Black Swan Green: A Novel

JANUARY MANDo not set foot in my office. That’s Dad’s rule. But the phone’d rung twenty-fivetimes. Normal people give up after ten or eleven, unless it’s a matter oflife or death. Don’t they? Dad’s got an answering machine like James Garner’sin The Rockford Files with big reels of tape. But he’s stopped leaving itswitched on recently. Thirty rings, the phone got to. Julia couldn’t hear it upin her converted attic ’cause “Don’t You Want Me?” by Human League wasthumping out dead loud. Forty rings. Mum couldn’t hear ’cause the washingmachine was on berserk cycle and she was hoovering the living room. Fiftyrings. That’s just not normal. S’pose Dad’d been mangled by a juggernaut onthe M5 and the police only had this office number ’cause all his other I.D.’dgot incinerated? We could lose our final chance to see our charred father inthe terminal ward.So I went in, thinking of a bride going into Bluebeard’s chamber afterbeing told not to. (Bluebeard, mind, was waiting for that to happen.) Dad’s officesmells of pound notes, papery but metallic too. The blinds were down soit felt like evening, not ten in the morning. There’s a serious clock on thewall, exactly the same make as the serious clocks on the walls at school.There’s a photo of Dad shaking hands with Craig Salt when Dad got made regionalsales director for Greenland. (Greenland the supermarket chain, notGreenland the country.) Dad’s IBM computer sits on the steel desk. Thousandsof pounds, IBMs cost. The office phone’s red like a nuclear hotline andit’s got buttons you push, not the dial you get on normal phones.So anyway, I took a deep breath, picked up the receiver, and said ournumber. I can say that without stammering, at least. Usually.But the person on the other end didn’t answer."Hello?” I said. “Hello?”They breathed in like they’d cut themselves on paper.“Can you hear me? I can’t hear you.”Very faint, I recognized the Sesame Street music.“If you can hear me”—I remembered a Children’s Film Foundation filmwhere this happened—“tap the phone, once.”There was no tap, just more Sesame Street.“You might have the wrong number,” I said, wondering.A baby began wailing and the receiver was slammed down.When people listen they make a listening noise.I’d heard it, so they’d heard me.“May as well be hanged for a sheep as hanged for a handkerchief.” MissThrockmorton taught us that aeons ago. ’Cause I’d sort of had a reason tohave come into the forbidden chamber, I peered through Dad’s razor-sharpblind, over the glebe, past the cockerel tree, over more fields, up to theMalvern Hills. Pale morning, icy sky, frosted crusts on the hills, but no sign ofsticking snow, worse luck. Dad’s swivelly chair’s a lot like the MillenniumFalcon’s laser tower. I blasted away at the skyful of Russian MiGs streamingover the Malverns. Soon tens of thousands of people between here andCardiff owed me their lives. The glebe was littered with mangled fusilagesand blackened wings. I’d shoot the Soviet airmen with tranquilizer darts asthey pressed their ejector seats. Our marines’ll mop them up. I’d refuse allmedals. “Thanks, but no thanks,” I’d tell Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reaganwhen Mum invited them in, “I was just doing my job.”Dad’s got this fab pencil sharpener clamped to his desk. It makes pencilssharp enough to puncture body armor. H pencils’re sharpest, they’re Dad’sfaves. I prefer 2Bs.The doorbell went. I put the blind back to how it was, checked I’d left noother traces of my incursion, slipped out, and flew downstairs to see who itwas. The last six steps I took in one death-defying bound.Moron, grinny-zitty as ever. His bumfluff’s getting thicker, mind. “You’llnever guess what!”"What?”“You know the lake in the woods?”“What about it?”“It’s only”—Moron checked that we weren’t being overheard—“gone andfroze solid! Half the kids in the village’re there, right now. Ace doss or what?”“Jason!” Mum appeared from the kitchen. “You’re letting the cold in!Either invite Dean inside—hello Dean—or shut the door.”“Um . . . just going out for a bit, Mum.”“Um . . . where?”“Just for some healthy fresh air.”That was a strategic mistake. “What are you up to?”I wanted to say “Nothing” but Hangman decided not to let me. “Whywould I be up to anything?” I avoided her stare as I put on my navy duffelcoat.“What’s your new black parka done to offend you, may I ask?”I still couldn’t say “Nothing.” (Truth is, black means you fancy yourself asa hard-knock. Adults can’t be expected to understand.) “My duffel’s a bitwarmer, that’s all. It’s parky out.”“Lunch is one o’clock sharp.” Mum went back to changing the Hooverbag. “Dad’s coming home to eat. Put on a woolly hat or your head’ll freeze.”Woolly hats’re gay but I could stuff it in my pocket later.“Good-bye then, Mrs. Taylor,” said Moron.“Good-bye, Dean,” said Mum.Mum’s never liked Moron.Moron’s my height and he’s okay but Jesus he pongs of gravy. Moron wearsankle-flappers from charity shops and lives down Druggers End in a brick cottagethat pongs of gravy too. His real name’s Dean Moran (rhymes with “warren”)but our P.E. teacher Mr. Carver started calling him “Moron” in our firstweek and it’s stuck. I call him “Dean” if we’re on our own but name’s aren’tjust names. Kids who’re really popular get called by their first names, so NickYew’s always just “Nick.” Kids who’re a bit popular like Gilbert Swinyard havesort of respectful nicknames like “Yardy.” Next down are kids like me who calleach other by our surnames. Below us are kids with piss-take nicknames likeMoran Moron or Nicholas Briar, who’s Knickerless Bra. It’s all ranks, being aboy, like the army. If I called Gilbert Swinyard just “Swinyard,” he’d kick myface in. Or if I called Moron “Dean” in front of everyone, it’d damage myown standing. So you’ve got to watch out.Girls don’t do this so much, ’cept for Dawn Madden, who’s a boy gonewrong in some experiment. Girls don’t scrap so much as boys either. (That said,just before school broke up for Christmas, Dawn Madden and Andrea Bozardstarted yelling “Bitch!” and “Slag!” in the bus queues after school. Punchingtits and pulling hair and everything, they were.) Wish I’d been born a girl,sometimes. They’re generally loads more civilized. But if I ever admitted thatout loud I’d get bumhole plummer scrawled on my locker. That happened toFloyd Chaceley for admitting he liked Johann Sebastian Bach. Mind you, ifthey knew Eliot Bolivar, who gets poems published in Black Swan Green ParishMagazine, was me, they’d gouge me to death behind the tennis courts withblunt woodwork tools and spray the Sex Pistols logo on my gravestone.So anyway, as Moron and I walked to the lake he told me about theScalectrix he’d got for Christmas. On Boxing Day its transformer blew up andnearly wiped out his entire family. “Yeah, sure,” I said. But Moron swore it onhis nan’s grave. So I told him he should write to That’s Life on BBC and getEsther Rantzen to make the manufacturer pay compensation. Moronthought that might be difficult ’cause his dad’d bought it off a Brummie atTewkesbury Market on Christmas Eve. I didn’t dare ask what a “Brummie”was in case it’s the same as “bummer” or “bumboy,” which means homo.“Yeah,” I said, “see what you mean.” Moron asked me what I’d got for Christmas.I’d actually got £13.50 in book tokens and a poster of Middle-earth, butbooks’re gay so I talked about the Game of Life, which I’d got from UncleBrian and Aunt Alice. It’s a board game you win by getting your little car tothe end of the road of life first, and with the most money. We crossed thecrossroads by the Black Swan and went into the woods. Wished I’d rubbedointment into my lips ’cause they get chapped when it’s this cold.Soon we heard kids through the trees, shouting and screaming. “Last oneto the lake’s a spaz!” yelled Moron, haring off before I was ready. Straight offhe tripped over a frozen tire rut, went flying, and landed on his arse. TrustMoran. “I think I might’ve got a concussion,” he said.“Concussion’s if you hit your head. Unless your brain’s up your arse.”What a line. Pity nobody who matters was around to hear it.The lake in the woods was epic. Tiny bubbles were trapped in the ice like inFox’s Glacier Mints. Neal Brose had proper Olympic ice skates he hired outfor 5p a go, though Pete Redmarley was allowed to use them for free so otherkids’d see him speed-skating around and want a go too. Just staying up on theice is hard enough. I fell over loads before I got the knack of sliding in mytrainers. Ross Wilcox turned up with his cousin Gary Drake and Dawn Mad-den. All three’re pretty good skaters. Drake and Wilcox’re taller than me toonow. (They’d cut the fingers off of their gloves to show the scars they’d gotplaying Scabby Queen. Mum’d murder me.) Squelch sat on the humpy islandin the middle of the lake where the ducks normally live, shouting, “Arseover tit! Arse over tit!” at whoever fell over. Squelch’s funny in the head ’causehe was born too early, so nobody ever thumps him one. Not hard, anyway.Grant Burch rode his servant Philip Phelps’s Raleigh Chopper actually onthe ice. He kept his balance for a few seconds, but when he pulled a wheeliethe bike went flying. After it landed it looked like Uri Geller’d tortured it todeath. Phelps grinned sickly. Bet he was wondering what he’d tell his dad.Then Pete Redmarley and Grant Burch decided the frozen lake’d be perfectfor British Bulldogs. Nick Yew said, “Okay, I’m on for that,” so it was decided.I hate British Bulldogs. When Miss Throckmorton banned it at our primaryschool after Lee Biggs lost three teeth playing it, I was dead relieved. But thismorning any kid who denied loving British Bulldogs’d’ve looked a totalponce. Specially kids from up Kingfisher Meadows like me.About twenty or twenty-five of us boys, plus Dawn Madden, stood in abunch to be picked like slaves in a slave market. Grant Burch and Nick Yewwere joint captains of one team. Pete Redmarley and Gilbert Swinyard werethe captains of the other. Ross Wilcox and Gary Drake both got picked beforeme by Pete Redmarley, but I got picked by Grant Burch on the sixth pass,which wasn’t embarrassingly late. Moron and Squelch were the last two left.Grant Burch and Pete Redmarley joked, “No, you can have ’em both, wewant to win!” and Moron and Squelch had to laugh like they thought it wasfunny too. Maybe Squelch really did. (Moron didn’t. When everyone lookedaway, he had the same face as that time after we all told him we were playingHide-and-Seek and sent him off to hide. It took an hour for him to work outnobody was looking for him.) Nick Yew won the toss so us lot were the Runnersfirst and Pete Redmarley’s team were the Bulldogs. Unimportant kids’coats were put at either end of the lake as goalmouths to reach through andto defend. Girls, apart from Dawn Madden, and the littl’uns were cleared offthe ice. Redmarley’s Bulldogs formed a pack in the middle and us Runnersslid to our starting goal. My heart was drumming now. Bulldogs and Runnerscrouched like sprinters. The captains led the chant.“British Bulldogs! One two three!”Screaming like kamikazes, we charged. I slipped over (accidentally on purpose)just before the front wave of Runners smashed into the Bulldogs. This’dtie up most of the hardest Bulldogs in fights with our front Runners. (Bulldogshave to pin down both shoulders of Runners onto the ice for longenough to shout “British Bulldogs one two three.”) With luck, my strategy’dclear some spaces to dodge through and on to our home goalposts. My planworked pretty well at first. The Tookey brothers and Gary Drake all crashedinto Nick Yew. A flying leg kicked my shin but I got past them without cominga cropper. But then Ross Wilcox came homing in on me. I tried to wrigglepast but Wilcox got a firm grip on my wrist and tried to pull me down. Butinstead of trying to struggle free I got a firmer grip on his wrist and flung himoff me, straight into Ant Little and Darren Croome. Ace in the face or what?Games and sports aren’t about taking part or even about winning. Games andsports’re really about humiliating your enemies. Lee Biggs tried a poxy rugbytackle on me but I shook him free no sweat. He’s too worried about the teethhe’s got left to be a decent Bulldog. I was the fourth Runner home. GrantBurch shouted, “Nice work Jacey-boy!” Nick Yew’d fought free of the Tookeysand Gary Drake and got home too. About a third of the Runners got capturedand turned into Bulldogs for the next pass. I hate that about British Bulldogs.It forces you to be a traitor.So anyway, we all chanted, “British Bulldogs one two THREE!” andcharged like last time but this time I had no chance. Ross Wilcox and GaryDrake and Dawn Madden targeted me from the start. No matter how I triedto dodge through the fray it was hopeless. I hadn’t got halfway across the lakebefore they got me. Ross Wilcox went for my legs, Gary Drake toppled me,and Dawn Madden sat on my chest and pinned my shoulders down with herknees. I just lay there and let them convert me into a Bulldog. In my heart I’dalways be a Runner. Gary Drake gave me a dead leg, which might or mightnot’ve been on purpose. Dawn Madden’s got cruel eyes like a Chinese empressand sometimes one glimpse at school makes me think about her all day.Ross Wilcox jumped up and punched the air like he’d scored at Old Trafford.The spazzo. “Yeah, yeah, Wilcox,” I said, “three against one, well done.”Wilcox flashed me a V-sign and slid off for another battle. Grant Burch andNick Yew came windmilling at a thick pocket of Bulldogs and half of themwent flying.Then Gilbert Swinyard yelled at the top of his lungs, “PIIIIIILEONNNNNN!”That was the signal for every Runner and every Bulldog onthe lake to throw themselves onto a wriggling, groaning, growing pyramid ofkids. The game itself was sort of forgotten. I held back, pretending to limp abit from my dead leg. Then we heard the sound of a chain saw in the woods,flying down the track, straight toward us.The chain saw wasn’t a chain saw. It was Tom Yew on his purple Suzuki150cc scrambler. Pluto Noak was clinging to the back, without a helmet.British Bulldogs was aborted ’cause Tom Yew’s a minor legend in BlackSwan Green. Tom Yew serves in the Royal Navy on a frigate called HMSCoventry. Tom Yew’s got every Led Zep album ever made and can play theguitar introduction to “Stairway to Heaven.” Tom Yew’s actually shakenhands with Peter Shilton, the England goalkeeper. Pluto Noak’s a less shinylegend. He left school without even taking his CSEs last year. Now heworks in the Pork Scratchings factory in Upton-on-Severn. (There’s rumorsPluto Noak’s smoked cannabis but obviously it wasn’t the type that cauliflowerizesyour brain and makes you jump off roofs onto railings.) Tom Yewparked his Suzuki by the bench on the narrow end of the lake and sat on it,sidesaddle. Pluto Noak thumped his back to say thanks and went to speak toCollette Bozard, who, according to Moron’s sister Kelly, he’s had sexual intercoursewith. The older kids sat on the bench facing him, like Jesus’s disciples,and passed round fags. (Ross Wilcox and Gary Drake smoke now.Worse still, Ross Wilcox asked Tom Yew something about Suzuki silencersand Tom Yew answered him like Ross Wilcox was eighteen too.) GrantBurch told his servant Phelps to run and get him a peanut Yorkie and a canof Top Deck from Rhydd’s Shop, yelling after him, “Run, I told yer!” to impressTom Yew. Us middle-rank kids sat round the bench on the frostyground. The older kids started talking about the best things on TV overChristmas and New Year’s. Tom Yew started saying he’d seen The Great Escapeand everyone agreed everything else’d been crap compared to TheGreat Escape, specially the bit where Steve McQueen gets caught by Nazison the barbed wire. But then Tom Yew said he thought it’d gone on a bitlong and everyone agreed that though the film was classic it’d dragged onfor ages. (I didn’t see it ’cause Mum and Dad watched the Two RonniesChristmas special. But I paid close attention so I can pretend to’ve watchedit when school starts next Monday.)The talk’d shifted, for some reason, to the worst way to die.“Gettin’ bit by a green mamba,” Gilbert Swinyard reckoned. “Deadliestsnake in the world. Yer organs burst so yer piss mixes with yer blood. Agony.”“Agony, sure,” sniffed Grant Burch, “but you’re dead pretty quick. Havin’yer skin unpeeled off yer like a sock, that’s worse. Apache Indians do that toyer. The best ones can make it last the whole night.”Pete Redmarley said he’d heard of this Vietcong execution. “They stripsyer, ties yer up, then rams Philadelphia cheese up yer jax. Then they locks yerin a coffin with a pipe goin’ in. Then they send starving rats down the pipe.The rats eat through the cheese, then carry on chewin’, into you.”Everyone looked at Tom Yew for the answer. “I get this dream.” He took adrag on his cigarette that lasted an age. “I’m with the last bunch of survivors,after an atomic war. We’re walking up a motorway. No cars, just weeds. Everytime I look behind me, there’re fewer of us. One by one, you see, the radiation’sgetting them.” He glanced at his brother Nick, then over the frozenlake. “It’s not that I’ll die that bothers me. It’s that I’ll be the last one.”Nobody said a lot for a bit.Ross Wilcox swiveled our way. He took a drag on his cigarette that lastedan age, the poser. “If it wasn’t for Winston Churchill you lot’d all be speakin’German now.”Sure, like Ross Wilcox would’ve evaded capture and headed a resistancecell. I was dying to tell that prat that actually, if the Japanese hadn’t bombedPearl Harbor, America’d never’ve come into the war, Britain’d’ve beenstarved into surrender, and Winston Churchill’d’ve been executed as a warcriminal. But I knew I couldn’t. There were swarms of stammer-words inthere, and Hangman’s bloody merciless this January. So I said I was bustingfor a waz, stood up, and went down the path to the village a bit. Gary Drakeshouted, “Hey, Taylor! Shake your dong more than twice, you’re playing withit!,” which got fat laughs from Neal Brose and Ross Wilcox. I flashed them aV-sign over my shoulder. That stuff about shaking your dong’s a craze at themoment. There’s no one I can trust to ask what it means.Trees’re always a relief, after people. Gary Drake and Ross Wilcox might’vebeen slagging me off, but the fainter the voices became, the less I wanted to goback. I loathed myself for not putting Ross Wilcox in his place about speakingGerman, but it’d’ve been death to’ve started stammering back there. Thecladding of frost on thorny branches was thawing and fat drops drip-dripdripping.It soothed me, a bit. In little pits where the sun couldn’t reach therewas still some gravelly snow left, but not enough to make a snowball. (Neroused to kill his guests by making them eat glass food, just for a laugh.) A robin,I saw, a woodpecker, a magpie, a blackbird, and far off I think I heard anightingale, though I’m not sure you get them in January. Then, where thefaint path from the House in the Woods meets the main path to the lake, Iheard a boy, gasping for breath, pounding this way. Between a pair of wishbonepines I squeezed myself out of sight. Phelps dashed by, clutching hismaster’s peanut Yorkie and a can of Tizer. (Rhydd’s must be out of Top Deck.)Behind the pines a possible path led up the slant. I know all the paths in thispart of the woods, I thought. But not this one. Pete Redmarley and GrantBurch’d start up British Bulldogs again when Tom Yew left. That wasn’t muchof a reason to go back. Just to see where the path might go, I followed it.There’s only one house in the woods so that’s what we call it, the House in theWoods. An old woman was s’posed to live there, but I didn’t know her nameand I’d never seen her. The house’s got four windows and a chimney, same asa little kid’s drawing of a house. A brick wall as high as me surrounds it andwild bushes grow higher. Our war games in the woods steered clear of thebuilding. Not ’cause there’re any ghost stories about it or anything. It’s justthat part of the woods isn’t good.But this morning the house looked so hunkered down and locked up, Idoubted anyone was still living there. Plus, my bladder was about to split, andthat makes you less cautious. So I peed up against the frosted wall. I’d just finishedsigning my autograph in steamy yellow when a rusty gate opened upwith a tiny shriek and there stood a sour aunt from black-and-white times. Juststanding there, staring at me.My pee ran dry.“God! Sorry!” I zipped up my fly, expecting an utter bollocking. Mum’dflay alive any kid she found pissing against our fence, then feed his body tothe compost bin. Including me. “I didn’t know anyone was living . . . here.”The sour aunt carried on looking at me.Pee dribbles blotted my underpants.“My brother and I were born in this house,” she said, finally. Her throatwas saggy like a lizard’s. “We have no intention of moving away.”“Oh . . .” I still wasn’t sure if she was about to open fire on me. “Good.”“How noisy you youngsters are!”“Sorry.”“It was very careless of you to wake my brother.”My mouth’d glued up. “It wasn’t me making all the noise. Honestly.”“There are days”—the sour aunt never blinked—“when my brother lovesyoungsters. But on days like these, my oh my, you give him the furies.”“Like I said, I’m sorry.”“You’ll be sorrier,” she said, looking disgusted, “if my brother gets a holdof you.”Quiet things were too loud and loud things couldn’t be heard.“Is he . . . uh, around? Now? Your brother, I mean?”“His room’s just as he left it.”“Is he ill?”She acted like she hadn’t heard me.“I’ve got to go home now.”“You’ll be sorrier”—she did that spitty chomp old people do to not dribble—“when the ice cracks.”“The ice? On the lake? It’s as solid as anything.”“You always say so. Ralph Bredon said so.”“Who’s he?”“Ralph Bredon. The butcher’s boy.”It didn’t feel at all right. “I’ve got to go home now.”Lunch at 9 Kingfisher Meadows, Black Swan Green, Worcestershire, wasFindus ham’n’cheese Crispy Pancakes, crinkle-cut oven chips, and sprouts.Sprouts taste of fresh puke but Mum said I had to eat five without making asong and dance about it, or there’d be no butterscotch Angel Delight for pudding.Mum says she won’t let the dining table be used as a venue for “adolescentdiscontent.” Before Christmas I asked what not liking the taste of sproutshas to do with “adolescent discontent.” Mum warned me to stop being aClever Little Schoolboy. I should’ve shut up but I pointed out that Dad nevermakes her eat melon (which she hates) and Mum never makes Dad eat garlic(which he hates). She went ape and sent me to my room. When Dad gotback I got a lecture about arrogance.No pocket money that week, either.So anyway, this lunchtime I cut my sprouts up into tiny pieces and glollopedtomato ketchup over them. “Dad?”“Jason?”“If you drown, what happens to your body?”Julia rolled her eyes like Jesus on his cross.“Bit of a morbid topic for the dinner table.” Dad chewed his forkful ofcrispy pancake. “Why do you ask?”It was best not to mention the frozen-up pond. “Well, in this book ArcticAdventure these two brothers Hal and Roger Hunt’re being chased by a baddiecalled Kaggs who falls into the—”Dad held up his hand to say Enough! “Well, in my opinion, Mr. Kaggsgets eaten by fish. Picked clean.”“Do they have piranhas in the Arctic?”“Fish’ll eat anything once it’s soft enough. Mind you, if he fell into theThames, his body’d wash up before long. The Thames always gives up itsdead, the Thames does.”My misdirection was complete. “How about if he fell through ice, into alake, say? What’d happen to him then? Would he sort of stay . . . deepfrozen?”“Thing,” Julia mewled, “is being grotesque while we’re eating, Mum.”Mum rolled up her napkin. “Lorenzo Hussingtree’s has a new range oftiles in, Michael.” (My abortion of a sister flashed me a victorious grin.)“Michael?”“Yes, Helena?”“I thought we could drop by Lorenzo Hussingtree’s showroom on our wayto Worcester. New tiles. They’re exquisite.”“No doubt Lorenzo Hussingtree charges exquisite prices, to match?”“We’re having workmen in anyway, so why not make a proper job of it?The kitchen’s getting embarrassing.”“Helena, why—”Julia sees arguments coming even before Mum and Dad sometimes.“Can I get down now?”“Darling.” Mum looked really hurt. “It’s butterscotch Angel Delight.”“Yummy, but could I have mine tonight? Got to get back to Robert Peeland the Enlightened Whigs. Anyway, Thing has ruined my appetite.”“Pigging on Cadbury’s Roses with Kate Alfrick,” I counterattacked, “iswhat’s ruined your appetite.”“So where did the Terry’s Chocolate Orange go, Thing?”“Julia,” Mum sighed, “I do wish you wouldn’t call Jason that. You’ve onlygot one brother.”Julia said, “One too many” and got up.Dad remembered something. “Have either of you been into my office?”“Not me, Dad.” Julia hovered in the doorway, scenting blood. “Must’vebeen my honest, charming, obedient, younger sibling.”How did he know?“It’s a simple enough question.” Dad had hard evidence. The only adult Iknow who bluffs kids is Mr. Nixon, our headmaster.The pencil! When Dean Moran rang the doorbell I must’ve left the pencil in the sharpener. Damn Moron. “Your phone was ringing for yonks, like,four or five minutes, honestly, so—”Dad didn’t care. “What’s the rule about not going into my office?”“But I thought it might be an emergency so I picked it up and therewas”—Hangman blocked “someone”—“a person on the other end but—”“I believe”—now Dad’s palm said HALT!—“I just asked you a question.”“Yes, but—”“What question did I just ask you?”“ ‘What’s the rule about not going into my office?’ ”“So I did.” Dad’s a pair of scissors at times. Snip snip snip snip. “Now, whydon’t you answer this question?”Then Julia did a strange move. “That’s funny.”“I don’t see anyone laughing.”“No, Dad, on Boxing Day when you and Mum took Thing to Worcester,the phone in your office went. Honestly, it went on for aeons. I couldn’t concentrateon my revision. The more I told myself it wasn’t a desperate ambulancemanor something, the likelier it seemed it was. In the end it was drivingme crazy. I had no choice. I said ‘Hello’ but the person on the other enddidn’t say anything. So I hung up, in case it was a pervert.”Dad’d gone quiet but the danger wasn’t past.“That was just like me,” I ventured. “But I didn’t hang up straightaway’cause I thought maybe they couldn’t hear me. Was there a baby in the background,Julia?”“Okay, you two, enough of the private-eye biz. If some joker is makingnuisance calls then I don’t want either of you answering, no matter what. If ithappens again, just unplug the socket. Understand?”Mum was just sitting there. It didn’t feel at all right.Dad’s “DID YOU HEAR ME?” was like a brick through a window. Juliaand me jumped. “Yes Dad.”Mum, me, and Dad ate our butterscotch Angel Delight without a word. Ididn’t dare even look at my parents. I couldn’t ask to get down early too ’causeJulia’d already used that card. Why I was in the doghouse was clear enough,but God knows why Mum and Dad were giving each other the silent treatment.After the last spoonful of Angel Delight Dad said, “Lovely, Helena,thank you. Jason and I’ll do the washing up, won’t we, Jason?”Mum just made this nothing-sound and went upstairs.Dad washed up, humming a nothing-song. I put the dirty dishes in thehatch, then went into the kitchen to dry. I should’ve just shut up, but Ithought I could make the day turn safely normal if I just said the right thing.“Do you get”—Hangman loves giving me grief over this word—“nightingalesin January, Dad? I might’ve heard one this morning. In the woods.”Dad was Brillo-padding a pan. “How should I know?”I pushed on. Usually Dad likes talking about nature and stuff. “But thatbird at granddad’s hospice. You said it was a nightingale.”“Huh. Fancy you remembering that.” Dad stared over the back lawn atthe icicles on the summerhouse. Then this noise came out of Dad like he’dentered the World’s Miserablest Man of 1982 Competition. “Just concentrateon those glasses, Jason, before you drop one.” He switched on Radio 2 for theweather forecast, then began cutting up the 1981 Highway Code with scissors.Dad bought the updated 1982 Highway Code the day it came out, andhe says old ones could cause accidents if they’re not destroyed. Tonight mostof the British Isles will see temperatures plunging well below zero. Motoristsin Scotland and the North should be careful of black ice on the roads, andthe Midlands should anticipate widespread patches of freezing fog.Up in my room I played the Game of Life, but being two players at once is nofun. Julia’s friend Kate Alfrick called for Julia to study together. But they werejust gossiping about who’s going out with who in the sixth form, and playingPolice singles. My billion problems kept bobbing up like corpses in a floodedcity. Mum and Dad at lunch. Hangman colonizing the alphabet. At this rateI’m going to have to learn sign language. Gary Drake and Ross Wilcox.They’ve never exactly been my best mates but today they’d ganged up againstme. Neal Brose was in on it too. Last, the sour aunt in the woods worried me.How come?Wished there was a crack to slip through and leave all this stuff behind.Next week I’m thirteen but thirteen looks way worse than twelve. Julia moansnonstop about being eighteen but eighteen’s epic, from where I’m standing.No official bedtime, twice my pocket money, and for Julia’s eighteenth shewent to Tanya’s Night Club in Worcester with her thousand and one friends.Tanya’s’s got the only xenon disco laser light in Europe! How ace is that?Dad drove off up Kingfisher Meadows, alone.Mum must still be in her room. She’s there more and more recently.To cheer myself up I put on my granddad’s Omega. Dad called me intohis office on Boxing Day and said he had something very important to giveme, from my grandfather. Dad’d been keeping it till I was mature enough tolook after it myself. It was a watch. An Omega Seamaster De Ville. Granddadbought it off a real live Arab in a port called Aden in 1949. Aden’s in Arabiaand once it was British. He’d worn it every day of his life, even the momenthe died. That fact makes the Omega more special, not scary. The Omega’sface is silver and wide as a 50p but as thin as a tiddlywink. “A sign of an excellentwatch,” Dad said, grave as grave, “is its thinness. Not like these plastictubs teenagers strap to their wrist these days to strut about in.”Where I hid my Omega is a work of genius and second in security only tomy Oxo tin under the loose floorboard. Using a Stanley knife I hollowed outa crappy-looking book called Woodcraft for Boys. Woodcraft for Boys’s on myshelf between real books. Julia often snoops in my room, but she’s never discoveredthis hiding place. I’d know ’cause I keep a 1⁄2p coin balanced on it atthe back. Plus, if Julia’d found it she’d’ve copied my ace idea for sure. I’vechecked her bookshelf for false spines and there aren’t any.Outside I heard an unfamiliar car. A sky-blue VW Jetta was crawlingalong the curb, as if its driver was searching for a house number. At the endof our cul-de-sac the driver, a woman, did a three-point turn, stalled once,and drove off up Kingfisher Meadows. I should’ve memorized the numberplate in case it’s on Police 999.Granddad was the last grandparent to die, and the only one I have anymemories of. Not many. Chalking roads for my Corgi cars down his gardenpath. Watching Thunderbirds at his bungalow in Grange-over-Sands anddrinking pop called Dandelion and Burdock.I wound the stopped Omega up and set the time to a fraction after three.Unborn Twin murmured, Go to the lake.The stump of an elm guards a bottleneck in the path through the woods. Sittingon the stump was Squelch. Squelch’s real name’s Mervyn Hill but onetime when we were changing for P.E., he pulled down his trousers and wesaw he had a nappy on. About nine, he’d’ve been. Grant Burch started theSquelch nickname and it’s been years since anyone’s called him Mervyn. It’seasier to change your eyeballs than to change your nickname.So anyway, Squelch was stroking something furry and moon gray in thecrook of his elbow. “Finders keepers, losers weepers.”“All right, Squelch. What you got there, then?”Squelch’s got stained teeth. “Ain’t showin’!”“Go on. You can show us.”Squelch mumbled, “Kit Kat.”“A Kit Kat? A chocolate bar?”Squelch showed me the head of a sleeping kitten. “Kitty cat! Finderskeepers, losers weepers.”“Wow. A cat. Where’d you find her?”“By the lake. Crack o’ dawn, b’fore anyone else got to the lake. I hided herwhile we did British Bulldogs. Hided her in a box.”“Why didn’t you show it to anyone?”“Burch and Swinyard and Redmarley and them bastards’d’ve tooked heraway’s why! Finders keepers, losers weepers. I hided her. Now I come back.”You never know with Squelch.