“Shall we order some pizzas?” asked Dad.
“Yeah, pizzas,” said Wills.
“And garlic bread,” I added.
“And Coke,” said Wills.
“All right,” said Dad. “Coke as well. I’ll call them now.”
I wished it could always be like that, the being friends and the being silly, instead of the shouting and the angry words. It used to be like that more often when Dad was at home, even if the Volcano versus the Hurricane was devastating when it happened. At least everyone seemed to be happier in between. Now we all seemed to spend our days upsetting each other, even when we didn’t mean to. I wished Dad could see that it was better before, and that Wills had got worse since he left. Or was it Wills’s horrible friends who had made him worse?
That night, after Wills had beaten me and Dad at the new computer game, and after we had gone crazy watching football, and after we had played pool at the pub around the corner, and when I was trying to go to sleep in the bedroom (Dad didn’t want me steeping on the couch), and Wills was tossing and turning like a bundle of sheets in a tumble dryer, Wills suddenly said:
“What would you do if you had to do something because you were sort of expected to do it, and you might get into trouble if you didn’t do it, but you didn’t really want to do it anymore, and perhaps you never wanted to do it in the first place, but you got sort of persuaded?”
“What?” I replied. I hadn’t got a clue what he was talking about.
“Well, say, for example, you were supposed to go somewhere to do something and you didn’t want to go, but you would get into trouble if you didn’t go, what would you do?”
“Depends what it was and what sort of trouble I would get into, I suppose,” I said.
I looked across the darkened room at him. I could just make out his shape. He was lying on his back in bed, one hand up behind his head, the other twisting a corner of his sheet into a knot.
“You’re not talking about not wanting to come here, are you?” I asked. “Because Dad’s already said you don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
“Course not,” muttered Wills.
“Are you still worried about the tournament, then?” I tried.
“Who says I’m talking about me?” said Wills. “Anyway, why wouldn’t I want to play in the tournament?”
I was dumbfounded by how easily Wills could forget things, or just push them out of his mind.
“I just thought you might be worrying about your—well, you know, like you said, about how you get a bit carried away sometimes and not wanting to let Mom and Dad down and all that,” I said nervously.
“You mean my ‘Acts Dumb and Dumber,’ as you so nicely put it,” Wills hissed.
I shifted uncomfortably, but didn’t answer.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Wills. “I expect the person I’m talking about will sort it out himself.”
He went quiet, but he began to toss around in his bed again, and I was wide awake lying there listening to him. I knew he was wide awake too because there were no hippo snorts.
“Wills,” I said.
“What now?” he replied.
“You know those friends of yours—the ginger one and the dark-haired one?”
There was a silence before he said, “What about them?”
“Are they all right with you?” I ventured.
“What do you mean ‘all right with me’?”
“Well, they are nice to you, aren’t they?”
“That’s a stupid question, isn’t it?” said Wills sharply. “Course they’re all right with me, they’re my friends, aren’t they?”
“They don’t seem very friendly to me,” I said.
“Well, they’re not your friends, are they?” Wills chuckled. “They look out for me though.”
“Aren’t they a bit old for you?”
“You sound like Mom. That’s the sort of thing she would say. Anyway, all the kids my age are scaredy cat babies—especially the ones at school—and they don’t like me because I’m not in the same year as them.”
“Don’t your friends boss you around cuz they’re older?” I wanted to know.
“Nobody bosses Wills around,” said Wills, talking like he had just come out of a Western film. “Anyway, what do you care?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t really,” I said. “I just wondered.”‘
“I do what I want to do, and if I don’t want to do it, I don’t do it. Now shut up and go to sleep, will you.”
Wills turned away from me to terminate the conversation, and I was left to wonder about what he had gone on about in the first place.
Chapter Sixteen
I went to the library during the week. I wanted to talk to Penny about how I was feeling about playing in the tournament. The final practice had been awesome. Clingon had said lots of things to me about how I was now his first choice of reserve and that I had a good attitude and how, miraculously, one of my two left feet had turned out all right. The more he praised me, the more I wanted to play, but I still wasn’t comfortable being on the court when Wills was on the team, and Wills had knuckled under and was behaving himself, so he was never going to be dropped. Anyway, he was easily the best and I didn’t want him to be dropped.
“There’s no point in worrying about it,” Penny said. “If you want to play, you’ll have to leave it to your coach to decide when he puts you in, and if Wills is there at the same time you’ll have to make the most of it.”
I knew she was right. The only way I could avoid playing with Wills was if I didn’t play at all, and I wasn’t going to drop out now.
“Surely it can’t be that bad,” Penny continued. “He can’t do much with your coach watching. From what you’ve said, your coach won’t take any nonsense from him.”
“He makes me feel as if I’m bad.”
“But you know you’re not bad,”
