Читать книгу Boy Underwater - Adam Baron, Adam Baron - Страница 12

I blinked, amazed and delighted to see Bill, as he’s loads of fun, though at first I was worried that he’d see Mr Fluffy. At school I deny the existence of Mr Fluffy, something I have to apologise to him for later. When Lance comes round for sleepovers I hide him underneath my pillow. Lance has got a purple cat that I pretend not to see when he shoves it down his sleeping bag.

Fortunately Mr Fluffy was out of sight somewhere, probably beneath the duvet, though that didn’t make me feel any less worried. Uncle Bill’s expression was weird. And we only ever see him at weekends – so what was he doing here now?

‘Where’s Mum?’ I said.

Uncle Bill scratched his beard. It’s black, with this little clump of white below his mouth, like he’s been eating a cream cake. You keep wanting to wipe it off. It maybe explains why he keeps having different girlfriends and is never able to get one to marry him so that he can have a kid like me.

‘It’s just for a few days.’

‘What is?’ I said.

Uncle Bill sighed. ‘She’s not very well, Cym. Your mum.’

I remembered what she’d said to me yesterday. ‘Has she still got her headache?’

‘Sort of. So she’s gone away,’ Uncle Bill said.

‘What?’

‘She’s gone away, Cym.’

‘Because of a headache?’

‘Sort of. Though …’

‘She’s in a hospital?’

‘Yes. A … hospital.’

‘For people with headaches, or other things too?’

‘Mostly headaches. But it won’t be for long. A few days. Just till she’s better, okay, champ?’

I stared at Uncle Bill and then I jumped out of bed. I ran into Mum’s room, not because I didn’t believe him but because I had to see for myself. That she’d gone. She’s my mum, after all. But he was right. Mum’s room was empty. Not empty empty, as there were lots of things in it, but empty of her. So really, really empty, all of her stuff just standing there, almost looking embarrassed.

Her duvet was creased up and it reminded me of the dream I’d had. Brown water, all choppy and angry, twisting round upon itself. It made me swallow so I turned round and went back out to the landing.

Uncle Bill put his arm over my shoulder and interfered with my hair.

‘Chin up,’ he said.

Now, at this point, I’m wondering what you out there in Reading Land are thinking. Perhaps it is ‘OUCH, the poor kid. It wasn’t like he was overly blessed with parents to begin with and now he’s down to NONE. That’s four–nil to Lance (at least until Cym’s mum gets better).’ But maybe you’re not. ‘Hold on,’ you might be thinking. ‘This Uncle Bill chap is clearly a dude. He bought our Cymbeline a Scalextric set, don’t forget. So maybe Cym is about to get some extra stuff from this Uncle Bill, to make up for the fact that his mum’s gone totally zipwire.’ Well, if you are thinking that, then in a small sense you are right. Uncle Bill led me downstairs and asked what I normally have for breakfast.

‘KitKats.’

‘Really?’

‘On Tuesdays. They’re my Tuesday breakfast.’

I’m not sure he believed me, but he let me have a couple anyway. Something must have happened to them, though, because they didn’t taste very good. I didn’t even finish the second one. Uncle Bill poured me a glass of milk and then looked up at the wall clock.

‘Better get dressed.’

‘What should I wear?’

He frowned. ‘School uniform. Yesterday’s will be fine, though you’ll need to find some pants and socks.’

‘Oh. We’re not going to see her then? In hospital?’

Uncle Bill took a breath. ‘Maybe later. I’m not sure. After school. Perhaps. I have to find out, Cym, okay?’

Okay?! That was the last word I was going to agree with. How could he possibly ask me if anything was okay? I didn’t argue, though. I just shrugged and went to get dressed. When I was done we left the house and Uncle Bill turned to me.

‘How do you normally get to school?’

‘Taxi,’ I said, though this time he wasn’t buying it and he took me off to the bus stop.

It’s weird. Yesterday, the worst, most terrible and embarrassing thing in the HISTORY OF THE WORLD had happened. But, as we got off the bus and walked across the heath to my school, it was nowhere. I wasn’t thinking about it. I’d been pushed into a swimming pool. The entire class had seen me without anything on. And that wasn’t everything. Oh no, it actually got much worse. We hadn’t just gone back to school after the pool. Instead Miss Phillips had called my mum to come and get me. Mum cycled to the pool from Messy Art and went nuclear. Everyone stared in amazement as she screamed at Miss Phillips and the man in the red polo shirt for not looking after me properly. She glared at the kids, demanding to know who had pushed me in. Billy Lee went white as paper. I just stood there, aware that this would be news for weeks, months, even forever, a school legend that would be passed on from year to year until, eventually, my own children would run home from school and tell me all about THE NUDE KID WITH THE CRAZY MUM. But now I didn’t care. There was a huge hollowness deep inside me that made everything else seem trivial. My. Mum. Was. Gone. She’d never gone, not ever. It was her and me, always. I felt empty, sucked out, and when I saw Lance pushing his bike in through the school gates I realised something else. He’d asked me a simple question about swimming and I’d lied to him. I’d said I was really good. Because of that I’d ended up at the bottom of the swimming pool and because of that, my mum had somehow got ill. So ill she’d had to go to the hospital.

So it was all my fault.

Uncle Bill started to say goodbye but I shook my head.

‘I’m not going in. I’m going to see my mum.’

‘Cym …’

‘I’m going to see my mum,’ I said again. ‘And nothing’s going to stop me.’

At that, Uncle Bill sighed and he did this open-mouthed thinking thing. Then he made some calls, said ‘thank you’ a lot, and I knew he was talking to work. Uncle Bill is the head of a charity that looks after vulnareb … vulnorib … vulenerob … people who need help. He’s like super busy doing that but he seemed to have sorted things out as he gave me a thumbs-up, before going into his phone again. This next conversation didn’t go as well. He got a bit cross and, even though he turned away from me, I heard him say things like, ‘We both have to help,’ and, ‘Last time, you didn’t do a thing, did you?’ But eventually he seemed to have sorted out whatever it was and he put his arm round my shoulder.

‘Come on then,’ he said. We walked up the little hill from school and I pretended not to see Veronique Chang getting out of her mum’s Volvo.

‘Cymbeline!’ she called out.

‘Cym?’ Uncle Bill said, when I ignored Veronique. ‘Aren’t you going to …?’

‘Not me,’ I said. ‘Different boy. There’s a Cymbeline in Year Five.’

‘Oh,’ Uncle Bill said, and we walked off to the train station.