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Bad Dad. Tony Ross
Читать онлайн.Название Bad Dad
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9780008164676
Автор произведения Tony Ross
Издательство HarperCollins
No one beeped their horns any more when they walked down the street, and now they couldn’t afford to go to the pie and mash shop, let alone be given double helpings.
On Frank’s eleventh birthday, Dad bought his son a huge race-car set. The boy loved it.
It was the best toy ever. Dad even painted one of the miniature Minis with a Union Jack so it looked just like Queenie. Together they would play with it late into the night, re-enacting Dad’s famous victories on the track.
However, as much as he loved it, Frank worried where his father, who’d been unemployed now for a couple of years, had got the money from to buy it. Frank knew that very few children had toys like these. Race-car sets cost hundreds of pounds. And Dad didn’t have hundreds of pounds.
Soon after Frank’s birthday, groups of hard-faced men started banging on the door of the flat.
THUD! THUD! THUD!
They would wave pieces of paper and bark about “unpaid debts”. Then they would push past Frank and force their way in. Once inside, the men would pick up anything they thought might be worth something, and march out with it. First it was the TV, then it was the sofa, then it was the boy’s bunk bed.
One time Frank wouldn’t answer the door and they simply smashed it off its hinges. That day they took the toy race-car track.
After these visits, Dad would become full of sorrow. A look of despair would cross his face, and he would sit in silence. Frank would do his best to cheer up his sad dad.
“Don’t be down, Dad,” the boy would say. “I will get all our stuff back one day. I promise. When I’m grown up, I will become a racing driver just like you.”
“Come here, son, and give us a huggle.”
The pair would embrace, and everything would feel all right again. They may have been poor, but Frank never felt poor in his heart. The boy didn’t mind that his jumpers had so many holes in them they were more hole than jumper. He never cared that he had to carry his books to school in a plastic bag that always broke. Soon it became normal that they had just one working light bulb in the flat and they had to move it from room to room at night.
That is because the boy had the best dad in the world. Or so he thought.
One night over a dinner of cold baked beans in their cold flat, Dad made an announcement.
“Everything is about to change.”
A concerned look crossed Frank’s face. Despite having nothing, the boy liked things just the way they were. Dad rested his hand on his son’s shoulder.
“It’s nothing to worry about, mate. Everything is about to change for the better.”
“But how?”
“Our life is about to change. I’ve got a job.”
“Brilliant, Dad! I’m so happy for you!”
“I’m happy too,” replied the man, though somehow he didn’t look it.
“What’s the job?”
“Driving.”
“Banger racing?” asked Frank excitedly.
“No,” said Dad. He gathered his thoughts. “But I will be driving fast. Very fast.”
“Wow!” The boy’s eyes lit up like headlights on a motor car.
“Yeah! Wow! And I will be earning money. Lots of money. We can get the TV back.”
“The TV is boring. I like listening to all your racing stories.”
“All right, then, mate, we can get the sofa back!”
The boy thought for a moment. It wasn’t comfortable eating dinner sitting on a wooden crate. “I don’t mind the splinters in my bottom!”
“Really?” asked Dad with a chuckle. As the man laughed, he rocked back and forth on the crate. “Ouch! I’ve got another one!”
“Ha! Ha!”
“All right, all right. I know what you really want back.”
“What?”
“Your race-car set.”
The boy fell silent. He did miss that toy very much. “I guess, Dad.”
“I’m really sorry they took that away, mate.”
“Don’t worry, Dad.”
Frank could tell something was up with his father – he just couldn’t tell what. What was this mysterious job?
“So what will you be driving, Dad? Race cars?”
“No, this is driving just as fast but on real roads.”
“Ambulances?”
“No.”
“FIRE ENGINES?”
“No.”
The boy’s eyes widened. “Not for the police?”
Dad managed to nod and shake his head at the same time. “That sort of thing, yeah.”
The boy’s brain braked. “Dad, what do you mean ‘that sort of thing’?”
“Well, it’s TOP SECRET.”
“TELL ME!” demanded the boy.
“It wouldn’t be TOP SECRET if I told you!”
“Well, it would be very nearly TOP SECRET.”
“I can’t, mate. Sorry. But I am going to get paid. Big money. Really big money. And we are going to have stuff. Lots and lots of stuff. New trainers, toys, computer games, whatever you want.”
Frank watched with concern as his dad’s eyes widened. It all sounded too good to be true.
“But I don’t need lots of stuff, Dad. All I need is you.”
This burst Dad’s balloon. “Yeah, yeah. Don’t you worry. I’ll be here. I ain’t going anywhere.”
“You promise?”
“Yeah, yeah. I promise, mate.”
“And you aren’t going to get hurt?” asked the boy. The last thing he wanted was for his dad to lose his left leg.
“Promise!” said Dad. He held up three fingers on his right hand. “Scout’s honour! Ha! Ha!”
“You were never a Scout!”
“It don’t matter. Now finish up those baked beans. I need you to go to bed!”
Like all children in the world, Frank knew exactly what time his bedtime was and it wasn’t now. “But it’s not my bedtime yet!” he protested.