The Impossible Boy (5 page)

Then a thought struck her.

She remembered reading somewhere that a lot of the specialist props that magicians used in their tricks were actually extremely expensive pieces of high technology. An apparently simple bit of
conjuring involving, for instance, some vanishing sponge balls might actually utilise cutting-edge materials and techniques developed by big electronics corporations or even NASA to achieve its
effects. Perhaps Chas was somehow using the science of sound to influence people’s minds and this was why he was so interested in state-of-the-art audio equipment? Could sounds of a certain
frequency interfere with a person’s brainwaves and make them hallucinate that they’d seen miraculous feats? It seemed doubtful, she thought – impossible even – but that was
what Geek Inc. was all about, wasn’t it? Maybe if she could see which bits of audio gear Chas was looking at that might give her some clue? She stepped out of the doorway, her eyes fixed on
Chas . . .

‘Ooof!’

The old lady in the fur coat slammed into Gabby with the force of a rugby fullback. The two of them tumbled to the ground in a jumble of limbs. Gabby leaped to her feet, half dazed, gabbling
frantic apologies, and attempted to help her up.

‘Keep away!’ bellowed the old lady, waving her umbrella at Gabby. She was a squat, white-haired creature with a sour little mouth and fierce glasses. The skin sagging from her neck
reminded Gabby of an old tortoise she once owned. ‘You won’t get my purse, you little thug!’

‘I’m not a thug,’ objected Gabby, one eye on Chas and trying to keep her voice down. The last thing she needed now was to attract his attention. ‘I’m just a girl.
I’m so sorry. Here, let me help you . . . Yowch!’ The old lady’s umbrella slashed through the air like a sword. Gabby snatched back her stinging hand. ‘Hey! That really
hurt! I was only trying to help you up!’

‘Only trying to help yourself to my pension, more like!’ squawked the old lady, struggling to her feet. ‘Help!’ she screeched. ‘Police! I’m being mugged! This
is a hate crime! Old people have rights too, you know!’

‘I’m not mugging you!’ hissed Gabby. ‘I swear! Please stop shouting! There’s really nothing to be afraid of.’ She almost put her hand over the old
lady’s mouth but thankfully thought better of it. Instead, she put her arm around her shoulder and guided her gently into the doorway of the shop out of view of the rest of the street.

‘Listen to me,’ said Gabby, speaking very slowly and clearly. ‘It was just an accident, that’s all. And you’re OK, aren’t you? You’re not actually hurt
in any way.’

‘As a matter of fact,’ said the old lady curtly, ‘I
am
hurt. You’ve broken my leg.’

‘Broken your leg?’ hissed Gabby through clenched teeth. ‘You’re standing up! You wouldn’t be doing that if your leg was broken.’ She could feel the anger
rising inside herself like steam in a kettle. Why was she standing here arguing with this potty old woman when she had a mission to carry out?

‘Well, it certainly feels broken,’ insisted the old lady, rubbing her leg. ‘Or at the very least badly bruised. Either way I shall be doing my best to ensure that you are put
behind bars for many, many years for the wicked crime you have committed today. And listen to me when I’m telling you off, won’t you? Stop gawping into the distance! What are you
looking for? Your manners?’

‘Hmm?’ muttered Gabby absently, as she tried to peer over the old lady’s shoulder. She was pretty sure Chas was still there . . .

A woman emerged from the shop. She was squat like the old lady, burly, with short hair dyed a very bright shade of red. She eyed Gabby, her face stony. ‘What’s going on ’ere,
Mum?’ she asked the old lady in a gruff voice.

‘This young tearaway has just assaulted me and tried to rob me blind! Pin her down while I fetch the police.’

The woman with the red hair rolled her eyes at Gabby. ‘Sorry, love,’ she said. ‘Mum gets a bit confused sometimes. She doesn’t mean any harm by it, really.’ She
took the old lady by the arm and led her away. ‘Come on, Mum. Let’s go to the OK Café for a cuppa.’

‘Ooh, yes,’ cooed the old lady. ‘That would be lovely!’

Mother and daughter strolled away arm-in-arm, serene. Gabby shook her head slowly. The old lady suddenly looked back at Gabby and thrust a bony little finger in her direction. ‘I’m
watching you,
thug
!’ she rasped. And then they vanished around the corner.

Gabby leaned against the shop door and breathed a colossal sigh. When her temper had subsided and her breathing returned to its normal rate, she peeped around the doorway once more, expecting to
find Chas had vanished.

But Chas was still there outside the hi-fi shop, absorbed in his window shopping. After a moment he thrust his hands into his coat pockets and set off up the street. Gabby waited for him to get
a safe distance ahead and stepped out of the doorway.

The street was dotted with shoppers trudging along, plastic carrier bags dangling from their hands. Dusk was fast approaching. The colours of the town were draining away to a uniform slate grey.
Chas trotted over a zebra crossing, head down, apparently lost in his thoughts. She watched as he rounded the corner into a narrow passageway separating two blocks of shops. Her heart began to beat
faster. She knew there was only a high fence at the end of the alley – it was a dead end. Moving quickly, stepping with care to prevent her footsteps from making too much noise, she scurried
after him. Pressing herself flat against the wall beside the mouth of the passageway, she peeked around the corner. What she saw made her jaw drop.

The shoe was full of spoons.

Barney picked them out one by one.
Eight, nine, ten
. . . ten spoons. He gathered them together and checked the other shoe. In it he found a single house sparrow. The greyish-brown bird
seemed somewhat perplexed and alarmed. With great care, he took the sparrow in one hand, feeling the warmth and fragility of this tiny scrap of life, and opened the hall window, taking care not to
knock over a tall plaster statuette of a horse standing on the windowsill. He tried to imagine what thoughts were running through the sparrow’s mind. A shoe is not, by any stretch of the
imagination, the natural habitat of a bird, nor is the interior of a human house, even if the bird in question is called a house sparrow. The creature had, he realised, been plunged into a
completely alien world. Its senses would be bombarding its mind with questions it was in no position to answer. In other words, it was probably well freaking out. He unclasped his fingers. The
sparrow didn’t hang about and zoomed straight into the waiting branches of a tall tree in the garden. It looked back at Barney, as if memorising his face in case it was one day called upon to
pick him out of a police identity parade.

‘What’s in there today?’ asked Gill, the wheeze in her voice worse than ever, as she watched him from the doorway of the kitchen. She was leaning heavily on her walking
frame.

‘Ten spoons and a sparrow,’ said Barney.

Gill snorted. ‘What does my husband think he is? A cat? He’ll want you to scratch his ears next. Come through, Barney. The kettle’s on.’ She turned and headed into the
kitchen, moving slowly and with difficulty, the rubber-tipped feet of her creaky walking frame clattering against the tiled floor.

Barney followed.

Dave was sitting hunched over the kitchen table, slowly peeling an apple with great concentration. He became aware of the other two in the kitchen and his eyes flicked upwards. His drooping
mouth suddenly formed itself into a big smile. ‘Thomas!’ he cried happily, then shook his head. ‘I mean George! No, Morris! Daniel? Rufus! Martin? . . . Ian! Haha! Hello,
Ian!’

‘It’s Barney,’ said Barney.

‘Barney!’ said Dave. ‘Of course, young man. Barney! How are you?’

‘I’m fine, thanks,’ said Barney. ‘How are you today, Dave?’

‘Splendid!’ said Dave, putting down the apple peeler. ‘Splendid as ever! Peckish, though. I was going to have some treacle pudding but all the spoons have vanished. Imagine
that! Who’d want to steal a lot of spoons? It’s quite a mystery.’

Barney showed him the spoons. ‘Mystery solved.’

‘Good lord!’ exclaimed Dave. ‘Where did you find those?’

‘He saw them sticking out of one of your shoes in the rack by the front door,’ said Gill, wearily. She poured hot water from the kettle into the teapot. ‘There was a sparrow in
the other one. Maybe we should start calling you Tiddles.’

‘Really?’ said Dave. ‘A sparrow? How extraordinary!’

‘Not really,’ muttered Gill. ‘If you’d let Barney put the washing-up away like he’s supposed to we wouldn’t have these problems. It’s like living with a
five-year-old child sometimes.’ She reached into the pocket of her cardigan and drew out a packet of cigarettes and a lighter. She placed a cigarette between her lips with gnarled fingers and
fumbled with the bright red plastic lighter until a small yellow flame appeared. She lit the cigarette and quickly exhaled a cloud of grey smoke. It hung in the air of the kitchen, drifting slowly
like ghostly wisps of mist.

Barney wrinkled his nose. Dave and Gill weren’t supposed to smoke when he was in the house. It was part of the agreement with the school. But they always did and he could never bring
himself to object. They seemed to have such few pleasures in their lives that he felt bad about trying to stop this one, even if it did mean he would be going home with his jumper and hair reeking
of smoke again.

He guessed Dave and Gill were in their seventies. Gill used a walking frame and had a cough that sounded like the dilapidated foot pump that Barney’s dad used to inflate the airbed on
camping trips. Her long, fine, grey hair was usually tied back in a neat ponytail. Arthritis had begun to clench her limbs into painful and much less useful versions of their former selves. But
beneath her thick, owlish glasses she had small, sharp, intelligent eyes that saw everything and Barney sensed that a rather brilliant mind lurked beneath her grumpy-old-lady act. Dave, on the
other hand . . .

. . . Dave was
lovely
, thought Barney. He was a big, kindly, teddy bear of a man, always the first to laugh at his own deteriorating memory. Garden birds in shoes was nothing. The
previous week, Barney had found Dave’s wallet in the oven, marinating slowly in a red wine and onion sauce. The week before that, Dave had spent a whole hour planting a fish finger in a
flowerpot as if it were a sapling before Barney and Gill realised what he was up to. It was as if the house was plagued by a particularly mischievous poltergeist. He wished Gill could see the funny
side of Dave’s mistakes as much as Dave himself did, but he could only guess how hard it must be for her to see Dave’s mind slowly unravelling before her eyes.

Gill placed three cups of tea on a tray and carried it, rattling and sloshing, towards the table, her legs juddering without the aid of the walking frame.

Barney leaped to his feet. ‘Let me get that.’

‘Sit down,’ snapped Gill, her cigarette clenched between her teeth. ‘I’m not a complete invalid.’ She lowered the tray on to the table with precise, careful
movements and half slid, half collapsed into a chair opposite Dave. She squinted into her saucer. ‘More tea in there than the cup,’ she wheezed and gave a great laugh.

Barney laughed politely and sipped his tea, aware of a strange tension suddenly in the atmosphere

‘I can predict your future, Rufus!’

‘It’s Barney,’ said Barney quietly. ‘And can you?’

‘I can predict your future, Barney,’ repeated Dave, without missing a beat.

Gill exhaled a blast of smoke upwards. She raised her eyebrows.

Dave held up a hand. Dangling from it was the peel from his apple, removed in a single long coil. He let it bob up and down for a second like some low-rent Slinky. ‘I can tell you who
you’re going to marry.’

Barney felt himself blush. ‘That’s ridiculous!’ he blurted out, somewhat louder than he intended.

‘We shall see,’ said Dave with a smile. ‘Take the peel.’ He handed it to Barney. Barney gripped the end between his thumb and forefinger. The green spiral of peel rotated
slowly over the tabletop. Gill watched, amused as Dave began to recite in a booming voice: