A Boy Called Hope Read online

  Jo turns back and looks at me again as I stand like a broken robot in the middle of the busy playground. When I pull a face at her, she lifts her nose in the air and marches off to the girls’ toilets. At that point Kevin trots over and gives me a sympathy punch on my arm. And I give him a sympathy punch to the stomach and say, “Can’t you see I’m busy?”

  “Busy being a no-mates,” replies Kevin. “Jo didn’t look too happy with you.”

  “She’ll get over it.”

  Kevin shrugs. “I hope you’ll get over this. After I left you yesterday I bumped into Stan. I may have congratulated him on being a father.” Kevin ducks, which is probably not a bad idea as my fist appears to have shot out to grab his jumper. “I did cross my fingers, which means I didn’t have to keep it a secret – I told you.” His voice rises so high my ears are bleeding.

  “You’re joking,” I say, curling my hand into a fist. “This is payback for the folic acid, isn’t it?”

  “I’m not joking,” Kevin replies, retreating into his jumper. “I really did cross my fingers.”

  The toilet block wall is very hard, as I discover by banging my head off it a few times. “This isn’t happening to me.”

  Kevin whispers, “It is.”

  Thanks to Foghorn Cummings, the apocalypse is nigh. So the rest of the afternoon, while Mrs Parfitt is talking about Project Eco Everywhere, I’m writing my will under the desk.

  I, Daniel George Hope, bequeath my dog, Charles Scallybones the First, to Aunty Pat. Mum says Aunty Pat’s only friend is the bottle. Now she can have a new friend. What’s more, Aunty Pat has loads of ornaments which Charles Scallybones could eat and sick back up. This would be a fitting end for her pottery.

  I bequeath my A–Z book of medical problems to my mother. If, for some reason, Mum dies before me, I wish the book to go to Grace and she should turn to page 122 for information on what to do when one boob is much bigger than the other.

  I bequeath my membership to the local soft play area to Grace. Of course, I realize she may not have any interest in rolling around in a ball pit, but at least she can cancel this membership, unlike The Club, where membership is for life.

  I bequeath the Saint Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows medal to Kevin Cummings. When he’s finished with it he can return it to Jo Bister. Meanwhile, the medal is likely to send him gaga before it ever heals his problems.

  Signed: Daniel George Hope, Esq.

  As I finish with a flourish, I hear Mrs Parfitt saying, “I hope you’re all going to ask your heroes to attend the show.” She looks over at Jo. “Perhaps the Virgin Mary won’t be able to come but I’m sure she’ll be there in spirit.”

  My heart, which was already at the bottom of an ocean, sinks down to the earth’s core. What are the chances of Dad wanting to come? A piece of folded-up paper whizzes in my direction and I open it up and mouth the words: After school, I’ve got a surprise for you. Be there or be a chicken. Christopher catches my eye, nods, then waggles his fingers.

  At a guess, this is the sort of surprise that comes wrapped up in a tae kwon do master killing me with his little finger. I quickly look away, but Christopher fires a paper aeroplane. This time I let it sail past me and land on the floor. When he launches another, Mrs Parfitt threatens to make him stand in the corridor if he doesn’t stop.

  What was it Christopher told me before? I think it was something like “Watch your back”. So I cannot leave school today without a plan or I’ll be bruised like the peaches Mum brings home from Aladdin’s. This is where a bright idea would come in handy. I suppose I could hide in the stationery cupboard until everyone leaves, or I could offer to walk Mrs Parfitt to her car and then follow it into the road and run alongside it until I get far away enough from Christopher to be safe. Or I could just apologize and say I’m completely rubbish.

  Completely rubbish! Yee-ha! My bright idea has just touched down.

  The Project Eco Everywhere desk is at the back of the classroom and contains all the rubbish everyone brought in to complete their outfits. The things I contributed:

  Two pairs of laddered tights

  An empty bucket of popcorn from Kernel Sanderz

  Microwave chip box – crinkle cut and with sunflower oil

  Toilet roll tubes x 8 and one empty box of diarrhoea relief capsules

  The things I think Kevin Cummings contributed:

  Leaflets about self-assessment: because tax isn’t taxing

  The things I think Jo Bister contributed:

  A plastic statue of Saint Patrick with a broken staff

  A holey holy tea towel

  A piece of burned toast with Jesus’ face on it

  Although all these items are very interesting, they’re no use to me. Luckily there are lots of other things on the table that will help. As Jo is picking up a foil pie case and sniffing it, I edge alongside her and choose a few items for myself. She looks over her shoulder and says her Virgin Mary costume will be nothing short of a miracle, which I agree with, judging by the rubbish she has in her hands. She looks annoyed so I quickly carry my chosen items to my desk, and while no one is looking, put a few bits inside my school bag. Stage one is complete. Stage two finds me and my Project Eco Everywhere items in the boys’ toilets after school. First I take off my jumper and school shirt, and then I wind a whole heap of bubble wrap around my belly and replace my shirt and jumper. When I look in the mirror I am a walking advert for who ate all the pies.

  Next, as I drop my trousers to my ankles, a Year Three boy comes into the toilets, gives me a weird look and runs out again. Mumbling and sweating, I put half a coconut shell in my pants and yank up my trousers. Then I write I’M NO CHICKEN across my forehead. (It’s not easy to write I’M NO CHICKEN using a mirror.)

  As I hobble towards the school gate I see Christopher sitting, facing away from me, on the wall. Fury bubbles up in my chest when I think about how he’s ruined our friendship over a girl – a girl I don’t even fancy. Everything that happens next is a slow-motion scene full of rubbish. I think he hears me coming because he turns around and his jaw drops open. Before he can say a word, I launch myself forward and land on him with a crump. It’s like landing on the jelly part of a pork pie. Christopher grabs my belly, which starts popping and exploding, much to his shock. Unfortunately, he’s not shocked enough to avoid biffing me. Fortunately, the main part of the biffing includes him bringing his knee up sharply. I feel sure that this type of knee-to-groin move isn’t an accepted tae kwon do move. There is a wince of pain in Christopher’s eyes when he realizes I’m rock-hard down below.

  Next, Christopher rugby-tackles me and as we drop to the ground I feel a furry thing scuttle across my shoulders and into the undergrowth. “Boo!” screams Christopher. “Get back here, you rodent.”

  “What are you two doing?” Christopher scrabbles to his feet as Grace reaches down and helps me up. “You’re going to be in big trouble if Mum finds out you’ve been fighting. What’s it about?”

  Christopher says, “I told your lunatic brother I had a surprise and to meet me after school.”

  “The surprise was to beat me up,” I snap.

  “No,” Christopher says firmly. “If you do tae kwon do you’re not allowed to use it for fighting people at school. Here’s the second note you didn’t pick up from the floor.” He passes me the note and I read it, furious to start with, and then embarrassed.

  Dan. Meet me after school. I told you I had a surprise for you. Guess what? It’s Boo! He’s been living in my pocket all day and no one has even noticed. Didn’t you hear him squeak when Mrs Parfitt asked us about the capital of New Zealand?

  “Oh,” I say. Just oh. I tug on Grace’s coat sleeve and say it’s time we were getting home.

  “What are you having for dinner?” shouts Christopher as we walk away. “Humble pie?”

  I think he’s on his knees calling for Boo, then, but I don’t look back. All I can do is limp, putting one painful foot in front of the other. When I can bear it no more, I
stop and fish around in my trousers. Grace goes the colour of wet putty and her hands fly in front of her eyes. “Don’t worry, I’ve just been kicked in the coconuts,” I say.

  “I’ve heard of it being called many things,” replies Grace, peeking through her split fingers, “but not coconuts. Stan would have laughed at that.”

  I pull an actual coconut shell out of my trousers and say, “It’s a long story,” before firing it into someone’s garden.

  Grace’s eyebrows shoot into her fringe. “Stan would have liked to hear your long story. And I bet you didn’t know that he liked coconuts. Well, he enjoyed a Bounty bar from Biddolpho’s Newsagent’s, if that counts. Anyway, what does it matter? He dumped me today.”

  I think it’s my turn to go the colour of putty. I reach into my pocket and bring out the will and wave it in front of my face, saying, “Did Stan mention Kevin Cummings from my class?”

  “Why would he mention Kevin Cummings?”

  The will is quickly brought to my nose and I pretend to give this big blow and then return it to my pocket. From Grace’s confusion it’s obvious she knows nothing about Kevin Cummings telling Stan she’s pregnant. Maybe Stan just broke up with her because she’s annoying. To be honest, I often find that the case too.

  All the way home she tells me how horrible Stan is and when I agree with her, she says, “Who asked you? I’m allowed to talk about Stan, but you’re not.”

  When we get back to the house Grace goes straight to her room and doesn’t come out for dinner, even though she knows it is potato waffles and she loves those because they’ve got fewer calories than chips, what with the holes and everything. In fact, Grace stays in her bedroom all evening. Even when I’m upstairs playing guitar, I can hear her wailing through the walls. By the time I’ve listened to her banshee moans for an hour I can’t stand it any longer.

  I no u r pregnant. Dan :’ (

  Six words in my text and they took as much effort as it took Sherlock Holmes to solve all the mysteries in Dad’s book. Rather than send my text straight to Grace, I decide I’ll give it some more thought and I drop the phone onto the bed before picking up my guitar and letting my fingers slide along the strings. At this point Charles Scallybones jumps on my bed, begins to howl and starts doggy krumping. Now, this would be very funny if I didn’t hear a small bleep, the sort of bleep that only comes from sending a text message. I lunge for my mobile but it’s too late. Charles Scallybones has sent my text.

  The mobile phone might as well be wearing a huge neon sign saying: THE TEXT MESSAGE HAS GONE. AREN’T I BIG AND CLEVER? Yes, my mobile phone is big but it’s not clever (it is actually Grace’s stupid old phone with glittery girly stickers on it). I half expect Ninja Grace to break through the wall, with her mobile clenched between her teeth and her fist ready to bop me on the head. Nothing happens. Grace is still listening to misery music and every so often there’s a muffled sob, but nothing else. Surely Grace would have read it by now?

  I scroll down the messages to double-check it’s been sent. Yes, it has, but not to Ninja Grace.

  I’m no sprinter but I think I just broke the world record for the hundred metres. An Olympic athlete has nothing on Dan Hope when he’s trying to get to his mother’s mobile phone. As it turns out, my text ended up going to Mum and I need to get to her handbag to stop her receiving it. The bag is in the hallway and I rummage through it as though I’m a trainee surgeon trying to find an appendix. The mobile phone isn’t there.

  Okay, if it’s not there, it’s on the coffee table.

  Okay, if it’s not there, it’s in Mum’s hand.

  Okay, it’s in Mum’s hand. She looks at the display, furrows her brow and says, “Want a drink?”

  “Yah,” I reply. What sort of idiot says “Yah”? The sort of idiot who sends their mother a text saying she’s pregnant, that’s who.

  The instant Mum leaves the room I grab the phone and scroll through the messages.

  “Orange or milkshake?” Mum pokes her head back into the living room.

  The phone goes under my bum as I say, “Squash, please.” There is a small vibration as a text comes through. Mum nods and leaves the room again as I pull the phone out from under my bum. This message is from Big Dave:

  Sumthin happened a couple of nights ago. Will explain evrything when I ring u l8er. Luv u. By the way when will you break it 2 kids? Hope they understand.

  To me, it sounds like there are problems between Big Dave and Caroline 1973. It could be that she’s discovered the affair and chucked him out. What if he’s homeless at Christmas and we have to take him in like a stray mongrel? Surely Mum wouldn’t take him in if she knew he had a wife? Underneath Big Dave’s message is mine and it has already been read. I quickly put the phone back on the coffee table and run upstairs to hide in the supermassive black hole. Next door, Grace is still listening to misery music and wailing about how she’ll never find another man like Stan. Hard to believe: the precinct is full of blokes just like him.

  If I had a proper dad none of this would have happened. Jo wouldn’t have given me a medal because of my sadness. And if I didn’t have the medal, Christopher wouldn’t have fallen out with me about my secret chats with Jo. Grace wouldn’t have ended up pregnant. Mum wouldn’t be dating Big Dave and she wouldn’t have got my text. The dog wouldn’t have been so sick. (Okay, the dog would still have been sick, but we’d have one extra person to clean it up.) All this mess has happened because Dad isn’t here. If Dad came back, we’d be normal again. In fact, our family would be perfect. That’s the reason I need to talk to him. If I can make him see sense, everything will come right again.

  Downstairs I can hear the phone ringing in the hallway and the slap of Mum’s feet as she walks to answer it. There is a click as she picks up the receiver.

  After a moment, I hear her say: “How did that even happen?”

  Silence.

  “That’s terrible.”

  Silence.

  “You’re lucky to get out alive. Uh-huh… Uh-huh… Uh-huh… Uh-huh.”

  I hold my breath, waiting for her to say something else.

  “Uh-huh.”

  Forget it, I have to breathe.

  “Uh-huh. No, I wouldn’t have spent days worrying. You’re so lucky it’s just a scorch mark on the wallpaper and curtains.”

  Silence.

  “But why were you outside looking at your car tyres? And why leave burning candles unattended in the house? I’m not sure that was a clever thing to do. Your landlord won’t be best pleased.”

  Silence.

  “He’s what? Given you notice because of some burn marks in the bedroom? That’s a bit dramatic of him. Of course it was an accident. Don’t worry about it. You’ve got a home here. I know you didn’t want to rush things because Kit wasn’t ready, but perhaps this fire is a sign.”

  Silence.

  “Yes, I know you’re protecting him.”

  I stop listening after that. My ears tune out like they do when Mum puts on Radio 2, and all I can hear is a little voice inside my head saying that it’s our fault Big Dave’s house is charcoal. We’re lucky Mum isn’t getting a phone call to say he’s been flame grilled. Then where would we have been? Ninja Grace could add another name to her list – Ninja Grace Arsonist. That’s what they call people who burn things (Kevin told me that when he was experimenting with the sun’s rays, a magnifying glass and the school’s wooden bench). Grace said she’d knocked stuff over and she’d said there were candles. I bet the candle set fire to the curtains and then whoosh, crikey combustibles! Big Dave needs to come live in our house. Where does this leave Caroline 1973 and their son, Kit? Worse still, if Big Dave moves in with us then there won’t be any room for my real dad.

  I’ve got to talk to Dad, and fast.

  My opportunity arrives the very next day and it is weird how it happens. Some people might call it fate, but not me. I think it was meant to be. Everything begins with Mrs Parfitt telling the class that she wants to recount a fairy tal
e.

  “Class, my story begins with two fellows. Let us call them Graham and Michael.”

  Everyone groans. No good story has a main character called Graham.

  “Shush.” Mrs Parfitt watches us as she glides through the space between the desks. “I think you’ll enjoy this tale. Once upon a time Graham and Michael were friends. They played together, they ate together, they chatted and, in fact, they did everything together. One day they fell out with each other. No one knows why. Perhaps it was over a fair maiden: a girl so beautiful and with such long flowing hair that neither could live without her approval. Perhaps it was over who should slay the dragon. Anyway, we know not why and, frankly, it doesn’t matter for the purpose of this fairy tale.”

  The whole class are leaning forward in their seats, hoping the story will go on long enough that we don’t have to do our maths test.

  “There was a huge fight just beyond the castle turrets: a fight that involved Graham and Michael thumping each other and one of them losing an animal they loved. Let us call this animal Boo. That’s a good name for a pet.”

  My eyes pop when I realize that this story is about me and Christopher. Slowly I try to sink further down in my chair. But Mrs Parfitt isn’t finished with us. It’s as if she’s strapped us into the world’s highest drop-tower ride and she’s making us do it so many times we feel like puking.

  “Someone beautiful and wise had to step in to save the situation. This lady saw everything from afar. She happened to look outside and saw this unsavoury sight and it made her weep. Anyway, here is what this beautiful and wise woman said: ‘Daniel and Christopher, you’re living in cloud cuckoo land if you think you’re permitted to fight on school premises. For doing so, you will forfeit your rights to something you were looking forward to.’ That is what the beautiful and wise woman said.”