A Boy Called Hope Read online

  “Big Dave,” Grace continues, sticking her fingernail in between her teeth. “The heart of a cheater is like one of those hollow chocolate Easter eggs.” Grace makes one long hairy slug with her eyebrows. “It’s empty. Mum doesn’t like that. She’s had it happen before and expects more. Frankly, she deserves better.”

  A light bulb flashes above Big Dave’s head ashe realizes what she’s talking about. He touches his nose knowingly as I crunch down in my chair. “Don’t you worry, pet, I’ll make sure I don’t buy your mother a hollow egg.”

  Grace starts and her bottom lip quivers. “I wasn’t talking about eggs,” she says. “What I actually meant…”

  To stop Grace going any further I jump into the conversation and begin talking about all the different types of chocolates you can get in Easter eggs. Praline. Fudge. Caramel swirls. Orange creams. By the time I get to sticky toffee, Grace’s eyes have turned into razors and her heel connects with my other shinbone. I let out this “Yeeouch”, which Mum takes to mean yuk and that I don’t like sticky toffee much. I do, but at this moment I’m more worried that Grace has put an end to my premiership football career.

  To save my shins from further injury I announce I’ve got to take Charles Scallybones for a walk. Mum thinks about protesting but Scallybones comes to the rescue. He starts stretching his mouth and yawning. This is usually a signal that the sick express is fast approaching. Mum says she’ll save me a piece of sticky toffee pudding for when I get back. I’m about to say I’d like that very much when she says actually she won’t bother, because she’s just remembered I’m not a fan of sticky toffee.

  To be honest, I’m still thinking about how I can get Ninja Grace back when Charles Scallybones stops and pees up the side of the Paradise scout hut. Usually this isn’t a problem as it’s one of his ten nightly pee stops, but tonight there’s someone in a white dressing gown resting by the open door. Tonight of all nights, Charles Scallybones’s bladder is holding a yellow swimming pool and when I try to drag him away he resists and pees some more. Dressing Gown Man says when my dog is quite finished using the hut as a toilet, maybe I’d like to watch what’s going on inside. Maybe even join in.

  Watch what? Join in where? Nothing good can come of watching people in dressing gowns. I hear a grunt from inside the hut and consider running away – right up to the point where Charles Scallybones pees on Dressing Gown Man’s feet. After that I feel sort of obliged to do what he tells me.

  When I get inside I see the small wooden hut is full of more Dressing Gown People, all different shapes and sizes, and all kneeling on the floor. At first I think they’re praying, but then they all jump up and start punching the living daylights out of the air. Mind you, I reckon I could punch air, if I had to.

  Startled by what’s happening, Charles Scallybones stops chewing the black belt he found discarded on the floor. He stares up at me, eyes like wet buttons, and whimpers. Hugging the edges of the hall, I try to drag him back towards the exit. That’s when I hear someone hissing my name, but trying to disguise it as a grunt. I look around, ping-pong-ball eyed. Another hissy grunt follows. Turns out it’s coming from my mate Christopher. He gives me a little wave as a woman instructor shouts at him to concentrate on the five tenets of tae kwon do.

  “Yes, we have a visitor, but that doesn’t mean you can forget courtesy, integrity, perseverance, self-control and indomitable spirit,” she shouts. I consider sticking my hand up and asking if they drink indomitable spirits down the precinct on a Friday night, but think better of it when she screams that it means never giving up. Trust me, I think the men at the precinct never give up their spirits either.

  After watching for ten minutes I accept that Christopher is a master at this air-fighting. What’s more, there’s this sheen of sweat on his forehead, so it’s not as easy as I first thought. He catches my eye a few times before doing these kicky-flicky foot snaps. I imagine they’re actually called something more impressive, but I can’t understand a word the instructor is saying. Anyway, I don’t have time to try and figure it out, because Charles Scallybones appears to be having a fight of his own with the discarded black belt. And now it has a wound the size of the Eurotunnel. (By the way, it’s not really the size of a tunnel. That is me exaggerating for dramatic effect. According to Mrs Parfitt, this is an example of hyperbole.)

  Realizing we might have to pay for the destroyed belt, Charles Scallybones and I run away at the speed of light. (Or maybe it’s greased lightning. I can’t decide which. Anyway, both are hyperbole.)

  When I get home, things go from bad to worse. For a start, Charles brings up some black threads. And, instead of lovely sticky toffee pudding, Mum has left me a tube of yogurt on a plate in the kitchen. Then Grace grabs me and pins me against the wall in the bathroom. She waves her toothbrush in my face. “Why did you let him off the hook?” Minty foam spills from her mouth as if she’s a rabid dog. “We could have told Mum the truth earlier. Big Dave is just like Dad. Do you want to end up sitting on the stairs while they’re in the kitchen with Mum screaming about Caroline 1973?” Grace stalks up and down the bathroom, which takes about 0.001 seconds. Every so often she blows out clouds of peppermint.

  “Big Dave seems alright,” I mutter. “He got me that planet mobile.”

  “You’re easily bought.” Grace snaps a strand of dental floss from the container. “You need to get your priorities right. Big Dave is not going to be a good substitute father because he’s just like our own father and our own father is as much use as a waterproof teabag.” Grace slides the floss through the gaps in her teeth.

  “Indomitable spirit,” I mutter, folding my arms.

  “You what?” asks Grace, a jungle vine of floss dangling from her mouth.

  I tell Grace it’s nothing, but its meaning sticks in my head: never giving up. And I’m never giving up on Dad. Yes, he might have run off with Busty Babs, but there has to be more to it. Mum always says there are two sides to every story. And a part of me is clinging to the idea that Dad didn’t abandon us and I’m going to send him email number three and then he’ll prove it. When Dad replies I’m going to make Grace Hope eat her words, and this time they won’t be alphabet shapes from Aladdin’s.

  My third email is unlike the other two. For a start, I don’t bother telling Dad all the things going on at school. No more I’ve got a gold star and I’m really clever stuff. Instead, I write the whole email in caps and ask him why he left us and didn’t send birthday cards. The birthday cards thing is important.

  When I was eight, I wanted a card from Dad that said It’s great when you’re eight. I hoped it would have a red rocket with Hope 1 on it. There would have been an astronaut wearing a bubble helmet looking out of the little round rocket window, and inside Dad would have written a message saying he was sorry he couldn’t be with me. He’d say it was because he was a journalist on a secret mission to the Back of Beyond and he hoped I understood.

  No birthday card ever turned up.

  On my ninth birthday, I hoped for a card from Dad that said It’s fine to be nine. It would have had a shiny bike on it, the colour of a red admiral’s wings, and a boy freewheeling down a hill with sparks coming from his tyres because he’s zooming so fast.

  Again there was no card.

  The following year there was still no card from Dad, and on my last birthday, when I wanted a card that said It’s heaven to be eleven, I got nothing more than a flyer telling me to get down to Jason’s Donervan and try out their new royally delicious feast, The King Kebab.

  I finish my email by telling Dad I want him to respond within twenty-four hours, or else. I hit send.

  Within ten seconds, an email from the TV station pops into my inbox.

  There is nothing between Dad and our future together except the click of a mouse. My stomach twists and knots as if a magician is making a balloon giraffe out of it. For ages I stare at the screen, before screwing up my courage. This is it, I tell myself. This is the beginning of our new lives together. I
open the email and inhale. Two seconds later I feel water leak down my cheek and splatter onto my lap. When I look down, I notice my tears have left a stain in the shape of a broken heart.

  Dad didn’t reply to my email after all. Instead, my unanswered email was bounced back. I don’t mind admitting that I’m confused and no longer feel quite as confident as I did before. At this point I bring out the pirate island and retrieve Saint Gabriel and my list and I tell him he’s failed on getting me an email.

  “Strike one,” I scold, flicking the medal with my fingers. “But I’ll let you off if you can get me into a school for wizards.” I get a pencil and draw a line through number four on my list and put everything back inside the treasure chest and then I take the plastic skull-and-crossbones flag and stick it on top to show my anger.

  Dad, it seems, has poured poison on the little tree I was growing inside my soul. Slowly the leaves begin to wilt. Without hesitation I send him another email. Who knows, maybe I’m having an out-of-body experience. Mum once said a character in an old TV soap called Dallas died and then turned up in the shower and everything that had happened before was just a dream. So I run into the bathroom, climb into the shower, count to ten, jump back out and sit down at the computer again. Nope. Not a dream. Because the email I just sent to Dad has pinged back at me, unanswered.

  That night I don’t sleep too well. I have a strange dream that I’m in Paradise. Only it’s not Paradise estate as I know it. Instead, I’m under a tree and leaves are falling on me like emeralds and Saint Gabriel’s medal is the sun. At first it feels amazing and I hold my outstretched hands to the sky, catching the gem leaves as they fall. Some spill through my fingers but others are brittle. A cloud passes over Saint Gabriel and it grows dark as more emeralds shower me and I want to call for help, only I have no voice. That’s when someone reaches out and, although I can’t see the person’s face, I feel the grasp of their fingers on mine. For a second I’m confused and want to pull away. But their grip is firm and somewhere deep inside I know I have to trust them. When I wake up, I swear I can still feel the warmth of their hand in mine.

  Walking to school the next morning is horrible. In the ten minutes it takes me to reach the gates I’ve decided I might as well score number seven off the list. Our Lady of the Portal isn’t rising from mists of magic like a school for wizards – instead it’s sitting like a huge grey prison dumped in a gravel pit of utter misery. To make matters worse, one of the prisoners is acting weird. Christopher wants to know why I didn’t stay longer and watch him do tae kwon do. But just as I’m about to open my mouth, Jo says that she needs a chat, just the two of us. Unfortunately, this private chat doesn’t amount to more than a discussion on how Saint Gabriel died of tuberculosis, aged twenty-four. From the corner of my eye I notice Christopher get up and sit beside Kevin Cummings. He says very loudly that it’s not nice to be left out by people he thought were his friends.

  After lunch Christopher is still in a mood. He doesn’t even crack a smile when Mrs Parfitt asks us to sit down because she has exciting news. “I have a new project for you to work on,” says Mrs Parfitt, looking around at twenty-eight not-so-eager faces. “We’re going to start Project Eco Everywhere.”

  Kevin Cummings pipes up that that’s PEE for short and Mrs Parfitt tells him that if she wants an opinion she’ll give it to him. “Yes, Miss,” he says, slumping back in his chair.

  Apparently, Project Eco Everywhere is going to be our opportunity to highlight how much we throw away and how we can actually create something really special. Mrs Parfitt calls it zero to hero, which means we’re taking items no one wants and using them to create an outfit immortalizing someone important in our lives. When we’re finished, not only are we going to model these outfits on a Project Eco Everywhere catwalk, but at a later stage we’re going to raffle them off to make money to donate to local projects that help educate people about litter.

  “You can bring in old egg cartons, cereal packets, clothing, empty pie cases and wrapping foil or whatever else you find. Show me you can turn rubbish into something good. I want to see your hero emerge.”

  “From the dump,” whispers Kevin Cummings.

  “When I say hero, I think it would be nice if you look close to home. Do you have a parent or a sibling who could be your hero? I don’t want obvious superheroes from the movies. I want real heroes, if at all possible,” say Mrs Parfitt. “If you can’t think of a family member, pick someone else you look up to. And remember you’ll be wearing this on a catwalk, so big and bold is the way to go.”

  “A catwalk?” yelps Jo. “I’m going to be a supermodel—”

  “Wearing an old steak and kidney pie tin,” shouts Kevin. As Mrs Parfitt approaches him he slumps back in his chair again and pretends to zip his lips.

  Mrs Parfitt stops, looks around and says, “The Project Eco Everywhere show is going to take place at the Amandine Hotel instead of at school. This is because they’ve offered the ballroom for free if we advertise them in our brochure. Isn’t it exciting? And…” The words hang tantalizingly in the air. “There might be a big surprise. I can’t tell you what it is yet because it isn’t fully organized. But let’s just say that you will want to do well on this project.”

  I make a mental list of family members I could turn into heroes for PEE. It doesn’t take long. There is Mum or Ninja Grace… I think for a millisecond before deciding I’m going to do Dad instead. All right, so he’s not exactly top of my hero list at the moment, but this could be my new bright idea to bring him back into my life. I don’t know precisely how this bright idea will make that happen, but I’m working on it.

  Christopher suddenly mutters that he’s going to do his dad too. For some reason I’m surprised. It’s not that I didn’t think he had a family – it’s just that he’s never mentioned them before. When I try to make conversation by asking him what his dad is like, he says that he’s like everyone else’s dad. It’s on the tip of my tongue to say that I doubt it.

  “You’re doing what?” snorts Ninja Grace when I tell her about PEE. She’s waiting, arm-in-arm with Stan, at the school gates. “Did I hear you right? You’re making a hero outfit from rubbish and then modelling it on a catwalk. Sounds like a freak show to me.”

  I shove my hands in my pockets and start walking. “Yeah, it’s all about showing how much we chuck away and how we can make something special from it.”

  “You can have a pair of my laddered tights for ninety-nine pence. Cheaper than what they charged me at the pound shop,” quips Grace.

  Stan laughs at Grace’s joke, strokes the face fungus growing on his upper lip and watches as at least one whole digestive in crumb-form drops out.

  “I’m making Dad my hero,” I say.

  There’s this dramatic silence. Actually, I think the birds stop tweeting. The world stops turning and all the rivers subside, leaving fish flapping on dry riverbeds. The sun disappears and I’m left standing in a vortex.

  “You are not making Dad your hero,” squeals Grace.

  Word ninja aims her samurai at my heart!

  Stan looks awkward, which to be fair isn’t too far removed from how he usually looks, and his tongue pokes about for another ’tache digestive. After that he makes some excuse about getting home to watch his favourite quiz show. When Stan turns left at the fork in the road, Grace blurts out that she thinks I’m delusional.

  “I don’t think so,” I say, scuffing my toes along the pavement.

  “You see. You’re deluding yourself about deluding yourself.” Grace stomps alongside me. “Just because you’ve seen Dad on telly doesn’t mean he’s a hero.”

  “Yeah, but…” I say.

  Grace stops and looks at me. “No buts, unless you’re a goat.”

  “But I’m allowed to have a dad,” I reply.

  “Sure you are. Don’t think this’ll change anything though. Don’t expect him to want you back.” The word ninja storms off towards Paradise Parade, shouting, “You’re a mentalist!”
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br />   I trail after her, muttering how it takes one to know one.

  As soon as I turn my key in the lock and enter the hallway, Grace calls me upstairs. But she’s not in her bedroom, she’s in mine. When I tell her she’s in the wrong room, a villainous smile plays on her lips and she lifts up a small slip of paper and dangles it in front of me, then swings it like the pendulum of a clock.

  “I knew you were up to no good, and this proves it.” The paper wafts in front of me and my eyes follow it.

  Trying to grab it, I shout, “I’m telling Mum you were snooping in my bedroom.”

  “Oh no you’re not. For your information, I had to come in here to check on that mutt of yours because he was barfing up that toy pirate you left on the carpet. Did you want me to leave him with a plastic cutlass jammed between his canines?”

  “No,” I reply. “But you were still being nosy and going through my stuff. Mum won’t be happy with you.”

  “Get over yourself. You wouldn’t dare tell Mum because she’d want to know what it was about and it would be my duty to tell her you’ve been emailing Dad.” In this battle of threats, Grace is the winner and she knows it.

  “I thought about emailing Dad,” I say, “but I changed my mind. I’m not going to bother.”

  Grace rips the paper into tiny bits. “Correct answer! And if I were you I wouldn’t leave Dad’s email address taped to the front of your computer again. It’s rather obvious. You’re definitely not going to email him, are you?”

  “I promise I will not email Dad,” I return. Satisfied, Grace asks me to hold out my hand, which I do. She sets the foamy, sick-covered pirate in my palm. Then she opens her other hand and lets Dad’s email address flutter down like confetti.

  “Look,” Grace says, triumphant. “Your pirate is on the island of broken dreams and hey, it’s snowing.”

  Despite being stuck with the worst sister in the world, I’m not going to break my promise to her.

  So I won’t be emailing Dad again.