Potter. I like Harry Potter as much as anyone but there’s something no one else seems to think about when they’re banging on about wanting a Firebolt or how they wish they could apparate. He’s got no mum or dad. They’re dead. I don’t think about my dad much, but sometimes it’s like he sort of thinks about me, makes me remember that he’s not there. That he’s dead. It happens when I read stories like Harry Potter. I don’t wish I had a super-fast broomstick or that I could move around in a magic way. I just wish I had photos like Harry has. That move. Then the man on the mantelpiece might mean a bit more to me. He might feel like my dad, not just some bloke in a checked shirt with his arm round someone who looks like she must be my mum’s younger sister.
Also, Harry Potter knows what happened to his dad but whenever I ask about mine everyone says it’s not something I need to think about until I’m older (like offside). Lance asked me once and I was a bit embarrassed to admit I didn’t know so I just told him he got ill.
‘And I don’t suppose they had Calpol then, did they?’ Lance said.
When the film finished I expected Mum to tell me it was bedtime. I even started to get up from the sofa but she just smiled and asked if I wanted to see the second one. I didn’t ask why we were getting to watch two films in a row. I just nodded and we watched it all, though I could hardly stay awake.
When it was over she carried me up and I saw that the clock in the hall said half past eleven. I’d only stayed up that late once before, last year at Uncle Bill and Auntie Mill’s joint ‘significant’ birthday. It was half ten when I woke up in the morning and nearly midday by the time Mum had got the pancakes made and we’d eaten them.
‘What about the pool, Mum?’ I said, when I couldn’t stuff any more in.
She looked up at the clock and sighed. ‘Sorry, love, don’t think we’d get there and back before kick-off, do you?’
I didn’t answer. There wasn’t any point. She just wasn’t going to take me. I started to get mad but, when I looked up, Mum had tears in her eyes and she was staring at me. I saw her swallow and then move towards me, her soft arms going round my neck.
‘I love you,’ she said, and I believed it so much I didn’t mind about the swimming. Not then, at least, though on Monday it was different, believe me. In the meantime, though, I had Charlton to look forward to: come on, you Addicks! It was great, which meant my real birthday trip was going to be epic. We got chips and Mum let me have a battered sausage. I heard three swear words, one of which was completely new to me but, somehow, I still knew it was a swear word. We were drawing with Rotherham 1–1 when Johnnie Jackson scored a header in the last minute. Yes! That would have been me, not Lance. He’s good at doing crosses but he runs away from headers and pretends not to at the last moment, when the ball’s already on the ground. I might be a bit better than him, actually.
‘How’s this term shaping up?’ Mum asked on Sunday night. We’d been up in town all day doing art workshops at the National Gallery. Mum’s an artist and this is one of her jobs. She talks about a picture to kids, then takes them off to a different room to do some art based on it. I don’t mind. I like drawing and making things, but what I really like is watching Mum talking. I like watching everyone else listening to her. I saw a man there who’d been before. In fact, he’d been the last five weeks with his two little girls. He spent a long time talking to Mum about the pictures and he really thanked her a lot at the end. One of the little girls grabbed hold of my leg and wouldn’t let go. I pretended to mind but she was cute, actually.
‘This term? ’S all right.’
‘But what are you going to be doing?’ Mum asked. ‘I missed the meeting about it because I was working and they haven’t emailed the list through yet.’
‘Romans,’ I said. ‘And something called reproduction. Miss Phillips said we’re not allowed to be embarrassed when we do that but she went red when she said it so I think I’m going to be.’
‘Oh well. Anything else new?’
Children, you’ll be dismayed to hear that we won’t be doing any more RE on Monday mornings.
‘Nothing worth talking about,’ I said.
‘Cymbeline. William. IGLOO. There is NOTHING wrong with you at ALL. Get out of bed, RIGHT NOW.’
‘But I’m ill!’
‘No. You. Are. Not. You have no temperature and your throat is completely normal.’
‘It’s not. It huuuu-rrrrts. It –’
‘Cymbeline, we’ve talked about this. If you miss a day of school, you have to be properly ill. I’ve got Messy Art today; if I miss it to look after you, I don’t get paid. Simple.’
Messy Art is something Mum does with toddlers in a church hall on Monday mornings. In the holidays I have to go too and the one thing I’d say is that Mum is pants at naming things. Messy Art should be called ‘Messy Miniature Lunatics Go Ape’. But when she mentioned it I sighed. I know how hard Mum works and how we need every penny we have. She does sums on bits of paper at the start of every month. I found them once and looked down the columns. I’m okay at sums and it didn’t take long to work out that, after all the food and dinner money and the gas and electric and the council tax and a bit for school shoes she was saving up for and a fair few other things that didn’t sound like much fun, my mum had exactly nine pounds forty-three pence left over. There wasn’t anything on the list that she might have wanted.
‘Up!’ she shouted, and I just sighed.
The first thing I noticed was the smell. Tangy, in my nose. Then the sound. As soon as Miss Phillips pushed the door of the leisure centre open I could hear it: loud and echoey and not quite real, laughter and voices and a hosepipe going, a phone ringing. It was weird but no one else seemed to notice it. But I gawped at the high ceiling and the bright light; it was like walking into a big dream. Then, as we marched through the foyer, I saw shapes moving around on the other side of these MASSIVE windows. And that’s when I first saw it: the pool.
My stomach lurched. Sweat prickled on my forehead. I stopped dead still and someone bashed into me from behind and knocked me over. I picked myself up and just stared through the glass at the huge blue expanse shimmering in front of me. My eyes went big as Frisbees and I knew: I couldn’t do it. No. Way. I’d just have to tell Miss Phillips. Confess. I shook my head, not even sure that I could take another step forward until I saw who had knocked me over.
‘Sorry, Cymbeline,’ said Veronique, pushing her hair to the side of her face as she leaned in close to me. Veronique was smiling again and I smiled back as I realised something. Her breath smelled of Weetabix. It’s exactly what I have for breakfast! We were made for each other! When she wished me good luck I mumbled thanks, and then followed everyone else through the turnstiles.
‘Boys, left,’ Miss Phillips trilled. ‘Girls, this way please. No messing about now, boys.’
Now I know – as you see me walk
