by Ben Chambers
I tested Charlie a little bit. I was reading some of the questions for him. “What is the largest animal in Africa?” I said, but he didn’t know. “How many legs does a spider have?” He didn’t know that one either. We both got kind of bored of books, so I suggested that we should go into the lounge to watch a movie. Charlie didn’t sound too excited by the idea though.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve watched all the—” Then he twisted around to face me. His eyes were all big and crazy with excitement. “Oh yeah!” he said, quite loud. I kind of flinched. I don’t like it when people are very loud around me. “The new couches!” He grabbed my hand. “Come on, I have to show you my new couches.”
I thought that was quite funny. They were his parents’ couches, not his. But kids don’t really know that stuff. He pulled me into their lounge. They have this nice lounge with a very big television on one side and a couch on the other side. Only it was different now. Debbie told me they got new furniture, and they had. Now they had two very long couches across two of the walls, so that you could choose where you wanted to watch the TV from. Charlie ran up and jumped up on the couches, with his feet all over them. I thought his parents probably wouldn’t like that. I think it’s meant to be bad to put your feet on couches like that, but I wasn’t too sure. He was so excited, running all across them. They were obviously brand new; I think they had only just got them that afternoon. There was a whole lot of wrapping and packing all over the floor. I would have normally been very excited too, but I started thinking about something.
I was thinking about the other day, on Thursday. It was meant to be my last lecture that day. It was on at 9:00 am, and I was meant to go to it. But when my alarm woke me up to get ready, I felt so tired. I just couldn’t really be bothered getting up, to be honest. So I just decided to skip it. It was the last one anyway, so I suppose it didn’t really matter. I went back to sleep and didn’t wake up until midday. Then when I woke up, I noticed that I had a missed call on my phone, and that they had left a message. I saw it was from my dad’s phone number, so I called him back right while I was still lying there in bed. But when I called back, he didn’t answer. I tried calling him again, and he still didn’t answer. So I thought I would listen to the message. But it was only about one second long, and I could hardly hear it. All it was, was my dad sighing, and then hanging up. I just kind of forgot about it and had a normal day. When I remembered it later that afternoon, I tried calling again, but he still didn’t answer. I thought it was a bit odd, because he normally never missed my phone calls. And if he did, he would usually call me back within a few minutes. He was very good at keeping on top of that stuff.
When I still hadn’t heard from him later on, I decided to go visit him. I knew my mum would be working, and that my dad would have been home by then, so I thought it would be perfect. I could visit him without having to bother seeing my mum. I got the bus over there, and his car was in the driveway. I knocked on the front door and went inside. I didn’t wait for anyone to answer, because, of course, it was my house anyway. I always just went straight in. I called out his name, but I couldn’t hear anything. It was so strange. Everything in the house was so still and quiet. I couldn’t remember ever having been in there when there wasn’t at least someone making a little bit of noise. Even if it was just having the radio on or walking around or something. I looked around everywhere and couldn’t find him. So I called his phone again, and I heard the very quiet ringing coming from somewhere in the house. I had to call him three times to track it down. But I eventually did, in the closet of his bedroom. That’s when I found him hanging like I told you about.
It made me feel quite dark, thinking about it again. I didn’t even really feel sad anymore; I don’t even know how to explain it. I just kind of felt bad. Almost like I was dead myself or something. My whole head just felt like it was rotten inside. I wondered if maybe I hadn’t been so lazy and answered his call instead of sleeping in, if maybe he would still be alive.
Then Charlie said this very strange thing. This very stupid thing. He said, “Which one of these couches is bigger? Because I want you to sit on the biggest one.” It was very stupid because the couches were the same size. I could see that. I’m sure he could see it, too. I mean, it was his own couches, for god’s sake. He definitely knew.
“I think they’re the same size,” I said.
“Are they? Are they really?”
“Yeah.”
“Aw. Because I wanted to give you the big one.”
I didn’t like him very much, all of a sudden. I even felt like being mean to him.
“You knew they were the same size,” I said. He wasn’t listening to me, though. He was crouching down on the couches and feeling the material. “Get off the couch,” I said, and took a few steps towards him. “Get off the couches, you stupid little idiot.” I said it quite loudly. He looked at me then. “You knew they were the same size, didn’t you?” I kind of yelled at him a bit. He started to look very upset then. He was looking up at me with these big eyes and this very confused looked on his face. “You were just trying to show off!” I was speaking very harshly to him now. Charlie didn’t say anything, but he looked very upset. I wanted to make him cry. I went up to him and pushed him over, so he landed on the couch. “You knew the whole time you little bastard!” He started crying then. “You’re just a spoiled brat!” I pushed him in the chest. It wasn’t that hard, but it was probably too hard for a small child. “Why don’t you play with your car anymore?” I was almost screaming at him now. “Why the hell don’t you play with your remote-control car anymore?” I kept pushing him over and over again. He kept trying to get up off the couch, to get away from me. But every time he tried, I would just push him back down. He just kept crying. His nose was all snotty too; it was disgusting. God, I hated him. He was an idiot, he didn’t even ever answer me. I was just so angry at him and his stupid couches. I went to the other couch, the one he wasn’t sitting on, and ripped off all the pillows and threw them all over the room. I even threw one at the wall and it knocked a painting onto the floor.
Eventually, I got bored of him just lying there crying, so I decided to leave. Before I went out the door I said, “Your hot dog socks are very ridiculous. Why don’t you grow up, you stupid baby.” Then I left.
Chapter Ten
I wasn’t sure what I should do then. It was getting dark, and I only just realised I wasn’t sure where to sleep that night. I guess I could go back to Lily’s and ask her if I could sleep there, but I didn’t much want to do that. I could have maybe asked Penny, but I didn’t really want to do that either. I didn’t know what to do, so I just decided to go back to university. At least I could hang out there for a few hours and think about what to do before they kicked me out. I started heading towards where the bus stop was. It was quite warm outside. I sort of thought it would be cold, because it was night time, but it wasn’t. When the bus got there, I was very glad to see it was completely empty, except for the driver. I wasn’t in the mood to sit next to anyone. No one except me even got on it for my entire trip.
While I was on the bus, I was thinking about this one time when I was younger. I was quite young, probably only thirteen. Me and this girl Charlotte were sitting on the swings at my high school at lunchtime. Charlotte is this girl I used to be friends with. She was all right, but she had these very big thighs. We were sitting on the swings, just talking. We were talking about what we could do after school, and we thought maybe swimming and movies. It was Friday, so we wanted to do something interesting. We thought that we could take our bikes and ride to the swimming pools in Newmarket and then go to the movie theatre.
There was this girl who was sitting on the grass just a little bit away from us. I had noticed her a few minutes before, because she kept looking over. Then, while we were talking about all that stuff, the girl got up and came toward us. Her name was Chloe. She had red hair, and she was very quiet all the time. She was in some of my classes, but I ha
d only heard her talk one or two times, when the teacher asked her a question. She never said anything to anyone that I ever saw. She came up to us with this goofy smile on her face.
“My name is Chloe,” she said. I already knew her name but only just. I’m not sure if Charlotte did though. Then she said something that surprised me a lot. She said, “Would you two mind very much if I came along with you this afternoon?” We didn’t say anything at first, but we didn’t even really get a chance. Chloe started to talk to us very quickly with these wide eyes. “I know we never hung out before, but I think we can have a great time together. I’ve always seen you two and think you’re really pretty and cool.” She was talking so quickly we didn’t even get a chance to say anything. “I don’t have my bike at school right now, but we could go to my house and get it very quickly. It’s only my mum there, but she’s really nice, and she said she’d love to meet both of you. I’m actually a great swimmer. Last summer, I swam thirty laps with only one break.” She was so excited. It was crazy, I’ve never seen anyone so excited about anything before. She was kind of hopping around on her feet and looking at us with these really wide eyes.
Charlotte had told me later on that Chloe was always a weird girl and that once, she was even taken out of school for a week because she was infected with head lice. Then when she came back, her head was completely shaved.
Chloe was just standing there, breathing kind of hard, looking at us, waiting for us to say something. Then I said something. I said something very horrible. I was a nasty, nasty little girl.
“Were you eavesdropping on us?” I said. What a little bitch I was. Chloe looked kind of horrified when I said that. I remember her eyes; they looked so worried and scared.
Then Charlotte said, “We don’t even know you.”
After that, Chloe ran away. She just turned and ran off. Sometimes, I think about that and it makes me very sad. So I don’t like thinking about it too often, but sometimes, I can’t help it. Chloe must have been so sad, all because of what I said. It’s no wonder why horrible things happen to me, because of how horrible I am to everyone else. Bad people deserve bad things to happen to them. If I wanted people not to do bad stuff to me, I should have thought about that before I went around being such a disgusting person to everyone else.
I didn’t see Chloe for a while after that. Then, when I eventually did see her around school, I tried to say hi to her a few times. But she wouldn’t really look at me anymore.
I got off the bus at university. It looked quite different at night, with all the lights on in all the buildings. I hadn’t really been there at night much before. I was just standing around on the side of the road, trying to think where I should go. Right when I was standing there, there was this man walking past me. He was pulling this little girl behind him. He was clamped on to her upper arm very tight it looked like. She wasn’t making any noise, but I could see she was crying. I could see it on her face.
“Pick up your feet,” he said and tugged on her arm. She was just being dragged along behind him, since she didn’t have any choice. He stopped and stared down at her. “I said don’t drag your feet!”
I wanted to go up to him and tell him off. Actually, what I really wanted to do was go up to him and shoot him right in his face. But I knew I’d never be able to do it, so I didn’t even bother trying.
I didn’t know how anyone could be so horrible to a little kid like that. I’d never do anything mean at all to children if I ever had them. Once in a while, I sort of think about what it would be like if I had kids. At the moment, I don’t really want any children. It sort of scares me. But I thought that maybe later in life, maybe I might want some. I might even want lots. A big family sounds pretty nice actually. You’d always have someone to talk to. Or people to play with if you wanted. Sometimes when my parents and I tried to play a board game or a card game or something, we couldn’t. Because maybe the game needed four people. And we only had three. Or maybe my mum was feeling too tired, and then we even only had two. And most games with only two people aren’t very fun at all. But I thought that sometimes it could be pretty nice to have about eight people in your family. Then you could always play any game you want. Or even if you wanted someone to watch a movie with, there would probably always be at least one person. Or if you needed help figuring something out, someone could always come and help you. I thought maybe I would have a husband and a big house somewhere. Kind of outside of the city though, so I could have a garden. Maybe my husband would be a doctor, so we wouldn’t be too poor. It’s probably not too nice to be very poor. And maybe I could be a very successful businesswoman or something. I could wear very cool business clothing and have a lot of very important meetings. But mostly, I’d just employ other people to do the work for me, because I don’t want a very stressful life like that. Then we would have about five or six kids, I think. But even better than that is that we would have a lot of cats and dogs! Like maybe four cats, and some dogs, too. My husband could look after the dogs, because he would like dogs a lot. But I’d get to be ruler of the cats. I’d be the Cat Queen. One great thing I’d do is that the house would have little cat runs going all along the walls. Like little ledges around the edge of all the rooms in the house and ramps leading up to them from the floor. That way, the cats could run all around the house and just peer down at people from their lookout spots. I like it best when cats peer at you like they do, because they look quite tough and evil. But then, when you actually pat them, they’re very friendly and cuddly. That’s kind of what I want to be like. I want people to know that I’m very tough and not to mess with me. But that if they actually get to know me, and I like them, then I’m a very kind person.
I was thinking about all that and then a terrible thing happened. I was standing on that street and I heard someone yell, “Francesca!” I don’t like it when people call me that. Mostly only my mother calls me that. I turned around and saw my Uncle Pete. He was already getting out of his car and coming towards me. He must have been driving past, because his car was just stopped there, in the middle of the road. The front door was even still open where he had got out, and there was a car stopped behind him, because he was holding up all the traffic.
Pete was this big man. He was very tall, maybe almost seven feet tall, and he had this big belly and these even bigger shoulders. He was huge. And he was sort of walking and running over to me, yelling my name. I was quite surprised, to be honest. I didn’t even really have time to feel anything else, because I was still trying to process what was going on. I hadn’t seen Pete in a very long time. He used to occasionally babysit me when I was young, and my parents were too busy to look after me. But then he got this head injury, and he had to quit his job. He was actually pretty nice to me before then. He worked as a chef, and he always tried to teach me how to make things. He actually did teach me how to make pancakes once, and I still remember it even now. But after he hurt his head, it sort of made him become a bit crazy. He started walking around everywhere with no shirt on and kind of grunting all the time. I saw him do it a lot at our family Christmas party. My parents didn’t tell me very much about it, maybe because they didn’t want a kid to worry about very grown-up things. But they said they were trying to get a doctor to help him. Then he started taking a lot of drugs, and my parents didn’t let him come over any more. The next year he wasn’t at the Christmas party. I don’t think he was even invited.
His big, bald head was coming toward me. He was completely bald, but he had this long grey beard. He came up to me so quickly that there was this wall of air that hit me and almost blew me away. Even my hair kind of flew back a little bit. He grabbed me roughly by both of my shoulders.
“Where have you been?” he said. He was sort of shaking my shoulders while he said it. My head was bobbing all over the place. He’s very strong. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you. Your mother’s completely distraught, and all she’s been asking for is to have you home. Where have you been?”
; “I’ve been writing my essay,” I said. And that was true, I had been.
“Your essay?” he said. He sounded very angry. “Francesca, your father has just died, what the hell does your essay matter? You need to be home to see your mother right now.”
I already knew my father had just died! I didn’t need him telling me that! “Stop shaking me!” I said. He was still shaking me. I was quite angry now. “And let go of me!” I sort of karate chopped his arms to make him let go of me. I have quite a good karate chop, when I try. I think he could have easily kept holding on to me, but luckily, he let go. I saw there were a couple of people who were looking at us now. I think we were both being quite loud. There was even a man with a red hat on the other side of the street who had stopped to see what was going on.
“I have to finish my essay,” I said, and I started walking off. I wasn’t in the mood for talking to him. But he grabbed my arm when I tried to leave. He grabbed the upper part of it, between my shoulder and elbow, just like that little girl I had seen. He clamped down quite hard.
“Where are you going?” he said. “I’ve been asked to bring you back home. Your grandparents are there with your mother, trying to keep her calm. They’ve been going crazy looking for you. We’ve all been driving around day and night trying to find you. We’ve been to your flat, to your friend’s house, whatever her name is. We’ve been combing the bloody streets. We almost called the police to report you missing.”