100 Days of April-May (9 page)

Sixteen

King Fatty

‘King Eric – Eric Daniel Pierre Cantona, the most awesome soccer player ever to kick a ball – is Ricky's father?' Sebastian asks.

‘That means Ricky's half French. King Eric was born in Marseilles, you know – in a cave. No wonder he wants to come and stay here in your nice posh room during the Soccer World Cup,' Melly says.

Melly, Fatty, Sebastian and me are sitting out the back of Chez Matchbox under the sour-sour tree. They came as soon as they could on Sunday morning after I sent them a text message telling them I had some urgent, earth-shattering news.

I tell Melly and Sebastian to slow down. Fast. They're chomping at the wrong end of the stick and getting the facts tangled into a million knots.

‘Okay, explain again the earth-shattering news to us. I'm so confused,' Fatty says. His head is in his hands and he is hunched over, trying to make himself as small as possible.

So I tell them the astonishing revelation that came to me as I read the message on The Brick. ‘Ricky, I know what your real name actually is.'

Fatty says he actually knows it all too well, and it sucks big time.

I tell him, ‘No, it doesn't. Your name isn't Ericca Ntona. It's actually Eric Cantona. You were named after the king.' Fatty's parents either had kinky handwriting, or the person who found him as an abandoned baby and officially recorded his name was not a soccer fan.

‘So my name is really Eric, not Ericca – not some silly girly name,' Fatty says. And as he says this the sun moves from behind a cloud and lights up his face. It's sort of gratifying when nature gives a sign that she recognises significant moments.

It was only when Sam Ho read Fatty's cellphone message about coming around to check on Fluffy's dodgy shower that his name was read correctly. For the very first time. Clever, clever Sam Ho.

‘So is Eric Cantona his dad or not?' Sebastian asks. ‘Is Ricky half French?'

‘And is King Eric coming to stay in your posh room?' Melly adds.

I roll my eyes to the gods and give Melly and Sebastian a drive-through lecture on the physical implications of genetic determination. ‘Take a look at him, won't you,' I say, pointing at Fatty. ‘I'm betting against it.'

Fatty says he's putting his money with mine. ‘I'm so rubbish at soccer. Music is my talent. There's no ways I'm related to the king,' he says.

Then I give Melly and Sebastian a crash course in logic: ‘As the text message was actually from Ricky, and not from Eric Cantona, it stands to reason that he's not going to be renting our posh room.'

Expressions of enlightenment wash over Melly and Sebastian's faces, and Melly says she gets it one hundred per cent.

I say that I am glad to hear that we are all reading off the same page now.

Melly says that for sure it's nice to be one hundred per cent correct, but it's not good news, is it? Fluffy must be gutted that the king isn't renting the posh room. I tell her that Fluffy is totally slaughtered and took to his bed last night for the rest of the weekend. But the good news is that we are ten steps closer to finding Fatty's parents.

Fatty sighs and says that I need to take him through this. Slowly. He's struggling to deal with the earthshattering news.

And so I explain again. Given that Fatty's parents are obviously soccer nuts, there is definitely one place they will be on 11 June.

Sebastian nods. ‘Cool, they're going to be renting your posh garage?'

I tell Sebastian that he is a credit to the private school system, but no. The place Fatty's parents will defs be is Soccer City, Soweto, at the opening of the World Cup. And that's where Fatty will find them. Among ninety-five thousand soccer fetishists. Betwixt and between all the people who are crazy enough to name their children Eric Cantona, David Beckham and Lionel Messi.

Fatty says he gets it two hundred per cent. He stands up and nearly takes the top of his head off on a branch of the sour-sour tree. The branch makes an
ouch
noise, which is sort of freaky. ‘Of course. I'll find them there. It's my destiny. Just like in
August Rush
,' Fatty says.

August Rush
is this movie that Fatty and me have watched seventeen times thanks to Mrs Ho's PVR. It's about a musical child prodigy called Evan who lives in an orphanage and through destiny finds his parents (who are also musicians) at a concert in Central Park. They recognise each other because of their strong love for music. They feel the vibes between them. It's a rubbish movie full of soppy nonsense about mothers and sons and Fatty is addicted to it.

‘I'm going to the opening of the World Cup at Soccer City on 11 June. That's where I'll find them. We will be drawn to each other through our deep love for soccer. The soccer vibes will pull us together like magnets,' Fatty says.

I don't tell Fatty that I know for a fact that his deep love for soccer is about as deep as his love for salad (deeply shallow) – he can't even watch the game on television. I have little faith in the
August Rush
theory of attraction and am still trusting that Rhonda Byrne will come through and make things happen. Or that someone in my country's great child welfare bureaucracy will have the good manners to respond to Sarel The Big Lawyer's increasingly demanding legal letters that I have been emailing weekly from hotcalendargirl, Sarel's legal secretary.

Fatty says that he owes Sam Ho huge. Sam Ho is the boss. He is the bomb and a prince – which means that he is very highly regarded by Fatty. Without Sam Ho he would be walking around with a girl's name for the rest of his life and wouldn't be within twelve days of meeting his real parents. He says that he wants to thank Sam Ho personally and pledge to repay the life debt he owes him. But before he can yell ‘Sam Ho', a shrill voice calls from the top of the sour-sour tree: ‘I'm here!' And Sam Ho drops to the ground. The little rat-sneak.

Fatty and Sam Ho do some hand-shaking and punching and wrist-tugging to express their new bond of eternal brotherhood, and Fatty says to Sam Ho, ‘You gave me my real name back. I totally owe you, brother.'

And Sam Ho says that Fatty won't have to owe him a brother's button if he can help him get
his
name back. ‘My name is Sam Ho. Not Rat Turd. I don't like being called Rat Turd at school. It makes me feel worthless and angry.'

Fatty says that he knows exactly how he feels. And maybe this will help. Then Fatty gives Sam Ho the kind of motivational speech that would make Oprah's agents fear for her position as the number one feel-good talk show host on Planet Television.

Fatty tells Sam Ho that ugly names are just something that people who have inferiority complexes give to other people to make them feel better about being losers. The way Sam Ho should see it is that the more times dumb, insecure people call him Rat Turd, the better off he is and the worse off they are. ‘They become smaller and meaner by their name-calling, and you become bigger and better for it,' Fatty says, concluding his fifteen-minute Oprah spiel.

Sam Ho asks Fatty if that is the best he can do and Fatty says, ‘Sorry, buddy, but you are just going to have to suck it up. It's the consequence of being original.'

I tell Fatty that for sure he's going to make it big on the motivational speaking circuit but right now we have to talk about a certain secret which small trolls can't hear about no matter how original and closely befriended they are to my second-best friend. ‘So scoot, Sam Ho.'

Sam Ho says, ‘Thanks a bunch, Fatty.'

And Fatty says, ‘For the record, my name is Eric, but it's a pleasure, Rat Turd.'

And then they both wipe palms and grin before Sam Ho slouches off in the direction of the couch and the television.

I ask Fatty and Melly to brief Sebastian and me on their activities of the day before, activities which they had embarked upon after leaving the park and which are part of our mission to steal a hairy canine. And then I see Melly's stricken face and say rather, ‘I mean our quest to borrow a dog for an indefinite period.'

The day before, Fatty and Melly did reconnaissance. This involved Step One: going to the house next door to Miss Frankel's house and asking to speak to Kindness The Caretaker. Then (Step Two) they went to the house on the other side. And (Step Three) the house across the road. But they never went to Miss Frankel's house to ask to speak to Kindness The Caretaker in case he was actually there. Because they didn't want to speak to him.

By deploying this three-step method of research they managed to establish that Kindness The Caretaker is absent from Miss Frankel's house on weekdays between eight o'clock in the morning and five o'clock at night, when he is employed as a security guard in another neighbourhood. He goes to church at nine o'clock on Saturday mornings, returning home at approximately six o'clock as he is a Seventh-day Adventist. And he is home alone (except for Alistair) all day on Sundays, when he sleeps, plays loud music and does his washing.

They also managed to observe the dividing wall in the back garden that borders Miss Frankel's house and the neighbour on the left-hand side. Melly says this in a smug sort of Harry-casual way. She's waiting for me to ask her how on earth she did that, but I chew on a sour-sour berry and wait for Sebastian to say, ‘How on earth did you do that?'

Melly says that he'll never guess in a million years.

Sebastian says that she's right, so perhaps, as time is short, she should just tell him. So she does.

‘The person who lives in the house next to Miss Frankel is a teacher from school,' Melly says. ‘So when we rang the doorbell and asked to speak to Kindness The Caretaker, he invited us in. And we checked out the back garden and the perimeter when he let his dog out to do her business.'

Melly says that we'll never guess (in a million years) who the teacher is.

‘It's Dr Gainsborough,' I say.

She looks at me like I'm a spoilsport, but anyone who is a fan of maths and logic could have told her that if there are thirty-two teachers at Trinity College and twenty-two of them are female, and of the remaining ten male teachers six of them are juniors who could not afford to own a house in Miss Frankel's 'hood, then of the remaining four teachers, of whom two are sports coaches who play cricket or tennis on Saturday afternoons, this leaves two male teachers. One has a pet and one does not. Duh.

Fatty says that Dr Gainsborough appears to lead a solitary existence. The house betrays no signs of another person and the only photographs (on the mantelpiece in the sitting room) are of animals.

I say that they must be of the three-legged dog called Tripod, and the dog before that, which was deaf from birth, and the cat that couldn't purr.

Melly says that I'm starting to scare her.

I tell Melly that she mustn't get scared until I've told her about Step Four. The step we take to rescue Alistair The Awesome-ist.

Melly says that she can't bear to hear it.

‘Listen up,' I reply.

Seventeen

The Fourth Step

There are six of us left on the dance floor. It is two o'clock on Saturday afternoon and we have been jigging about for nearly seven hours. My face is dripping with sweat and from the contents of a bottle of water which Melly has shaken out all over me to cool me down. ‘Don't give up now, April-May! You can do it, I know you can!' Melly says, leaving my side to go and chuck a bottle of water in Sebastian's face. ‘Keep going! Don't stop!' she says to Sebastian. He doesn't skip a beat, throwing his sore leg out to the side to ease the cramps.

Melly tiptoes across the floor to Fatty and gently sprays water over his dripping body. It has the same effect as spraying a buffalo with a perfume dispenser. ‘You are the best!' Melly tells Fatty.

Melly has been going around dousing us with water and peppering us with motivational slogans every half-hour for the past seven. She is the sole representative of our support committee and the president of our fan club (it having Melly as its only member).

Fatty, Sebastian and me are among the leftovers from the three thousand and seven entrants to the Eastern Suburbs Catholic Schools Diski Dance Marathon. The prize is two tickets to the opening of the Soccer World Cup, which is happening in six days' time. Between the three of us, we are going to win those tickets and get Fatty to Soccer City to meet his soccer-mad parents. That's the plan.

But Britney, Tiffney, Stephney and someone who looks just like Courtney but isn't – her name is Carol – are the other four remaining contestants, and they are determined that between them they are going to win the prize.

What the Britney Brigade don't realise is that they don't stand a chance because they don't know about Rhonda Byrne and her secret. As I dance I feel the positive vibrations. I imagine myself on the stage, accepting the two tickets from the judges. I am so positive and focused on this outcome that I can feel the two tickets in my hand (even with the three muscle spasms competing with each other in my left calf).

The trick to keeping going is not to lift your feet too high, but to conserve energy by doing a shuffling move along the dance floor. My feet feel like blocks of agony and my legs scream that they need to be amputated at my hips, but I keep focused on the tickets.

Sebastian winks at me, but I can see that his gammy legs are taking strain. And Fatty has shed thirteen litres of his body mass onto the dance floor.

Melly also wanted to enter the competition and dance with us. She cried when we told her that she couldn't, but we feared for her patchy lungs. In any case she is essential for team morale, we told her.

I check the clock on the wall and signal to Fatty and Sebastian. The signal means: we gotta go. Fatty signals back: I know we gotta go, but we need to win this first.

‘We have to get this done today. It can't wait another week,' I screech above the sound of Shakira and her ‘waka waka, this time's for Africa'. Then I look across at Sebastian. He is grimacing in pain. I don't think he's going to last much longer. ‘Let's send Sebastian and Melly on ahead. Between you and me we can win this,' I shout at Fatty and he nods in agreement.

The next time Melly comes around to baptise me, I tell her there's been a change of plan. It's down to Sebastian and her to get themselves to Miss Frankel's house and implement Step Four before Kindness The Caretaker gets home from exercising his religious convictions as a Seventh-day Adventist.

It has to be done this weekend. Next Saturday Kindness The Caretaker is going on holiday and taking Alistair back home with him to Mpumalanga for five weeks. Miss Frankel told Fluffy this when she called to suggest that Alistair board at Chez Matchbox while Kindness went away. ‘Not on your life,' Fluffy told her.

In those five weeks Alistair's groove will undoubtedly be crushed once and for all. We need to get him home to Fatty fast.

Melly shakes her head. ‘I just can't, April-May. I was going to tell you sooner, but I didn't know how …'

‘What do you mean you can't?' I stop dancing. ‘Ricky and me have to carry on dancing and win. You need to do this. We can't be two places at the same time.'

‘Keep dancing! Don't stop!' Melly rasps. If a contestant stops for more than thirty seconds outside of the designated five-minute break each hour then he or she is disqualified. ‘I know saving Alistair is the right thing to do, but it's also the wrong thing for me,' Melly says as I shuffle my feet to the music again. ‘You're going to think I'm a chicken, but it's not that. I just don't feel comfortable doing this. I'm sorry. Please don't hate me too much.'

I tell Melly that I could never hate her too much. I couldn't hate her even one tiny bit. She's the bravest person I know and she's my best friend forever, no matter what. (Even though she spends more time hanging out with Fatty at the moment and still hasn't given me my big-big birthday present.)

Fatty stumbles over to where we are standing and I tell him Melly doesn't want to play on the dodgy side of the law. ‘And Sebastian can't do it on his own.' So it's either him or me.

‘You go with Sebastian and I'll keep dancing,' Fatty says. ‘I need to win the tickets myself otherwise the vibes won't work. It's what Evan in
August Rush
would do.'

‘It's what Evan would do,' Melly affirms.

Since Fatty has learned that his name is Eric (and that the chances of his parents pitching up at the opening of the Soccer World Cup are as certain as the chances of the stiff-mobile getting fertilised by starling droppings each and every day), he has watched
August Rush
twenty-four more times. And Melly has watched the movie with him each and every one of those times. Between them they know exactly how Evan from
August Rush
would behave in any situation. (Except, perhaps, how Evan from
August Rush
would behave if he was saddled with a posh en suite bathroom and no cash-flush soccer fiend to rent it for four weeks – which is the situation Fluffy has found himself in since Eric Cantona blew him off and decided not to come to South Africa after all.)

Sebastian and me stop dancing and walk over to the judge's table and surrender our competition numbers to the jeers of Britney and Tiffney and Stephney and Carol. Then we tell Fatty to keep dancing and Melly to keep him hydrated and Sebastian and me catch a taxi to the scene of the crime.

Step Four of our plan is criminal in its simplicity. We ring the buzzer to the house next to Miss Frankel's. Three minutes later I hear the familiar voice. It doesn't say, ‘Who is it?' but, ‘Who do you feel you are?'

I tell Dr Gainsborough that it is I, April-May February, his basket case from Trinity College.

Dr Gainsborough buzzes me into his yard and I walk to the front door as Sebastian slinks around to the back of the property.

‘You've come about the dream. I just knew it,' Dr Gainsborough says, opening the front door and pulling me into the kitchen.

I keep a wary eye out of the kitchen window, which gives a full view of the back garden that borders Miss Frankel's property, as Dr Gainsborough puts the kettle on. The two houses are separated by a high wall. On the other side of which is the small courtyard otherwise known as Alistair's Prison. Or the Torture Chamber. Anyone standing on the wall in question could easily use a broomstick to open the door to the courtyard, letting Alistair into the front garden, from where he could set himself free under the gate leading to the road.

Dr Gainsborough says that he isn't surprised at all to see me, not after bumping into me in his dream last night.

‘Tell me all about it,' I say.

He says that there he was, swimming in a deep river, when he saw a crocodile swimming towards him. But it was a very strange-looking crocodile because it was wearing a pair of sunglasses and a makarapa, which is a peculiar sort of hat soccer supporters wear to big matches.

I say that I know exactly what the crocodile looks like and I am more than familiar with millinery soccer fashions.

‘Yes, of course,' Dr Gainsborough says. ‘You had the same dream. Which is why you came around.'

I tell him that of course it is, but as I do so I see a mop of golden curls sweep past the kitchen window. I point urgently at something above Dr Gainsborough's head. He looks behind him and up, narrowly missing a waving hand and a head ducking below the window sill. Sebastian is playing silly buggers. If he's not careful, he's going to get caught. I hold thumbs for Rhonda Byrne.

‘Yes, I thought you may notice that. My dreamcatcher. I have one in every room.' Dr Gainsborough touches the circle and its long feather tail that dangles from the kitchen cupboard. ‘Anyway,' he says, returning to the topic, ‘in my dream I see you on the bank of the river and I shout at you to stay right where you are, out of the way of the crocodile, which is swimming towards me.'

Dr Gainsborough then hands me a cup of milky tea and tells me to carry on recalling the dream. He is interested in my perspective. But I tell him that it doesn't happen like that in my dream. ‘You see me but you say nothing. You may think you shout a warning, but you don't. You are silent. Instead, you duck under the water and swim for safety. You swim for a long time. It seems to me that you can breathe underwater. You swim away and emerge on the far side of the river. You leave Emily and me on the bank of the river in full view of the crocodile.'

‘Emily? My dog Emily?' Dr Gainsborough looks stricken. ‘What is she doing there?'

‘Yes, she is in the dream. Perhaps you never saw her. And Emily doesn't see the crocodile …' I make chopping movements with my hands. Chop, chop, chop.

‘But surely, surely she would have smelled the crocodile. She has the keenest sense of smell to compensate for her blindness.' Dr Gainsborough looks around for Emily, as though to reassure himself that she is still with him.

And then there is the sound of barking. ‘That's Emily. She's alive,' Dr Gainsborough says, his face breaking out into a smile.

He looks out of the window to where the sound of barking is coming from and I look too. Emily is running around in circles, her teeth bared and her tail wagging as though she is not sure whether she should be fierce or playful.

And then Emily throws herself at the wall. It appears she has decided that fierce is more fun than playful. That is until she throws herself back from the wall and drops a Converse takkie on the grass. Then she sits back and howls.

No, on closer inspection it's not Emily that is howling, it is the forest of bamboo in Dr Gainsborough's garden. The bamboo is howling and thrashing about.

‘It seems that my bamboo has become possessed,' Dr Gainsborough says, his eyes gleaming with delight.

I put down my cup of tea and rush out into the garden.