Tao (13 page)

A few seconds later, the door opened and he stuck his head back into the room.

“One last thing, Tao,” he called. “It was a fox.” And his head popped out the door again.

“It was a wolf!” I shouted after him. I could hear his big laugh as his footsteps disappeared down the corridor.

“Fox!” he shouted.

“Wolf!” I shouted back and I could hear whoever was in the next room joining in the laughter.

I lay back on the pillows and smiled to myself. I was glad that I hadn’t mentioned the voices in my head.

Kate and Paul collected me to drive me back to the holiday house. Mimi couldn’t come because I had to stretch out my leg along the back seat. Paul lifted me into the car and put my crutches on the floor.

It was a lovely sunny drive and I was glad to be out of the hospital. Kate kept turning around in her seat and patting my hand and smiling.

“Do you remember the first thing you said when you came out of the anaesthetic, Tao?” asked Paul out of the blue. He sounded mischievous.

I felt my face go red. I looked out the window. I could see the mountain that I had spent the night on in the distance. It looked soft and green and not a bit scary in the sunshine. I wondered what my wolf was doing.

“Well?” said Paul again.

Kate said nothing, but she was sitting very still.

“No,” I said and I laughed a little. “I can’t remember.”

Paul threw his head back and laughed loudly.

“Funny that,” he said. “I can’t either.” He patted Kate’s knee. She turned her head and gave me a funny grin. Her eyes were smiling. But she didn’t say anything.

It was a big relief to get the cast taken off my ankle five weeks after the holiday was over. The best thing was to be able to give my foot a good scratch.

“There is nothing worse than an itchy foot that you can’t scratch,” I told Rodent, who was having a big scratch himself.

The Head Honcho was very pleased, even though it would be another few weeks before the muscles in my foot were strong enough for football.

“The only player I have with a half-decent left foot and he goes and breaks it in the off-season,” he had said when he found out, and had thrown his arms up to the heavens.

I had made the big mistake of telling Kalem and David about hearing the Head Honcho’s voice in my head when I was lost on the mountain.

“Hearing voices in your head is the first sign of madness,” said David.

“Is there hair growing on the palms of your hands yet? Because that’s the second sign,” added Kalem.

Without thinking, I looked at the palms of my hands. Another mistake.

“And checking your palms is the third sign!” whooped Kalem and they both fell about the place as if it was the biggest joke.

“You’re a looper,” jeered David, and jumped out of the way when I swung my crutch at him.

I had got very used to my crutch, but it had been a bit of a nuisance during the holiday. It kept sinking in the sand when we went to the beach and I fell over quite a lot.

“Here we go again,” Conor would say as he pulled me up. “My wobbly little brother topples over once more.”

It didn’t stop me going in the water though. Paul taped this big black plastic binbag over my cast to keep it dry and I managed to splash about. But it was very hard to actually swim, even though the cast did feel lighter in the water.

The sun shone every day after I left the hospital and everybody was in a much better mood. Even Sally.

The best day was the fishing trip. Kate didn’t come because boats were not her thing and Sally could think of nothing more boring than sitting about waiting for a fish to bite, so they went off together to visit some sort of open organic farm.

“Talk about boring,” said Mimi, but I think they enjoyed themselves because they came back with seeds and catalogues and stuff and spent the whole of dinner making plans for Sally’s vegetable patch, when they weren’t teasing us.

“Not even one miserable little fish,” sneered Sally. “All day in a boat and you can’t even bring home one miserable little fish.”

Kate snorted with laughter when Sally said that, which started everyone off.

“Oh, but you should have seen the one that got away,” said Paul and stretched his hands out to show how big the imaginary fish that got away was.

“Got thrown away more like,” blurted out Conor, giving Mimi a look.

The truth is that we did catch three fish, but Mimi always found a reason to throw them back.

“That one is a baby,” she said about the first one that Conor caught. It was small all right, flopping around the bottom of the boat. “Its mammy will miss it. You should throw it back, Conor.”

Conor wasn’t too pleased, but he threw it back. Maybe he didn’t fancy killing it either.

The fish I caught was a big one. It was so exciting. I had been sitting there for ages, my rod hanging out the back of the boat and my broken foot propped up on the middle seat, while Paul rowed the boat across the lake.

“We’re taking the oars with us this time,” he’d said to me and winked as we pushed off. We had life jackets on this time, too.

The lake was much calmer than on the day when I nearly drowned and the sky was completely blue.

The fish took me by surprise.

“I’ve got one!” I yelled when the rod was nearly pulled out of my hand. “And it’s a big mother…”

Paul threw back his head and laughed and stuck the oars firmly in the water to steady the boat.

“Hold on tight, Tao,” said Mimi.

“Reel him in. Reel him in,” called Conor. The rod was bending so much that I thought it would break and I could barely turn the reel.

“It’s the Loch Ness Monster!” shouted Mimi, who was so excited that Paul had to tell her to sit still or she’d turn over the boat.

“Hardly … seeing as this isn’t even Loch Ness,” Conor told her sarcastically. He had to help me hold the rod and try to reel in the fish, who was beginning to get tired and not fighting so much. Mimi had the net and was dangling it over the side ready for action. Paul was doing his best to keep the boat steady and shouting encouragement at me.

“He’s a wily old fish, Tao, you’ve got to play him. Feed him some line,” he called out. “Now reel him in. Mimi, scoop him up with the net.”

“Yes!” I shouted.

And there he was. A huge fish … well, a quite big fish … thrashing about on the floor of the boat, and I had caught him all by myself … with only a little help.

Conor took the oars while Paul took the hook out of the fish’s mouth.

“Ah, the poor thing,” said Mimi. “It’s probably the daddy of my baby fish.”

“So what?” said Conor sharply.

“Well, we can’t kill it, can we?” she said. “It’s too cruel.”

“Well, Tao?” sighed Paul. “It’s up to you. It’s your fish.”

I looked at the fish and its small beady eye looked back at me.

“I don’t care,” I said, but I did a bit. “I don’t really like fish, anyway. Throw him back.”

Mimi was happy about that, but Conor threw his eyes to heaven as Paul, with a funny smile, carefully put the fish back into the water.

“Well, that’s just great.” Conor sounded fed up.

“We will keep the next one. Promise,” said Mimi.

Mimi caught the next one. It wasn’t huge like mine, but it was quite big and she nearly fell out of the boat in excitement.

“OK, we’ll keep this one,” she declared as Conor took out the hook.

“We will not!” said Conor, and he chucked Mimi’s fish back into the lake.

“Why did you do that?” shouted Mimi.

“Because it’s probably the wife of Tao’s fish or the best friend of my fish or the king of the fishes in this lake or—”

“All right,” interrupted Mimi. “I get the message, Conor. You’re really mean, you know that?” she finished crossly. But Conor just grinned at her.

“It’s like those tales of three wishes where they waste them all,” said Kate, cutting her fish finger in half. “The Tale of the Three Fishes.”

When I went to Dad and Jo’s house the twins wanted to hear the Tale of the Three Fishes again and then we had to act it out. The couch was the boat and I was Conor and Roger was me and Rachel was Mimi and the cushions all over the floor were fish. It made a change from
Mary Poppins
and, as usual, it ended up in a cushion fight.

Later, when the twins were in bed, Dad said that he and Jo had something to tell me. They both looked serious but happy at the same time. Dad was holding Jo’s hand, which he doesn’t normally do.

“Don’t look so worried, Tao,” smiled Jo. “It’s not bad news.”

We were all sitting in the living room. I wasn’t really sure I liked these adult “talks” very much.

“You tell him, Jo,” said Dad, which didn’t make me feel any better.

Jo blushed and then she took a deep breath and said, “Your father and I are getting married. That’s it. That’s our big news.”

I opened my mouth and closed it again.

“You look like one of those fish you threw back,” said Dad.

“It’s just that…” I stuttered. “I mean … does that mean that…?”

But I didn’t ask the question. Dad’s whole face was smiling and Jo’s eyes were twinkling. Jo guessed my question, but she guessed wrong.

“Don’t worry,” she said, putting her hand on mine. “It will make no difference in the world to you. This will always be your other home. It’s just that I will now officially be your wicked stepmother.”

“So does that answer your question, Tao?” asked Dad.

Well, it didn’t because that wasn’t my question. I was going to ask did it mean that Dad would never get back with Kate now. It was a bit of a stupid question and in the end I was glad that I hadn’t asked it. Because I already knew the answer and it somehow didn’t seem so important any more.

“Yes,” I said.

Jo smiled her big kind smile. “So how about a hug?”

She opened her arms to me and there was a “please” in her eyes. I hesitated a moment.

“Only if you want to,” she said quietly.

I did want to. So I gave Jo a hug and then I hugged Dad. If I am not careful, I will turn into a serial hugger, just like Kate.

Dad opened a bottle of champagne to celebrate and Jo put a cushion over her face when the cork shot out, because she was afraid it would hit her and take her eye out, but it just belted off the ceiling and the champagne bubbled out of the bottle.

“Just as well the twins would sleep through an earthquake,” said Dad and he poured me a small glass of champagne, but I didn’t like it at all, especially the way the bubbles went up my nose.

“I’ve a bottle of 7UP in the fridge,” said Jo, and went to get me some.

“I told Kate this morning,” said Dad, when Jo was in the kitchen. “She’s OK with it. Are you OK with it?”

I didn’t answer straight away. I tried hard to remember why I had always dreaded this day and I couldn’t. Jo came back and handed me a glass of 7UP.

“Yes,” I said. “I’m OK with it.”

Then we all clinked our glasses and drank a toast to Jo and Dad.

“And Tao,” added Jo.

I don’t remember ever seeing Dad look so happy.

“Dad and Jo are getting married,” was the first thing that I said to Kate when I saw her. “He said that he told you.”

“He did,” said Kate, looking up from her book. Rodent was sleeping on her lap. “About time, too. They were always a better couple than we were. Your dad and I never saw eye to eye.”

She was smiling. She didn’t mind. She didn’t mind at all. “Did you hear the big news?” she said.

That was an odd thing to say.

“Yes,” I said slowly. “I just told you…”

“No. Not that,” she laughed. “Marigold had her baby.”

I must have looked confused because she added quickly, “You know, Mimi’s Aunt M … the one who was pregnant.”

I remembered then, all right. I had put my hands on her big fat tummy.

Then the phone rang.

“Oh, that will be Mimi,” said Kate. “She’s dying to tell you herself. I told her when you’d be back.”

It was Mimi.

“It’s a boy,” she said. “Can you believe it? He weighs ten pounds. That’s absolutely tiny. But you’re not the baby’s uncle, after all, and I wouldn’t have been an Aunt M even if it had been a girl, because Aunt M is my mum’s sister. It’s very confusing.”

I had to agree with her there.

“It turns out the baby is my cousin and…” She went quiet for a minute to build up the excitement. “He’s your cousin, too!”

A stepmum and a new cousin in one day. My family was growing bigger by the minute.

“What’s his name?” I asked, but Mimi said that he had no name yet because Aunt M and Nicholas were so sure that it was going to be a girl and then they were going to call it Poppy or Petal, but there weren’t many boys called after flowers. Nicholas says that they are open to suggestions.

“You might think of a name, Tao,” said Mimi, all excited. “You named Scottie and that’s the other big news. Scottie laid her first organic egg this morning. Sally ate it.”

I laughed when I heard that. Then Mimi said that Paul was clearing out the spare room with all the junk in it and they were going to make it into a bedroom just for me, Tao, because I was part of their family now and their home was my home and her grandad was carving a name plate for the door that says: Tao’s Room. Wasn’t that great?

It was great. I had three homes and three families. Christmas was going to be amazing.

Then it was my turn to tell Mimi about Dad and Jo.

“I thought that they were married already,” said Mimi. “Next thing, my dad and your Kate will be getting married, I bet you!”

I remembered Kate’s look when Paul was teasing me on the way home from the hospital about what I had said when I awoke from the anaesthetic.

“I’d love it if they did,” added Mimi.

“Me too,” I said. It just popped out. But it was true.

Kate and I had one of our long chats before I went to bed. Kate calls them “heart-to-hearts”. There was a lot to talk about and it was all good. The radio was playing quietly in the background. We weren’t listening to it, but suddenly a song caught my attention.

“Who sings that?” I asked Kate, and I walked across to the radio and turned it up.