Outside

by Sarah Ann Juckes

  It’s nice reading with Ezra-Dad, though. When he’s done with the newspaper, he tidies up the kitchen, which I do with him. He gets a cloth and wipes it over the table and the sink. I wipe a cloth over them, too, but I get my bandages all wet and need to take them off. He watches me out of the corner of his eye, but don’t say nothing. He takes the bin bag out of the bin and ties it up. I grab a handle and haul it out, too. He throws clothes into a wide mouth called the washing machine. I throw some of my clothes in there, too, though he ups and runs out of the room when I take off my dress.

  Ezra-Dad turns on the moving picture in the living room that he says is called a TV. We watch a programme about people called ‘police’. They ask a lot of questions about something called a ‘murder’ and put the people who lie about it in cages. I ask Ezra-Dad to change the programme. He does.

  Mainly, we watch stuff to do with making things. His favourite is a programme called Scrapheap Challenge, where people are in two groups and an excited man screams at them to make something up out of all the metal things in the Outside shed. Ezra-Dad don’t tell me it’s his favourite, but he watches it all the way through without switching, so I know.

  ‘That man shouts too much,’ I say, eating the crisps out of Ezra-Dad’s bowl.

  He smiles. He don’t think I see, but I do.

  Forty

  Ezra-Dad is going Outside.

  He said he’s going to ‘work’. I ain’t sure what he means by that. When I asked him, he mumbled a lot about ‘inheritance money’ and ‘being laid off’, until he said that work was just something he did to fill his time – like reading, or watching TV.

  I’m watching him get ready for work from the stairs. He’s putting on his coat and shoes and a hat for his head, and I ain’t got none of those.

  He puts his hand on the door, thinking hard about opening it. I pull my knees up close, waiting for the air.

  ‘Ye can come, if ye want.’

  He says it to the door, so for a moment I ain’t sure that he ain’t talking to it. He turns to me eventually, though, and I poke my fingers in between my toes so I’m holding my own hands.

  I rock forward and back. I bite my lip. ‘Piggyback?’

  Ezra-Dad shakes his head.

  I put my head down again. ‘Then no thank you.’

  Still he don’t leave. He keeps his hand on the door, rocking like me. Then he lets out a sigh. ‘OK then.’

  I stick my head up. ‘You’ll do it?’

  He nods.

  I jump up and put on the Outside things that he hands me: a yellow coat, all big and puffy, making me look as big as Cow – no, as big as a fridge – and a red scarf. I find shoes in the shoe cupboard that fit me and put them on.

  Ezra-Dad watches me dress and waits for me to join him at the door.

  ‘OK.’

  He bends down, and I jump on his back like last time. And I’m like a Prince jumping on my steed, ready for adventure.

  ‘Onwards!’ I shout, pointing to the door.

  He looks round at me, eyebrow raised, and I grin at him. He grunts back, just like a real horse.

  He opens the door and we take my first steps Outside the front. My smile gets blown away by the wind and my heart starts beating up a storm. I hold on to Ezra-Dad’s coat as tight as I can.

  It’s a brilliant white day and the sky is all frothy from jumping over cloud rocks. I can kind of feel where the sun is, though, high in the sky and making a bright hole. All the light shines on the grey floor and walls and makes them look glittery, like metal.

  It’s still pretty light, but I’m getting better at seeing.

  Ezra-Dad strides across the cracked-up floor towards a knee-high wall that rings the house. I follow it back and see that the house looks almost exactly the same from the front as it does from the back, apart from having less windows. One of the windows at the top is lying down and the other is tall, making it look like it’s winking at me.

  I wink back.

  Ezra-Dad stops up short, digging his hands in his pocket for something. He bends down and I lift my head up as I slide off his back on to the Outside floor, being careful not to let go of his coat.

  I’m standing on the floor – the Outside floor. In my shoes. I can’t get more Outside than that.

  And then Ezra-Dad moves his arm. And I see what I was afraid of all this time.

  We’re standing next to a red Dragon.

  And I’m brave, just like I knew I would be. I jump, trying to push Ezra-Dad behind me, wielding my empty hands like I’m holding a sword. I ain’t strong enough to move Ezra-Dad, but he does show me something shiny in his hand that looks awful like a mini sword, no bigger than a finger.

  Well, it ain’t what I’d have chosen, but it’s better than nothing. I grip hold of his arm and try pushing the sword up to the Dragon, hoping we’re finding its heart and piercing it true.

  Ezra-Dad shrugs me off, pressing a hidden button on the top of the sword and – click, click – the Dragon flashes its fire at the front and the back. Ezra-Dad seems to know what to do, though, as he leans forward, pulls on a scale on the side and opens up a hole right in the beast’s belly.

  The Dragon stops flashing its fire, just like that.

  I’m breathing awful fast, my fists still out and ready to strike.

  Ezra-Dad watches me, hands still on the scale he’s lifted off the Dragon’s side.

  I blink the spots from my eyes. ‘You OK?’ I ask him.

  He grunts. ‘Will be when ye get in.’

  I look at him wide-eyed, and then into the beast’s belly again. I take a step back towards the house.

  ‘I ain’t getting in no Dragon.’

  Ezra-Dad looks at me. He looks at me like I called it by the wrong name. I bite down on my tongue.

  ‘OK,’ he says eventually. He jangles his tiny sword again, clicks it at the top, and the Dragon flashes again. ‘We’ll go somewhere else then. But ye’ll have tae walk.’

  He starts walking away from me and the Dragon and the house. He has his hands stuffed in his pockets. His shoulders look big, all hunched over like that. He keeps his eyes on the floor like he’s afraid it’s going to move about.

  I dither on the spot, still eyeing up the Dragon. But I don’t want to be left alone without Ezra-Dad and his sword, so I take it at a run, catching up to him quick as and clinging to his arm again. He don’t stop walking and we go together, out past the wall and into the real-life Outside.

  How to be an Outside Person – number four: Go Outside.

  Forty-One

  I’m walking the whole world. My legs are going forward like they know what to do, but I keep feeling like I need to stop and go back, like any minute now there’s going to be a wall in my way.

  There ain’t, though. There ain’t nothing in front of me but grey floor, long and thin like a river, stretching so far that it smudges into the sky. Either side of the river-floor are brown clumps of hair growing up between rocks. I want to go over and touch them, but Ezra-Dad is walking right by them like they ain’t nothing important.

  There are shapes here and there, too far away for me to see proper, but what look like they might be more houses or sheds. Even more Dragons, all in different colours.

  Then I see the mountains.

  Mountains are much bigger than I thought. And, when I spin round, I see them all around us, like we’re trapped in the bottom of a giant cup. Someone has stirred everything inside so all the grey is mixing in with brown and yellow and – though I can’t see much that far – green. Up there, on the mountains.

  Green.

  I’m breathing awful quick. The cold is making my throat feel scratchy, like there’s some invisible hands in this Outside air that want to reach down inside of me and grab at my insides. I try keeping my mouth closed, but the fingers still poke in through my nostrils.

  I hold on to Ezra-Dad’s arm like it’s my sword.

  As we walk, one of the bigger shapes up ahead gets clearer. Clear enough to see that i
t’s a house not so different to the one Ezra-Dad and Willow live in. It’s got the same windows – one tall and one short – and has a wall going round it, too, though this one looks like it’s been eaten in places by big teeth. And it looks sadder, somehow. All dirty and worn. It’s dark inside. The windows are covered in dirt and there are more cracks in the floor here than just about anywhere else I’ve seen.

  ‘What’s this place?’ I say, my breath panting out of me as I hurry on up next to Ezra-Dad.

  ‘House,’ he grunts. ‘Empty one. I’ve been fixing it up for Will.’

  We don’t stop moving towards it. He leads me past the door that’s got red scrawl on it saying Gaz waz here and round the side. There’s only enough room for one of us at a time down here, so he goes first. I keep a hold of his coat, though. We’re squished in between two walls – the house and some other grey one. I keep my eye on the back of his shoes, all blurred as he walks.

  How to be an Outside Person – number eighteen: Fix up empty houses.

  When we pop out the other end, I have to blink the sun out of my eyes. And, for a moment, I don’t even believe that my eyes are open, ’cause right there – right in front of us – is a real-life tree growing up out of the grey.

  I start breathing hard again. I clutch at Ezra-Dad’s shoulder. I push him away. I grab him back.

  There’s a tree.

  ‘Watch ye –’ Ezra-Dad catches me as I throw myself forward so fast I trip. He drags me to my feet. ‘Ye kept mentioning trees so ah thought, ye know, seeing that ah just planted it and all …’

  I shout out all the stuff bubbling up inside of me and I launch myself towards the tree again. It’s thin as a twig, a young Maple. I stop just short of it, looking closely at all the scratches round its trunk, all streaked white and brown and green. And I look up and … and it’s all green. So much green. All fluttering, just like I thought it would. Just like I knew it would, and I was right. The trees ain’t no story. They ain’t dead. They’re real. They’re real and Ezra-Dad fixed it so it was so.

  My chest goes and explodes. I throw my arms round the tree trunk, hugging it close to me and feeling it all scratchy on my face. It smells like … like the ground. Like the air. Like the Outside.

  ‘I knew you was real, Maple,’ I say, kissing it all over.

  The wind blows up my dress and Maple’s leaves clatter like hands clapping. She’s mine now.

  I rub my palms up and down her, feeling at all her dents and scratches and loving each and every one of them.

  I look down for her roots, but they’re covered over with dirt and trapped in a wall of grey.

  I look for Ezra-Dad. He’s behind me, looking around with his hands in his pockets.

  ‘You made this?’ I gasp at him.

  He shakes his head, looking all pink. ‘Ah planted it.’

  ‘She’s growing? Out of the grey?’

  ‘Well, there’s soil under it and I’m gonnae lay a green if ah can lift up the rest of this paving … But aye, it’s growing.’

  I hug her again, hiding my face from Ezra-Dad in case he gets the wrong idea and thinks I’m crying. There are little black dots scurrying all over Maple, all this way and that. They each have little hairs on them and look like ants that begin with A.

  ‘Why’d you say that trees were dead, before?’

  I hear him shuffle from foot to foot. ‘Well, ah was upset.’

  I peek out at him. ‘Were you?’

  He looks up at the sky. ‘Sometimes … It’s easy tae forget that the whole world didnae die when she did.’

  And I know. I thought my whole world died when Zeb did, but I guess it was waiting for me on the other side of those walls after all, just like he always said it was.

  I stand for a long time, hugging Maple. Even when I’m feeling itchy from all the black dots. The white light around us starts to turn into grey, and it gets easier to open my eyes and look around. At the big yellow stick that’s buried with rocks from the ground. At the round hat next to it. And at the rest of the place, too. The bit of string tied from a pole to the house. More scribbles on the walls that I can’t read. Empty cans and packets trodden into the floor.

  ‘Ele? It’s raining.’

  Raining.

  I can feel it dropping on to my hand. On to my face. Dripping into my eye. I look up and watch the drops getting faster and faster, not blue like the rain in the books, but not stinging my eyes neither. I stick out my tongue and taste clouds.

  Din I say? Din I say that I was gonna find me some real rain?

  ‘Ele, we should go.’

  I sniff. ‘Will Maple be OK?’

  Ezra-Dad grunts, taking my arm away from her. ‘That’s how it drinks.’

  I knew that.

  As he leads me back round the house, I keep looking back at her drinking up all that rain until I can’t see no more but grey again.

  Forty-Two

  I’ve been Outside.

  I saw a tree.

  I got rain on my face.

  I’ve never felt more like an Outside Person.

  When we get home, I need to run upstairs and pee real bad through all my excitement. I listen to the rain on the windows and imagine Maple having the best of times, dancing about. She’s standing up through her walls and growing up into the centre of the world.

  Anything can grow in walls, if you plant it real careful. Even people can push their roots in and make themselves real.

  Maple. Maple is real.

  I am real.

  And so are the flowers Willow got me, though their heads have dropped now like they’re going for a walk. They look a bit sad, actually, so I go and put them in the toilet so they can have some water, too.

  I watch the last bit of Scrapheap Challenge with Ezra-Dad, me sitting on the floor where it’s most comfortable. It’s one we’ve seen already, so I don’t feel bad about speaking through it.

  ‘Today was a mighty fine day.’

  He grunts. I try grunting back, as it’s a good noise. I can’t do it as well as he can, though.

  We sit grunting ’til the sky clears of clouds and all the light leaks out of it. We hear Willow come in and run right upstairs without saying no hello.

  ‘He’ll come around,’ Ezra-Dad says, watching me scowl at the ceiling.

  ‘I got to let him grow,’ I whisper back. Just like them plants in the book Ezra-Dad gave me.

  At some point, Ezra-Dad goes out and brings me a tea and himself something called a beer, which smells like toes and has more bubbles than a bath. Soon as he starts drinking it, though, he changes. Starts relaxing back. Frowning less. It’s like this beer is a magic potion that lets him be less angry for a while. He won’t let me have none, though.

  ‘Yer tae young,’ he says, like that’s that.

  I frown at him. I don’t know how he knows how old I am when I don’t even know.

  He’s on his usual chair, laid back with his head resting on the top. The material is all worn away there, like some of it has been sticking to the back of his head all this time. When I look, though, I can’t see no white chair in his mess of orange curls.

  ‘What was Willow like when he was a little ’un?’ I ask. I lie back on the floor, looking up to the room that Willow’s in.

  ‘A bairn,’ Ezra-Dad grunts, crossing his fingers over his belly and turning the TV off. There ain’t no more shows about scrapheaps on now.

  ‘But what was he like.’

  ‘Like a bairn.’ He chuckles like he ain’t supposed to be.

  I roll my eyes. ‘I ain’t knowing what no bairn is like.’

  That shuts him up.

  I lift my head. It’s damn dark out. There’s all these little lights on in the sky that I know to be stars, but I can’t see none of them properly from here to wish on. The lamp next to Ezra-Dad is on, washing some of the starlight out on the window. The light makes Ezra-Dad’s face look like it’s torn in half, with only the bit facing the lamp there at all. He talks like he’s still got his whole he
ad, though.

  ‘Most bairns are the same. They come out bawling and keep bawling, until they start teething, and then they start bawling and screaming.’

  I pull a face. That sounds terrible. ‘Why’d you have one then?’

  He turns his head so it’s all swallowed up by the shadow apart from a bit of beard and ear. ‘It’s what she wanted.’

  I guess that he’s talking about Ashley-Mum again, so I don’t say nothing for a while. Nor does he. We just sit listening to the house making its clacky creaking.

  And then he does something really weird. He starts talking all on his own.

  ‘Ah know ah don’t talk about her. It’s hard, ye see. But she wanted him – Will. When we met, she said she hated bairns. Didnae want them.’ He looks up at the ceiling. ‘Then one day she changed her mind for the both of us.’

  I tilt my head back further and stare up with him at the patterns swirling up the light like spoons in tea.

  ‘It was different when he came, though. He was the one who changed my mind about kids. There was a lot of bawling. And shit, too. Och.’

  My laughs sound funny, lying on my back.

  ‘But it didnae matter somehow.’

  ‘Why din he clean up after himself?’

  He starts laughing, too, sounding more relaxed than I’ve ever heard him. ‘Yer having me on. If only! Bairns aren’t the best at that. They need a lot of looking after.’

  I move my head from side to side and watch the patterns swirl.

  ‘Like what kind of looking after?’

  ‘Well, ye know. Everything. Feeding, changing, bathing, burping …’

  ‘And what happens? If they don’t get looked after right? Do they not turn out all normal?’

  I can hear him shrugging – the brush of his shoulders on the back of the chair. ‘Cannae tell ye what normal is, tae be honest.’

  ‘It keeps changing,’ I whisper, frowning.

  Dads are funny, though. In the books, fathers keep you until they run out of food, try their hardest to leave you all alone in the forest, but are mighty sad when they go and succeed. But that ain’t what Ezra-Dad is talking about, is it? He’s saying that he did all kinds of things for Willow – stuff that’s not in any of the stories I read. Nice stuff. Kind stuff.