Finding Audrey (2 page)

Frank is such a moron. Couldn’t he
see
Mum was in one of her pre-rant build-ups?

‘I mean anything that warps your mind!’ says Mum, brandishing the
Daily Mail
. ‘Do you realize the dangers of these games? Do you realize your brain isn’t developing properly? Your BRAIN, Frank! Your most precious organ.’

Frank gives a dirty snigger, which I can’t help giggling at. Frank is actually pretty funny.

‘I’ll ignore that,’ says Mum stonily. ‘It only goes to prove what I was saying.’

‘No it doesn’t,’ says Frank, and opens the fridge. He takes out a carton of chocolate milk and drains it, straight from the carton, which is gross.

‘Don’t do that!’ I say furiously.

‘There’s another carton. Relax.’

‘I’m putting a limit on your playing, young man.’ Mum bats the
Daily Mail
for emphasis. ‘I’ve just about had enough of this.’

Young man.
That means she’s going to drag Dad into it. Any time she starts using
Young man
or
Young woman
, sure enough, the next day there’s some ghastly family meeting, where Dad tries to back up everything Mum says, even though he can’t follow half of it.

Anyway, not my problem.

Until Mum arrives in my bedroom that evening and demands, ‘Audrey, what
is Land of Conquerors
?’

I look up from
Grazia
and survey her. She looks tense. Her cheeks are pink and her right hand is all clenched, as if it’s just come off a computer mouse. She’s been Googling ‘computer-game addiction’, I just
know
she has.

‘A game.’

‘I know it’s a game’ – Mum sounds exasperated – ‘but why does Frank play it all the time?
You
don’t play it all the time, do you?’

‘No.’ I’ve played
LOC
and I really don’t get the obsession. I mean, it’s OK for an hour or two.

‘So what’s the appeal?’

‘Well, you know.’ I think for a moment. ‘It’s exciting. You get rewards. And the heroes are pretty good. Like, the graphics are amazing, and they just released this new warrior team with new capabilities, so . . .’ I shrug.

Mum looks more bewildered than ever. The trouble is, she doesn’t play games. So it’s kind of impossible to convey to her the difference between
LOC 3
and, say,
Pacman
from 1985.

‘They show it on YouTube,’ I say in sudden inspiration. ‘People do commentaries. Hang on.’

As I’m finding a clip on my iPad, Mum sits down and looks around the room. She’s trying to act casual, but I can sense her beady blue eyes scanning my piles of stuff, looking for . . . what? Anything. Everything. The truth is, Mum and I haven’t done casual for a while. Everything is loaded.

With everything that’s happened, that’s one of the saddest things of all. We can’t be normal with each other any more. The tiniest thing I say, Mum’s all over it, even if she doesn’t realize it. Her brain goes into overdrive.
What does it mean? Is Audrey all right? What’s Audrey really saying?

I can see her looking closely at a pair of old ripped jeans on my chair, as though they hold some dark significance. Whereas in fact the only significance they hold is: I’ve grown out of them. I’ve shot up about three inches in the last year, which makes me five eight. Quite tall for fourteen. People say I look like Mum, but I’m not as pretty as her. Her eyes are
so
blue. Like blue diamonds. Mine are wishy-washy – not that they’re particularly visible right now.

Just so you can visualize me, I’m fairly skinny, fairly nondescript, wearing a black vest-top and skinny jeans. And I wear dark glasses all the time, even in the house. It’s . . . Well. A thing. My thing, I suppose. Hence the ‘celebrity’ quips from Rob our neighbour. He saw me in my dark glasses, getting out of the car in the rain, and he was all, like, ‘Why the shades? Are you Angelina Jolie?’

I’m not trying to be
cool
. There’s a reason.

Which, of course, now you want to know.

I assume.

OK, it’s actually quite private. I’m not sure I’m ready to tell you yet. You can think I’m weird if you like. Enough people do.

‘Here we are.’ I find a clip of some
LOC
battle with ‘Archy’ commentating. ‘Archy’ is a YouTuber from Sweden who makes videos that Frank loves. They consist of ‘Archy’ playing
LOC
and making funny commentaries on the game, and as I expected, it takes me for ever to explain this concept to Mum.

‘But why would you watch someone else playing?’ she keeps saying, baffled. ‘Why? Isn’t that a complete waste of time?’

‘Well. Anyway.’ I shrug. ‘That’s
LOC
.’

There’s silence for a moment. Mum is peering at the screen like some ancient professor trying to decipher an ancient Egyptian code. There’s an almighty explosion and she winces.

‘Why does it always have to be about
killing
? If I designed a game it would centre around ideas. Politics. Issues. Yes! I mean, why not?’ I can tell her brain’s firing up with a new idea. ‘What about a computer game called
Discuss
? You could keep the competitive element, but score points by debating!’

‘And
that
is why we’re not squillionaires,’ I say, as though to a third party.

I’m about to find another clip when Felix comes running into the room.

‘
Candy Crush!
’ he says in delight as soon as he spies my iPad, and Mum gasps in horror.

‘How does he know about that?’ she demands. ‘Turn it off. I’m not having another addict in the family!’

Oops. It may possibly have been me who introduced Felix to
Candy Crush
. Not that he has any idea how to play it properly.

I close down the iPad and Felix stares at it, crestfallen. ‘
Candy Crush!
’ he wails. ‘I want to play
Candy Cruuuuush
!’

‘It’s broken, Felix.’ I pretend to press the iPad. ‘See? Broken.’

‘Broken,’ affirms Mum.

Felix looks from us to the iPad. You can sense his mind is working as hard as his four-year-old brain cells will let him. ‘We must buy a plug,’ he suggests, with sudden animation, and grabs the iPad. ‘We can buy a plug and fix it.’

‘The plug shop’s closed,’ says Mum, without missing a beat. ‘What a shame. We’ll do it tomorrow. But guess what? We’re going to have toast and Nutella now!’

‘Toast and Nutella!’ Felix’s face bursts into joyous beams. As he throws up his arms, Mum grabs the iPad from him and gives it to me. Five seconds later I’ve hidden it behind a cushion on the bed.

‘Where did the
Candy Crush
go?’ Felix suddenly notices its disappearance and screws up his face to howl.

‘We’re taking it to the plug shop, remember?’ says Mum at once.

‘Plug shop.’ I nod. ‘But hey, you’re going to have toast and Nutella! How many pieces are you going to have?’

Poor old Felix. He lets Mum lead him out of the room, still looking confused. Totally outmanoeuvred. That’s what happens when you’re four. Bet Mum wishes she could pull that trick on Frank.

So now Mum knows what
LOC
is. And ‘knowledge is power’, according to Kofi Annan. Although, as Leonardo da Vinci said: ‘Where there is shouting, there is no true knowledge,’ which might apply better to our family. (Please don’t think I’m super-well-read or anything. Mum bought me a book of quotations last month and I flick through it when I’m watching telly.)

Anyway, ‘knowledge is power’ isn’t really happening here, because Mum has no power over Frank at all. It’s Saturday evening, and he’s been playing
LOC
ever since lunch time. He disappeared into the playroom straight after pudding. Then there was a ring at the doorbell and I scuttled out of the way into the den, which is my own private place.

Now it’s nearly six and I’ve crept into the kitchen for some Oreos, to find Mum striding around, all twitchy. She’s exhaling and looking at the clock and exhaling again.

‘They’re all computer addicts!’ she says in a sudden burst. ‘I’ve asked them to turn them off about twenty-five times! Why can’t they do it? It’s a simple switch! On, off.’

‘Maybe they’re on a level—’ I begin.

‘Levels!’ Mum cuts me off savagely. ‘I’m tired of hearing about levels! I’m giving them one more minute. That’s it.’

I take out an Oreo and prise it open. ‘So, who’s with Frank?’

‘A friend from school. I haven’t met him before. Linus, I think he’s called . . .’

Linus. I remember Linus. He was in that school play,
To Kill a Mockingbird
, and he played Atticus Finch. Frank was Crowd.

Frank goes to Cardinal Nicholls School, which is just up the road from my school, Stokeland Girls’ School, and sometimes the two schools join together for plays and concerts and stuff. Although to be truthful, Stokeland isn’t ‘my school’ any more. I haven’t been to school since February, because some stuff happened there. Not great stuff.

Whatever.

Anyway. Moving on. After that, I got ill. Now I’m going to change schools and go down a year so I won’t fall behind. The new school is called the Heath Academy and they said it would be sensible to start in September, rather than the summer term when it’s mainly exams. So, till then, I’m at home.

I mean, I don’t do
nothing
. They’ve sent me lots of reading suggestions and maths books and French vocab lists. Everyone’s agreed it’s vital I keep up with my schoolwork and ‘It will make you feel so much better, Audrey!’ (It so doesn’t.) So sometimes I send in a history essay or something and they send it back with some red comments. It’s all a bit random.

Anyway
. The point is, Linus was in the play and he was a really good Atticus Finch. He was noble and heroic and everyone believed him. Like, he has to shoot a rabid dog in one scene and the prop gun didn’t work on our night, but no one in the audience laughed or even murmured. That’s how good he was.

He came round to our house once, before a rehearsal. Just for about five minutes, but I still remember it.

Actually, that’s kind of irrelevant.

I’m about to remind Mum that Linus played Atticus Finch when I realize she’s left the kitchen. A moment later I hear her voice:

‘You’ve played enough, young man!’

Young man.

I dart over to the door and look through the crack. As Frank strides into the hall after Mum, his face is quivering with fury.

‘We hadn’t reached the end of the
level
! You can’t just switch off the game! Do you understand what you did just then, Mum? Do you even know how
Land of Conquerors
works?’

He sounds properly irate. He’s stopped right underneath where I am, his black hair falling over his pale forehead, his skinny arms flailing and his big bony hands gesticulating furiously. I hope Frank grows into his hands and feet one day. They can’t stay so comically huge, can they? The rest of him has to catch up, surely? He’s fifteen, so he could still grow a foot. Dad’s six foot, but he always says Frank will end up taller than him.

‘It’s fine,’ says a voice I recognize. It’s Linus, but I can’t see him through the crack. ‘I’ll go home. Thanks for having me.’

‘Don’t go home!’ exclaims Mum, in her best charming-to-visitors voice. ‘Please don’t go home, Linus. That’s not what I meant at all.’

‘But if we can’t play games . . .’ Linus sounds flummoxed.

‘Are you saying the only form of socializing you boys understand is playing computer games? Do you know how sad that is?’

‘Well, what do you suggest we do?’ says Frank sulkily.

‘I think you should play badminton. It’s a nice summer’s evening, the garden’s beautiful, and look what I found!’ She holds out the ropy old badminton set to Frank. The net is all twisted and I can see that some animal has nibbled at one of the shuttlecocks.

I want to laugh at Frank’s expression.

‘Mum . . .’ He appears almost speechless with horror. ‘Where did you even
find
that?’

‘Or croquet!’ adds Mum brightly. ‘That’s a fun game.’

Frank doesn’t even answer. He looks so stricken by the idea of croquet, I actually feel quite sorry for him.

‘Or hide-and-seek?’

I give a snort of laughter and clap my hand over my mouth. I can’t help it. Hide-and-seek.

‘Or Rummikub!’ says Mum, sounding desperate. ‘You always used to love Rummikub.’

‘I like Rummikub,’ volunteers Linus, and I feel a tweak of approval. He could have legitimately laid into Frank at this point; walked straight out of the house and put on Facebook that Frank’s house sucks. But he sounds like he wants to please Mum. He sounds like one of those people who looks around and thinks, Well, why
not
make life easier for everyone? (I’m getting this from three words, you understand.)

‘You want to play Rummikub?’ Frank sounds incredulous.

‘Why not?’ says Linus easily, and a moment later the two of them head off towards the playroom. (Mum and Dad repainted it and called it the Teenage Study when I turned thirteen, but it’s still the playroom.)

Next moment, Mum is back in the kitchen, pouring herself a glass of wine.

‘There!’ she says. ‘They just need a little guidance. A little parental control. I simply opened their minds. They’re not
addicted
to computers. They just need to be reminded what else is out there.’