Lifesaving for Beginners (26 page)

Ed notices.
He says, ‘You’re fat, Kat.
You’re really fat.’

And Mum, not looking up from her notebook, says, ‘Edward, that’s rude.
You don’t tell ladies they are fat.’

Ed says, ‘But what if they are?’

She doesn’t answer.
Just sighs and returns to her office.
Dad sits in his study.
I pop corn in a hot, oily pot and me and Ed sit on the couch like puddings, with the bowl of popcorn between us, watching
Mork and Mindy
.

Ed says, ‘You’re going to get even fatter now, Kat,’ nodding at my hand on its way to my mouth with its cargo of warm, buttery popcorn.
I nod and Ed smiles.
He is not rude.
He is right.

I skip school, citing innocuous ailments that need no formal medical intervention: sore throats, period pains, a cold, headaches.
I vary them, so nobody notices.

Mum is away again.
A book tour in America and Canada.
Her book is called
The Ten-thirty from Heuston
.
Short stories.

When Dad gets home from work, he says, ‘How are you feeling?’

I say, ‘Better, thanks,’ and he nods and says, ‘Good, good,’ before picking up his briefcase and walking, in his vague, distracted way, into the study.

Mrs Higginbotham scrapes half my dinner into the bin.
She says, ‘You’re off your food, Kat-Nap,’ which is what she called me when I was a kid and sometimes still does.
‘What’s the matter?’

I say, ‘Sore throat,’ or ‘Cramps in my tummy,’ or ‘I had something to eat at Minnie’s house,’ and Mrs Higginbotham fixes me with her steely stare and then, for a moment, I think: she knows.
She knows everything.
And I feel a magnificent surge of relief, as if everything will be all right now.
Mrs Higginbotham knows and she’ll fix it.
She’ll make it right.
But then she nods and returns to the sink and says, ‘Gargle with hot water and salt,’ or ‘Fill a hot water bottle and have an early night,’ or ‘I told you not to eat between meals.’

Two months to go.

My belly is hard.
And the deep well of my bellybutton is gone.
It’s stretched across my stomach.
There is movement.
I don’t look down when that happens.
I don’t put my hand on my belly when that happens.
I put a tape in my Walkman.
Turn the volume up and up.
If I’m in my room and Mum is not in the house, I sing along.
I’m really bad at singing.
I close my eyes and sing along at the top of my voice.

Two months till the exams.
The Intermediate Examination.
We talk about fourth year.
We’ll be seniors then.
We’ll wear blue jumpers and we’ll be allowed on the blue stairs that are currently off limits to third years like us.

We don’t talk about it, Minnie and me.
I think it’s because we don’t know what to say.
We don’t know what to do.

Instead, we slag each other.

‘Is that a face on your spot?’

‘Givvus a match.’

‘My arse and your face.’

‘Fat bitch.’

‘Spotty cow.’

‘Givvus a fag.’

‘Kenny Everett.’

We laugh.
We laugh all the time.
Sometimes we laugh so hard that we cry.
That’s the only time I cry.
When I laugh so hard.

Faith says, ‘I liked your note.’

I say, ‘I didn’t want you to worry.’

Faith says, ‘You spelled responsibilities wrong.’

I say, ‘Miss Williams hasn’t done that word with us yet.’

We are on the plane.
It hasn’t taken off yet, which is good because taking off happens to be my favourite bit.
The stewardess is showing us how to fasten the seatbelt.
I check mine.
It’s fastened.
I tighten it as much as it will go but it’s still loose.
I look at Faith, wondering if I should tell her, but she is looking out of the window.

My second favourite bit is when the plane goes into the clouds and then out the other side, where the sky is blue and the clouds below look like snow.
Proper snow.
Not like the stuff a week ago.
Me and Damo made a snowman but it was really small.
There’s no such things as leprechauns but Americans think there are.
They’re really small.
And green.
Our snowman was like that, except he wasn’t green.
More like a dirty white.

I feel under the seat with my hand but I can’t find the life jacket.
Maybe there are two under Faith’s seat.
The stewardess says that adults have to attend to their own life jacket first, before the kids’.
I expect I’d be able to put on my own one.
If I had one.
I don’t know about Faith, though.
She’s still looking out of the window.
She hasn’t listened to a single word the stewardess has said.
I hope we don’t crash.
I really do.

I don’t think the woman knows we are coming to see her.
I don’t think Faith has a plan.
Having a plan saves lives.
That’s what Coach says.

Now the stewardess is walking down the plane.
She’s checking to see everybody has their seatbelt on and I pull up my jacket so she can see my belt, which is fastened as tight as it will go but is still a bit loose.
She stops at our row and smiles at me.
She doesn’t even check my seatbelt.

She says, ‘Hello, there.’
Her teeth are very long and very white and she is wearing a necklace that says ‘Angela’.
I bet that’s her name.

She moves past our row, without even glancing at my belt.
I pull on the strap again but it’s definitely as tight as it will go.

After the runway bit and the going up through the clouds bit, I’m bored.
I forgot to pack
Dark Days
, the fourth Skulduggery Pleasant book, which is actually turning out to be just as good as the third one.
Damo says reading’s for nerds but Ant is always reading and he’s not a nerd.
He’s had about a hundred girlfriends and he never studies.

George Pullman said he flew to America once and everyone on the plane had their own telly and you could watch whatever you liked.
I don’t believe him.
He said his dad was an astronaut but me and Damo saw him with his dad in Pizza Hut once and his dad was wearing a dark suit, like an undertaker.
Undertakers are people who sell coffins.
They wear dark suits.

Faith says, ‘What’s wrong with you?’

I say, ‘Nothing.’

She says, ‘You haven’t asked me if we’re there yet.’

I shrug, as if it’s nothing.

Faith says, ‘Well, we are there.
Nearly there.’
She nods towards the window and I look out.
Faith has the window seat.
I thought it might cheer her up.

Below, I see the sea.
It’s called the Irish Sea, the one between England and Ireland.
We did that in Mrs O’Reilly’s class, last year.
She taught us lots of things about Ireland because that’s where she’s from.
She didn’t let us say, ‘Londonderry’.
If you did, she’d make you stand by the wall with your back to the class so you couldn’t see anything.

I see an island with a round tower.
There’s no roof on the tower.
I reckon if I parachuted down right now, I’d land inside it, no problem.

The fields look really small.
Green.

‘The Emerald Isle’ Mam called it.
Emeralds are like diamonds except they’re green.
From up here, everything looks green, even the sea.
Not many people know that the sea is actually green.
Most people think it’s blue.

I say, ‘Faith?’

She says, ‘Ummm?’
the way adults do when they’re not listening.
I tap her elbow and this makes her turn away from the window and look at me.

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’

‘What were you going to say?’

‘Nothing.’

‘I swear to God, Milo .
.
.’

‘OK, OK, I was just wondering if we’re going to see your birth mother as soon as we get off the plane.’

Faith shakes her head.
‘Will you keep your voice down?’
Her whisper sounds like a hiss.
She looks around but no one is listening.
Most of them are looking at the sea and the fields and the island and the tower.
She puts her elbows on the table top in front of her.
It’s still down but it’s supposed to be up by now.
She pushes her hands into her hair.

I say, ‘I thought that’s why we were here.
So you could talk to her.’

She says, ‘It is, but .
.
.
Milo, look, it’s .
.
.
it’s complicated.
You’re just nine.
You don’t understand.’

Adults always tell kids they don’t understand instead of saying that they don’t know how to explain it.
Miss Williams doesn’t let us say, ‘I don’t know’.
She says you have to make a stab at it.

I only want to know if we’re going to visit the lady when we land.
And if we’re not, then I just want to know what we’re going to do instead.
I like having a plan.
When you have a plan, you know what’s coming.
When you’re a little kid, you don’t think about what’s coming.
But I’ll be ten soon.
Double digits.
Damo says I’ll be a pre-teen, like him.
A pre-teen is like being a teenager except you don’t need to shave and you don’t have spots yet.
Damo has three hairs under each arm now.
He says he got them two days after he turned ten.
He’s always wearing tops with no sleeves.
He hangs off the monkey bars at the park, so that everyone can see them.

I say, ‘So?’

Faith says, ‘What?’

And I say, ‘So what?’
and that makes her smile and I love when Faith smiles so I don’t ask her again.

The landing is really bouncy, which is pretty exciting.
The lady in the seat in front of Faith doesn’t like it.

She says, ‘Jesus, Mary and holy St Joseph, preserve us.’
Then she blesses herself loads of times.
I think Ireland is a pretty holy place.
Mrs O’Reilly was Irish and she was dead holy.
She went to mass on Sundays and gave out to us if we had a ham sandwich on Fridays.
You’re not supposed to eat meat on Fridays if you’re holy.
Not even chicken nuggets, which have hardly any meat in them at all.

I’ve only been to mass four times, I think.
When I got christened and when I made my First Holy Communion, and then the two masses after the accident.
Faith didn’t want me to go to the first one.
Dad and Faith had a big fight about it.

Dad said, ‘He needs to be there.
He needs to understand.’

Faith said, ‘He’s only nine years old.’

Dad said, ‘I know what age my own son is, thank you very much.’

By then Faith was crying and Dad said something like, ‘Your mother would have wanted him there.’
And that’s when Faith started shouting at Dad.
‘What the hell would you know about what Mam wanted?’
Dad didn’t even tell her to stop shouting and saying hell.

Later, when Damo asked me why my eyes were red, I said, ‘I ate a chilli pepper,’ and he said, ‘A whole one?’
and I said, ‘Yeah,’ and he said, ‘A raw one?’
and I said, ‘Yeah,’ and he said, ‘Awesome,’ and that made me stop thinking about Dad and Faith shouting, and Mam not being here anymore.

I see Faith’s bag on the carousel and I drag it off.
It’s pretty heavy for just a couple of days but that’s because Faith is a girl and girls need more clothes than boys.
Sometimes Imelda wears three different outfits in one day but Carla always wears the same jeans, even if there’re grass stains on the knees.

When we get outside, Faith lights a cigarette and checks the bus timetable.
Afterwards, she says, ‘Let’s go,’ and I pick up my bag and follow her, even though I don’t know where we’re going to or how long it’s going to take to get there.

And I don’t ask.

It’s probably because I’m nearly ten now.
Double digits.
A pre-teen.
I’m going to check my armpits when we get to wherever we’re going, because you just never know, do you?