who tried,” said Mr Crisp, doing that thing with one eyebrow again. “You know, sounds end up coming out of your mouth, but they start with the air much, much further down.”
Then the bell rang and he said, “Cally Fisher, I’d like to speak to you a minute.” He sat and beckoned me over.
“I’ve noticed your name’s not down for the concert,” he said, when everyone had gone. “Conspicuous by your absence, as they say. I would’ve thought you’d like to stand up in front of everyone and sing your heart out.”
He tapped his fingers over his mouth and then along an electronic keyboard, like it was helping him think. No sound came out; it wasn’t plugged in.
“Remember when we did Charlotte’s Web in Year Four? Your performance, your magnum opus. Remember?”
Even I remembered my lines from two years ago. Charlotte the spider (that was me in a padded black costume with long legs held up on sticks) had made her egg sac, filled with 500 eggs. Harry Turner was Wilbur the pig and he had to say, “What’s a magnum opus?” and I had to say, “It means a great work; it’s the finest thing I ever did.”
“Remember?” Mr Crisp said, looking up as if he could see the past in the ceiling. “You made your mum proud that day. And I know she would have loved to have seen you in Olivia! last year.”
He stopped for a moment, so we could both think about why she hadn’t been able to be there, so the sadness didn’t have to come out. When he started talking again, his voice was rich and warm, from deep in his belly.
“You know she came in to see me a few days before the show. She didn’t tell me what it was, but she said she had a surprise planned for you, to show how much your singing meant to her.”
I never found out what it was either. But what he said made my heart feel wide. I knew he was thinking of exactly the time he saw her because it made the words full of her, breathed her alive, brought her to me, to us.
“So, Miss Fisher, it’s not too late, if you still want to sing. I’m prepared to make an exception in this case.”
He waited a minute. He ran his fingers the whole way along the keyboard and then slapped his hands in his lap.
“Off you go then, but remember, you can come back and see me any time.” He switched on the plug and started playing. His hair billowed like a thick mist.
I walked slowly to the door. I liked that he didn’t go on at me or look disappointed. I liked the music he made.
As I opened the door, he stopped playing. He held out his arms to show the drums and tambourines, the recorders and guitars, the rows of silent keyboards, and called out, “You know, unless someone uses these instruments, they’re just shapes of wood and plastic and metal. I think you can still make your mum proud.”
21.
SAM WAS LEANING ON THE GATE WHEN I CAME home from school. He reached out, swept his hand over my face so he knew who I was. I pushed the gate and he laughed as he swung away.
He had an old-fashioned camera with him. He held the camera up to his face, one hand on my shoulder, and pressed the button. While I watched, the camera whirred and out rolled a greyish shiny piece of paper. Then a photograph magically appeared. My chin was missing, but it was a nice picture of most of my face and the huge green common behind me. Then we swapped places, so I could take a picture of him.
We went inside and Sam gave Mrs Cooper the photographs. She had a machine like a typewriter, but with only six keys and a big one in the middle. It punched the Braille bumps into the card and she stuck my picture on one.
“You really don’t say much, do you?” she said. “How about you write your name on it instead?”
Writing isn’t like talking and it’s good for telling someone something without saying it. On the card, instead of writing my name, I wrote: Sam is my friend. Mrs Cooper tapped the message on Sam’s hand.
Sam gave a felt tip to Mrs Cooper (because he doesn’t find writing easy) and tapped out what she had to write for him on his picture. Mrs Cooper gave me the card and went off to cook the tea.
She had written for Sam: Cally and me, one who feels and one who sees. It was like a little poem. I thought I knew which one was me and which one was him.
I looked closer at the picture I wanted to keep. There was Sam, my new friend, grinning from under his floppy dark hair, the huge green common and trees behind him, and another familiar shape in the background. A silver-grey dog.
My insides lurched; my head felt like it would pop, I could feel my breath caught tightly at the top of my chest. Sam leaned close, tipped his left ear; he put his hand on my arm. He looked thoughtful; he seemed to know something was up. He pulled his boxes of cards over, opened the lids, found a card with the word, WHAT?
Sam smoothed his fingers across the bumps on each card I handed him. DOG – Sam nodded. BIG – Sam nodded. I couldn’t find a card for Homeless, so I gave him the card for LOST.
Sam’s eyebrows bunched up. So I pulled him outside, made him stand where he had been standing, held his arm out, rolled his fingers under until just his first finger was pointing across the common.
Homeless was still there, far away, his nose to the ground. I climbed on the wall, made myself as big as possible in a star shape, waved and laughed and laughed. Homeless’s head rose, his ears twitched forward. And then he came, slowly at first, then galloping straight to us across the common.
I put Sam’s hand on Homeless, but he never let go of me. I felt his hand tighten round mine as he felt all over the tall body, felt for the right way to smooth Homeless’s scruffy fur. Homeless let him touch his great teeth and cool damp nose, find the end of his curved tail. Sam was jittery and laughing. I don’t suppose he’d ever felt anything quite like Homeless before and I was glad they met, that I had someone to share Homeless with. I smoothed Homeless’s ears. Soft as my mum’s hair.
Sam took two photographs of Homeless because the first one just had his tail and back legs. Homeless just wouldn’t keep still, winding round us as if he had to keep us together.
“Wait!” Sam suddenly said.
He left me with Homeless, went inside, bumping into the doorway in a hurry to go in. He came out with some cheese and slices of ham and Homeless wolfed them down.
Sam put his hand where his heart would be, patted his chest, then put one of his cards in my hand. Sam stopped moving. He was so still I wondered if he’d fallen asleep standing up.
I looked at the card. It had a picture just like the one on the Flat to Rent sheet Dad showed us. A picture of number 4 Albert Terrace. It said HOME.
22.
THEN MRS COOPER CAME OUT. SHE SAID, “IT’S nearly teatime.” Her eyes popped wide when she saw Homeless.
“Goodness!” she said. “Where did he come from?”
Sam went quiet. His face was serious. He held his hand out for Mrs Cooper to tap what she was saying.
“You
