Chapter 5
Telling Bethany
The next morning I was tired and grumpy. Dad shouted that it was seven thirty. Like he always does. I heard him but I went back to sleep and don’t remember anything else until Dad was stood over me, shaking my shoulder.
“Jay!” he said impatiently. “Jay! It’s a-quarter-to-eight.”
I mumble and moan in response and complain that I don’t feel very well. But Dad’s not having it and tells me that he’ll wait until a-quarter-past to drive me the short distance into school.
That means I’ll miss Beth.
Bethany Taylor-Hall is in my form at school and has long, straight blonde hair and she’s pretty. We’ve been friends since we were small and we sometimes get accused of being boyfriend and girlfriend. I don’t think I could be Beth’s boyfriend because she’s very bossy and very, very bright. Beth’s in the top class for English, French and Science. She’s taken to French like a duck to water. Beth also plays the violin in the school orchestra and had a lead role in last year’s school play. So I guess you could say she’s pretty switched on. Mum and Dad make jokes on our behalf. Jokes like Beth only hangs around with me and Kyle because she just ‘wants to see how the other half live’ and ‘she’s only mates with you two ‘cause she feels sorry for you.’ Stuff like that. Really, I don’t see why Beth goes to our school. You see, Beth’s parents are pretty posh. When me and Kyle went round there once her step-Dad asked us to take off our shoes. I didn’t see why we had to do that because the downstairs had wooden floors. We had real smoothies whisked up with real fruit there and then. Me and Kyle are used to cheap coke or squash.
Kyle is probably my best friend. I say probably because he probably is. But sometimes he can be a pain and a big mouth. For example, he once told Kylie Smith that I fancied her and everybody knows that Kylie Smith hates my guts. Then another time he told the bus driver that I wasn’t coming and I missed the bus to town. And he put sneezing powder on my Vicks inhaler when I had a cold. And he told everyone that I’d got caught kissing Mel Mulvey by his tutor. Nobody kisses Mel Mulvey. But then he lets me play on his new PC and his Mum cooks me tea and lets me stay over.
So I decide to get up. Stiffly and with eyes half closed like curtains during the evening. I pulled the rumpled bedclothes off me and groped my way towards my crimson school uniform draped over the chair in front of my PC desk. Then I remembered last night. I had made a decision to tell Bethany about my dream and Elizabeth Raynor. I needed to tell a friend. Someone my own age. I needed their opinion.
I needed Beth’s opinion.
I got dressed and wobbled into the bathroom, splashed water onto my eyes and made a half-hearted attempt to clean my teeth. When I had finished I stood up to adjust myself in the mirror. I realised some toothpaste had found its way onto my tie. I tried to get it off with a flannel but only succeeded in leaving a damp patch on it. I could still see the toothpaste stain.
I gave up on the toothpaste. I collected the rest of my stuff from my bedroom and my lunch from the kitchen. I told Dad ‘I was ok’ and that ‘I would walk.’
“I wish you could have told me earlier. I could have been in work by now.”
I hurried along to school, kicking my way through the first of the fallen autumn leaves. Dad passed me in his white van. He papped his horn gently as he turned left out of our street and into another busy day. I was desperate to speak to Beth before we got into school. School was too noisy and busy to do any talking.
I passed pockets of kids from our school who shouted at me, wanting me to stop. But I ignored them and in the distance I could see Beth with her sister. They were moving fast. They were nearly at the school gates. I looked at my watch. It was almost half-past-eight! The first bell was about to go. I moved faster along Charlotte Street but then realised I had no chance so I slowed down and watched as Beth and her sister disappeared in through the school gates and were swallowed by the buildings. I really didn’t want to go through the day without telling Beth about the little girl. I stopped and leaned against a parked car and let other late-arrivers pass me. Most of them were Year 11’s so I didn’t know them and they either smirked, smiled or ignored me. Others I did know and they told me to ‘hurry up, Webster, you’ll be late.’ Of course my real surname isn’t Webster. It’s Webber. I still don’t know why some people call me that.
The river of crimson passing by eventually becomes a stream, and then a trickle, and then a few drops. I look at my watch and know that the second bell has gone and I should be in registration. But I’m not going. Not today. For only the second time in my short life I’m too tired and miserable to cope with all the fuss and commotion of the school day.
So I head home.
I’m not a bad person. I don’t find being dishonest easy, but as I walked home and kicked the leaves back the other way I couldn’t stop thinking about Dad and how angry he’d be if he knew I had bunked-off school. I grew nervous because I kept on playing a movie inside my head. The movie where he comes home for dinner instead of staying at work and catches me on my PC or watching daytime TV and eating crisps. If he did come home early I decided to tell him that I had felt sick and had to come home. So I would slip into my piranhas when I got in. Just in case. Getting back into my pyjamas was a nice thought. I was happy with that.
Isn’t it funny how different people inhabit your neighbourhood during different times of the day. Because all the kids from five to sixteen were safely out of the way, the streets were now dotted with mums and toddlers and prams and more pensioners than you could shake a stick at. I had to navigate a pair of gossiping Mums with buggies and chatting old ladies in my street alone. The pensioners glared at me suspiciously and I felt their eyes burning into my blazer as I opened our front gate. One of them had a West Highland Terrier on a lead that yapped as I passed. Now safely inside I could still hear it in the distance and it must have carried on barking for at least half-an-hour. The TV eventually drowned it out.
As soon as I had plonked myself in front of the telly and opened my first bag of crisps I began to feel guilty. I kept glancing out of the window like the man in my dream, expecting Dad at any moment. Nine turned to ten. Ten to eleven and eleven to twelve. To be honest I was bored and my mind kept on re-running the conversation with the little girl and the dream of the old-fashioned, middle-aged man. I kept seeing him loading his pipe and peering out from behind net curtains.
What did it all mean? Was it a dream? If it was a dream was it a message? I tried to remember what people had told me about why people have the same dream time after time. I had stayed over at Kyle’s one wet and windy night and his family were telling ghost stories (why do people do this when it’s dark and the weather’s bad? As if things weren’t bad enough). Kyle’s Nan told us about her Nan’s recurring dream. Kyle’s Nan’s Nan explained how her Nan dreamt that she was falling from a cliff. She wasn’t worried about this as in dreams sometimes people aren’t scared. But what was important was that, as she fell from this dream cliff, she kept noticing a white house perched on one side of this cliff. In the distance. It was a beautiful house with verandas and windows that glinted back the sunlight. So, night after night, Kyle’s Nan’s Nan dreamt that she was falling. Falling from the top of a cliff on a beautiful sunny day with a big white house in the distance. So the tale goes, Kyle’s Nan’s Nan went to see a gypsy looking for an answer. The gypsy told her that it was how she was going to die or, weirdly, how she’d died before. At the time I’d never heard of reincarnation so I was confused. But Kyle’s Nan’s Nan was satisfied with the gypsy's answer and she went about her life never having the dream again.
Funny thing was, when Kyle’s Dad asked Kyle’s Nan exactly how she had died, Kyle’s Nan said that she had been hit by a horse and cart.
The telephone rang at twelve-forty exactly. I was scared to pick it up in case it was school or Dad and in the end it stopped. It rang again at twelve-forty-five. This time I picked it up.
“Hello?” I a
nswered timidly.
“It’s me!” It was Beth. “Where are you?”
“At home ill.”
“Ill?”
“Yeah. Course.”
Who was I kidding? You couldn’t fool Beth.
“Are you ok?” Beth said, unconvinced.
“Sort of.”
“I’m coming round.”
“But you’ve got school.”
“So have you. I’ll be there in fifteen.”
I had only just got dressed when the doorbell rang. I ran down the stairs two at a time. I kicked the post out of the way, post I had noticed but forgot to pick up.
“Alright?” said Beth, and she was in.
She flounced past me to stand in the middle of our front room. “C’m ‘ere then. Let’s have a look at you.”
Dad sometimes called her an 'old mother hen' and sometimes he was right. Sheepishly, I did as I was told. Beth squinted at me when I got up close and used fingers to pull down the bottom of my eyes and peer in. I could smell shampoo on her. Strawberry or something.
“There’s nothin’ wrong with you.” She plonked down into one of our chairs. “What’s really wrong, Jay?” She leant forward and said quietly, “Is Donkers bullying you again?”
Donkers was a big Year 9 and as thick as a dinosaur. For a while he had ambushed me on my way home for no other reason than he thought we were great friends. It felt like a grizzly bear had taken a shine to me. One day he punched me hard on the nose and put me out of school for a week. Dad rang the school and Donkers had a talking to and was excluded for a day.
He hasn’t spoken to me since.
“No. It’s not Donkers.”
Beth cocked her head curiously sideways. “Then what is it?”
I must have looked uncomfortable. Beth sensed this and shifted nearer.
“Jay, if something is worrying you then you know you should be telling me.”
And she was right. So I did. The dream. The voices. But I left Lizzie out of it. When I’d finished Beth collapsed back into her chair with a puff of soft cushion. She stared at me.
“Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“Well, I felt stupid.” It was my excuse and it was true.
“Have you taken a look under your bed?”
“No.” Then I added, “Why, what do you expect to find? Narnia?”
Beth winced at this then thought for a bit. “I want to take a look.”
“What?”
“Let’s take a look!”
I didn’t want to. Besides Beth had to get back to school.
“I really can’t be bothered, Beth,” I winged as I followed her upstairs to my room.
I was embarrassed as well really. My room was a bit of a mess and I couldn’t remember if I had left some old pairs of pants on the floor. I hadn’t as it turned out but there were socks and other boy stuff littering the place.
“It stinks in there!” said Beth. She had stopped at the doorway and was examining the chaos inside.
She was right. It did. My bedroom smelled of dirty clothes and sweat. The window was shut tightly and so the smell wasn’t going anywhere. In fact it was worse because the window hadn't been opened for a while. At least a fortnight!
“Don’t go in then,” I said as I pushed past her.” I know there’s nothing here anyway.”
Beth took a deep breath (or she might have held it. I can’t be certain) and stepped into the abyss.
We quickly shoved the bed to one side and it was as I had last seen it. A patch of light green in a room of well-used carpet.
“Funny how this is less worn here,” said Beth.
“Not really.”
Beth shot me another stern look. Then we stood for a few moments wondering what to do next. A car passed by outside.
“I know, “said Beth,” let’s take a look under the carpet.”
I wasn’t sure about this. It could make a mess of it and what if Dad found out? I already felt guilty for not going to school.
“I’m not sure, Beth. It’ll make a mess.”
“Who’s going to notice scaredy-cat? It’s under your bed.”
Beth shook her head and dropped to her hands and knees, feeling for the edge of the carpet by the skirting board. ‘She must think I’m a right wimp’ I thought.
I got down to help her.
It didn’t take us long to find the edge. The old carpet came away easily and with a puff of fluffy dust and that musty, mouldy smell that you get from things that have been still or covered up. There was another thin layer of brown underneath which Beth called the underlay. That was tricky to get up. It seemed to be stuck to the floorboards. When we eventually managed to peel it back it left bits of itself clinging to the old wood. Surprisingly, the boards that were showing didn’t seem that old and we could see the odd chip and the heads of the nails that had been driven in to hold them in place.
Still on our hands and knees me and Beth both looked at what we’d discovered.
“You’re right,” said Beth,” there’s nothing here.” She got to her feet and brushed her uniform down. “I’d better get back to school.”
“Hang on!” I protested, struggling up with stiff legs, “what about putting everything back?”
“Sorry. Gotta go!” And she was down the stairs. “I’ll call you later!”
The front door slammed behind her.
“Thanks,” I shouted back, too little and too late.
So I stood there, hands on hips, looking at the space beneath my bed and another car passed by outside. I wondered how things could seem so different during the day. In daylight it was just a carpet, floorboards and a bed.
Before I put the underlay and carpet back into position I knelt back down and ran my hand over the smooth wood wondering what was under the boards. I’d never seen under floorboards before.
I’d ask Dad.