Lifesaving for Beginners

girl because everything is pink. The other kid is holding her mam’s hand. They’re both wearing mittens, the same colour, so it looks like a pair of hands except one of them is really big and one of them is really small. The dad is carrying the shopping bags. I wait until they’re crossing and then I cross too. People probably think we’re a family.
    There’s a long queue in the post office and the man behind the glass screen keeps looking down the line and then looking at his watch and shaking his head. Mam used to love it when there was a queue at the Funky Banana. She’d rub her hands and say, ‘We’ll eat like kings tonight, my son.’ I don’t think the man behind the counter loves queues as much as Mam.
    It takes ages to get to the top of the queue. The man behind the screen looks at me like I’ve called him a name or picked my nose right in front of his face. ‘You want to clear your account?’
    ‘No. Thank you.’ Sometimes, if you say please and thank you, it makes adults smile, but not all the time. Not this time. ‘I just want to take out one hundred and fifty-three pounds and forty-one pence, please.’
    ‘But that’s all you have in your account.’
    I say, ‘I know.’ I point to my post office book, which I have slipped under the glass between us so he can see it too. See the number at the bottom. One hundred and fifty-three pounds and forty-one pence.
    The man rubs his eyes as if he hasn’t slept for a really long time. Maybe he hasn’t. Maybe that’s what’s wrong with him.
    He says, ‘So you do want to clear your account, then?’
    ‘Does that mean the account will be closed?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘I don’t want to close it because I’ll be saving up again. Half my pocket money every—’
    ‘Your account won’t be closed.’
    ‘OK. So can I have my money? Please? One hundred and fifty-three pounds and forty-one pence?’
    He sighs. ‘Does your mother know you’re here?’
    I nod. ‘Yeah. I mean yes. She does.’
    He sighs again. He opens a drawer with a key. He counts out the money. Three fifty-pound notes. Three pound coins. Two twenty-pence pieces. One penny. It’s all there. He pushes it under the glass, towards me.
    I say, ‘Thank you.’
    He says, ‘NEXT.’
    I don’t go outside until I have the money inside the pocket of my jeans. Just in case. I’ve never actually seen a mugger but I’ve heard about them.
    I can always start saving again for a PlayStation 3 when I get back. Sully has one and, when he’s in a good mood, he lets me and Damo have a go. If a girl lets him kiss her, Sully gets in a good mood. He says he’s done sex with girls. Loads of times. When he’s away at the war, he locks his PlayStation 3 inside his wardrobe.
    One hundred and fifty-three pounds and forty-one pence. That’s worth more than half a PlayStation 3.
    I got more than that for my First Holy Communion but I spent some of it on a new snorkel and facemask. Mam said I should put the rest in the post office because you never know when you might be glad of a few bob. Your First Holy Communion is when you eat the bread, except it’s supposed to be the body of Jesus. And the wine is the blood, but we didn’t get to drink the wine. Only the priest got to do that.
    My jeans are in the laundry basket on the landing so I take them out and put them into the bag. They don’t smell bad. They just have the grass stains on them from the game of Bulldog Takedown we played at school the other day. I have three clean pairs of boxers.
    The socks I find don’t match and have holes in the toes. They feel dead uncomfortable. Mam cut my toenails every Saturday night after my bath. I told her I didn’t need a bath on Saturday nights on account of going to my lifesaving class once a week and then a regular swim as well. That’s like having a bath. Twice. In one week. She’d tickle my toes when she was cutting my nails and, even though I’m too old for tickles, I’d laugh anyway. You can’t help it. Not when it’s your toes.
    I do it myself now. Cut my toenails. Except that I keep forgetting. That might be why most of my socks have holes in the toes.
    In the end, I find four socks. They’re all too big. I think they’re Ant’s. Or Adrian’s. And they don’t match or anything like that. But there’re no holes in them. Not yet anyway.
    Faith is talking to Dad on the phone. He says he’ll be here in an hour. I hope he’s not talking on the phone and driving at the same time because