Lifesaving for Beginners

it’s still only twenty past nine in the morning. I think Adrian is in the kitchen but I don’t want to go to the kitchen because that’s where Mam is supposed to be. When she’s not at the café, she’s in the kitchen, baking something. Or just sitting down, listening to the radio. Adrian is not supposed to be in the kitchen. He’s supposed to be at the university in London with Ant. And I’m supposed to be in Miss Williams’s class, probably writing some story, like My Plans for the Summer Holidays. Something boring like that.
    Everything is sort of back to front. Like breakfast. Me and Adrian ate slices of pizza, left over from last night. We drank Coke as well. Even if it was my birthday, Mam wouldn’t let me drink Coke for breakfast and my birthday is the same day as Christmas Day, which is sort of like two celebrations in one, I suppose.
    People keep knocking on the front door. Neighbours, mostly. Mrs Barber from across the road left a gigantic bowl with a lid on the top. She said it was beef casserole. There’s celery in it. I hate celery. I put it in the fridge. Mam would call it a terrible waste if I threw it in the bin.
    The clothes I wore yesterday are on the floor. I’m supposed to put my socks and boxers into the linen basket every night. ‘There’re no skivvies in this house.’ That’s what Mam says.
    I’m going to have to remember to brush my teeth from now on. Every day. Otherwise they’ll rot in my head. Mrs Barber’s teeth look lovely and white and straight but that’s only because they’re not real. Her real teeth rotted in her head because she never took care of them. She told me that one day, when she was in the house and Mam was giving out because I hadn’t brushed my teeth.
    Damo didn’t call for me this morning. He always calls for me. Or else I call for him. Whoever’s ready first. Usually me, because of Damo and the way he stays in bed way after his mam tells him to get up. She says one of these days she won’t bother calling him. She’ll call Mr Pilkington, the head master, instead. But she hasn’t done that so far.
    Here comes Adrian again. He knocks and pops his head round the door. He says, ‘You wanna go out, mate? We could go to the park? Or the cinema? I think the new Batman one is out.’
    I look at my watch. It’s still twenty past nine. I say, ‘The cinema’s not open yet.’
    ‘We could go to the park first.’
    ‘ Batman ’s not out till next week. Mam said she’d take me. She said she’d be back on Sunday.’
    Adrian walks towards me. He stands on my clothes but I don’t think he notices. He sits on my bed. He looks like he’s going to say something but then he doesn’t.
    I say, ‘Half four.’
    Adrian looks at me. ‘What?’
    ‘She said she’d be back at half four if the ferry was on time, which it usually is at this time of the year on account of the weather being nice.’
    Adrian looks at me like I’m talking some foreign language. Italian, maybe. He can’t speak Italian. He’s not too bad at French, though.
    We don’t say anything for ages and then I say, ‘Is today Thursday?’ If today is Thursday, that means that Mam left yesterday but it doesn’t feel like yesterday. It feels like ages ago.
    Adrian doesn’t say anything. He covers his face with his hands and, even though he doesn’t make a sound, I think he’s crying. His shoulders are sort of moving up and down.
    Adrian never cries. Even when he was a kid and was always getting into tricky situations. Like nettles, for example. He was always falling into bunches of nettles. Getting stung by wasps. And bees. And horseflies. Except I don’t think horseflies sting. I think they bite. He even fractured his skull once. The time he cycled his bike along the back wall, pretending it was a tightrope. Mam said that was the last time she’d take him to the circus. He still has the scar on his forehead from the stitches. Mam said he could have supplied a blood bank for a week with the amount that poured out of his head. The doctor said he was very lucky.
    But he never cried. Not when he got the stings from the nettles or the wasps, or the bites from the horseflies or even the fracture in his skull. Everyone says that Adrian never cried.
    He’s crying now.
    I wish he’d stop.
    I wish it were yesterday.
    Wednesday.
    I wish it was Wednesday and the ferry got cancelled because the weather was really stormy. But it’s not Wednesday. It’s Thursday. And the ferry didn’t get