A Seven-Letter Word

by Kim Slater

  ‘Whoa!’ she says, reaching for a napkin. ‘Calm down, Finlay. I forgot, OK? It’s no big deal.’

  If she knew my heart felt like a cold stone split in two, she’d know how big a deal it was. ‘Y-you said you h-had s-something to t-tell me ab-about my m-mum,’ I manage.

  ‘I have but . . .’ She sighs and looks at her hands, then glances around the cafe. ‘Look, can we go for a walk, or something? I really need to talk to you, but not here. Let’s go to the park.’

  I’m devastated. It’s the only word I can think of to give the terrible disappointment inside me a name. Finding out from Alex if her stepmum is my mum feels like some kind of bait she’s keeping from me, something which means I’ll follow her anywhere as if I’m a starving rat, hoping for a few morsels to stay alive.

  Colwick Park is just a five-minute walk away from where we’re sitting now. Again I wonder how Alex knows Nottingham so well, but as I managed to get her gender completely wrong, who knows what other stuff has passed me by?

  I wanted to believe stuff so badly, it’s like I brainwashed myself.

  We leave our untouched drinks on the table and walk in silence until we get into the park and find a bench overlooking the largest lake. A group of ducks approach us hopefully but waddle away grumbling to themselves when they see we have no food to offer.

  Alex keeps looking around her, constantly twisting a piece of hair and chewing her inside cheek, but there’s nobody else around, apart from a couple of dog walkers over the other side of the lake.

  ‘I’m really sorry I lied to you, Finlay,’ she says, looking out across the water. ‘I didn’t want to, honestly. I just – well, I hadn’t really got a choice.’

  ‘L-lied?’ Although it annoyed me to admit it, she didn’t actually lie to me about being a boy.

  ‘I mean, it wasn’t always just me you were talking to online. My dad, he . . .’ She looks around again. ‘He made me do it.’

  Her dad made her do what? I just want to know what she knows about my mum. I can’t find out what I need to know by staying silent. I know I have to speak. My words are all mixed up in the wrong order, but they’re really, really important.

  ‘D-do you kn-kn—’ I swallow hard, take a big, deep breath. ‘Do-you-know-my-m-mum?’

  When she looks away and shakes her head, a flood of fury shoots through me. I’ve got this overwhelming urge to push her off the bench and walk away. She is playing some kind of stupid, cruel game with me. Everything she’s said has been a temptation, keeping me logging on, going back, desperate for more information. Now I’m pressing her for the truth, she doesn’t know what to say.

  But that’s not the real reason I’m angry. I’m furious because I’ve been a stupid, naive idiot who believed every last lie she fed me online. She knows nothing about my mum. She’s not my friend. She never will be and she never was.

  As I stand up I feel hollow inside, as if not even a shred of hope is left inside me.

  ‘Do you have the memory card, Finlay?’ Her voice is like a distant echo. I don’t even really understand what she’s saying, what she’s asking me.

  A man and a little boy have arrived and are feeding the ducks, off to my right. Most of the ducks are waddling around, happily eating the bread, but one bullying duck is stalking the others angrily, trying to bite and push them out of the way so he can eat all the bread. When he finally chases the others away and looks round, all the bread has gone.

  I’ve wasted so much time believing there is a link to Mum through ‘Alex’. I’ve been a complete idiot.

  ‘Just give me the memory card and I’ll go away,’ she says. Her voice is shaking and her face looks paler than ever. She looks around the park constantly, even turning to look behind her.

  ‘Y-you s-said you kn-knew my m-mum,’ I say, forcing the words out with more difficulty than ever. ‘Wh-why?’

  Alex buries her face in her hands. ‘It’s not me that knows her. It’s my dad.’ Her hands drop away, and she looks so scared and upset that if I wasn’t so angry, I might actually feel a bit sorry for her. ‘Your mum did some work for my dad’s company, MKF . . . in Leicester.’

  MKF. The logo that flashes up when I load the software.

  ‘He hired your mum to sort out his databases while he was working on some project for the council. She was supposed to just transfer the information from one system to another, but she found something she wasn’t supposed to see.’ Alex’s eyes harden for a second. ‘Dad says she could have just ignored it, but that she had to go and stick her nose in.’

  She twists round to fully face me. Two hot red spots have appeared on her cheeks and her lips look thinner, twisted. ‘We lost everything because of your mum. Dad had to wipe his records, pull out of the contract and lie low in case your mum went to the police. We lost our house, and Dad became . . . well, even worse than he was before.’

  My heart is pounding. This feels like a story she’s making up about Mum.

  Alex twists her hands into her sleeves. ‘There’s some kind of inquiry happening at the council that goes back six years in time. And this digital forensic expert claims that a copy of the original database was taken before it was wiped. If they find that data they’re going to throw the book at Dad. He’ll go to prison. Do you understand?’ Her eyes take on a haunted look. ‘Your mum’s the only person who could have made that copy. Dad found you . . . made me start up a conversation. Turns out you were pretty easy to google. I don’t know why, but for some reason Dad’s convinced your mum didn’t take the data with her.’

  ‘Wh-why d-didn’t you j-just say n-no?’

  Alex lets out a bitter laugh. ‘You don’t say no to my dad, he doesn’t like it.’ She pushes up her jacket sleeve to rub at her pale forearm and I glimpse a row of small bruises, like fingerprints on her skin.

  I keep getting a whiff of freshly cut grass and the slightly stagnant smell off the lake when the breeze blows past us. I can hear the faint hum of the council’s ride-on mower in the distance. All of it seems unreal.

  ‘That was him, earlier, online, before I took over again,’ Alex says, her voice shaking. ‘He knows, Finlay. Knows you have the memory card.’ She glances around the park again. ‘He’ll do anything to get it back.’

  ‘Wh-what’s on it?’

  Alex shakes her head. ‘I don’t know. Something about council house waiting lists. He’d – well, if you knew my dad you wouldn’t be surprised – he’d got some kind of scam going.’

  ‘A-and my m-mum f-found out?’

  Alex bites her lip and nods. ‘It was something to do with the people who were supposed to be living there. They weren’t real.’

  ‘Fr-fraud,’ I said faintly.

  ‘I heard Dad talking to his business partner about it. They’d rigged it so if your mum went to the police, it would look like she was to blame. The only real evidence that could link them to anything was on the original database. He didn’t know she had a copy until now,’ Alex says, looking around the park again. ‘Give me the memory card and he’ll leave you alone. Please, Finlay. You seem like a nice lad. I don’t want anything bad to happen.’

  THE TWO HIGHEST-SCORING LETTER TILES ARE ‘Q’ AND ‘Z’.

  Suddenly Alex gasps out loud and I jump up from the bench. Her eyes are wide and staring. ‘No, no, no,’ she whispers, her face deathly pale.

  I twist round to see ducks, geese and a wide expanse of the lake, curving off to our right-hand side. And then I spot something else: a big, angry-looking man with a red face and shaved head, striding towards us. He’s over six feet tall and very broad across the shoulders.

  ‘Dad, leave it, please,’ Alex calls out. Finlay’s going to give me the –’

  I don’t wait to hear the rest. I start to run.

  ‘Finlay, wait!’ she shrieks behind me, but I don’t look back. I pound, fast as I can, towards the thick copse over the far side of the lake. He’s running after me. I can hear his feet scuffling, his gasping breath some way behind. I swerve to avoid a grou
p of terriers, excited by the chase. They gather around my feet yapping, and I have to be really careful not to trip over them.

  I break free and a few seconds later hear Alex’s dad swear. One of the dogs yelps and its owner yells angrily. When I finally reach the wooded area, I’m gasping for breath as I launch myself in amongst the trees.

  I know these woods pretty well. I jump down into a hole in the ground that local kids sometimes use as a den, and hastily pull some bracken over myself.

  Then I sit still and listen, my heart bouncing off my ribcage.

  Within seconds, I hear him enter the woods, panting and cursing. ‘I’ll find you, you little swine, and when I do, I’ll wring your bloody neck.’

  I hunch deeper into the hole as his footsteps come closer.

  Stay still, don’t breathe, I tell myself as I squeeze my eyes shut.

  He stops, still for a moment. He’s so close to the den I can hear him breathing. Then there is crunching underfoot again and I nearly collapse with relief. He’s stomping off in the wrong direction. I open my eyes and flex the tense muscles in my neck and shoulders.

  And then I hear him coming back.

  He’s smashing through the bracken, beating the ground with a big stick. Then he’s standing right over me, and when he steps forward, his foot slips down into the den and he loses his balance.

  I spring up and try to clamber out before he can catch his breath, but a big meaty arm flies out and grabs my ankle. ‘Not so fast,’ he growls.

  I yelp as he yanks hard on my leg and I slide back down into the hole with him. He rights himself and grabs me around the neck.

  ‘Hand it over, you little runt.’

  I can barely breathe, never mind speak. Words dance around in front of my eyes, taunting me.

  ‘P-please,’ I squeak.

  ‘Dad, let him go!’ Alex stands over us, hands covering her mouth. ‘Finlay, please, just give him the memory card.’

  He loosens his grip very slightly on my throat.

  ‘I ha-ha—’

  ‘Spit it out you idiot,’ he hisses.

  ‘Ha-haven’t g-got i-it.’

  ‘You little liar.’ He bares his teeth and his face grows so red I’m sure his head is going to explode any second. ‘You told her you were bringing it with you.’

  ‘I l-left it a-at h-home,’ I manage.

  ‘Finlay, you have got it,’ Alex says sadly. ‘It’s in your jacket pocket; you’ve been patting it the whole time you’ve been with me. Just give it to him, please, then he’ll leave you alone.’

  Before I can stop him, her dad plunges his hand into my pocket and pulls out the piece of folded paper I put in there before I left home.

  ‘Hi Alex, I have a stutter. Sorry if it takes me some time to speak.’ He laughs out loud, screws it up and throws it to the ground.

  Alex reaches for the note. She unfolds it and reads it, but she doesn’t laugh. She looks tired and drained and the shadows beneath her eyes seem darker than ever.

  ‘I w-was checking I h-had the n-note,’ I say.

  ‘You stupid little prat,’ the man snarls at me. He pushes his massive face close to my ear until I can feel his hot, sour breath on the side of my face. ‘Empty your pockets, now. All of them.’

  I try to do what he says but my hands are trembling and he won’t wait. He starts patting me down, like an American cop, but he’s hitting rather than patting, pushing his fingers roughly into my pockets. When he finds nothing, he shoves me hard against the side of the den.

  I feel small and weak. And completely hopeless.

  ‘You’re a stubborn little swine, just like your mother. I don’t know why I ever trusted her. I knew there was something in that house.’

  ‘It was y-you that b-broke in?’ I force out.

  ‘Oh, you’re so s-smart,’ he mocks. ‘Work out who scared that stupid kid Oliver nearly to death, too? You should be thanking me for that.’

  ‘W-why would y-you do th-that?’ I whisper.

  ‘He did it to himself, the imbecile. I offered him cash for information – where you lived, that kind of stuff. Not my fault he ran off when he realized I wasn’t gonna pay up. Said he was going to tell his Daddy on me. I don’t think he realized who he was dealing with.’

  I feel a cold fear creeping up my spine as I realize just how far he is prepared to go to get what he wants.

  ‘Wh-where is my m-mum?’

  ‘How should I know?’ He pushes me so hard I crash into the den wall. ‘I gave the stupid cow two choices and she took the hard one.’

  ‘Y-you made her l-l-leave?’

  He stands tall, brushing bracken bits from his clothing. ‘Like I said. She chose to go. Obviously didn’t care enough about you and your old pa to stick around.’

  It hurts as much as if he’d beaten me around the head with that heavy stick he’s carrying. Alex steps forward, but he jabs the stick straight at her and she immediately takes a step back. He turns back to me. ‘Your mum had the chance to make an absolute packet and be happy. But she chose to screw over every single one of us and leave instead. Happy now, kid?’

  I look at his ugly, bloated face and I feel sick. On a mad impulse, I snatch the gnarled stick out of his hand and swing it up high, bringing it down hard on his fat, bald head.

  He lets out a great roar and bends over, cradling his skull. When he looks up baring his teeth at me, I can see blood running down his face where the stick has scraped his scalp. He must think his head is split right open, judging by how he’s bawling like a big kid.

  ‘Run!’ I hear Alex scream.

  And before I know it, I’m up and out of the den and running like my life depends on it.

  Maybe it does.

  THERE ARE OVER A HUNDRED TWO-LETTER WORDS ALLOWABLE IN SCRABBLE.

  I run down our road and feel a flood of relief as I see Dad’s van is parked outside. I fall through the door, gasping and coughing as Dad jumps up out of his chair.

  ‘Finlay! What’s wrong, why –’

  ‘Wh-where w-were you?’ I cry, bending over with my hands on my knees to catch my breath. ‘Y-you w-wouldn’t answer y-your ph-phone.’

  ‘I was on a job.’ He grabs my shoulders and shakes me gently so I look at him. ‘I left the phone in the van by mistake. What’s up?’

  ‘L-lock the d-doors,’ I urge him.

  ‘What’s all this about, son?’

  ‘J-just d-do it,’ I say. ‘Pl-please.’

  Dad’s eyes widen and he swallows hard but he does as I ask and when he comes back in the living room, I tell him everything.

  All of it. From the beginning.

  I tell him about first meeting ‘Alex’ online, and finding the photographs and the Bunny village clipping in the chest in his bedroom. Then I tell him about finding the memory card, and finally about Alex and the clash I’d just had with her dad in the park.

  ‘Bloody hell, Finlay,’ Dad says, his mouth open.

  I suddenly feel cold and really tired.

  ‘Wait here, I’ll bloody well sort that thug out,’ Dad grunts, pulling on his work boots.

  ‘N-no, Dad. W-we h-have to t-tell the police, right n-now. Mum c-could be in d-danger.’

  Dad just looks at me. He opens his mouth to say something but only a sigh comes out.

  ‘W-what?’ I’m losing patience with him. ‘W-what were you g-going to say?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Dad says sadly. ‘I just want to punch that bully for what he’s done. I’ve never seen him in the flesh but your mum and him, well . . .’

  Dad doesn’t finish his sentence.

  My face feels clammy. Alex had said something about her dad having an affair. I thought it was just more lies but Dad’s expression is saying something different.

  ‘D-did M-Mum l-leave you for h-him, D-Dad?’

  Dad shakes his head and sits down. He looks at his feet. ‘I don’t think so.’ He seems to shrink a bit in front of my eyes. His broad shoulders round in on themselves and his mouth droops down at the corner
s. ‘There was definitely something going on between them at one point. Her and King.’ He spits the name like it tastes bitter. He looks at me then. ‘I’m sorry, son, I should’ve talked to you about this stuff a long time ago, but the longer time went on, the harder it got.’

  My mind is reeling. Mum and King? How could she even think about being with that animal?

  ‘T-tell me n-now!’ I shout.

  ‘You know everything, son. In fact, you know more now than I’ve known all this time.’ Dad runs his hands through his hair and gives a heavy sigh. ‘Your mum told me that King, although I didn’t know his name at the time, had threatened to tell me about their affair so she’d decided to come clean about it. She said it was the biggest mistake of her life. She said he’d fooled her into believing he was a decent man. Then she said she was leaving – not to be with him, just leaving – and I asked her to . . . I asked her to leave you out of it.’

  I feel hot and twisted up inside. ‘W-what? Y-you h-had no r-right –’

  ‘Finlay,’ Dad booms, drowning out my fractured words. ‘I did what I thought was best for you, lad. You’d only just turned twelve years old, for goodness sake, I wanted to let you down gently.’

  ‘B-but you n-never sp-spoke to me ab-about M-Mum leaving a-at all.’

  ‘I wanted to,’ he said sadly. ‘But it was never the right time.’ A few seconds of silence and then Dad stands, pulling himself up to his full height. His mouth isn’t drooping any more, his jaw is set and his eyes dark.

  ‘I should’ve tackled King long before now. I should’ve hunted him down and confronted him when your mum left. I’m ashamed I just accepted her decision blindly instead of fighting to keep my family together.’ An expression of pure suffering flits across his face. ‘I could strangle him with my bare hands for what he’s just done to you. I’m ringing the police now, before I do something I’ll really regret.’

  Dad picks up the phone.

  ‘I’m sorry, lad, I shouldn’t have dithered. I should’ve dealt with this way before now.’

  I leave Dad with the phone and race up to my bedroom, hunting around in my desk drawer for the envelope of Scrabble photographs that Mum left.