In my coolest tone, I asked, ‘Would someone care to explain how I came to have an American child in my school who has no contact with his father and who has been disguised as a girl since the beginning of term?’
Matthew
There was a beat of silence. Then Mum started talking. She told the whole story. The way she explained it, there was no great deal in what had happened. It was just one of those crazy family situations.
Crash
I’ve knocked around a bit in my time, but I swear to you I have never heard such a load of baloney in all my days.
‘Lemme get this straight, I spoke in my quiet, snake-about-to-strike tone. ‘You come over to my ex-wife’s funeral and, just because I happened not to be around at the time, you take away my son. Right? Out of his country. Away from his family. Am I missing something so far?’
Mrs Burton gave me the cold English look that I now knew so well. ‘It was my sister’s wish. She thought you were still in jail. She believed that we could give her son a sound and stable family background.’
‘Let me just remind you of one small detail.’ I spoke casually, then exploded. ‘He’s been dressed up in a god-dam skirt for the last three weeks! Is that your idea of a sound and stable family background?’
‘It’s plain dysfunctional is what it is,’ said Ottoleen. ‘You’ve probably messed that poor kid up for life. He won’t know if he’s Sam or’ – she hesitated for a moment – ‘Samette…Samine…Samma?’
The cream-puff-fink Burton looks at Ottoleen like she’s some kind of basket case. Then he turns to me. ‘Is Sam really more messed up than when he was living with Mr Lopez? Somehow I doubt it. And I have to ask whether Sam’s inheritance has anything to do with—’
I had heard enough. ‘He’s my kid,’ I hollered. ‘I’m taking him home.’
I thumped the desk. Hard.
Matthew
The sound of Crash’s fist on the desk seemed to bring Sam out of his trance. For the first time since we walked into the office, he looked, direct and unblinking, at his father.
‘Do you remember the wall?’ he asked quietly.
‘Wall?’ Crash narrowed his eyes threateningly. ‘What are you talkin’ about?’
‘The wall where I saw you for the last time. The wall that changed my life.’
Crash glanced over at Mrs Cartwright. ‘I told you that putting the kid in drag would mess up his mind.’ He turned back to Sam. ‘We’ll talk about the old times later, son,’ he said, a hint of threat in his voice.
‘Tell us about the wall, Sam,’ said my father.
‘I had just turned five.’ said Sam, his eyes still fixed on Crash. ‘You had been taking me out on jobs for a few months already. You called me “Crash Junior”. You said I was one of the gang.’
‘Happy days,’ said Crash nervously.
‘Dare one ask what kind of job this was?’ asked Mrs Cartwright.
As if no one else was in the room except him and his father, Sam continued. ‘This job was special, you said. It was a chance to prove that I was a real tough guy, just like my daddy. All I had to do was to stand on a ledge outside a second-floor window where you put me. Then, after I had counted to a hundred, you wanted me to step out on to a wall that was overlooking the main drag, walk out a few steps and start screaming, just as loud as I could. All the folks down there would panic, right? No one would notice that, on the corner of the street, three guys were walking in to help themselves to a payroll bag as it was delivered to a shop.’
‘Help themselves?’ It seemed that Mrs Cartwright was beginning to understand what this was all about.
‘It was a good plan,’ said Sam. ‘After all, the wall was thirty feet above the concrete sidewalk. Seeing a small kid up there alone would be a pretty good diversion, right?’
‘Twenty-five feet, they said in court,’ Crash muttered.
‘But I blew it,’ said Sam. ‘I looked down and suddenly I felt dizzy. I really did panic. I screamed and screamed and then I pointed to you and called out to you again and again when I saw you pull in to the side of the street in the getaway car. Except you didn’t get away.’
There was silence in the office as we waited for Sam’s father to speak.
‘Poor Sam,’ my mother murmured.
We looked at Crash Lopez. Suddenly he was no longer this hard billiard ball of a guy. He rolled his shoulders uneasily. ‘It wasn’t your fault, kid,’ he said. ‘It was mine. I was young. You were scared of the wall, but I was scared too – scared of drowning in family life, losing my freedom, losing everything that mattered to me. Go and grab the world by the throat – that’s the Crash Lopez way.’
‘And that’s what you’re doing now,’ said Sam.
‘It’s not the money, I swear,’ said Crash. ‘I thought the million bucks was what mattered to me when I flew over here, but now I’ve seen you, I feel differently.’
‘What money?’ asked Mrs Cartwright. ‘Would someone kindly tell me what is going on here?
‘You never came back to see us,’ said Sam. ‘All my life, I’ve believed that I was the reason you ended up in jail.’
‘Listen, kid. Things were kinda complicated. There were people who wanted to see me real bad – people who did not have my best interests at heart, if you know what I mean. I didn’t want to get you and Galaxy involved.’
‘Bull,’ said Sam. ‘You were living your life’. A flicker of a glance took in Ottoleen: ‘Having fun. And you know what? I don’t blame you. Maybe I’ll do the same thing one day.’
Crash chuckled uneasily. ‘Chip off the old—’
‘You didn’t want me around. You only wanted me when I was useful. Recently I’ve discovered that not everyone’s like that.’
Crash shrugged uneasily. ‘Hey, I was young. I was out of my depth. I’ve changed, kid. I’ve got feelings deep down where it matters.’
‘Yeah?’ Sam smiled sadly. ‘I doubt if Crash Lopez will have real, true family feelings for as long as he lives.’
There was silence for a moment. Then, something very strange – even stranger than what was already happening – took place. A sort of weird police-siren-like wail came from Ottoleen.
‘He has got family feelings,’ she managed to say eventually. ‘He’s like this totally big-time father kind of guy.’
‘You weren’t there,’ said Sam.
Ottoleen glanced down at him. ‘I’m not talking about you, you little jerk,’ she snapped. ‘You’ve been nothing but trouble. We only wanted you back because of the cash. I’m talking about his real family.’
Everyone stared at her. ‘What exactly are you saying, Ottoleen?’ Crash asked.
‘Our baby.’ Ottoleen put a hand on her stomach. ‘Just promise me you’ll have family feelings towards our baby, Crash.’
‘Are you saying you’re pregnant?’
Ottoleen nodded and smiled gloopily through her tears. ‘I took the test yesterday. I didn’t know when to break it to you,’ she whispered. ‘All you could think about was this brat of yours.’
And Crash opened his arms and let his sobbing wife walk into a big, gentle bear hug.
‘Baby, baby, baby,’ he said. ‘I’m so proud of my little kitten.’
Ottoleen, face against Crash’s chest, was making a strange new noise.
‘Miew,’ she went. ‘Miew, mieeeeew.’
I looked across at Sam. He shook his head. In spite of the craziness and the stress, in spite of everything, we started laughing.
Charley
The noises that were coming from that office! Murmured conversation, then a bit of bawling and shouting, then quiet again, then a sort of high-pitched whine. I was agog to know what the hell was going on.
Then, just as we thought that this mad soap opera was going to last all night, the door to the head teacher’s study opened.
Matthew
Sam and I stepped out first. There, to our amazement, was a small crowd, waiting for us in the school lobby.
For a second or two,
there was silence as the two of us stood, framed by the doorway. Then I put an arm around Sam’s shoulder and we both smiled.
I guess that must have said it all, because suddenly they were all applauding like we were back in Talent Night and we had just completed some kind of brilliant performance.
Then, out of the crowd, this small figure rushed forward and threw her arms around Sam’s neck.
Zia
Yes! Oh yes!
Matthew
All hell broke loose. The Lopezes came out of the study crying, the head was shouting to restore order, Mrs Khan was trying to pull Zia away from Sam, Mrs Sherman seemed to be having some kind of row with Tyrone, perhaps on account of his famous girlfriend having turned out to be a boy, Charley and Elena were standing with Jake and his dad, who was looking confused as they tried to talk him through precisely how all this had happened. It was going to take some explaining.
I stepped back and watched them for while. Across the lobby, my parents smiled. Mum gave me a double thumbs-up sign.
And, just for a couple of seconds, I almost lost it there and then. The whole scene became blurred, I felt this whole lump thing happening in my throat and a pricking around my eyes.
I cleared my throat, sniffed, squared my shoulders and walked towards them.
If this story was a Doors song, which would it be?
‘Strange Days’?
‘Ship of Fools’?
‘Take It As It Comes’?
‘Wild Child’?
You want my opinion, it would be a little number called ‘Break on Through to the Other Side’.
Mr and Mrs Lopez broke on through by becoming Mom and Pop to a little girl called Elizabeth, named after the queen of the country where she started her journey into the world. Crash is Tony these days. He’s the proprietor of My Private Cloud, a restaurant in downtown Santa Barbara.
Matthew, Elena, Tyrone, Charley and Jake broke on through to something which looks suspiciously like friendship. They discovered what some folks take a lifetime to learn – that there’s no point in fighting the difference between guys and girls. In fact, maybe it’s the difference that makes life kind of weird and interesting.
At least, sometimes. When it comes to Sam Lopez, he’s broken on through to the other side in his own way. Sometimes, just to mix things up a bit, he likes to go out as Samantha. Folks can be different even in one body, he had discovered. Summers he flies over to the States to see his dad and his stepfamily out on the coast. The rest of the year he’s living in London with his new gang, with the Burtons, with Zia, singing songs, living life out loud.
It may sound like a mess, but sometimes mess can be OK, mess can be fine. Sometimes mess is just another word for living your life as the real you, not someone else’s version of what they think you should be.
And, take it from me, that feels good.
Stewart is geeky, gifted but socially clueless. His mom has died and he misses her every day. Ashley is popular, cool but her grades stink. Her dad has come out and moved out – but not far enough.
Their worlds are about to collide: Stewart and his dad are moving in with Ashley and her mom. Stewart is 89.9% happy about it even as he struggles to fit in at his new school. But Ashley is 110% horrified and can’t get used to her totally awkward home. And things are about to get a whole lot more mixed up when they attract the wrong kind of attention…
‘Snappy and witty. A really fine YA novel’ Telegraph
‘I defy you not to fall in love with this book’ Phil Earle
9781783443765 £7.99
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD
‘Son, you’re going to find more and more hope the farther and farther you walk away from this sad, sad reservation.’
So Junior, a budding cartoonist, who is already beaten up regularly for being a skinny kid with glasses, decides to go to the rich all-white high school miles away. He’ll be a target there as well, but he hopes he’ll also get a chance to prove everyone wrong. This is the incredible story of one Native American boy as he attempts to break away from the life he thought he was destined to live.
‘Excellent in every way’
Neil Gaiman
‘Overflows with truth, pain and black comedy’
New York Times
9781783442010
EVERYBODY JAM
ALI LEWIS
Shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal
Danny Dawson lives in the middle of the Australian outback. His older brother Jonny was killed in an accident last year but no one ever talks about it.
And now it’s time for the annual muster. The biggest event of the year on the cattle station, and a time to sort the men from the boys. But this year things will be different: because Jonny’s gone and Danny’s determined to prove he can fill his brother’s shoes; because their fourteen-year-old sister is pregnant; because it’s getting hotter and hotter and the rains won’t come; because cracks are beginning to show …
‘What an incredible debut. Lewis brings rough poetry and raw poignancy to this coming-of-age tale. I loved it.’ Keith Gray, author of Ostrich Boys
9781849392488 £7.99
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