Catcall (12 page)

21

S
HADOWS

W
hen Dad came, he brought Kevin with him. After he’d said he wasn’t going to.

I heard him muttering excuses to Mum. ‘Look, I know it’s not ideal, but Kim had to stand in for someone ill at work, and Kevin’s been helping me with a job this morning. It’ll be OK. I thought I’d take Jamie to the park, on his own–Kev can stay here with Josh.’

Great.
I suppose he thought Kevin and I were best mates.

Kevin was about as chatty as usual. While the grown-ups had a cup of tea, he sat in the corner listening to his Walkman and playing games on his mobile phone. At least it let me off the hook. When Dad and Jamie went out, Mum and Mike buzzed about the kitchen getting the food ready for later, and Kevin stayed plugged in to whatever he was doing.

I escaped upstairs to the bedroom. I needed to finish setting up the computer in there–connect the scanner and printer, and check that they still worked.

While I was doing this, the door-bell rang, and I heard Mike answering. Then he yelled up the stairs, ‘Josh! Floss is here to see you!’

Floss?
What was she doing here?

I turned everything off and went down. Floss was in the kitchen, with the others. All of them except Kevin were looking at Jennie, who was kicking on her mat, and Mum was pouring apple juice.

‘Hi, Josh,’ Floss said, as if it was quite normal to be in our kitchen on a Saturday afternoon.

‘Hi.’ I expected her to give some reason for being here, but instead she carried on telling Mum and Mike that she was born in Cape Town and had lived in Hong Kong and Dubai as well as London.

‘What an interesting life! But it must have meant a lot of changing of schools,’ Mum said.

‘Oh no, Langtree’s the first school I’ve been to. I never went, before. That’s why it’s all a bit weird.’

‘Really?’ Mum looked at me. ‘You never told me that, Josh!’

I shuffled and mumbled.

‘What about you, Kevin?’ said Floss. ‘Are you at the same school as Josh and me?’

‘Nuh,’ said Kevin. ‘Don’t live round here.’ I noticed that he’d actually unplugged himself.

Floss was off. ‘Oh, where do you live? What’s your CD? Oh,
I
like them! Which track’s your favourite? Have you heard––’

You’d have thought Kevin was the most fascinating person she’d ever met. I expected him to stare at the floor and answer with shrugs and Nuh and Duh, but instead he managed whole words. Once, even, he gave a funny little smile and it made him look almost
friendly.
I didn’t know his face could do smiling. I sat next to Jennie and let her grip my finger and wondered if I could go back upstairs.

At last Floss stopped talking and rummaged in a rucksack she’d brought with her. ‘I brought these for you, Josh. Thought you might like to borrow them.’ She handed me two books and a brochure, on African wildlife and the South Kruger National Park. ‘You can keep the brochure, but I want the books back.’

Mum leaned over to look. ‘Oh, how kind of you! Isn’t that lovely, Josh?’

I flicked through the brochure. There were some good pictures of lions and cheetahs in it–I could cut those out.

‘Thanks,’ I managed.

‘Why don’t you show Floss your Book of Cats, Josh?’ said Mum.

I looked at her.
No
one was allowed to see my Book of Cats, outside of the family. Floss was bad enough, but
Kevin!
Didn’t she realise? It was a bit much, being betrayed twice in one afternoon!–first Dad bringing Kevin when he’d said he wouldn’t, and now this.

‘No, no, I––’ I blathered.

‘Yes, why not bring it down here?’ Mike joined in. ‘I haven’t seen it for a while.’

I suppose I could have done a Jamie strop and refused, but the main thing was to get rid of Floss before Dad came back, so I fetched it. She could have a quick look–she probably wouldn’t be interested, anyway. It seemed pathetic, just a kid’s collection of cutting-and-pasting and a few naff drawings.

I put it on the kitchen table and went back to Jennie.

‘Wow!’
went Floss. And she’d only got as far as the front cover.

Mum and Mike came over to look, too. So did Kevin.

‘That’s amazing! I love it!’ Floss was going. ‘All those eyes! Where did you find them all? How long have you been doing this?’

All those eyes gazed back at us. Cat eyes. Lion eyes. Tiger eyes. Cheetah eyes. Just the eyes, pairs of them staring from a black background. Amber eyes, golden eyes, burning eyes, eyes like headlamps, eyes like searchlights, eyes that looked as if they’d never blink or turn away.

Floss started flicking through the pages, looking at all the things I’d collected–pictures, articles I’d cut-and-pasted from the internet, facts and figures and stories and legends, photos of Mister the Magnificent and of Splodge. The way she gazed at my book, you’d have thought it was something special, something from a museum or a work of art.

‘Wow!’ she kept saying. Every time she turned a page, Mike went, ‘Hey, look at that!’ and Mum made surprised
mmm
ing noises. I felt like crawling into the cupboard under the sink, but they really were impressed, no messing, and I started to get a glowing feeling inside. It was a long time since I’d looked through the whole book.

‘It’s amazing,’ said Floss.

I shrugged. ‘I like facts. I collect them, that’s all.’

‘But these aren’t just facts.’ Floss turned another page. ‘All this about myths and superstitions.’

‘If you worked like this at school, Josh, you’d get A-star for everything,’ Mike joked.

Then Floss came to the ‘Tiger’ poem. ‘I nearly forgot!’ she said, and dug into her rucksack for a folded piece of paper. ‘I copied this out for you. Mum and I read it at home a while back. You can have it for your book, if you like.’

It was called ‘The Jaguar’, by Ted Hughes. I read it quickly and didn’t get all of it, but it was about a jaguar in a cage at the zoo, and people staring.

‘That’s really kind of you, Floss,’ Mum said. ‘Isn’t it, Josh?’

‘Yeah,’ I said, and put the poem in my pocket to read properly later. I gave a defiant look at Kevin.

Floss was still turning the pages of my book when Dad and Jamie came back from the park. Jamie was teary-eyed and snivelly, but no one said anything about it. Of course Dad and Floss had to be introduced, and soon they were chatting, even though Jamie went silent at the sight of Floss. Then one thing led to another–without anyone even asking me, Floss was invited to stay for the bonfire and the supper. While she phoned home to tell her mum, I went a bit huffy. I mean, if I’d been
told
I could have a friend round, I’d have asked Noori. Instead, I was lumbered with Floss, as well as Kevin. What would people at school say if they got to hear about this? Knowing Floss, she’d come straight out with it on Monday. ‘When I was at Josh’s house––’ That kind of thing. How’d I explain that? About her coming round to give me a
poem
? Still, the good thing was that Floss could talk to Kevin, so I didn’t have to.

It was starting to get dark now, so we all put on our coats and went out. Mike showed Jamie how to light a fire–paper first, then the kindling, the dried leaves and small twiggy bits we’d collected. The twigs would catch and hold the flame, then the heat would start to work at the bigger chunks of wood that would burn more slowly. Kevin joined in, too. Soon the flames were leaping, and flakes of charred paper drifted up into the dark. It wasn’t the clear, frosty night I wanted, with the sky full of stars–instead, there was a cold wind snatching at us, and wispy bits of cloud covering the moon. You could still see stars, though–I picked out the Plough, and Orion the hunter, and Venus, which Dad said was the Evening Star. Our shadows fell ragged on the grass behind us, joined or separate–my shadow, Jamie’s, Dad’s, Kevin’s.

Floss seemed quite at home. She told us about campfires on safari and how you could hear animals howling across the veldt.

‘Fantastic,’ said Dad. ‘What an experience. You’ll remember that your whole life.’

‘I know,’ said Floss. ‘I do.’

I remembered standing out here when I was searching for Splodge, how mysterious it had felt, alone in the darkness. What if this was all we had for safety, this fire, and our supply of sticks? What if there was no bright kitchen window behind me, no central heating, no food in the fridge? What if these flames were the only barrier between us and the waiting lions? What if we had to go out and kill or be killed?

I looked at Jamie, wondering if he remembered what I’d told him, and whether it made any sense at all. He was crouching as close to the fire as he could, so that his face was lit up golden and flickering. I saw the whites of his eyes, and how young and little he was. The cold crept round behind me, whispering into my ears and down the back of my neck, while my front and face roasted. Mike was wearing Jennie in a sling, taking care she didn’t get too hot, his big hand held up to protect her head.

I squatted next to Jamie. ‘Remember,’ I whispered to him. ‘Lions are frightened of fire. We’re not, and that means we can control them.’

He looked into the heart of the bonfire. I poked the burning papers with a stick, so that the flames flared up.

‘The sausages must be nearly ready,’ Mum told us.

Jennie started to whimper. I looked at her, and saw her little body straining in the sling, her mouth going square, ready to cry. I’d held her myself and knew how strong she was already, how she could kick and struggle and push. But how helpless, too. I thought of the dream–Jamie’s dream, my dream–of Jennie in the lion’s jaws, and I closed my eyes tight to make it go away. It was too horrible. The grown-ups would see, and would know–

Only it wasn’t me, was it? It was Jamie. It was his dream, not mine.

Jennie began to wail. Out here, under the sky, her voice sounded as thin and frail as a fledgling’s. On her own, she wouldn’t stand a chance.

‘Shush, shush!’ Mike went. ‘I think I’ll take her in. Turn the oven off and put the beans on.’

I went across to stand by Dad. He put a hand on my shoulder and we stood like that for a few moments. I wanted to talk to him, like he’d said, only how could I, with Floss and Kevin here and the sausages nearly ready?

Mum had put glasses and cutlery on the table, but everyone wanted to eat by the fire. We wrapped the hot sausages in squares of kitchen towel and licked tomato sauce off our fingers, and we spooned the baked beans out of mugs.

‘I don’t know why, but food always tastes better outside,’ Dad said.

Our meal was finished off with Mike’s clementine cake, and hot chocolate. Soon Floss said she ought to be getting home. Dad offered to give her a lift, but Floss said it was only five minutes’ walk.

‘I’ve had a great time,’ she said. ‘Thanks so much!’

‘We’ve enjoyed having you,’ Mum told her. ‘Come again.’

Although Floss said she was quite OK walking home on her own, Dad wasn’t having it. He and I went with her. Her house was bigger than ours, with its own drive and a big 4x4 parked there. Floss’s mum was tall and friendly, with blonde hair like Floss’s only cut very short, and the same loud, confident voice. ‘So you’re Josh! I’ve heard lots about you.’ She must have wanted the whole street to hear. ‘Come round after school one day. Any time.’

Dad and I said goodbye and turned for home.

‘It’s good you’ve made a new friend,’ Dad said.

It seemed too late now to say that Floss wasn’t exactly my friend. Maybe she
was.
Better than Brody, anyway. Brody and I had been friends since I’d first started at St Luke’s–Noori had joined the class later–and yesterday’s argument lurked unhappily in my mind. But that was his fault, not mine.

‘Dad,’ I began, not sure what to say next. ‘You know about Jamie? All this weird stuff?’

Jamie had begged me not to tell, not to tell anyone. If I didn’t mention the lion dream, though, the nightmare, I’d have kept my promise.

‘Mm?’ Dad was listening, waiting.

‘Jamie’s jealous of the baby. Jealous of Jennie.’

There, it was out now. Dad would know what to do. I looked at him sideways. He said nothing at all while we walked past the newsagent’s, the fish-and-chip shop, the Indian restaurant with its waft of music and spices and chatter. Then he said, ‘Do you remember when Splodge was a tiny kitten, eight weeks old? When we first brought him home?’

‘Yes, course,’ I said. ‘I’ve got photos.’ What was he on about?

‘Do you remember Mister? How he behaved? He’d been an only cat up till then–now suddenly there was this little stranger in the house, Splodge. And we were all making a great fuss of the kitten.’

Yes, I remembered. ‘Mister had a huge sulk! He stayed out at night and wouldn’t come when we called him. He only came in for meals and went out again as soon as he’d eaten. He used to give us such a
look.
And Splodge used to leap and pounce on him, and Mister hissed and growled and got really fed up with him.’

‘It was so difficult for a while,’ Dad said, ‘that I wondered whether we’d made a mistake getting Splodge, because it didn’t seem fair to Mister. I mean, we couldn’t
explain
to Mister that we still loved him just as much. Of course we did. And before long they were the best of friends. Remember how they’d lie in front of the fire together, licking each other’s fur? How they used to curl up and sleep? How they played together with their ping-pong ball?’