Fifteen Bones Read online

  When I woke the next morning I was bundled on the floor in the corner of my room, holding a cricket bat. My night terrors were back. Mother was in the middle of one of her rants. Dad was walking in circles round the garden, teetering on the verge of a permanent dream world. Plus, I had the shakes.

  No school today.

  I looked up at the hatch in my ceiling and wondered why the girl next door wanted to look up there. I fetched a chair and used the cricket bat to push the trap door open. Dust plumed down to my face. The attic was pitch black and reeked of rotten vegetables. I tried to see inside but couldn’t lift myself up. I squinted at something I thought was moving in the breeze. I pushed the trap door shut, and went downstairs.

  “What the hell have you been doing?” Mother yelled. She stared at the dust as if it was the blood of newborn infants. “You are not to touch anything in this house, do you understand me? Do you?”

  I dragged my feet across the excavated sitting-room floor, up the epic stairs and back to my room. Mother yelled on and on like artillery fire, until her words became meaningless. After a while I ripped the door off my cupboard and held a tight grip on the exposed hinge until it cut through my skin.

  Mother flew up the stairs and rammed on my door. I screamed at her to go away. She screamed back, then stormed away. I heard something smash downstairs. She flung open the front door, causing my door to fly open then slam shut again.

  Mother’s car did its familiar screech out of the drive. I watched from the window as it stalled and revved and screamed into the traffic. Something about this particular tantrum gave me a sickly feeling. My nails dug into the pulse of my wrist, and then I heard the baby crying.

  “Mum?” I said.

  In Squirm’s room, two little feet kicked from the carry cot on the floor, trying to escape the soiled nappy that was stinging her. The noise of her screams spiked down my ears to the base of my brain. I tried to pick her up and she jammed her arms to her sides. “Don’t you want me to change you?” I said, but she carried on screaming. “Well? Don’t you?” I yelled. She screamed and screamed. “Shut up, you tiny idiot.” I jabbed her blanket. “Shut up!”

  Squirm covered her eyes with her podgy hands. I picked her up, but she cried as if terrified. “I’m sorry,” I told her. I managed to change her and put cream on her nappy rash. I patted her back and cuddled her, rocking her back and forth. She began to hiccup with the exhaustion of crying so much. Finally I held her away from me, let her dangle her podgy legs, and she stopped crying. I was sweating and shaking from holding her. I wiped my face and I realized I’d been crying with her.

  Squirm looked happy now, waving her hands excitedly, searching for something to hold. I offered my finger and she grabbed it, then shoved it into her little mouth.

  “Orrr,” she said

  It would be hours before Dad came home, if he came home. I carried Squirm to my room and tried to find her some toys to play with.

  “What’s that smell, Squirm?” I said.

  “Orr.”

  “Has one pooed one’s pants?” I said. “Again?”

  “Orr,” she said.

  “Very lady-like. Charmed, I’m sure.”

  I carried her to the bathroom and took off her nappy. It was filled with poo and the poo was green. I heaved her into the sink and ran her bottom under the tap. The sink soon filled with green poo so I put her in the bath, poo spreading all over my hands.

  I ran the bath. The smell was getting worse. I looked back to the sink and realized I had left the tap on. The pool of green poo was edging closer to the rim. I couldn’t unhand the baby for the seconds it would take to reach over and switch off the tap. “Shit!” I said as the sink overflowed and spilled on to the floor, flooding the tiles with the putrid liquid. I relinquished my shirt and plucked the gunk-covered baby from the bath and waded over to turn the tap off. I felt sick in my mouth as I plunged my hand into the sink to drain the green water with … bits … floating in it. Gripping the swaddled baby, I was sick into the toilet, my stomach heaving painfully.

  “Uuuf,” Squirm giggled.

  I covered the floor with toilet paper. The bath was filthy and I couldn’t wash her in it, so I held her with one arm while I used the other one to scrub it out. I rinsed it a million times before I put her back in it. I couldn’t find any soap except a florescent green hand wash that that said it was zero per cent everything. I tested some on Squirm’s cheek before risking her whole body. I made my fingers into a fin. “Look, Squirm, a shark! Ooooooooooo! Say ‘Oooooooooo!’ What do sharks say? What do sharks say? Actually, what do sharks say? E-oooooooo!”

  She giggled and splashed when I plunged my shark-hand into the water and brought it out again. “Eeeeek-oooooooo!”

  It was scary taking her out of the bath. Every edge is hard and murderous. I put one towel over myself, another towel around her, lifted her out and held her to my chest. I stepped over the grim mess on the floor and carried her back to her room. I dried, powdered and dressed her. It took for ever because she wriggled about, and by the time I’d done it she had pooed herself again so I had to change that nappy as well.

  As I looked at her trembling mouth and heaving stomach, I realized with panic that I hadn’t fed her. I hadn’t even thought about feeding her. I took her downstairs and found a box of rusks. Squirm went for it, mouth-first.

  “Were you hungry, Squirm? I’m so sorry.”

  “Orr!” the baby said and she slapped my cheek, giggling. I smiled at her. Poo-floor aside, I’d done all right. I took a bite of the rusk. “Oooh!” she said.

  One pot of applesauce later, the doorbell rang. I looked at the shadow behind the glass, hoping it would go away. It didn’t. The bell rang again. I picked up Squirm, crept to the door and checked through the eye hole.

  “I can see you,” Miss Price said.

  I opened the door.

  Miss Price looked inside. “Left alone?”

  “No, Mum and Dad just went to the shops.”

  “Both of them?”

  “Yeah, Mum doesn’t drive so Dad had to drive her…”

  “And is this why you weren’t in school today?”

  “No. Not at all. I’m … ill.”

  “Ill. Right. With what?”

  “What?”

  “What’s wrong? What are you ill with? What are the symptoms?”

  “It’s—”

  “It’s what?”

  “It’s, uh…”

  “You’re ill and you don’t know what it is?”

  “It’s—”

  “It’s what, Jake?”

  She was such a force of energy, I couldn’t think of any disease except peritonitis, which I have to take medication for, but I tripped over the word and said it too quickly. “I’ve got penis,” I said.

  “Pardon?”

  “Peniton … peni…” I panicked. “Penis.” I shook my head. “I’ve got problems.”

  Miss Price frowned. “Well, I collected your homework,” she said, and handed me a wad of worksheets.

  “Thanks.”

  “Funny – Mr Caffrey and Mr Halls had never heard of you.”

  “Oh? They probably just haven’t learnt my name.”

  “Hum,” Miss Price said.

  “Weird.” I nodded.

  “Yes, it is weird. Especially as you don’t have Mr Halls and there is no Mr Caffrey.”

  Sneaky. I couldn’t think of a reply.

  “You’re not actually going to your lessons, are you, Jake.”

  For once I was thankful to feel the timid but determined tremble of Squirm having a poo in my arms. “The baby needs her nappy changed, miss, so unless you want to stay and—”

  “No,” Miss Price said abruptly, “no, not at all. But I have my eye on you, all right?”

  “All right.” I shut the door and gave the baby a k
iss on her forehead. “Well played, Squirm.”

  It was dark when Dad arrived home. I flew at him the moment he opened the door. “Mum drove off and left me with Squirm all day.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “She left me with the baby all day!”

  “Yes, all ri—”

  “What if I’d put my music on and not heard her? What if I’d gone out? What if she had rolled over or choked or—”

  “What are you talking about, Jake?”

  “I didn’t know when her last feed was. What if she’d starved—”

  “Her last feed?” he said. “I hear you have been of no…” He shook his head.

  “What?”

  “We got a call from your head teacher.”

  “They’re called principals in the shit schools you send me to.”

  “She said you broke thi … I said it couldn’t have been you. You … you wouldn’t have…” He read my face. “Oh, Jake! Why do you have to make everything so bloody…”

  “So what?” I asked.

  “So…” He rolled his hand, his face strained.

  “So what?”

  “Difficult,” he exhaled. “So bloody difficult.”

  “I’m the one being shunted about by you pair of berks.”

  “We don’t move to spite you, Jake. We move because of you. Everywhere you go, you get in trouble. You make everything worse.”

  I turned, opened the front door and slammed it so hard the window box fell and smashed. I raged to the end of the street where my sphere of anger hit another, and we collided like bumper cars.

  “What you lookin’ at?” she yelled.

  “Nothing.”

  “You dancing?” She shoved me backwards, then stopped as if shocked by how far she had pushed me simply by touching my chest. “Sorry,” she said.

  I reached for my phone; then I remembered I no longer had it. I put my face to the sky and seethed.

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  “What do you care?”

  “I asked, didn’t I?”

  She pronounced it “arkst”.

  She stepped forward. “You having a heart attack or sammink?”

  “As if you care.”

  “I arkst, didn’t I?” she repeated.

  “You shouldn’t be able to … feel your heart.” I pulled at my shirt.

  “You having a heart attack? Eh? Dot Cotton? What’s wrong with you?” She put her hand to my forehead. Her fingertips were cold. She wiped her hand on her grey joggers. “Sweating like a pregnant nun.”

  I meant to laugh, but no sound came out, just a hollow jolt to my chest. I stretched my back and tried to push my shoulder blades together in the panic of short breath. “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “Lean forward, curve your spine,” she said, “all you’re doing there is flattening your lungs.”

  I put my elbows to my knees and took a lungful of air. My spine made thankful crackling noises.

  “Better?”

  “Yeah. How did you know that?”

  She shrugged.

  “I need my phone,” I said.

  “Stolen?”

  “Ransomed.”

  “That’s worse. Don’t ever pay a ransom.”

  “I need that phone. It’s got stuff on it.”

  “They’ll only ask for more money, fam.”

  I pulled at the weeds that had pushed through a crack in the kerb. Across the street a lumbering figure was silhouetted briefly against the glow of a streetlamp.

  “Robin.” She shrugged.

  “What about them?”

  “That’s my name. Robin.”

  “Oh.” I stopped. “Why … why are … are you … are you then … why are … called Robin?”

  She twisted her face.

  “What’s the story of that name?”

  “You really want to know?” She picked at the cuff of her hoodie. “When my mum was pregnant with me she used to walk through the park to go to work. She hated going work. Anyway, one day I kicked her so hard, she had to sit down in the snow and she started to cry, but then a little robin bopped up to her and it cheered her up. Then she decided to call me Robin.”

  “Lucky it wasn’t a pigeon.”

  “Or a blue tit,” she said. “Blue Tit Carter. Imagine what the kids at school would call me.”

  “Bluey?”

  “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. Bluey.” She laughed. “What’s your name then?”

  “Jake.”

  “Jade? That’s a girls’ name.”

  “Jake,” I said.

  “Jason?”

  “Jake,” I said.

  “Oh, Jake,” she said as if to memorize it. “So what’s the … story there?”

  “Uh, my mum was pregnant with me, and miserable and that, and then my dad got her some Jacob’s crackers and it cheered her up, so she decided to call me Jacob.” I got up and slapped the dirt from the back of my trousers. “Like the actual crackers.”

  Robin laughed. “Lucky it weren’t HobNobs.”

  “Yeah, I wonder what the kids at school would call me.”

  “Hobby?”

  “Yeah, Hobby, that’s what I was thinking.” I laughed and it felt weird in my mouth.

  “You look like you need to be in bed, no ’fence. You look a bit wavy, mate.”

  “I’m all right,” I said. I didn’t worry about her saying I looked ill. I was just pleased she’d called me mate.

  I kicked at the tiny stones on the pavement. Robin got up and walked down the street in the direction of the park. Her walk was quicker than my run. I called, “Surely you can’t be—”

  She turned. “What?”

  “You can’t be going down the park? A kid was—”

  “What?”

  “Killed. On this street. He wasn’t just stabbed, you know. He was beaten up.”

  “You think I don’t know?” Robin said, her face pinched. “Get back to your knitting or whatever you people do.”

  “What do you mean ‘you people’?” I called after her.

  I could only see her when she was beneath the weak light of the lampposts. “I’m not white!” I said. “I’m from London!”

  I walked to my door and kicked away the smashed window box. Something silver turned within the soil. I pulled it out. It was a key. I tested it in the front door and it worked. “Idiot,” I said to my dead grandfather. I stepped inside and my footsteps echoed across the cold room. Dad and Squirm were gone. The key was cold from the soil. I stepped back out of the front door and ran.

  Darkness felt smaller as I broke into a run. I waited for my ankles or knees to buckle in pain, but they didn’t. My lungs sucked the cold air and didn’t arrest; my heart pumped blood around my body. My thigh bone absorbed the reverberations from the pavement and held together, grateful to feel the strike of the pavement once again. At Meadow Gorge there were athleticas who would run up and down the stairs like mad Slinkys. They would challenge you to marathons or squat championships or to three thousand sit-ups. If you want to know what doing three thousand sit-ups feels like, I couldn’t tell you, because after a few hundred you can’t feel anything and the next morning you feel like someone has carved a canoe out of your stomach. Once, this girl Hannah, a baby bird on the loose, was sprinting back and forth between two lampposts in her bare feet, her dressing gown flying behind her like a cape. I ran back and forth with her. I thought it would calm her down, but it only spurred her on. She looked like a child in her mother’s clothes. After a while I stood there like a plum as she thundered back and forth, swimming through the air.

  I kept to the long road. When I got to the park, I stopped. I went back a few paces. A strange mound was pressed against the fence. I approached, squinting. The mound had two skinny litt
le legs poking out of it.

  “Robin?” I said.

  The mound shook itself to life. “Get lost, will you.”

  I crouched beside her. “Why are you dressed like a cartoon spy?”

  “Get lost before you get us both killed.”

  “I saw those two blokes and that one of them pushed you. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I didn’t call the police or anything.”

  “What are you on about?”

  I lay flat on my ribs next to Robin. Wimbledon Park has tennis courts, a running track and a lake filled with swans and ducks. Beyond the lake is a luscious golf course, which is private and you get shot or something if you go on it. Beyond the park you can see the silhouettes of mansions that line Wimbledon Hill and eclipse the estates of Southfields. The park is where you camp to get tickets for the tennis. I went there once with Isaac and his dad. We got so scared when the sun set that my dad had to come and get us. But by then I had got caught up in Isaac’s stories and I was disappointed when I saw my dad.

  “For ever,” I whispered. I turned to Robin. “Me and my best friend Isaac went on this treasure hunt all through Brixton, looking for these red rubber bands that were left all over the street. We were sure they marked out places and there was some kind of pattern. We went everywhere collecting them and marking them off on a map. This other time—” I started to laugh and she raised her razor-flat hand.

  “Shh.”

  In the distance a fox barked and made me jump.

  “I hate that sound,” I said.

  “Innit,” Robin said. “Sounds like a woman screaming.”

  I felt happy that she agreed with me. “My mum says they should shoot them all,” I said. I don’t know why I said that.

  Robin shook her head. “They’re only doing what they do. Not their fault.”

  Movement within the fence near the running track looked faintly animal. “Are there people there?” I whispered.

  Robin nodded.

  “What are they doing?”