But I don’t want to be seen with them, he said, Not with those glasses and those golden teeth.
He jumped down to the floor.
Come, he said, Let me show me you where the nice drawers are.
I looked at the stove. The plate was on. And it was red-hot.
One week after the Bluebottles had left for their holiday it started raining. It rained for days. It rained so hard we couldn’t see the neighbours’ house or the cement animals across the street. It felt like we were the only people on the planet. After three days our street became a river with people’s belongings floating past our house.
The man on the radio said it was a disaster. He said when it rained like that all the poor people with small cars got their engines wet and blocked the road and then the rich people with big cars couldn’t go anywhere either and eventually nobody had anything to eat.
Mother said we should be grateful she bought in bulk when Father got paid overtime, we had enough Weetbix for three weeks.
I thought of the Bluebottle fridge with all that food, but struggling through a river to ask a dwarf on a burning stove-top for food just seemed impossible, so we ate the Weetbix.
Four days later it stopped raining. Still, nobody could go anywhere because outside it looked like the ocean. Then one morning, finally, somebody knocked on the door. It was Roberta Breedt from down the road.
There’s a payphone in my garden, she said.
Thank you, said Father, But our phone is working perfectly.
No, said Roberta, Miss Baps is inside.
I’m sure she won’t be long, said Father.
She’s stuck! screamed Roberta, You have to come!
Miss Baps lived four houses from us. She was a teacher at our school and taught typing with a stopwatch. She spoke to no-one, rode a bicycle and was really, really fat. When she passed the house we used to run after her to try and see if she was walking or on the bicycle. Father said it looked like someone left the knife in the pork.
By the time we got to Roberta’s house, a whole crowd was standing on the soaked lawn. The payphone was lying on its side with the door at the bottom. It was filled with Miss Baps. It looked like Eskimos had frozen a large mammal for winter. It took eight men to turn the payphone around and open the door. Miss Baps was crying.
I just wanted to phone my mother, she sobbed, Then the waters came.
It was all too much for me. The secret I carried inside, seven days of Weetbix and the fact that I had never known fat people had parents. I burst into tears.
The Bluebottles have a son! I screamed, He’s a dwarf with bat fingers! He comes out at night to sit on the cement animals!
There was absolute silence. Everybody was looking at me. I could not stop myself.
His name is Edward! I screamed, He cannot feel pain and he hates his parents. He showed me their drawers, they have guns and secret maps!
It was like a parade. Everybody was marching down the street with Father in front. He made me fetch the keys and unlock the door. They stormed into the house. There was nobody there.
He must be hiding, I said, Look, all his food is in the fridge.
They opened it. It was empty.
I showed them the drawer with the guns. They opened it. Inside was a Bible and a very old KitKat. Everybody looked at me and left. Father said I should go home and stay in my room ’til I was forty.
In the middle of the night I woke up. Somebody was tapping on my window. I peeped through the curtains. Miss Baps was standing in the garden.
Do not feel bad, she said, They will not believe you, but I do. I’ve known Edward Bluebottle for years.
Did you look after the house as well? I asked.
Edward lives in my mind, said Miss Baps, And in yours and many others.
But I’m gifted, I said, I don’t imagine things.
Oh, Edward is very real, said Miss Baps, He only appears when you need him.
For what? I asked.
Whatever, said Miss Baps, If you need to feel attractive, Edward will be your ugly friend. If you need to feel thin, Edward will be your fat friend. If you think your life is hard, Edward will suffer more. He will do anything for you.
I closed the curtains and turned around. Sitting on my bed was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen. He smiled.
I can’t sleep either, he said.
When I was 16
When I was 16 years old my family moved to a town that nobody could see from the highway. Everything was flat, people woke up in flat houses, bought their stamps at a flat post office, sent their children to a flat school and held their meetings in a flat hall. Next to every building was a tree that covered it completely. My father said the town was still unspoilt and offered more opportunities. My mother said she hoped the opportunities came before the end of the world so we could move to a place that was visible from heaven.
Life was predictable and without passion. Until Mrs Temple died in her sleep. She was a widow who lived in a large house and drank gin every day from two o’clock. The day after the funeral we heard she had left all her money to the church. She wrote her will by hand and said that it was a disgrace to baptise and marry people in a church with such a short little tower. It was because the youth had nothing to look up to they became such feeble people and that’s why she drank herself to death. They should use the money to build a better tower.
One month later there was a meeting in the hall. The architect showed everybody the plans and then told them Mrs Temple’s money was not enough, they needed to make a plan. Una Staple suggested they should have a cake sale.
Then feminine Celia said maybe Una should try a new recipe, how many caramel cakes do you need to bake in one lifetime.
Then Una said baking a decent caramel cake is better than having your car parked in front of the hotel every time there is a male visitor in town.
Then the preacher said maybe they should have a sale where people could bring anything.
On the day of the sale people arrived at the church hall with everything from live chickens to caramel cakes, handmade radios and wheelchairs for couples. In an effort to broaden a few horizons, my mother decided to bring a map of the world and sell geography lessons, an enterprise which, by the end of the day, had strengthened the building fund with the breathtaking amount of R37,80.
Outside in the parking lot feminine Celia was selling hugs and kisses. By lunchtime she was so bored she started slipping the tongue to anything with R5 and a deep voice. By four o’clock she had guided every single high-school boy into manhood. Old Mr Buckman took his wife home, returned, queued twenty-eight times and made a contribution that took Celia’s final takings to a total of more than six thousand rand.
Three weeks later
