DEAD GOOD (2 page)

‘Nothing.’ I say hopefully.

two

We’ve just had a fish & chip supper and everything’s as normal as it can be following a major upheaval. So I’m not really even thinking about it – too much. There’s no point in mentioning it – that weird thing on the landing. I’d either get told I’m being ridiculous, that I’m tired or that I’m making things up just to get attention. I’ve had all that before. I can’t be bothered with it right now. There’s enough other crap going on without having to try to convince my parents that I’ve seen something “strange” hovering about upstairs.

And anyway now I think back to it, it was probably something totally logical like the wind coming through that draughty, chipped old window and flapping the net curtain at the top of the stairs. Even though there’s not really much wind outside at all - I’ve seen enough programmes about air stream movements and sudden gusts of unexplained gasses to tell me not to bother giving it any more headspace than I already have. And I’m not one of those stupid, dippy girls who gets spooked by the slightest shadow anyway. I’m made of stronger stuff than that. There’s always a rational explanation for anything that happens. I’m a Realist – a Capricorn, for god’s sake – I deal with it, I don’t dwell on it. Hell, I’m not even scared of spiders. Well – maybe palm-sized ones are a bit freaky but luckily Dad’s very understanding about those.

‘Could you sort Davey out for me tonight, lovey?’ mum asks as she’s clearing up. ‘We’re popping out to the Late shop to pick up some more stuff. We shouldn’t be long.’

It’s nearly nine o’clock and just getting dark outside. It’s still warm and usually I love this time of the day. Usually – there’s no usually any more now, is there? Now it’s all unusual. When I lived at home I mean - our ‘proper home’ in Juniper Gardens.

Jeez, we haven’t even got a real garden here. You should see it - it’s just a patch of dried out grass – yellow grass too, like some dog’s been peeing on it or something – at our proper home we had a gazebo with decking and six-seater swing chair that I could sit on and listen to my music under the moonlight. I didn’t realise before just how much I loved our home. Now it’s gone. I don’t do tears much either usually because they just make my eyes go all tiny and sore and I always regret crying because nothing’s changed afterwards, anyway - has it?

‘Yeah, alright,’ I sigh heavily and pass her my rubbish to bin. I know I don’t sound enthusiastic. I don’t feel it. Why try and be something I’m not? Surely I don’t have to pretend like dad’s doing. Wouldn’t that be suppressing my inner person or something? And anyway it’s probably bad for you.

‘You don’t have to sound so keen, young lady,’ my dad says as he wipes a piece of bread around his carton. ‘Your mother’s had a hard day.’ He waves his hand about over the kitchen table, clears his throat and looks away, concentrating on the last of his ketchup.

I open my mouth to remind him that yes, haven’t we bloody well all? but he puts his hand up to stop me before I’ve had the chance. ‘We all have, I know,’ he says. ‘But we’ve got to start pulling together a bit more now we’re…. now we’ve… now we’re here -’

‘In this shit hole,’ I help.‘Madeline!’ My mum turns on me from the pedal bin. ‘There’s no need for language like that.’

‘Well I think there is,’ I tell her defiantly.

‘Not now, Maddie, not this evening,’ my dad says wearily. ‘Let’s all try and just get through tonight without tearing each other to pieces, eh? It’s been a long day. Give your mother a hand. Take your brother, will you?’I sigh dramatically before helping Davey off his chair by his ketchup-stained chubby hand and leading him towards the stairs. He’s chuckling away to himself and waving a chip in the air like a bloody sword. Jeez, to be three years old again and not a care in the world – not the slightest idea that crap is happening. I mean where’s the Tardis when you bloody well need it?

I wait for Davey to stop rubbing ketchup into the handrail and follow me up the stairs and try work out what parents were invented for. To keep their children safe and happy and secure, right? They’re the ones who’re supposed to keep a watch out and make sure nothing bad happens to their offspring. Them and the Prime Minister. Gordon effing Brown. My fish and chip supper feels like it’s bubbling in a stomach of angry acid… God what I could say to him right now.

‘What?’ Davey chomps beneath me. ‘What do you say?’

I stop mid-step. What the…? Either he’s turned into a mind reader or my thoughts are way louder than I thought they were. I turn and see him slumped on a stair about halfway up, still holding onto a fat, soggy chip and waving it in front of him like he’s teasing an invisible puppy. His face is all crinkled in a chubby grin and he’s repeating it over and over:

‘What do you say?’ he says again. And then he pulls the chip back towards his chest. ‘What do you say?’ he gently holds it out a little further and then tugs it back, giggling. ‘No. You have to say “please”’ he says giggling.

I can’t stop staring. Then I am curious. Then I am actually a bit pissed off when I realise that perhaps my kid brother has got a stupid invisible friend. Great. That’s all I sodding well need. A nutter for a brother. So much happy stuff to look forward to. Not.

Now all I need is for my soul mate, best, truest and dearest friend Amber to hear about this and she’ll think I’m even more of a saddo than I already know I’ll be feeling on Monday morning. This just couldn’t have happened at a worse time. It was bad enough having to explain everything else – let alone try to begin to tell her my brother has invented a see-through playmate.

Everyone’ll think it’s genetic. They’ll think we’re all nutters. Me included. Oh my God the shame – I could die. Literally. Of shame. Can you die of shame? I think one of Shakespeare’s heroines did – or was that the Lady of Shallot? I always get her muddled up with King Arthur’s wife and Romeo’s Juliet. They all wore the same kind of dresses anyway. Does it matter?

And it’s not only Amber I’ve got to convince that I’m perfectly normal, I’ve still got the huge task of persuading Ed Loake that I even bloody well exist outside of extended wet break. My chest deflates with the weight of my woes but thankfully Brother Nutter has made it to the landing in one piece and not a chip in sight.

‘In here.’ I drag myself to the top step. He lurches towards the room which is mum and dad’s. ‘No, Davey – in here… here. See?’ I walk past him and open his bedroom door. ‘See? This is your lovely new bedroom…. Come and have a look. Here.’ I push the door wide open and watch as he bounds through the open doorway.

‘There – this is great, isn’t it?’ I lie convincingly as he leaps straight onto his bed and starts to bounce. Great. Really great. It’s all just a new and exciting adventure for Davey, isn’t it? I wonder if nothing much bothered me much when I was his age?

‘Maddie?!’ Dad’s voice echoes up the stairs.

I leave Davey to his bouncing and go to the landing and wait. He’s standing with his hand on the banister rail and it looks like he has bags under his eyes. Although it could be the darkness.

‘What?’ I say huffily.

‘Don’t let Davey get too excited after he’s eaten, Maddie – that’s all. There’s every chance that after the upheaval of today and everything, that he might...’
Just then there is a strangulated croaking noise and something that sounds like water rushing over rocks and some splashing and I roll my eyes. Great. The day just got better. Who’d have thought?

Dad sighs and turns slowly back in the direction of the kitchen. I hear a tap running downstairs and sense the thick heavy smell of vomit upstairs even before Davey meets me tearfully on the landing.

‘I sicked up,’ he says sadly.

‘I know, kid,’ I ruffle his hair. ‘Let’s get you in the bathroom, yeah?’

He smiles back up at me and takes my hand just as mum and dad meet us on the landing armed with dishcloths, a bowl of disinfectant and fresh sheets. I roll my eyes and shrug and think that possibly today has been just as shitty for them as it has been for me.

‘I sicked up,’ Davey repeats.

Dad ruffles his hair the way I just did and watches as mum heads for his bedroom. Dad can’t stand the smell of sick, it makes him want to vomit too and mum just puts up with it. She says someone has to do it. It’s usually her. I don’t think I could be a mum if that’s what they always end up doing – all the shitty, stinky, smelly jobs. I couldn’t work as a nurse or as a playgroup teacher or in a nursing home – all those horrible smells and stuff – I’d spend all day in the toilet throwing up myself.
After I’ve made sure Davey’s face is cleaned, I watch him pull his pyjamas on, clean his teeth and open his mouth for me to check he’s done them properly.

‘See?’ he asks eagerly.

‘They’re good,’ I nod. ‘Now let’s get you into bed, yeah?’

I pull the fresh covers over him and Mum and Dad kiss him goodnight. Mum whispers to me they’ll be back soon so that Davey can’t hear and get all anxious and then I sit on the edge beside him as they leave the room.

‘You...ah not, silly!’ I say back. ‘Me are sitting here!’ I bang his mattress. ‘And it’s
I am
, not me are…okay?’

Davey slaps me again. ‘Not you, silly-Maddie… Mee ah… Mee ah…Mee ah…she’s sitting there… see?’

He’s worrying me a bit now but I shuffle over towards the end of the bed just to humour him. What’s he jabbering on about? Has he got his pretend friend in bed with him now or something?

‘Oops…’ I try to laugh breezily, ‘I don’t want to sit on…Mi-a, now do I? Hello Mia,’ I say to thin air, playing along with him, ‘how are you? I’m Davey’s big sister.’

Davey starts to giggle and rolls over in bed, pulling his pillow over his head and laughing madly. What now? What the f…?

‘Maddie silly now!’ he laughs, showing me his beaming, rosy face. ‘Mia gone – see? She gone again… Maddie talking to nobody… Maddie talking to nobody….’ He starts chanting in a stupid singy-songy voice that’s really irritating and I want to stick some sellotape right across his stupid annoying laughing mouth.

‘Alright! Alright! Shut up!’ I scream. ‘I get it! Your stupid little pretend friend is gone – so bloody what?!’

Davey’s face stills and his mouth falls open in an ‘o’ shape.

Uhhh-mmmmmm……’ he moans. ‘Maddie said a swear word….Maddie said a swear word… mummy? Mummy!’ his voice gets louder. ‘Maddie said a swear word!’

It’s no good, I have to stop his stupid, whining, singing, irritating annoying voice and so I slap my hand over his mouth to stop his chant then twist my neck round to the door to make sure mum or dad haven’t crept back into the house with his squealing and are witnessing the silencing of their lamb. He squirms but still, somehow giggles.

‘Maddie said a swear word!’ I hear chanted again right in my ear and I spin back to Davey to see how the hell he managed to say that whilst my hand is still firmly clamped over his mouth (without involving any real danger of suffocation of course). His eyes shine back at me excitedly.

Then I gulp, realising he couldn’t possibly have said anything without a few years training in ventriloquism and as my hand moves away from his mouth, he grins broadly and points to the doorway.

And once again the hairs on my arms start to rise.

three

Davey’s just drifting off. It’s probably only about five minutes since Mum and Dad left and I hear a noise like a door or a drawer or something shutting really loudly downstairs. Although it could just sound loud because the house is empty and quiet. I’m not quite sure what room it was from. Maybe it’s the front door and they’ve come back for something they’ve forgotten. I get up from Davey’s bed and go to the landing, lean over the top a little and stand as still as I can to listen and see if it’s them or not. I don’t suppose they’d call up in case they might wake Davey. I even try not breathing too hard so I can hear better. Would that help? I don’t know.

I tilt my head like a dog does when it’s listening, and I hear another bang. Followed by another. And then another until my head is in danger of twisting itself off. This time the sound is a kind of metallic rattly bang and sounds like it definitely came from downstairs. Shit. I hope Mum hasn’t left the cooker on or anything and something’s blown up. Bravely – in fact extremely bravely for me, I decide to be bold and avert a potential disaster before it has a chance to take hold. And it would show Mum and Dad how responsible I can be when I’m on my own. They’ll appreciate that, especially now.