A Seven-Letter Word

by Kim Slater

I step back into the kitchen until the policemen leave and then I go into the sitting room. Dad is slumped in the chair with his elbows on his knees, resting his head in his hands.

  ‘Who could’ve done this, Finlay?’ he says, without looking up.

  I feel like I should know the answer.

  ‘There’s nothing missing.’ His words are muffled. ‘I didn’t want to tell the police that but I could see right away that whoever broke in didn’t take anything.’

  ‘Nev-Neville has g-gone.’ I swallow down a sob.

  ‘He’s probably around here, somewhere.’

  ‘W-why was his c-cage door open th-then? Why w-would someone d-do that?’

  Dad doesn’t say anything.

  ‘Y-you don’t c-care,’ I burst out. ‘Y-you n-never liked h-him.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, lad.’

  ‘Mum s-said you never w-wanted her to b-buy him.’

  ‘I didn’t mind.’ Dad sighs. ‘I just disagreed with all that gobbledygook she’d read somewhere that a hamster could help with your stammer.’

  ‘B-but he d-did,’ I mumble. ‘He d-did help.’

  Dad opens his mouth and then closes it again.

  I think of the way Neville looks at me through the bars of his cage and listens. He does listen, I’m sure of it. Neville doesn’t care what I speak like. The only time he doesn’t take much notice is when he’s pounding away on his wheel and then he doesn’t notice anything, much.

  I start to cry; I can’t help it. I wait for Dad to tease me – ‘How old are you? Fourteen or four?’ But he doesn’t.

  Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic, the voice in my head taunts me.

  ‘I need a smoke,’ Dad says, standing up and patting his pockets for his lighter.

  ‘All y-you do is sm-smoke,’ I snap. ‘F-fag after f-flipping f-fag, every t-time you’ve a sp-spare m-minute.’

  Dad’s jaw starts twitching but he pushes the packet of cigarettes back into his jeans pocket.

  ‘Y-you could d-die fr-from lung c-cancer, D-Dad. Th-then you’ll be g-gone. L-like Mum’s g-gone, like Ne-Neville’s g-gone.’

  ‘Come on now, lad,’ Dad says softly. ‘He’ll be knocking around here somewhere, you’ll see.’

  ‘Wh-where?’

  ‘Somewhere,’ Dad says again. But he doesn’t look as though he really believes it.

  There are no clues to Neville’s whereabouts. It’s just as though he’s disappeared into thin air. Or someone has taken him away, whisked him out of the house in their jacket pocket.

  He could be alone and scared and even badly hurt. I squeeze my eyes shut and imagine him back in his cage, safe in my bedroom.

  When I open my eyes, nothing has changed.

  As the last of the sun sets, it catches on the shards of glass from the photo frame that held a picture of me and Dad on the Alton Towers log flume ride, taken three summers ago. Mum didn’t want to come on the ride, so she stood and watched us as we hurtled by, whooping and waving. The scattered glass shimmers and glints, like the last bit of its life is finally flickering out.

  I feel like screaming and smashing stuff up. I also feel really quiet and sad inside.

  ‘There can only be one explanation,’ Dad says, so softly I have to lean forward to catch his words.

  He looks up and his hands drop from his head, down to his knees.

  I don’t say anything. I hold my breath and wait. Maybe Dad has thought of where Neville might be.

  ‘I think whoever broke into the house was looking for something,’ Dad whispers. ‘Something I should have told you about long before now.’

  ALL WORDS FOUND IN ANY STANDARD ENGLISH DICTIONARY ARE ALLOWABLE IN A GAME OF SCRABBLE.

  Even though I know Dad has got something important to tell me, I can’t stop moving stuff. I can’t stop searching for Neville in places I know he can’t possibly be.

  ‘Finlay, there’s something I need to tell you,’ Dad says again. ‘Sit down, lad.’ He slumps forward and sinks further down into his chair.

  My legs are all shaky and although I want to shout at Dad to just – tell – me – now, I perch on the end of the settee and sit on my hands to try and stop them trembling.

  Dad runs his hand through his hair and little splinters of wood fly out. He looks up at the ceiling and down at his feet. He taps one socked foot on the floor and then the other.

  ‘D-do you kn-know where sh-she is?’ I break the silence.

  ‘No,’ Dad’s head snaps up. ‘Finlay, I swear.’

  My whole body is aching. I wish I could just lie down right here on the floor and sleep.

  Dad looks at me, opens his mouth as if to speak and then shuts it again.

  I wait.

  And wait.

  I don’t want to know what Dad has to tell me, and yet at the same time I’m desperate to know what he’s got to say. Inside my head there are tonnes of questions, all whirling around like feathers in a storm.

  ‘Just after she left, your mum contacted me. Just the once.’

  I knew it. I knew it!

  I jump up, blood rushing to my face. ‘Y-you lied! You s-said you h-h—’ I stop, take a great big breath and push out the words.‘You-said-you-hadn’t-heard-f-from-her.’

  Dad cocks his head to one side and looks at me, surprised, then carries on talking. ‘I didn’t lie, I haven’t heard from her since, Finlay. Since way back then, just a few days after she left.’

  I can’t speak.

  ‘It was just the once, that’s it.’

  He’s trying to play it down. He’s trying to dismiss this massive, significant thing that he’s kept from me all this time.

  ‘Wh-what d-did she s-say?’

  Dad reaches into his pocket and pulls something out. He closes his eyes briefly and when he opens them and raises his hands I see he is unfolding the piece of newspaper I found buried at the bottom of the wooden chest.

  ‘She came to me on the building site I’d been working on,’ he says, staring at the print. ‘It was three days after she left. You were at school, and I remember I’d just sat down with a flask of hot tea and I thought she’d come back home but –’

  ‘W-what d-did she s-say?’

  ‘She gave me this.’ He hands me the article I’ve already read.

  I look at it for a few seconds.

  ‘What d-does it mean?’

  ‘You know that Bunny village is a place close to your mum’s heart.’

  He’s babbling on. But at the same time, he’s said more about Mum in the last five minutes than he’s done for over two years.

  Dad’s face is a funny grey colour. His eyes are flitting about all over the place and I wait until they settle on my face.

  I point to the eleven digits he has scrawled at the top of the page.

  ‘The telephone number of the Post Office.’ He sighs.

  But, of course, I already know that.

  ‘D-did she t-tell you w-why she l-left?’

  Dad looks down at the newspaper article. His hands are shaking a bit.

  ‘D-Dad?’

  ‘No. I mean, I already knew why she went, I suppose . . .’ He turns away and fiddles with the drawer. ‘Or maybe I just thought I did . . .’

  He isn’t making any sense.

  ‘S-surely she s-said s-something.’

  ‘She told me if there was ever an emergency with you, strictly a life-or-death emergency only, I’m to leave a message at the Post Office in the village as she’d rented a PO Box there.’

  Something powerful sweeps through me and I lean back against the wall. I feel sick and dizzy but I want to pound at Dad’s chest with my fists. I take a massive breath.

  ‘All-this-time-I-could’ve-contacted-Mum.’ I speak until my outbreath and the words it carries dry up. ‘All-th-this-time-y-you’ve-l-lied.’

  ‘No!’ Dad takes a step forward and reaches out to me, but I slide further along the wall and fold my arms over my chest. ‘It had to be a strictly life-or-death emergency only, or she would never have responded.’
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  ‘You c-could’ve lied to h-her,’ I cry. ‘Y-you could’ve said I w-was ill or s-someth-thing t-to br-bring her ba-ba—’

  Back. He could’ve thought of a thousand emergencies to bring her back.

  My cheeks are all wet.

  ‘Your mum made me promise, Finlay. I had to swear there would be no contact for any other reason at all.’

  ‘M-maybe it was a c-cry for help,’ I sob. ‘M-maybe she told you be-because she wanted y-you to c-contact her.’

  Dad shakes his head.

  ‘If you’d have seen her eyes, you’d understand,’ he says, looking down. ‘She was, I don’t know, different in some way. Her eyes were cold, like she’d put an invisible wall up around herself.’

  ‘You sh-should have t-told me.’ My voice sounds small and broken. Nothing I say will ever make a difference.

  Dad walks forward quickly and pulls me into a hug before I can escape him. ‘I was scared of hurting you even more,’ he says into my hair. ‘I wanted to protect you, Finlay.’

  ‘F-from what?’

  ‘I was worried she’d only break your heart again.’

  ‘Br-break my heart, h-how?’

  He doesn’t answer, just closes his eyes briefly. He isn’t making any sense at all. All this time, Dad knew Mum’s whereabouts and never said a word.

  Dad sighs. ‘The Post Office arrangement proves nothing about where she actually lives now. I’ve been up there, asked around. She’s not there, son, it’s just a place she chose to touch base if it was ever absolutely necessary.’

  OFFICIAL SCRABBLE DICTIONARIES ARE ALSO AVAILABLE, AND THESE ARE REGULARLY UPDATED WITH NEW, URBAN WORDS.

  For four or five seconds, I press my face into Dad’s shoulder and think about all the nights I’ve lain awake, wondering where Mum is. Worrying if she is OK, if she’s safe.

  I think about all the letters I’ve written to her in her old journal. Letters I could have posted, that she might actually have read.

  I pull out of Dad’s embrace and step away. My eyes are like lasers, trained on to his tired, bristly face. I’ve got this awful smouldering sensation like indigestion, only a hundred times worse. It burns all the way into my chest. It feels like hatred.

  But I don’t hate my dad.

  ‘S-someone broke in for th-that?’

  I nod to the newspaper cutting he still clutches in his hand and Neville’s little face comes into my head again. I close my eyes.

  ‘No, Finlay. They didn’t break in for this.’

  He sighs and sinks down into his chair.

  The cutting flutters to the floor and it feels like the temperature drops suddenly in the room, but I know it’s just my imagination.

  ‘I’ve been getting some funny phone calls,’ Dad says, his face reddening. ‘On my work phone. It’s been happening for a while.’

  My head is whirling, the room is spinning. I try to focus on Dad’s voice because I’ve been waiting for this moment for so long. Waiting for him to tell me the truth. And now the moment is here, I’m absolutely terrified.

  But Dad doesn’t seem to notice. He carries on talking. ‘The caller is a man. He knows stuff about us and he knows stuff about your mum.’

  ‘Wh-what s-sort of st-st—’

  The words get stuck. I feel hot and shaky, and before I can take a breath and try again Dad answers me. ‘He knows exactly when your mum left and which school you go to. I’d hoped working away would keep him focused on me and away from around here.’

  Dad rubs his forehead hard with the flat of his hand.

  ‘I know I should’ve told the police and I’m going to. I am. But first I needed to tell you. I need you to understand, Finlay.’

  Understand? If anything, things seem more complicated than ever. Is Dad trying to say that this man is with Mum? Knows Mum? I’m confused.

  ‘He says he knows I have something that your mum left behind, and that he needs it. He says if he gets it, nobody will get hurt.’

  An ice-cold shiver runs through me. ‘Wh-what is it th-that he w-wants?’

  Dad shrugs. ‘I don’t know . . . and the weird thing is, he doesn’t either.’ Dad looks at me and stays silent until I meet his gaze. ‘He says Mum got herself into some trouble with a big company. He says she stole some information and they want it back.’

  I shake my head, trying to make sense of it all.

  ‘Mum, st-steal? That’s just st-stupid,’ I say.

  ‘I know,’ Dad agrees. ‘But he says if I get him this information they’ll forget all about it. All about us. And all about her . . .’

  This is all getting too big for my head to cope with.

  ‘I need to go to the police but what do I say? I don’t know for certain who this man is, who the company is. I don’t know what information he’s talking about, and I don’t have any proper contact details for your mum. I’m pretty sure they’re not going to take me seriously.’

  I think about the two policemen who came out earlier and how they’d react to what they’d no doubt see as Dad’s senseless ramblings.

  ‘Y-you should l-leave Mum a m-message at the p-post o-office,’ I say.

  ‘I have,’ Dad says quietly. ‘It’s been a few days and there’s been no response.’

  Dad looks pale and tired. He also looks scared.

  My insides feel sore and jumbled up.

  ‘I’ve tried to ignore it. I’ve spent a bit more time in Brighton than I’ve needed, trying to keep trouble away from you, but then I come back to this.’ He sweeps his arm around the chaotic room, drawers turned out, furniture broken. ‘I’ve already searched through everything we brought with us from our old house and there’s nothing here. Nothing.’

  I think about how I’ve heard Dad banging about upstairs, even venturing up into the loft and emptying boxes. My head flashes hot, then cold. I feel like I have a fever but I can’t stay still, I need to search, I need to find whatever Mum left here. What it was she stole. All the work Mum did for the companies she worked for were kept in spreadsheet form. And she took her laptop with her when she left.

  ‘I w-wonder who th-this m-man is,’ I say to Dad.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he says, and his face looks strange. ‘I never knew what she was up to, that was part of the trouble.’

  Dad’s acting weird. My world feels like it’s morphing out of shape. I still can’t believe Mum would steal information. That doesn’t sound like her at all. She was the kind of person who would go back to a shop if she discovered the cashier had given her too much change. Once, the waitress at our local pizzeria left our starters off the bill and Mum pointed out her mistake.

  ‘What did you do that for?’ Dad had grumbled. ‘As if they don’t make enough profit.’

  ‘It’s not the big corporations that suffer,’ Mum had said, while we waited for the amended bill. ‘It’s the little guys who pay. Her boss will stop the shortfall from her wages.’ Mum was always looking out for somebody.

  ‘I’ll c-come with you,’ I say. ‘To t-tell the p-police, I m-mean.’

  Dad doesn’t look at me. ‘I need to think about what I’m going to say, first,’ he says firmly. ‘I need to think how I’m going to explain the situation to them when I don’t even understand it myself.’

  PLAYERS ARE NOT ALLOWED TO USE ABBREVIATIONS, PREFIXES OR SUFFIXES ON THE BOARD.

  Saturday

  I can’t sleep. Soon as I start to drop off, I wake up again with a start, thinking – hoping and praying – that the tiny creak or scratch I thought I just heard is Neville.

  I spend all of Saturday searching for him around the house. I look in every corner of every room and ignore Dad telling me that he’ll turn up somewhere, given time. I don’t log on to the computer at all. I haven’t got time to chat with Alex: finding Neville is far more important.

  But I do phone Maryam and tell her about the break-in, because we’re supposed to meet for training at the youth club, after lunch on both Saturday and Sunday.

  ‘Finlay, this is terrible new
s. Is there anything I can do to help?’

  ‘We’re just tidying round.’ I don’t tell her the things Dad has said about Mum. It barely makes sense to me so I doubt Maryam will be able to help.

  Dad hasn’t mentioned going back to Brighton since the break-in. When I sneaked a look at his work diary, I saw that he’d scrubbed all the jobs he had on this week, too.

  I stick a couple of sugar cubes from the cupboard into my pocket and walk down to the racecourse, just to get out of the house. All up Bendigo Way, my eyes are searching every nook and cranny, just in case I spot Neville scurrying in the gutter, trying to find his way back home.

  Old George is on the main gate at the racecourse, reading his paper. I’ve been coming here ever since we moved to our new house and Dad started doing a few odd maintenance jobs for the management company. Old George talks a lot about Nottingham Forest Football Club in their glory days and he doesn’t expect much of an answer back.

  I loiter around the gate until he looks up from his paper.

  ‘Go on then, while it’s quiet.’ Old George rolls his eyes. ‘Don’t go getting into no bother back there, mind.’ I walk into the main grounds. I can hear chatter from the bar but I’m not bothered about that. I walk in a big circle until I get to the enclosures.

  Back here, near the stables, there is no one around. The yard is scattered with hay and the odd pile of horse droppings, and most of the stable doors are closed. A soft snort to my left catches my attention. A glossy chestnut head appears at the half-open stable door. I reach into my pocket for the sugar cubes and hold them out on a flat hand.

  ‘Like that do you, b-boy?’ I say as he snuffles the treats from my palm, his warm breath tickling my hand. Then I lay my head against his. He stays still, as if he’s listening to my thoughts. ‘Mum loved horses,’ I whisper. ‘She w-would’ve loved you.’

  He shifts from one foot to the other and nuzzles closer. I hope he’s happy and that his owner looks after him. I close my eyes for a moment and breathe in his horsey scent.

  I feel like I’m in a safe place, here. I wish I could just stay here and never go home.

  Sunday

  ‘We n-need to go to the p-police,’ I say when I come downstairs on Sunday morning, to find Dad’s slept in his chair all night again.