“Mom would die if she knew what you’d done,” I said.
“She doesn’t have to know, and you’re not going to tell her, are you?” He was half pleading and half threatening.
“What else have you stolen?” I asked, and immediately wished I hadn’t.
“Nothing,” Wills spat. “What d’you take me for? Just because I did it once, doesn’t make me a fulltime crook.”
“Keep me out of it, that’s all,” I hissed. “And keep your horrible friends away from me.”
“I was going to give you a chocolate bar, but I won’t now,” he hissed back. “Serves you right.”
“Jeez, leave me alone, will you.”
Wills sloped away, but seconds later he was back at the door saying, “Please don’t say anything to Mom, Chrissy Chrissy. I promise I won’t do it again.”
“You’re always promising,” I growled.
“I mean it this time,” he said, as though he meant it.
“I won’t tell Mom, but only because I don’t want her to be upset, that’s all. Now go back to bed and let me sleep.”
I turned my back on him to put an end to the conversation. It was doing my head in. He was doing my head in. Let alone my stomach, which was all nervy again. He would do it again. I knew he would. His horrible friends would make sure of that. Wills wouldn’t be able to say no, and they probably thought it was a great big joke to get him to do bad things. I wondered if I should tell Dad. But telling Dad would make it worse and Mom would still find out. I was scared for Wills too, because I didn’t want him to have the sort of punishment he would get if Dad knew. It would be like one of those big fights in the movies where everyone shoots at each other and everyone dies.
I was so tired I didn’t want to get up for school the next morning, and I could hear Mom having her usual battle to get Wills out of bed. I dragged myself to my feet.
“Why don’t you just leave him there, Mom?” I called. “He’ll be the one to get into trouble, and serves him right.”
“Unfortunately, if he doesn’t go to school he won’t be the only one to get into trouble, I will as well.”
Wills was snorting underneath the duvet. He thought he was being funny, but Mom didn’t and neither did I. I ran in and pulled the covers off him.
“Get up, you freak!” I yelled. “Give Mom a break for a change.”
“You’re so scary!” he mocked. “Save me from him, Mommy, save me!”
I launched myself at him, but he wriggled from underneath me and tore off along the landing into the bathroom.
“Beat you to it!” he shouted and slammed the door.
“I hate you!” I screamed after him. I stopped when I saw Mom’s face.
“Don’t, Chris,” she said.
She fled downstairs, leaving behind the look on her face to scold me over and over. I sank down on to the top stair and thought about hurling myself to the bottom.
At school that day, Jack wanted to know what was wrong with me.
“What do you think’s wrong?” I snapped.
“I’ve never known you this grumpy before,” he said. “Even Homer Simpson doesn’t get this grumpy.”
“Homer Simpson doesn’t have to live with Wills. If he did, he would be even grumpier.”
“What’s Wills done that’s so bad this time, apart from being alive?”
“Everything he does is so bad, and then I get into trouble for it,” I said.
“If I had a brother like Wills, I’d either kill him or kill myself,” Jack threw a punch at me, before launching himself across the playground to join in with a game of soccer.
Chapter Eight
We got into a sort of routine with the going to Dad’s. Every other Saturday he picked us up at ten o’clock and we went straight to the supermarket to stock up with ready-made meals. However much Dad protested, Wills didn’t give him much choice over what else went into the cart.
“We’re from a broken home,” Wills said. “We need treats to help us get over our broken hearts.”
“What a load of nonsense,” snorted Dad. “Whoever heard of chips and ice cream mending a broken heart?”
“Without them,” said Wills, “I might fall to the floor, and all people will see is a blubbering heap of misery.”
That did it for Dad because he knew that’s exactly what Wills would do, right in the middle of the supermarket, and it would be just as embarrassing as the pickled onions. So Dad gave in, and Wills wound up with all the junk food that Mom said he shouldn’t have because it made his Acts Dumb and Dumber worse.
It’s always so neat and tidy at Dad’s you wouldn’t think anybody lived there. It can’t be that he tidies up especially for us—NO WAY JOSE!—so it must be how he likes to live when he’s not being our dad, which means it must be hard for him when he’s being our dad and having to live with a mess. Maybe that’s why he left home—Mom’s home. His new place doesn’t stay tidy for long when we’re there. I think he must dread us coming because of the mess, and the noise, and the thumping on the ceiling.
I dread going there. Wills knows exactly which buttons to push to wind Dad up, and Dad’s fuse grows shorter and shorter. There’s no Mom to help keep the peace, so I’m on my own, trying to think of things we can do that will occupy Wills and keep him out of Dad’s hair—what’s left of it. Dad gave in to Wills during our second visit and bought a game console—GREAT!—race games in a pea pod, just what I always wanted. The other thing Wills has decided he likes is Monopoly and he wants to play it all the
