Fish Boy Read online

  I look up: burning silver. The big-shine. The surface is so close I could touch it. But I can’t.

  I’m stuck.

  Patrick is on my back. My chin is in the sand. I try to get myself up on to my knees. I push my hands in and slip back down.

  I need help. I need the Us.

  ‘Us,’ I mumble. A sand cloud blows out round the word. I hope Bob hears.

  He swims off.

  That’s that then.

  Never trust a mackerel.

  I put my head down. Dirt grits into my eyebrows.

  I shut my eyes, ready for the dark.

  UP. Bob’s back with pleady eyes.

  UP, he shouts in my eardrum.

  I look up and see them all. A shiny army. Small but strong.

  The Us.

  Hundreds of fish heads pile in. Thousands.

  They nuzzle under my body.

  UP, Bob says and they push.

  They are a fish handy grabber.

  The sand pulls down.

  The seabed doesn’t want to let us go.

  We start to slide like a sucker on a window. Shells scrape under my stomach. Come on, I think, come on.

  UP, Bob says.

  UP, they say.

  I pull up with my brain. I try to push with my arms and legs.

  UP

  UP

  They heave. I push.

  We start to move.

  Nearly,

  nearly,

  nearly …

  POP.

  We ping off.

  Sand swarms in under us.

  Me and Patrick wobble on the fish heads.

  Up, Bob says, up.

  Up, I grin, up!

  We keep lifting.

  I think I’m gonna fall off but I don’t.

  I put my legs down. Patrick hangs off me in a piggyback in the air. His head’s in the big-shine.

  The rain stots on the top of my head. The wind bites my shoulders and the back of my neck. I keep my face under and look down.

  The fish are squashed. It’s dangerous for them here. They’ll easily get pecked off by fast-darks. They’re scared. They look at me, with eyes like sad dogs that want to leave but can’t.

  ‘Soft-it,’ I say and flick my arm. I want them to be safe.

  They need to go.

  They don’t.

  They won’t split up the Us. They won’t leave me. But they have to.

  ‘Soft-it,’ I say and point. ‘Soft-it.’ There’s another flash. They squeeze tight together.

  Soft-it, they say.

  They look at me, eyes raised. I nod. They turn and go. Looking for a kelp forest. For a safe place to hide the Us. All except one.

  Bob stares at me. I stare back. The rain hisses.

  ‘Go,’ I say.

  I don’t want him to go.

  I put my hand on my heart.

  Ow? he says.

  ‘Ow.’ I nod.

  We stare at each other. There’s another flash. The sea turns neon. And then he’s gone. Back to the Us. I lift Patrick up to stop him slipping off and step out into a new me.

  Just an Illusion

  I carry Patrick as far as I can and fall down on to the sand.

  His eyes are still shut.

  The rain drills into our heads.

  I lie him down in the recovery position, like we learned in Heart Start. On his side, arm across his chest onto the sand. I say his name over and over. ‘Patrick, Patrick,’ I put my finger in his mouth. ‘Wake up,’ I say, ‘wake up.’ I move his tongue, clear his airway. Nothing.

  I press on his chest. I blow in his mouth.

  ‘Come on!’ I slap his back.

  A gush of water and sand spits out.

  ‘You made my mouth full of sand.’ His voice sounds slow and groggy, but alive. Definitely alive. It’s a blummin’ miracle. I jump on to him and hug him. ‘Assault, assault,’ he cough-yells. We roll over and over and when we stop I laugh a bonkers letting-it-all-go-ness.

  We lie there on our backs with the water bouncing off our faces.

  ‘What happened?’ he says, choking up the salt.

  ‘You don’t want to know.’

  ‘You saved me.’

  ‘Nah, you saved me,’ I say and look him in the eye. ‘Thanks.’

  He shrugs, wipes the rain off his face.

  I look up at the sky. The clouds start blowing away, getting sucked out to sea.

  It starts to ease off.

  ‘How did you know I was going to be there? On the crocodile rock?’

  ‘Magic’s mainly about probabilities – it’s all in the preparation,’ he says. ‘I knew you were gonna turn up, I just didn’t know when.’ He sits up. His sleeves droop over his hands. ‘Pick a number between four and eight.’

  ‘Not again.’ I finger shoot myself in the head.

  ‘I’m trying to show you something, okay.’

  ‘Okay, okay!’ I flop down on the beach. ‘Five.’ I don’t even bother trying to work it out. Or working out how he will work it out.

  He rolls up his sweatshirt. The water spurts on the sand. I knew you would pick five, it says.

  ‘Surprise,’ I say all slowly and play dead.

  ‘Get up,’ he says and pokes me in the leg. ‘Look under the other sleeve.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Just do it.’ I roll over and wring it up. I knew you would pick four, it says. This actually is a surprise. I try to hide my eyebrows. ‘Trousers,’ he says.

  ‘Seriously?’

  He just points at the trousers. I knew you would pick eight is on his left leg. I knew you would pick seven is on the right. It seems so simple, so totally obvious. I have no idea why I never even thought of it at all. ‘Preparation,’ he says.

  ‘When did you do that?’

  ‘Before.’ He buries his feet in the sand. ‘Just in case.’

  ‘You’re crazy,’ I say, ‘in a good way,’ and friendly punch his shoulder. I feel my chest, where my tags aren’t any more. ‘The fish took the tags,’ I say. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘It’s okay!’ He waves a hand. ‘Fish sense stuff.’ He sits up with his hands holding his head. ‘Catfish have over twenty-seven thousand taste buds on their body.’

  ‘Actually most fish have taste buds all over their body. Seals can sense a fish trail from over six hundred metres awa—’

  ‘And by the way. Fingers of steel …’ he flexes his fingers, ‘SAS training. My dad’s in the army. That’s why we move all the time.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘You know why I learned magic,’ he says. I shake my head. ‘So people would like me.’

  ‘Everybody likes you.’

  ‘Not everybody.’ He ducks his head down, so I can’t see his face. ‘I hate moving,’ he says. ‘I hate it.’

  ‘Oh.’ I am totally surprised. I think of how he always seems so happy, confident; how everything is all just an illusion, how eyebrows don’t show everything. ‘You should really learn how to swim,’ I say, ‘just in case you feel like disappearing forever.’

  He sits back up and smiles and pushes me so hard my head bounces off a tide ridge and into a worm cast.

  I pull him down with me and his head stots too.

  We lie next to each other, staring up at the sky. It looks so big. I smile and my head drifts off and up. Although we’re on land, it totally feels like we’re flying.

  Suddenly I see Sir David’s face coming out of the clouds. I’ve missed him loads. I want to hug him. He’s in his best blue shirt. He grins. ‘Nature’s greatest triumph begins with the leap of faith,’ he says, ‘flight. The extraordinary power to defy gravity that has shaped evolution and created a kingdom in the sky.’

  Odd, but Okay

  The rain has stopped. We sit up.

  Patrick wipes the sand off his face. ‘You’ll see him tomorrow then,’ he says.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Bob.’

  ‘I don’t think so. Mackerel migrate in October.’

  ‘He might come back though.�
�

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘BILLY!’

  I look up and see Mum and Dad at the top of the cliff, shouting. Mum gets up out of the wheelchair and starts coming down the steps. It’s a struggle.

  I run over to meet her. I don’t want her to have to come any further. I put my wet face in her neck.

  ‘Don’t ever do that again.’ She’s half mad, half relieved. ‘We read the letter. I thought you were …’ she starts to cry. ‘I love you,’ she says and holds me so tight I can’t breathe.

  ‘It’s all right Mum,’ I say. ‘It’s okay.’ I hold her right back.

  Dad catches up. ‘Never again, Billy,’ he says, ‘never.’ He grips the two of us like a gecko.

  Patrick comes over. He leaves a kind of slug trail across the sand. Mum wipes her eyes on her sleeves. She sees the broken handcuffs on our wrists. ‘What on earth were you thinking of?’

  ‘Harry Houdini,’ I say.

  ‘Billy was giving me a swimming lesson,’ Patrick says. Mum stares at his clothes all hanging off him, his sweatshirt comes down to his knees. ‘A life-saving one.’

  ‘Well, that explains everything then,’ she says.

  ‘Patrick,’ I say, feeling the new me rising up, ‘this is my mum. She has ME.’ Mum and Dad give each other a look and try to keep their eyebrows level.

  ‘Oh,’ Patrick says. ‘My cousin had that.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah, she’s doing really well now though.’ I give him a look that says you never told me and he gives me one back that says you never asked.

  ‘So you found the creature from the black lagoon,’ Dad says, trying to break up our looks. ‘You can make a lot of money from that. Museums, tours, freak shows.’

  ‘Dan!’ Mum whacks him. He lifts her over his shoulder and runs off going ‘Raaaaaa’.

  At the top of the steps, Mum sits down in the chair and passes us towels she’s brought just in case.

  I wrap myself up and stand next to Dad. We look out over the railing. The sand, the sea, the bay, beyond. I think of Sir David in the Australian outback, by the Bungle Bungles. ‘There’s a story that unites each of us with every animal on the planet,’ he says, ‘it’s a story of the greatest of all adventures. The journey through life.’ A rock wallaby bounds off, wild and free.

  Dad taps me on the head with a knuckle. ‘Give you a fiver for whatever’s going on in there,’ he says and smiles. He puts his arm round my shoulder and leans in. His chest is hot and soft.

  I brave up, feel the new me inside, all or nuffin. ‘Dad, Jamie Watts stole my Nikes,’ I say.

  ‘I know,’ he says.

  ‘You know?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He winks. ‘I just wanted you to tell me yourself.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘So we could sort it out when you were ready,’ he says. ‘Has he been picking on you?’

  I think of Ben’s PE shorts, of how he hid Henry Atkinson’s wind chimes, how he’s had like ten detentions already. ‘He’s on white report,’ I say, ‘he kind of picks on everyone.’

  ‘So what do you wanna do?’ He puts a hand on my shoulder. ‘You want to get them back?’

  ‘No.’ I shake my head and think of the sweatshops. ‘You know people get paid nothing to make those,’ I say. ‘It’s horrible. It’s totally wrong.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘Anyway, I’ve got a plan,’ I say.

  ‘Okay.’ Dad makes a hand into his bang and blast pistol. ‘Hit me with it.’

  *

  On the way home the sun breaks through and shines over everything. Poking in and out the houses. Filling all the empty spaces. Dad asks if I want to take a turn pushing the wheelchair. It feels odd, but okay. We stop off at John’s Corner Shop. ‘Pay day,’ Dad says and disappears inside.

  Me and Patrick and Mum wait outside by the blue ‘It Could Be You’ lottery sign, by the steps. People walk past us into the shop. No one actually even notices us.

  Then I see Jamie Watts from halfway up the street.

  He crosses the road, to our side.

  My hands are sweating. I must do something. I have to do something. He looks so different away from the pack. On his own. He’s got a Scottie dog with him on a lead. I think of Dad and Miso Angry. Sir David Attenborough says, ‘In a threatening situation the male silverback will ferociously beat his chest and throw vegetation.’ I have no vegetation. But I am not a mackerel. I’m not looking for a kelp forest, for safe ground.

  Jamie gets nearer and nearer.

  I count down the slabs.

  Three …

  I look at Patrick and put my hands to my chest. Elbows out, fists in. He looks back at me, over at Jamie. ‘Silverback?’ he says. I nod.

  Two …

  Patrick brings his fists up and we bang. Hard. Fists flying, chest pummelling. We are properly loud. A kid over the road puts his phone in his pocket and turns round. A bloke by the zebra crossing gets off his bike. Two guys with Curly Wurlys stop talking and stare.

  One.

  Face to face, eyeball to eyeball.

  I look at Patrick and nod. We let him have it. We roar. Our voices come out and over and up and down and into the ears of the kid with the phone and down the throat of the bloke on the bike and in and out of all the gaps of the Curly Wurlys. Even Mum puts her hands over her ears. Enough, it says, is enough.

  Jamie properly jumps. His dog barks. He looks around and tells it to shut up. It doesn’t. He yanks the lead and it bites him on the leg.

  We stop, ears ringing, throats sore. Jamie tries to look unfazed. He hobble-limps off down the street. Patrick looks over at me and we laugh so hard snot comes out of our noses.

  Dad comes out of the shop with the biggest pile of Katzenzungen boxes you’ve ever seen. We’re laughing like a pair of kookaburras. ‘You okay?’ he asks. He looks down the street at Jamie. Back at us.

  Patrick looks at me. I look at Mum. Her eyebrows are happy surprised. We all look at Dad. ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘We’re totally bonkers.’ I wipe my nose with the back of my hand. ‘We’re okay.’

  Dad winks at me and puts a hand on my shoulder. We stack the chocolates on Mum’s knees and he races us down Kirton Street so fast Mum has to hold on to them with both hands and her chin.

  When we get home, Me and Patrick have hot showers and I lend him my hand bison sweatshirt and black jeans. When we come downstairs Dad’s got fish and chips in. The kitchen smells like heaven. I have scraps on mine and triple-load the salt and vinegar till it stings my gums.

  ‘Blummin’ lovely,’ Dad says dipping a chip in curry sauce.

  Mum shares out a jumbo sausage. ‘Family tradition,’ she says. ‘Saves on the lip salve.’

  ‘Doesn’t it feel kind of weird?’ Patrick leans over and points at my plate. ‘Eating fish?’

  ‘I’m a cannibal,’ I say, licking my fingers and we eat until there’s nothing left but papers.

  After that, we go into the lounge and Dad plays all different songs with ME in. ‘Rock With ME’ and ‘Won’t You Take ME to a Funky Town’ and ‘Say a Little Prayer for ME’ and we dance. I’m a pretty uncoordinated dancer. So is Patrick. None of us look at each other. We all just lose ourselves in what we’re doing. The world seems to spin in a bright and brilliant way. Dad dances Mum in her wheelchair to ‘Where’s ME Jumper’ by the Sultans of Ping FC and me and Patrick take our sweatshirts off and chuck them around. Mum goes to sit on the sofa with her head on the chameleon cushion, curls up and smiles. She drifts off while we keep dancing. Dad plays ‘Close to ME’ by The Cure. I love this song. I think of the video: they’re all in this wardrobe that falls over the cliff into the sea, but they keep playing, even though they’re sinking. I think of us as them. Bobbing around. I think of how we don’t know when Mum’s gonna get better, when things are gonna be okay, but now the secret’s out of my chest I feel lighter, okay. Happy. I look at Patrick headbanging and for the first time in ages, I feel totally afloat.

  Compass Malfunction

  The
re’s only two places on earth that make compasses point to True North instead of Magnetic North. The Bermuda Triangle and Devil’s Island (off the coast of Japan). Some people say that this is what causes the problem, that this causes compass malfunction and sets the ships and planes off course.

  But other people say that actually, navigators always compensate for magnetic declination when charting their courses and that calculation errors anywhere could cause anyone to go off course.

  In other words, we still have no idea.

  I think of how swallows have compasses in their heads, how that’s kind of how we are too. Sometimes our heads see stuff the wrong way. Like the magnet is in wrong, flipped over. You think you’re looking north when actually you’re not. You’ve been looking south all along. If you turn yourself round and see it from the opposite way, everything looks different. Completely, utterly, totally different. In my head I ask the puffin on the Puffin Nuffin mug and he just eats a sardine and says, ‘heavy man, heavy.’

  Just the Beginning

  This is the last thing I write in my Unexplained Mysteries of the World report. I walk to school in my new bright white Shoe Fayre trainers and put the report down on Mrs Ahira’s desk. It looks pretty thick actually. ‘Wow!’ she says and lifts it up like it’s a goblet from the lost city of Atlantis or something. She gives me two house plus cards and a student raffle ticket.

  I go into class with my new reset-compass head on. Everything looks different. Like I’ve been pointing in the wrong direction the whole time. I think how we’re all so scared of everything, of each other, scared of mucking up, scared of looking stupid, scared of being laughed at.

  After art I actually talk to Ben Nicholson. It’s amazing how you can sit by someone and not know anything about them at all.

  ‘Hi,’ I say.

  ‘Hi,’ he says. His eyebrows look suspicious.

  I look down at his desk and see he’s drawing a Clone Trooper. He’s just about to cover it up, when I say, ‘That looks really cool.’