“We did not nearly have a car crash. We sat in a car and then my dad turned up.”
“And what if your dad hadn’t turned up? No, no, no, no, no. No.”
She was still saying no when the lesson was over and we were hurrying through the Strand. I said, “Hey, d’you want to go to Newz and Booze and look at the magazines like we used to?”
“No. I’ve got to pick my little brother up from the childminder’s.”
“I didn’t know you had a little brother.”
“You don’t know a lot of things.”
Florida’s brother is three, he’s got loads of curly hair and when we picked him up from the childminder’s he was wearing an anorak with the hood pulled up really tight around his head and carrying a stick.
“He’s a knight at the moment,” said Florida. “The hood is his helmet. The stick is his sword. If I tell him you’re a dragon, he will kill you.” The little boy held my hand.
“What’s your name?” I said to him.
“Orlando.”
“My mom and dad went there on their honeymoon. Orlando in America. That’s where Disney World is. And Sea World. And the Magic Kingdom.”
“This place I won tickets for—it’s better than all those places.”
“How do you know?”
“Because it’s got this ride called the Rocket. It’s the greatest ride in the history of the world.”
“Why don’t you get your own dad to go?”
“He doesn’t want to. Anyway, I’m the dad—that’s the whole point.”
“Liam, look, you look a bit old for your age, but no one’s really going to think you’re my dad. I’m only three months younger than you! And you don’t act like a dad. Dads don’t steal fast cars.”
“I didn’t steal it. I sat in it. Anyway, I’ve been studying.”
“Liam, what are you on about?”
“I’ve been getting dad skills. I’ve made a scientific study of my dad. I’ve copied all the playlists off his iPod onto my phone. Look. Oasis, Oasis, Oasis and Oasis. I’ve learned the lyrics to all their songs. I can sing like a dad. Listen.”
“What?”
“I’ve been monitoring his conversation and his lifestyle too. So I can talk like a dad. Want to hear?”
“I already know what dads talk like. Dads say, ‘What time will you be home?…Don’t be late…. I’ll come and pick you up.’” She turned to face me. “My dad takes an interest. He takes care of me. If I go off to some theme park, he is going to notice.”
I butted in. “Ah, now, I’ve thought of that. I’ve written two letters….” I got them out of my Little Stars folder to show her. “One’s supposed to be from your mom to the school, saying you’ve got to have your appendix out. The other one—which is on proper school notepaper—is from the guidance counselor, saying you’ve been specially selected for a Gifted and Talented trip to the Lake District.”
We were turning the corner into a little cul-de-sac. A couple of lads were playing soccer, and Ibiza was sitting on a wall. This must be Florida’s house and I still hadn’t persuaded her.
She was opening the door now and letting Orlando and Ibiza in. I wondered if her dad was in. But no. “He’s busy,” she said. “Real dads are, you know.” She closed the door on me.
To be honest, this was proving harder than I’d expected. I gave it one last shot. I pushed the school letter through the letter box and shouted in after it, “Read it! It’s brilliant.”
As you may be aware, Waterloo High has for a long time had a relationship with the South Lakeland Activity Center near Kendal. The possibility has arisen for some specially selected Year Seven pupils to attend a Gifted and Talented course at the center. Activities at the center include kayaking, abseiling, walking, pond dipping, drystone walling and nature study. Your child is one of a very few chosen for a place on this program, which will be fully funded by the Education Authority. It will be free. We strongly urge you to allow your child to benefit from this once-in-a-lifetime experience. Please sign the form below.
After a couple of minutes Florida opened the door again. I thought she’d be impressed. She said, “All this? To go on a ride?”
“Well, there’s more than one ride. And the park’s not in Bootle, you know. You have to get there. All the transport’s sorted though. I think they’re sending a limo.”
“A limo? Like a real limo?”
Now she was interested.
“Yeah. A limo. You know, like a celebrity.”
“Where is this theme park?”
I said, “Well, you know. It’s down south. You’ll need your passport for ID and stuff. You have got one, haven’t you?”
I waited. Eventually she said, “I’ll think about it.”
I think it was good strategy to just say, “Down south,” and not how far south.
I didn’t say it was quite a long way south and I certainly didn’t mention that it was a really long way east. In China.
Hello, Lucky Winners
It’s no good just talking like a dad—you have to dress like one too. So on Monday night I had a look in his wardrobe. Dad wears the same jeans every day except Sunday, even though he owns four pairs. One pair was too tight on the waist. And one was from when he was trying to wear more interesting colors. They were an unusual shade of custard. They would’ve been a good buy for a chameleon planning to hide in a trifle. I knew Dad wouldn’t miss them so I took them, along with Talk to Your Teen, and stuck them in the special waterproof outdoor-activities backpack Mom bought me, thinking I was going to the Lakes.
At 7:20 on Tuesday morning I texted Florida: “Limoz here.” Ten minutes later she was knocking at the door.
“Where’s this limo then?” she hissed. “I knew you were making it up.”
“Hello, Florida,” said Dad. “Are you going on this trip too then?”
“Yes, Mr. Digby.”
“I’m cooking some bacon,” said Dad. “D’you want a bit while you’re waiting for the minibus?”
“Minibus?” said Florida, glaring at me. But just as she did, the transport arrived. It slid round the corner like a glossy shark—a long, black limo.
“Blimey!” Dad whistled. “School geography trips have changed a bit since my day.”
“It’s not a geography trip,” said Mom. “It’s for Gifted and Talented pupils. Didn’t you read the letter?”
“Yeah, but…I just didn’t know he was that gifted. Or that talented. And I didn’t know Florida was gifted at all.”
Florida snarled. Mom said, “Of course she’s talented! Don’t you remember? She was Sophie in The BFG. She remembered all her lines. What’s that smell?”
“Oh,” said Dad. “My bacon.” And he ran back into the kitchen.
A man was getting out of the limo now and opening the back passenger door. People up and down the street were looking out of their front doors and peeping out from behind their curtains.
Florida said, “Let’s go.”
I said, “Yeah,” and kissed my mom and shouted goodbye to Dad. Then we climbed into the back of the limo. I looked back for a second—at my mom and dad in the doorway, with bacon smoke blowing out of the door from behind them and the smoke alarm blasting away.
Mom shouted, “Look after him, Florida.”
And I said, “See you.” I didn’t think then that maybe I wouldn’t see them again. And that that would be my last sight of them. I’ve thought about it since though.
It wasn’t some bachelorette-party stretch limo, by the way. It was a nice black Audi Quattro. There was a really polite satnav. Dad’s satnav just goes, “Left…right…stop…” and it sounds like an alien storm trooper who has hijacked your car. This one had a flutey girl’s voice and it said please and thank you.
The driver had a special cap and gray uniform. His name was Barney. There were two big paper bags on the backseat. “Goody bags,” said Barney. “Just like at the Oscars, eh?”
If “limo” had a magical effect on Florida, you should hav
e seen what “Oscars” did. Apparently when celebrities go to the Oscars or whatever, they’re all given a bag full of complimentary products. Today, as Florida very quickly pointed out, we were the celebrities.
She leaned back in her seat and looked out at the streets we were leaving behind. “I wonder,” she said, “what the ordinary people are doing today.” Then she started rooting around in her goody bag. She found a brand-new fourth-generation Draxcommunications phone, a Draxcom watch, Draxcom sunglasses, and a Draxcom T-shirt, a box of chocolates with the Draxcom logo on the front and a little pink Gamemaiden—which is like a girly Game Boy made by Draxcom.
I got the phone in my goody bag too. It was pretty cosmic. It had DraxWorld on it, and Draxcall—which lets you use bits of video instead of a ringtone. Florida made a video ringtone of a crowd of people in a studio, all clapping and cheering and calling her name, as though she was a guest on a chat show.
The rest of the grown-ups’ goody bag was different, though. Instead of chocolate and stuff, I got a voucher for a car-hire company, a little book about golf courses, and a thing like a blue credit card that helped you work out your stress levels.
Mine said, “Relaxed.”
The satnav said, “Now, as we cruise along the bypass, let’s take a moment to listen to a message from your host, Dr. Drax.”
Hello, lucky winners. I cannot wait to see you all at our secret headquarters and I hope you’re having a comfortable journey. I ran this competition for fathers because I believe that fathers have a lot to give. My father, for instance, gave me the Drax Communications Company. For my twelfth birthday. Bye for now. And see you at a secret location very very soon.
It turned out that even though Florida knew the name of every single person who had ever been on a reality TV show, she had never even heard of Dinah Drax.
“How can you not have heard of Dinah Drax? You’ve got DraxWorld on your phone.”
“I didn’t know Drax was a person. I thought it was just a word, like ‘phone’ or ‘Mercedes.’”
“Mercedes is a person. She was the daughter of the man who owned the company.”
“Never heard of her either. She’s not a celebrity, is she? Otherwise she’d be in the magazines, wouldn’t she?”
“Lots of people are famous who are not in your magazines.”
“Like who?”
I made a list. It was completely amazing how many very famous people Florida had never heard of. For instance, Rob Pardo, Jeff Kaplan and Tom Chilton—she’d never heard of them, even though they invented World of Warcraft and revolutionized online game playing! Tolkien—cosmic author of Lord of the Rings? No. She got confused between Buzz Aldrin—second man on the moon—and Buzz Lightyear—a toy. She recognized Hitler’s second name but she thought his first name was Heil.
Barney gave a little snort when he heard that.
Florida snapped, “Excuse me, what are you laugh…” but she didn’t finish her sentence. She just said, “Wow!”
We had just driven into a field and there, on the grass, where you might expect to see a cow, was a big red airplane.
“That,” said Florida, “is a Learjet, as flown by John Travolta.”
Barney smiled. “You may not know much about world leaders of the twentieth century, but you’re definitely up to date with celebrity transport.”
“Whose is it?” asked Florida.
“For today,” said Barney, “it’s yours.”
I did think that going on a plane might make Florida suspicious about just where Infinity Park was. But she was so thrilled by the celebrityness of it all that she forgot to wonder where it was going to take her. In fact, before the car had even stopped she was somehow standing on the steps of the plane. I said thank you for the lift and tried to make myself look as dadly as possible. I grabbed a newspaper out of the seat pocket and stuck it under my arm and brushed my hair forward. I definitely felt older.
When I got near to Florida she spread out her arms and grinned at me. I couldn’t figure out what she thought she was doing but then she hissed, “Photo. Take photos. With your phone. It’s what dads do.”
“My dad doesn’t.”
“Well, mine does. He’s like my own personal paparazzi.”
“Paparazzo. Paparazzi is when there’s more than one.”
“And he doesn’t correct everything I say either.”
Competitive Dadliness
There was a small, neat woman waiting on the steps of the plane. She had very white teeth and her hair was as smooth and black as Playmobil. She offered Florida her hand and said, “Florida Digby! So pleased to meet you. How does it feel to have one of the four best dads in the world?”
“Who are you?” said Florida.
“I,” said the woman, “am Dinah Drax.”
Dr. Drax! The woman herself! When it was my turn to shake her hand I got so excited I forgot to let go of it. She must’ve thought I was trying to get one of her fingers as a souvenir. I tried to think of something clever to say, but all I could manage was “I love your phones.”
“A lot of people do, you know. Thank goodness.”
“He’s always going on about you,” said Florida.
“All complimentary, I hope.”
“I don’t know—I never listen to him. Love this plane.”
The plane was impressive, I have to say. It didn’t have rows of seats like a normal plane. It had couches and easy chairs and little tables. There were three children down at the front and Galaxy Trader playing on a big video screen. And three dads at the back, on the couches.
“Maybe Florida would like to go and play with the other children, while I introduce you to the other dads.”
“Okay.”
“You can let go of my hand now, Mr. Digby.”
“Sorry.”
I hadn’t known until then that Dinah Drax was Chinese. Drax isn’t her real name. Her real name means something like “Victorious Over Life’s Tribulations,” but she changed it to Drax because “Victorious Over Life’s Tribulations” didn’t fit on the side of a phone.
She took me to the back of the plane, where the dads were sitting around. One of them was a skinny man with a big fat book about prime numbers. Now I thought I knew all about prime numbers, because of being Gifted and Talented, et cetera. But what I know about them comes to about a page. This book was at least a thousand pages long, and he’d nearly finished it. So he was roughly a thousand times cleverer than me. He looked up from the book and smiled.
“I’m Samson Two’s father,” he said. He pointed over at Samson Two, who was sitting next to Florida, also reading a big fat book.
“I’m Liam,” I said, and before I could ask him why Samson Two had such a weird name, he said, “And my name is Samson One. I am from Waterloo,” he said.
“I’m from Waterloo too,” I said, “but not the one with the neighboring jungle, the one on the bypass.”
He went back to reading his book.
The next dad had a bald head and a nice blue suit. He gave me a card with his name and phone number on it and pointed to a boy who was hogging the games console. “That dear, lovable boy,” he said, “is my son, Hasan Xanadu. And I’m his father, Edhem. You can call me Eddie.”
A man with very short hair and a big chest gave me a nod and said, “Martinet, at your service.” He took my hand and gripped it so tight that I wasn’t sure whether he was greeting me or trying to initiate unarmed combat. “I’m the father of Max. Max! Greet the gentleman.”
At the far end of the plane a boy with exactly the same haircut as Mr. Martinet jumped up and gave me exactly the same nod. “Max is short for Maximum,” said his dad, “which is what Maximum is. He’s the Maximum Martinet.”
“My name’s Liam Digby,” I said. “Please call me Liam.”
He said, “Please call me Monsieur Martinet.”
“Okay.”
I said, “I’m Florida’s father.” That was the first time I’d ever said it out loud. I could feel everyone looking at m
e. Any minute now, I thought, one of them is going to say, “No, you’re not. You’re twelve.” So I said the most convincingly dadly thing I could think of. I said, “Anyone watch the game last night?” They all answered at once.
“They need to buy a big defender,” said Eddie Xanadu.
“The back four lack discipline,” said Please-Call-Me-Monsieur Martinet.
“The laws of probability say that you can’t win the Champions League just on goals. Preventing opposition goals is equally important,” said Samson One.
So easy. I hadn’t even seen the match!
I didn’t even know if there was a match!
I just seemed to have a natural talent for being a grown-up.
“Well,” said Dr. Drax, smiling, “I must fly! That’s my little joke, by the way. I do fly the plane myself. I find it’s the best way to keep our destination top secret. I’m not much of a pilot, but I’m sure I’ll pick it up as we go along.”
Everyone stared at her.
“Another of my little jokes!” she laughed. “Caught you all again! In fact, Daddy gave me my first flying lesson when I was still small enough to sit on his knee. I’m really rather a good pilot.”
And off she went to the cockpit. I’m not sure if it’s normal for pilots to be jokey like that, but if it is, it’s not a good idea. I grabbed hold of the arms of the seat, closed my eyes and tried to think of the plane as just another ride.
As rides go, the flight to China was a bit lengthy—twelve hours, I think. And once you got used to the idea that you were thirty thousand feet in the air, it wasn’t that much of a thrill. But the view was pretty cosmic—miles and miles of clouds, like a country made of squirty cream. I remember watching the plane’s shadow moving across the white—like a little dog running over snow.
Eddie Xanadu was sitting next to me. He said, “It’s a nice plane, yes?”
“Best I’ve ever been in.”
“My Hasan has an ambition to buy a plane like this. And he will do it. He is so good with money—even when he was very small, at his first school. In my country, things are always changing because of wars and so on. One time, the school uniform changed. First you wore a white shirt, now you must wear a blue shirt. Everyone goes to the shops to find the blue shirts. There are none. Next day Hasan comes to school and opens his bag—hundred blue shirts! He bought them all! Everyone bought a shirt from him. Just a little more expensive than the shop. So he makes money. By the time he is twelve, he had enough money to buy a house. He rents it out. Are you good with money, Mr. Digby?”