trousers. Same old messy hair and beard, dark and speckled with grey, like he’d been out overnight in a frost.
“You awake?” he said.
He picked my school clothes off the floor and put them on the end of my bed. He stood there a minute.
“You’ve got that charity thing today, haven’t you?”
“Sponsored silence,” I said.
It was nice that he remembered. He was so forgetful these days. He forgot he had to do the ironing. He forgot to shave. He forgot to pay the phone bill and it took weeks for them to connect us up again. He was just like a raggedy old bear still sleepy from hibernating over winter. Except winter was ages ago.
He used to be a different sort of Dad, always joking about with Luke, rough and tumbling on the sofa. He always helped me with maths homework, straight after tea. He’d show me how to do a question, then he’d do a bit and I’d finish it, until I could do it by myself. You could sit on his lap and he’d listen to you tell him anything.
I climbed out from under the bedcovers and stood up on the bed so I was as tall as him. I held his face in my hands, like he used to do to me. I wanted to say something about Mum, to say remember when … remember? Like I’d already asked a thousand times. I searched his eyes, looked to see if Mum was in there. But it was like the morning after there’s been heaps of snow and you can’t tell what’s underneath any more.
So I said, “Dad? What if I can’t help it and I say something?”
He squeezed me. “I won’t mind. You’ll be doing your best.”
He went off in a dream, opened the curtains, sent the dust fairies into the shadows.
So that was it. My best didn’t sound like much. He was just the same as all the others who didn’t think I could do it.
“I’ll mind,” I whispered to the invisible spinning dust. And those were my final words.
9.
I STARTED MY SILENCE AT FOUR MINUTES PAST seven.
At half past seven when Dad said, “Cornflakes or Rice Krispies?” I put my finger across my lips and waited until he turned round to see why I wasn’t answering.
“Getting a bit of practice in?” he said, taking both boxes from the shelf. “Don’t forget I’m going to be late home. There’s a couple of tins of spaghetti in the cupboard.”
At eight o’clock I jangled the coins in my pocket when he asked if I had my bus money. Luke rolled his eyes and tutted.
After registration the sponsored silence volunteers were excused from answering any questions in lessons. Everyone was asked not to distract us.
By ten o’clock Miss Steadman was already looking impressed.
At break-time nobody seemed to mind I wasn’t playing.
At half past twelve all of us volunteers sat on the benches outside to eat our packed lunch in silence. I could see through the tall glass doors into the hall. Mr Crisp the music teacher was auditioning people for the farewell concert. I saw Mia and Daisy standing on the stage together, their mouths opening and closing.
During RE Mrs Brooks came in and winked at me.
At quarter to three Miss Steadman was looking proud. She told us we were all going to a short assembly with Mr Brown.
I’d done it. I’d proved them wrong – Miss Steadman, Mia, Daniel and all the rest of them who didn’t think I could do it. And it should have been over at three o’clock. Only I wasn’t just happy that some poorly children might get to go to Disneyland. The day had passed and I’d not been in trouble, not fallen out with anyone, nobody told me to be quiet. Nobody said anything to me at all.
The twenty-four sponsored silence volunteers were called to the front of the assembly. Children clapped and cheered while Mr Brown showed some pictures of happy children from the Angela’s Hospice website on the screen. He praised us for meeting a difficult challenge, said he would add up the sponsorship money when it was collected and let us know the total by the end of the following week.
“The children from Angela’s Hospice will be very grateful,” he said. “Your silence has helped make their wishes come true. Now you may speak.”
There were big whoops from the other volunteers, coughing and gabbling like mad, saying things like, “That was soooo hard,” and, “I nearly said something when...”
The talking and laughing bubbled everywhere. I wanted to say something. But there was only one thing on my mind, only one person I wanted to say it to. And I could say it inside, could say it without anyone hearing: “Mum, did you find that dog in heaven?”
10.
SATURDAY MORNING ME, LUKE AND DAD TOOK the bus into town. Dad told us to wait outside the bank; there was something important he had to go and do. He’d be about ten minutes. He looked like he was going to say something else, but he didn’t.
We leaned against the wall between the bank and Crumbs the Baker’s, whiffing in the smell of hot pasties, listening to the beeps of the money machine in the wall.
“Wanna go in Game for a minute?” Luke said, nudging me.
As if.
“Suit yourself,” he said, shrugging his sloppy jacket. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed though,” he muttered. “You’re up to something, I can tell.”
Instead I sat on a bench and watched a man in a purple Puffa jacket sitting on the pavement on the other side of the street. One of his old trainers was split and you could see his dirty sock poking out of the hole. He was juggling with some balls of screwed-up newspaper. He had an orange woolly hat to collect money and a cardboard sign leaning against his knee, saying HUNGRY. I thought if he wrote it himself he had quite nice writing. Better than mine anyway.
People passed him by. I suppose he was a tramp and so nobody noticed him. He concentrated on the balls of paper flying through his hands and now and again he looked up when somebody passed him, which made him drop the balls.
Just then a gang of boys, a bit bigger than Luke, and even moodier, stopped and leaned against the wall next to him. They looked over their shoulders. They shifted their feet, stuffed their hands in their pockets and circled the tramp.
The paper balls tumbled into the tramp’s lap. One boy with dark wavy hair kicked the HUNGRY sign over. He laughed and grabbed the woolly hat, scooping the coins out. Small coins trickled from between his fingers, bounced and circled on the pavement.
“Leave him alone!” shouted a big lady wearing an apron, stomping out of the bakery. She waved her arms. “Go on, clear off, he’s done nothing to you.”
The gang looked at her and people slowed and looked at them. The tramp stared at something else down the street.
“I’m calling the police!” she said, rushing back towards the shop.
The
