Every day Mum delivered my meals to my room on a tray. Lunchtime’s selection consisted of one prewrapped ham-and-cheese sandwich, one sealed carton of orange juice, one banana, and three unopened bottles of water to drink throughout the day. Very safe. Very sterile.
Food was always accompanied by Mum trying to have a chat from the doorway. I tried not to say much and to avoid her eyes if I could.
“Mr. Charles’s grandchildren look sweet, don’t they? It’ll be nice having some kids next door for the summer, won’t it, Matthew?”
“Yep, I guess so.”
I had decided not to say anything about the pond episode or the tapping on my wall.
“His daughter is in New York for a month. She’s some hotshot banker, apparently. It’s odd. I’ve never known her to visit him, have you?”
I shook my head. Mum knew how much I watched the neighbors and that if anyone had seen Mr. Charles’s daughter visit before it would have been me.
“Isn’t that funny? Those kids have probably never even met him. Maybe her usual childcare let her down or something.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
I kept my eyes on my lunch. I didn’t like to be too talkative in case she launched into her favorite subject: “What Do We Do About Matthew?”
“I’m at the salon for a few hours this afternoon. Is that okay, Matthew? Will you be all right on your own?”
Mum had opened the Head to Toe beauty salon five years before. Her original plan had been to let the new manager run the place while she popped in to do the odd treatment and keep up with the gossip. Lately it appeared she had to be there every day, but I knew it was just so she could escape the problem indoors: me. She held the tray out, and I took the items off one at a time using my fingertips and placed them on my bedside table.
“Matthew? Is that all right?”
“Sure.” I looked up at her and accidentally met her eyes and then bam—she was off …
“Good. Oh and I’ve made an appointment for us to see the doctor in the morning. See if we can get you sorted out. Okay?”
She tucked the tray under her arm like a handbag.
“What?”
“The school keeps calling and now the council is writing letters. We’ve got to sort you out before September or me and your dad will be in big trouble. You do realize that they lock parents up nowadays if their kids don’t go to school, don’t you?”
Mum and Dad had been lying to the school; they said I had mono. Of all the illnesses they could have picked, they chose the “kissing disease”—when I had no intention of ever kissing anyone! They must have thought it was a good choice because you can be off school for weeks with that. I think Mum even managed to convince herself that I actually had it, as in the first few days I was off she kept asking me how my throat was feeling and offering me painkillers. Desperation—that’s what it was: willing me to have something treatable, something with an end in sight.
“I’m not going.”
“Don’t be silly, of course you are. It’s only Dr. Kerr. You’ve been seeing him since you were a baby.”
As she spoke she tried to look over my shoulder. I pulled the door closed a little bit.
“Why don’t you open a window in there? Let some of that stuffy air out?”
Her bare foot landed on my carpet as she stepped across my doorway.
“What are you doing, Mum?”
She flinched but didn’t move. I stared down at her painted, pink toenails wriggling on my beige carpet.
“Can you get your foot out of my room, please?”
Her leg twisted at an awkward angle, but she stayed exactly where she was.
“Mum? Please!”
“Why, Matthew? It’s just a foot. It’s not going to hurt you, is it?”
She giggled nervously, her naked toes snuggling into the pile.
I began to shake.
“I’ll tell you what, let’s make a deal. I’ll move if you promise to come and see Dr. Kerr tomorrow morning. How does that sound?”
She’d have been in the conservatory this morning, her bare feet padding around the cold tiles where Nigel chucks up fur balls and mouse guts. She must be riddled with germs—germs that were now escaping in their millions into my room. I gripped the edge of the door and thought about slamming it against her toes, but if I did that I might end up with blood on my carpet, and that made me feel dizzy. I didn’t look up.
“Okay, okay. I’ll go. Now can you move? Please?”
Her foot froze.
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
I had absolutely no intention of going through with it.
“You really, really promise? On Callum’s angel?”
That’s my baby brother. He didn’t come home from the hospital and he never got to gurgle over his elephant mobile, but he had a grave with a white marble angel. I couldn’t break a promise on something like that—especially considering what I’d done.
I closed my eyes, weighing the options. I felt the door being pushed slightly as she tried to edge her way in.
“I promise! I promise on Callum’s angel,” I said.
She waited a couple of seconds and then her foot retreated into the hallway, her face beaming.
“Wonderful! I’ll be home in a few hours. Why don’t you sit in the garden today? Try and get a bit of color in those cheeks? I’ll put a chair out for you, shall I?”
“Whatever, Mum.”
I shut the door and dived under my bed to grab my box of gloves (ten pairs remaining), the bottle of antibacterial spray, and a cloth, and I did my best to try and clean the carpet. I felt my insides squirming, the way they always did whenever Mum or Dad mentioned Callum. The guilt of what I’d done lived inside me like a vicious black beetle, scuttling around in my stomach.
Some days I almost felt like I could just plunge my hand in my tummy and pull that beetle out. I’d throw it on the floor, its little legs frantically kicking at the air, and all my fears would miraculously vanish. I’d finally be free of the guilt. But the beetle didn’t go away. It lay there, snoozing, waiting for me to relax, and then it started up all over again: scuttle, scuttle, scuttle.
I scrubbed the carpet and sprayed and wiped and then I went to the bathroom to throw the gloves away and wash my hands until it felt right. It took eleven washes. When I got back to my room I inspected my lunch closely. Everything looked unopened, so I quickly ate it up before it became infected. I put the trash outside my door and then went into the office to see if anything was going on outside. I took some notes.
Tuesday, July 22nd. 4:11 p.m. Hot and sunny.
Cars on the street = 4
People on the street = 1
4:12 p.m.—Melody Bird comes out of number three. She has changed out of her school uniform and is hurrying across the road to the alleyway beside the Rectory, which leads to the graveyard. What does she do there?
As Melody disappeared into the overgrown tunnel, her arms were folded and her head down, as though bracing herself against an arctic wind.
Mr. Charles appeared on his front path wearing a red checked shirt and beige trousers. He looked like he was getting ready for a rodeo. He jabbed at his concrete path with a stiff brown broom, and clouds of dust flew up around his ankles. There was no sign of Casey or Teddy. He stopped for a moment, wiping sweat from his forehead, and then he opened his iron garden gate and began to brush the pavement outside his house, each sweep directed toward the gutter. My heart started beating faster. My hands were beginning to feel unclean again. I went to the bathroom, but on the seventh wash our doorbell rang. I froze. I wasn’t feeling clean enough yet. I rubbed the soap into my cracked skin again and ignored the door. There was another ring on the doorbell, and then someone knocked on the glass. I quickly rinsed my skin in scalding water and ran downstairs, opening the door using my sleeve.
“Ah, Matthew! You’re in. Is your mum there?”
I shook my head at Mr. Charles, who was now standing on my front door step. His arms were folded awkwardly on top of the broom handle, and he looked like he was about to burst into song. I could hear the devil cat, Nigel, meowing behind me.
“How about your dad?”
“He’s at work,” I said and closed the door slightly. I looked behind me to see where the cat was. He was safely in the kitchen, brushing himself against the cupboard where his food was kept, moving this way and that, showing off.
“Okay, okay, no problem,” he said, laughing much too quickly. “It was you I wanted to speak to, actually. How do you fancy earning yourself some spare change?”
He rubbed the top of his head where the sunburn was. Maybe it was because I hadn’t seen him close up for so long, but his head looked huge, like a tanned walnut. I could hear a steady thump, thump, thump coming from his house through the downstairs wall.
“I think they’re playing football in your living room, Mr. Charles,” I said.
His eye twitched as he listened.
“Oh that’s just … just a game …” He pinched the top of his nose for a moment, shutting his eyes, and then he was back.
“So, how do you fancy doing some babysitting for me? It’ll just be the odd afternoon here and there when you’re off of school so I can get on with a few jobs, do my shopping and all that. How does that sound?”
I folded my arms.
“I don’t know …”
“It’ll be good money! They’re such easy kids—so easy!” he said, blinking rapidly.
Thump, thump, thump.
“I’m quite busy, to be honest …”
He nodded as if he understood how hectic my life must be, spending most days indoors doing nothing. I really needed to finish washing my hands. The germs were definitely beginning to spread, and Nigel’s meowing was getting louder. He had made his way into the hall and was sitting right behind me.
Thump, thump, thump.
I could hear Casey screaming now. Mr. Charles raised his voice in an attempt to drown them out.
“I guess a whole afternoon could be too much … How about a couple of hours? One, even? I’ll pay double!”
I shook my head.
“You just tell me how much you’d like, eh, Matthew?”
If he could have got his hands around the door, I think he would have tried to shake a yes out of me.
Thump, thump, thump.
“I’m only twelve, Mr. Charles. I don’t think I’m old enough.”
Nigel was by the bottom of the stairs now, brushing his face against the step. A tiny, dark spot appeared on the cream carpet where he’d dribbled. He saw me looking and came straight toward me, the germs dropping from his fur and running in all directions into the carpet. I quickly took a step back and opened the door wide. The cat blinked at the bright sunshine and then trotted outside, darting around Mr. Charles’s legs and down our driveway. I pulled the door closed again. My hand was sweating through my sleeve.
“I’m sure you can babysit at your age.” He laughed. “Why, I was looking after my brother when I was only seven!”
“I don’t think so, Mr. Charles,” I said as he continued to laugh.
Thump, thump, CRASH!
“GRANNNNDAAAAAAD!!!”
Mr. Charles’s laugh stopped instantly, his shoulders slumped forward, and without saying another word he turned slowly back home, dragging the brown broom behind him. I slammed the door and ran up to the bathroom to wash my hands again.
When I got back to the office, the noises from next door had stopped and I could hear a TV blaring. Out on the street everything was quiet, the road steaming in the heat. Nigel was in Mr. Charles’s front garden, carefully tiptoeing onto the lawn, his nose dabbing at the grass as he sniffed. He didn’t hear the old man approaching him from behind carrying a washing-up bowl full of water. Mr. Charles let out a roar and threw the water into the air; it splashed over Nigel in one big wave.
The cat froze in shock, and so did I. I wasn’t a fan of the old vomiting fleabag, but I wouldn’t ever do something like that to him. His fluffy, ginger-and-white fur was now dark brown and stuck to his skin. He looked utterly petrified. Mr. Charles dropped the bowl on the grass and swung his foot at the cat, his body nearly twisting around from the force, but fortunately Nigel had come to his senses and swerved out of the way. He squeezed through the gate, turned right, and scurried up our path. Sitting on our step he meowed feebly, then began to lick at his fur.
I watched Mr. Charles as he picked up the washing-up bowl and took two steps toward the house. He stopped for a moment as if he’d forgotten something. Taking a step back, he tucked the bowl under his arm, looked up at me, and glared.