion Madness will be over and I can just go home now. I know, in reality, that’s not going to happen; the Special Occasion Madness is never over after one night. But the thought of my own quiet room where I can only hear one TV blaring downstairs, and where I can sleep in my kid bed for a whole glorious eight hours, makes me wish for it like crazy. And I tell myself there’s a first time for everything.
“How are things?” Mum asks as soon as I push the button. She doesn’t even say hello, or let me say hello, or anything like that.
“Pretty bad,” I tell her.
“How’s Uncle Ray treating you? Is he feeding you properly?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I think so.”
“What did you have for dinner tonight?”
“Something orange,” I say, “with green bits in it. I’m not sure what it was.”
“For goodness’ sake, Jack,” she replies, “surely you know what you had for dinner. Was it out of a packet or did Uncle Ray make it himself?”
“I don’t know,” I tell her. “I was upstairs with Harry. I think he made it himself.”
“Did the orange color look natural? Or was it artificial coloring? Tell your uncle Ray I don’t want you eating any E numbers.”
“Okay,” I say. “Is it time to come home yet?”
“Not yet,” Mum says. “Dad and I are still talking. Is that traffic I can hear? Where are you?”
I watch my hopes from earlier crumble to dust, then tell her that I’m just on the street outside the house.
“What are you out there for?” she says. “It’s cold tonight.”
“It’s too noisy in the house to hear anything,” I explain. “Uncle Ray’s shouting at Harry about being a titmouse.”
“I hope he doesn’t shout at you,” she says. “Does he? I won’t stand for him shouting at you.”
I tell her he doesn’t. “He likes me,” I say. “He thinks I’m spunky. He says I’ve got zest.”
Mum laughs. “I suppose you are pretty spunky,” she says. “Tell me about that orange color again. Did it look artificial to you? Was it a foody orange, or did it look like it had been added in chemically?”
“It was just orange,” I tell her, “with green bits. I think I’d be okay at home while you and Dad are talking, Mum. It can’t be as loud as it is here. I can’t sleep. I think I’m getting hypertension again.”
“It’s only for a couple of nights,” Mum says. “You’ll get through it. A couple of nights without sleep won’t hurt you at your age. But tell Uncle Ray I don’t want you eating any E numbers. If he’s giving you additives, you’ll get out of balance. That’s probably where your hypertension is coming from.”
Then I get an idea.
“I’ve got this essay I have to put in in a couple of days’ time,” I tell her. Put in? Is that what you do with an essay? It’s not something I have much experience of, but I carry on with the thing anyway. “It counts for the exam, I think. And I can’t get any work done on it. There’s so much noise, I can’t even think about what I’m going to write.”
“Surely you can go to the school library,” she says.
“What for?”
“Well, surely it’s quiet in there. Isn’t it?”
I don’t think I know the answer to that question. I don’t know if I’ve ever been in the school library. I vaguely remember a tour at the start of first-year, when this teacher showed us round the whole school. We probably visited the library that day, but who knows if it was quiet or not?
“Should it be quiet?” I ask, and Mum laughs a little bit.
“Uncle Ray’s right,” she says. “You are zesty. Just work on your essay in the library, Jack. That’s what it’s there for. And remember to tell Uncle Ray about the additives, okay? What will you say to him?”
“No E numbers.”
“Good. What about that green color? Did that look natural? Was it just peppers or something?”
“I think Harry’s shouting on me now, Mum,” I say. “I better go. I’ll tell Uncle Ray about the additives. Do you think I’ll be able to come home tomorrow night?”
“Maybe,” Mum says. “I’m sure it won’t be too long. I’ll phone you again tomorrow, either way. And good luck with the essay.”
“Thanks,” I say, and then I end the call. I can still hear some TVs from inside the house, but I can’t hear Uncle Ray shouting at Harry anymore. I stay outside for a while anyway, though, considering this thing about the library. Is it quiet there? Maybe that was only in th
e olden days, when Mum was at school. But if it’s true, maybe I could get some thinking done in there. Maybe I could do a clean-up operation on my brain and see if there’s anything moving about. I decide to look into it first thing in the morning, and head back into the madhouse feeling a little bit better.
I was right about the shouting. Uncle Ray is sitting in the kitchen on his own when I get back inside, and Harry has gone up to his room to sulk. That’s how Uncle Ray tells it anyway. He gives me this strange dessert that’s quite hard and tastes a bit like beer. He says he calls it the Stun Ray. It doesn’t taste all that bad.
“How’re things at home?” he asks while I try to break bits off it with a spoon. “Are they sorting it out?”
“I think so,” I tell him. “I still can’t go home yet.”
“No problem,” he says. “I like having you here.”
I don’t say anything to him about the E numbers.
When I go upstairs, Harry doesn’t talk to me for quite a while. He sits at his chessboard moving pieces about halfheartedly, and his face looks all grim and depressed. I think he’s quite embarrassed that I saw Uncle Ray shouting at him like that, and I start to feel quite sorry for him. I can’t wait to pull off this trick for Cyrus so’s life will get a bit better for Harry and he won’t get shouted at so much anymore. Eventually he starts muttering about how much he hates his dad, and I tell him it’s a pity he can’t swap homes with Cyrus.
“I found out what the deal with his parents is,” I say. “They’re something called pacifists. The thing they hate most in the world is fighting. They’d like you a lot, Harry. And your dad would probably like Cyrus okay.”
“Cyrus wouldn’t like my dad,” Harry says. “Nobody likes my dad. He’s a moron. I hate him!”
I split the rest of the evening between playing Xbox with Harry and arguing online with Sandy Hammil. Then, somewhere around ten o’clock, this wave of massive tiredness comes over me, and I have to give up on the game I’m playing with Harry and throw myself down on the bed. The big orange shape looms large, and all the noises in the house start to seem even louder. Then I start to feel sick.
“Whereabouts in school is the library?” I ask Harry, just trying to keep a grip on things.
“Are you for real?” he says. “You don’t know where the library is?”
“I’ve just forgotten,” I say. “It’s a while since I’ve been there.”
He sighs in a kind of disgusted way.
“It’s over in the new building,” he says. “Upstairs from the computer lab.” But his voice sounds very far away. I think he keeps speaking, but it all keeps getting farther and farther away, and the big orange shape gets bigger and bigger and I start to feel more and more sick. Then I’m asleep.
I have this dream during the night where I’m back at my own house and things keep getting broken, and falling apart. The walls inside crack and fall down, and the roof breaks too and falls inside. After a while, it’s only me who’s living there, and I wander about amongst all the broken stuff, not knowing what to do.
Then it suddenly changes to being this great big library room, where the books go all the way up to the roof and everything seems very expensive and grand. I just stand in this place looking round at it all, amazed by the quiet. Even though I’m asleep, I feel my body getting all loose and relaxed in the bed, and I start to feel great. I become convinced this library place is the place for me.
There’s another bit later on that I don’t really remember properly, but it doesn’t last too long anyway. Soon Uncle Ray is up and about again, and before I know it I’m lying wide awake, staring at the ceiling, wondering where I am. And the whole mad experience of a day in the guardianship of my big fat crazy uncle starts all over again, somewhere not very far away from five o’clock in the morning.
25
By the time the morning break arrives and I finally get a chance to go and check out the school library, I’ve been awake for so long, I’m half expecting it to get dark again soon. I don’t feel quite as tired as I did the day before, though, and I can’t wait to find out if the library has any of that quietness from my dream.
The frail-looking lady who’s sitting at the front desk in here seems kind of pleased to see me when I enter.
“Can I help you find anything?” she asks in a tiny whisper, and I wonder what the rules are. Do I have to let her help me find a book, or can I tell her I’m really only here to soak up the atmosphere?
“I’ve just come to work on my essay,” I say, and she looks quite happy with that.
“Let me know if you need anything later on,” she says, so quietly I can hardly hear her, and I tell her I will. She smiles and goes back to reading the massive book that’s lying on her desk, and as I turn round for a look at the place I can’t help but wonder what all the whispering’s been about. Everyone else seems to be using the library for the same thing I’ve always used it for in the past: not being there. It’s totally empty. There’s no one but me and the library lady in here. So I find a desk up near the back, hidden in amongst some high shelves, and I take out my English jotter with all the Cyrus notes written in it, and just sit still for a while, listening.
I can hear a little bit of noise from out in the playground, and now and again a door bangs somewhere far away in the corridor, but apart from that there’s nothing at all. It’s just like Mum said it would be. Totally quiet. My brain feels like it’s waking up, and all the little bytes start to chatter excitedly, as if they’ve been huddled together during a terrible storm and now they can come out again. I become convinced this is going to work out for me. I check my watch and see there’s still a good chunk of break time left, and I consider asking the library lady for a book on pacifists, to see if I can find anything in there that will give me an idea for getting round Cyrus’s parents, but then I decide to leave it for lunchtime, when I can really get into it properly. This is really just a reconnaissance mission to find out if the rumors about library silence are true. I feel good about having had the idea, though, however small it is, and I write it down in the jotter, then power through the rest of what’s written in there.
Somebody else comes into the library after a few minutes, which annoys me a bit because I’ve already begun to think of the library as being just for me. I hear the door swinging, and then I hear the little snake-like noises of the library lady’s whisper, although I can’t hear anything she’s saying from way down there.
“I’m fine,” a voice tells her, and the footsteps move up into the library. The little snake noises ring out again, and I suppose the library lady’s asking the same questions she asked me when I came in.
“Okay,” the voice says, and the footsteps come even closer to where I am. I hope whoever it is won’t choose a table next to mine. I don’t want to hear them sniffing and shifting about and turning through the pages of their book. But they keep coming. They come all the way up through the library to the shelves I’m sitting behind, and then I realize they’ve come to stand beside my chair.
It’s this girl from the year above mine called Kirsty Wallace. She just stands there looking at me when I turn round, and I look back at her for a while.
“You the guy who’s standing in for Chris Yates?” she asks. “Over this fight thing?”
I shake my head. “That’s my cousin,” I say. “I’m just planning it for him.”
“Well, we need to talk about it,” Kirsty says. “We need to sort it out, here and now.”
“I’m busy,” I tell her. “Find me at lunchtime. In the dining hall.”
She shakes her head. “It has to be now,” she says. “This is when we need to talk about it.”
Without me having heard a sound—a single footstep, or even the sound of somebody breathing—I realize the library lady has suddenly appeared beside my table, and she’s holding a finger up to her lips.
“There’s no talking in the library,” she says, hardly even talking herself. “I’m afraid it’s not allowed.”
“You’re both here,” the library lady explains, “and the library is a place for studying. Not for talking.”
I start to realize that the library lady is my kind of person, and I have this vision of her coming into Uncle Ray’s place and sorting out all the commotion for me there, until it’s as quiet as the library. I wonder if she would do that.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “We’re finished talking now. I’ll get back to my essay.”
“No you won’t,” Kirsty says. “And we’re not finished talking. We haven’t even started yet.”
“Then you’ll have to do it elsewhere,” the library lady says.
“No we won’t,” Kirsty tells her. “It’s a free country.” But I’ve already gathered all my stuff together and got up from the table.
“Sorry,” I tell the library lady again. “I’ll come back later.”
“Thank you,” she says.
But Kirsty stays where she is for a while, asking the library lady if she wishes this was China, and if she wishes we lived under a totalitarian regime. Then eventually she gives it a rest and comes out into the corridor behind me.
Kirsty Wallace is pretty strange. She always wears kind of, like, soldier clothes to school, and she has this rope hair she never washes. Sometimes her soldier clothes have camouflage patterns on them, and she’s always having meetings for things she thinks are an injustice. The weirdest thing is, she’s always trying to sort out things she thinks are unfair or horrible, but her way of sorting them out always involves doing unfair or horrible things.
“Why did you talk to the library woman like that?” I ask her out in the corridor. “That wasn’t cool.”
“What’s it to you?” she says. “Is she your new squeeze? Given up on Elsie Green?”