Catch Me If I Fall

by Barry Jonsberg

  ‘It’s okay,’ she mumbled. ‘Go back to sleep.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Just an alarm from the wall. Happens all the time. Dad and his men will sort it. Go back to sleep.’

  But I couldn’t. Even when the noise stopped, about half an hour later, I couldn’t. I stared at the dark space above the bed, listened to the silence and waited until morning slowly bathed the room in light.

  Charlotte’s theory about puberty explaining Aiden’s mood swings and strange behaviour had stayed with me. I tried to tackle him about it the following day, after dinner (it featured chips – Mum was away on yet another conference).

  ‘Do you feel all grumpy, Aiden? Maybe a bit depressed? Feeling like you aren’t in control of your own body?’

  ‘Your face is all grumpy,’ he said. And smiled. This was something we’d seen in an old movie. This character kept saying ‘your face’ when replying to a question. It was really stupid and childish and we’d stopped doing it ourselves a year or so ago. We’d just forgotten about it. I was amazed – and curiously pleased – that it seemed to have made a reappearance.

  ‘I’m serious,’ I said.

  ‘Your face is serious,’ said Aiden. ‘And your face is depressed.’

  ‘It is now I’m talking to you.’

  ‘Ha, ha, good one, Ash-face.’

  ‘Your face is an ash-face,’ I said and we both cracked up laughing at that.

  So he never did confirm Charlotte’s diagnosis, but the fact that he was in such a good and talkative mood seemed to indicate she was on the right track. He’d been so intense the night before last. Scarily so. I could almost hear those hormones racing through his body.

  I felt both of us were in for a tough time of it for the next couple of years.

  Turns out I didn’t know the half of it.

  I heard Mum and Dad arguing on their video-call later that evening. Aiden and I had gone to the pool, but I’d got out to use the bathroom and it was as I was going back that I heard Dad’s voice in the kitchen. I don’t know why I stopped. I wouldn’t normally listen in to my parents’ conversation – mainly because it would be really boring – but for some reason, maybe the tone in Dad’s voice, I stopped by the door and peeked in. He had his back to me and he was staring down at the tablet in his hand. I took a step or two to one side. I didn’t want Mum to see me appear in the corner of her screen.

  ‘I understand why you have to be away so often, Chrissie. I do,’ said Dad. ‘The work you do is incredibly important and you know I’ve always been totally supportive …’

  ‘So what’s changed now?’ Mum’s voice was a bit tinny and there was a slight echo to it, but she was in New Delhi, so the reception probably wasn’t as good as normal.

  ‘Nothing’s changed. It’s just that Ashleigh’s getting older, becoming more independent and I think I really need to take a look at my life, what I’ve achieved or what I could achieve, before it’s too late.’

  ‘You’ve always been happy to stay at home …’

  ‘Yeah, I’ve loved it. Seriously loved it. But when you get old, Chrissie, you’ll be able to look back on a life that’s accomplished so much, done so much good in the world, whereas I … well, I’m not saying being a stay-at-home dad isn’t valuable. I know it is. But I’m not sure I’m needed anymore. Maybe it’s time to … I don’t know, do something.’

  ‘Is this a mid-life crisis, Gareth?’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake …’ Dad put a hand to his head and the tablet to his chest. He took a deep breath and lifted the device up once more. ‘All I’m saying is that when the kids are at school I could do something that, in only a small way, maybe, would help. I dunno. Maybe volunteer work at the food kitchens for the poor, that kind of thing. Help out with renewal of vegetation. Or give free classes on vegetable production to those in need. And, if all that goes well, maybe doing something like that full-time. We could employ a nanny or something, give work to a person who probably desperately needs it. God knows we’ve got the money to do it.’

  There was silence at Mum’s end for a few seconds.

  ‘Let’s talk about this when I get home, Gareth,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know you were unhappy with your life and of course you should do something if you feel it has no meaning. Gotta go. Talk later. Bye.’

  ‘I’m not saying my life has no meaning, Chrissie …’ But she was gone. Dad stared at the screen for a moment or two and then put his tablet down on the kitchen table. He put it down with more force that I thought was strictly necessary. I suddenly realised that if he turned now, he’d catch me eavesdropping, so I tiptoed past the door and back to the pool room.

  I could only hope that he didn’t notice the puddle of water I’d left outside the door or, if he did, that he wouldn’t put two and two together.

  I got to have Zorro in my bed that night. It was the first time he’d slept with me.

  I plumped up a pillow for him and he lay there, staring at me as I tickled him behind the ear. But after about twenty minutes he jumped off the bed and padded over to the closed door, where he sat and whined.

  ‘What is it, Z?’ I asked. ‘Can’t be needing a wee, because you don’t do wees, do you?’ Maybe I’d ask Mum if she could program that into him. It would make him even more realistic and I’d be happy to clean up any mistakes he might do around the house.

  The dog kept whining, so eventually I got up and opened my door. He immediately trotted down the corridor and squeezed into Aiden’s bedroom. A few moments later, the door closed.

  I felt like crying. And I also felt that somehow it was my own fault. The dog was learning things very quickly, and obviously Aiden had been teaching him loyalty. Not loyalty to us, but loyalty to Aiden. I found it hard to believe that he had left his bedroom door open out of carelessness. I’d been nice, letting Aiden have Z in his room all the time. Now I felt my generosity had been used against me. The trouble was, I didn’t know what to do about it. I couldn’t get resentful at the person who’d saved my life. That would make me a total bitch. So I went back to my bedroom, picked up my book and tried to pretend I wasn’t hurting.

  I’d only been thirteen a few days, but in that time, my brother was getting weird, probably because of hormones that were almost certainly heading my way, my mum was halfway round the planet, my dad was unhappy looking after us, maybe resenting us, and my dog didn’t like me. Okay, maybe he did like me, but not nearly as much as he liked Aiden. And my best friend was a know-it-all who tried to make me feel stupid. Who did make me feel stupid.

  It was self-pity. I knew that. But sometimes a bit of self-pity can be just what you need. So I sobbed myself to sleep at the injustice of how the world treated Ashleigh Delatour and in the morning I felt loads better.

  10

  ‘I’m going over the fence at lunchtime,’ said Aiden.

  ‘You’re doing what?’

  ‘I want to talk to Xena. Are you coming with me?’

  ‘You’re nuts, Aiden. Of course I’m not coming with you. Have you forgotten the trouble we got into last time? Get caught again and Mum and Dad’ll kill us.’

  ‘They won’t kill us.’

  ‘No, they won’t kill us. They’ll just make us wish they had. It’s crazy, Aiden. Don’t do it.’

  ‘Hey, that’s fine if you want to stay, Ash. Probably better, really. If I get caught, then it’ll only be me in trouble.’

  ‘You’re not going.’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘What makes you think she’d even be there? Just because she was at that park once at lunchtime, doesn’t mean she’s there every lunchtime. You need to grow up.’

  ‘Yeah, well. Only one way to find out.’

  ‘I forbid it.’ I thought about crossing my arms, like Mum does when she’s being particularly fierce, but I wouldn’t have been able to take myself seriously.

  ‘Good luck with that,’ said Aiden.

  ‘I’ll tell Mr Meredith.’

  ‘No, you won’t.’

 
And he was right. I wouldn’t. I didn’t. Instead I watched as he scaled the fence at lunchtime and disappeared down Albert Street. I couldn’t even stand there peering through the fence and waiting for him to come back, because that would have made someone on yard duty suspicious, so I just strolled around the grounds, trying to be cool but actually churning with worry. Now I wished I had gone with him. It would’ve been better than waiting here, nursing an overactive imagination.

  He was gone twenty minutes. I saw him approaching the fence out of the corner of my eye as I was talking to the teacher on yard duty.

  ‘Ow,’ I said, blinking furiously. ‘I think I’ve got something in my eye, Miss. Could you look, please?’

  She tilted my head up and I held open my eyelid as best I could. Apparently she couldn’t find anything, which didn’t come as a great surprise to me. I blinked a couple more times, announced myself cured and thanked her. Aiden strolled past, hands in pockets, whistling. I caught up with him.

  ‘Well?’ I hissed.

  ‘Never better, thanks,’ he said. ‘You?’

  And it was then I noticed the small cut above his right eye. I pointed it out to him.

  ‘Ah, yes,’ he said. ‘That’s where my head came into contact with a kid’s knuckles. Bit unfortunate.’ He held up his right hand, made a fist. There were scrapes along its back. ‘Which is when these came into contact with his head.’

  ‘My God, Aiden,’ I said. ‘You’ve been in a fight?’

  ‘Not a lot gets past you, does it, Ash? What gave you the first clue?’

  I grabbed him by the sleeve, pulled him further away from a group of girls huddled together, chatting and laughing.

  ‘You’ve just recovered from a serious head injury, Aiden,’ I pointed out. ‘And you get into a fight? Are you crazy?’

  He laughed. ‘I’m beginning to think so. Settle down, Ash. It’s nothing. You should see the other guy. He’s not looking as pretty as me.’

  I sighed. ‘I don’t know what’s got into you recently, Aiden,’ I said. ‘I reckon that injury to your head has addled your brains.’ But he just kept grinning. ‘So was all that worth it?’ I added. ‘Did you see her?’

  ‘No. But I did see that boy, Ziggy. He dropped out of a tree just like last time.’

  ‘What did you say to him?’

  ‘That he really should think about varying those dramatic entrances.’

  I folded my arms and put my head to one side. That just made Aiden grin even more.

  ‘I asked if Xena was around. He told me to go away, though those weren’t his exact words. I politely declined. He tried to make me. I stopped him.’ Aiden examined the scrapes on his knuckles. ‘When all of that was done, I asked him to pass on a message to Xena. That message being that I wanted to talk to her and would appreciate it if she turned up tomorrow at approximately four in the afternoon.’

  ‘And what did Ziggy say?’

  ‘He didn’t say anything. He spat out a tooth and left.’

  The sound of the afternoon song called us to class and we both turned towards the building.

  ‘She won’t turn up, you know,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, I think she will,’ said Aiden.

  ‘Why should she? Because you reckon she’s got the hots for you?’

  Aiden laughed.

  ‘Well, probably. She’s only human. But no, Ash. She’ll turn up because I said I’d pay her to. In solid gold, actually.’

  That stopped me in my tracks.

  ‘You don’t have any gold, Aiden,’ I pointed out.

  He turned to face me. ‘True,’ he said. ‘But Mum and Dad do. Loads of it, in jewellery boxes all over the house.’

  ‘And what? You think they’ll just give some to you?’

  ‘Nah,’ he said. ‘Unlikely. So I’m going to have to steal it.’

  I spent the rest of the school day in a mental fog, so much so that Mr Meredith got quite stern with me, which was a first. But I couldn’t get my brother’s words out of my head. He was going to steal from Mum and Dad? That had to be a joke, right? This wasn’t like Aiden at all. A thief? Someone who gets into fights (and for the first time not to protect me)? Mr Meredith asked him how he got the cut over his eye and Aiden said he’d slipped in the playground. He said it without hesitation and with complete sincerity. I was tempted to believe him and I knew it wasn’t true. Could all of this be put down to puberty? I wasn’t going to ask Charlotte and risk another lecture, but I supposed it was possible.

  Nonetheless, it made me scared. Not just because I wasn’t sure I liked what Aiden was turning into; I was worried I’d be undergoing that change myself. Maybe it had already started.

  I didn’t want to become a liar and a thief. I was pretty sure I’d be rubbish at fighting.

  Dad sent the car for us, so I was able to grill Aiden some more on the way home. I decided not to talk about stealing – I’d convinced myself that he was joking about that, trying to wind me up. But one thing he’d said had stuck with me.

  ‘Why four o’clock, Aiden?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘You said four o’clock for your meeting with Xena. That’s after school. How could that work?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Well, it’s pretty simple, Ash. Five or ten minutes isn’t going to be enough from my point of view and that’s all the time I’d get if I did it like today, skipping out just for lunchtime. Four o’clock will give time for a decent conversation.’

  ‘But we’ll be going home from school then.’

  ‘You’ll be going home. I’ve got a meeting of the newly formed fencing club at school. You know, the kind of extra-curricular activity that our school is so famous for.’

  ‘But there isn’t a fencing club, Aiden.’

  He laughed and put an arm round my shoulders.

  ‘Ah. You know that and I know that, Ashleigh. But Dad doesn’t know that, does he?’

  ‘He’ll find out.’

  ‘Maybe. But not from me and not from you. And, anyway, so what if he does? What’s he going to do to me, hey? No using my tablet for a week?’ He gave a mock shiver. ‘Oooh, I’m scared.’

  I didn’t say anything else on the drive home. I was too scared to talk to my brother in case he told me other things I didn’t want to hear.

  Dad swallowed the fencing club story at once. He even praised Aiden for his initiative in starting it (my brother added that little extra detail) and said he’d send the car at five o’clock. Dad also wanted to know whether I would be coming home at the normal time.

  ‘I think I’ll stay and check everything out,’ I replied. I was careful not to mention the non-existent club because what I’d said wasn’t strictly speaking a lie. I did want to check everything out. I didn’t feel much better about myself, though. I couldn’t ignore the fact that words can tell a literal truth, but still deceive.

  ‘All good,’ said Dad. ‘And we’ll maybe think about getting you all the right equipment if this is something you’re really keen on. Just let us know.’

  ‘Thanks, Dad,’ said Aiden. ‘That’s very good of you. As always, generous to a fault.’

  Dad gave my brother another strange look when he said that.

  Later, in the pool, Aiden dived beneath me and tried to pull my legs down and give me a dunking, but I wasn’t in the mood. So he bobbed at the edge next to me.

  ‘So you’re coming along to see Xena, Ash,’ he said.

  ‘Coming along to look after you,’ I replied. ‘The way you’re behaving, you really need a minder, Aiden.’

  He laughed. ‘I feel safer already.’

  ‘You were joking about stealing stuff from Mum and Dad, weren’t you?’

  ‘Already done it.’ Aiden brushed his wet hair straight back over his head. ‘A ring Mum has never worn, as far as I know, and a solid gold wristwatch of Dad’s that’s also not needed. I’ve stashed them under my bed. You can have a look at them later, if you want.’

  ‘You can’t just take those things.’

  ‘Well, I did, sis. It w
as really easy.’

  ‘It’s wrong.’

  ‘Why? Dad’s got a whole collection of watches and he never wears any of them.’

  ‘Nobody wears watches, because they’re antiques,’ I said. ‘As you know. Dad’s a collector.’

  Aiden snorted.

  ‘He’s a collector? Okay. Right. He collects valuable things to stick in a drawer where no one will see them, not even him. They have no use whatsoever, they cost a fortune and they’re not even decorative. At least the paintings Mum collects can be hung on the wall and admired. Their useless rings and watches won’t even be missed, yet if you sold them they could probably feed a family for years.’

  ‘Aiden, it doesn’t matter what you say. Stealing is a crime and it’s wrong.’

  He hauled himself from the water and sat on the edge, reached back and grabbed a towel.

  ‘We have more than we know what to do with. Other people are poor and starving to death. No one is hurt by this. For Mum and Dad it’s a drop in the ocean. Probably less than that. For Xena it might mean the difference between life and death. How can that be “wrong”, Ash?’ He made the quotation marks in the air. ‘Explain it to me. Show me exactly how I’ve sinned.’

  And maybe I would have tried, but I knew that he would run rings around me with words that sounded fair and right and just, but which were really just bright make-up, covering up the ugliness beneath. I couldn’t do it.

  ‘Cheer up, sis,’ said Aiden. ‘It’s not the end of the world. Hey, fancy a race? Two laps, freestyle?’ He jumped back in.

  I didn’t fancy a race. I wanted to go to my room and cry. But I raced him anyway.

  He beat me by three-quarters of a length.

  11

  Albert Street was just as deserted as last time but, if anything, I was more scared now. I remembered Ziggy suggesting a ransom. Maybe Xena had changed her mind and we’d be walking straight into trouble. It’d be our own stupid fault. What had she said last time? Stay in your own world, you wouldn’t like the real one.