I wanted to stand up and say, “There’s a man in our garage and my sister is ill and it’s the first day I’ve traveled from the new house to the old school.”
But I didn’t. I just went on looking at all the faces and swinging back and forth when the bus swung round corners. I knew if somebody looked at me, they’d know nothing about me, either.
It was strange being at school again. Loads had happened to me, but school stayed just the same. Rasputin still asked us to lift up our hearts and voices and sing out loud in assembly. The Yeti yelled at us to keep to the left in the corridors. Monkey Mitford went red in the face and stamped his feet when we didn’t know our fractions. Miss Clarts got tears in her eyes when she told us the story of Icarus, how his wings had melted when he flew too close to the sun, and how he had dropped like a stone past his father, Daedalus, into the sea. At lunchtime, Leakey and Coot argued for ages about whether a shot had gone over the line.
I couldn’t be bothered with it all.
I went to the fence at the edge of the field and stared over the town toward where I lived now.
While I was standing there, Mrs. Dando, one of the yard ladies, came over to me. She’d known my parents for years.
“You okay, Michael?” she said.
“Fine.”
“And the baby?”
“Fine too.”
“Not footballing today?”
I shook my head.
“Tell your parents I was asking,” she said.
She took a gumdrop out of her pocket and held it out to me. A gumdrop. It was what she gave the new kids when they were sad or something.
“Just for you,” she whispered, and she winked.
“No,” I said. “No, thanks.”
And I ran back and did a brilliant sliding tackle on Coot.
All day I wondered about telling somebody what I’d seen, but I told nobody. I said to myself it had just been a dream. It must have been.
Chapter 6
AT HOME, THERE WAS A HOLE IN the floor where Ernie’s toilet had been. It was filled with new cement. The plywood screen had gone. Ernie’s old gas fire had been taken away and there was just a square black gap behind the hearth. The floor was soaking wet and it stank of disinfectant. Dad was filthy and wet and grinning. He took me into the backyard. The toilet was standing there in the middle of the thistles and weeds.
“Thought it’d make a nice garden seat for us,” he said.
The gas fire and the plywood were down by the garage door, but they hadn’t been taken inside.
He looked at me and winked. “Come and see what I found.”
He led me down to the garage door.
“Hold your nose,” he said. He bent down and started to open a newspaper parcel. “Ready?”
It was a parcel of birds. Four of them.
“Found them behind the fire,” he said. “Must have got stuck in the chimney and couldn’t get out again.”
You could make out that three of them were pigeons because of their gray and white feathers. The last one was pigeon-shaped, but it was all black.
“This was the last one I found,” he said. “It was under a heap of soot and dust that had fallen down the chimney.”
“Is it a pigeon as well?”
“Yes. Been there a long, long time, that’s all.”
He took my hand.
“Touch it,” he said. “Feel it. Go on, it’s okay.”
I let him hold my fingers against the bird. It was hard as stone. Even the feathers were hard as stone.
“Been there so long it’s nearly a fossil,” he said.
“It’s hard as stone,” I said.
“That’s right. Hard as stone.”
I went and washed my hands in the kitchen.
“Today was okay?” he said.
“Yes. Leakey and Coot said they might come over on Sunday.”
“That’s good. You managed the buses okay, then?”
I nodded.
“Might be able to drive you there next week,” he said. “Once we’re sorted out a bit.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “Mrs. Dando asked about the baby.”
“You told her she was fine?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Good. Get some Coke and a sandwich or something. I’ll make tea when the others come home.”
Then he went upstairs to have a bath.
I looked down through the backyard. I waited for ages, listening to Dad’s bathwater banging its way through the pipes. I got my flashlight off the kitchen shelf. My hands were trembling. I went out, past Ernie’s toilet, the fire, and the dead pigeons. I stood at the garage door and switched the flashlight on. I took a deep breath and tiptoed inside. I felt the cobwebs and the dust and I imagined that the whole thing would collapse. I heard things scuttling and scratching. I edged past the rubbish and the ancient furniture and my heart was thudding and thundering. I told myself I was stupid. I told myself I’d been dreaming. I told myself I wouldn’t see him again.
But I did.
Chapter 7
I LEANED OVER THE TEA CHESTS and shined the flashlight and there he was. He hadn’t moved. He opened his eyes and closed them again.
“You again,” he said, in his cracked, squeaky voice.
“What you doing there?” I whispered.
He sighed, like he was sick to death of everything.
“Nothing,” he squeaked. “Nothing, nothing, and nothing.”
I watched a spider scrambling across his face. He caught it in his fingers and popped it in his mouth.
“They’re coming to clear the rubbish out,” I said. “And the whole place could collapse.”
He sighed again.
“Got an aspirin?”
“An aspirin?”
“Never mind.”
His face was pale as dry plaster. His black suit hung like a sack on his thin bones.
My heart pounded. The dust was clogging my nostrils and throat. I chewed my lips and watched him.
“You’re not Ernie Myers, are you?” I said.
“That old coot? Coughing his guts and spewing everywhere?”
“Sorry,” I whispered.
“What do you want?” he said.
