LITMIR.BIZ

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back. Both of them trapped behind the glass.

      “I suppose this is going to be another reason for you to carry on not speaking, is it?”

      For the first time I could hear a crack in Dad’s voice.

      The woman on TV was running from a big explosion and the policeman was shooting into the flames. Dad stood in front of the telly and switched it off. The fire zooped into blackness.

      “Look, if you just tell me what’s going on then maybe I can do something about it.”

      Dad rolled his eyes, realised what he’d said.

      “OK. I can’t do anything about moving here or that dog. I’ve told you why.” He crouched down in front of me. “Cally, please, just say something.”

      I tried to will him to know how much more it was. You can’t just forget about things that mean so much to you. Even though Mum had died, he made it seem like we never knew her at all, like she never even existed. But she was here. I saw her, I felt her, especially when I was with Homeless.

      “Has something happened at school?”

      He waited. “Please, say something.”

      I looked into his eyes. I could see a tiny dark silhouette of me. Inside I said, “Mum, I love that dog,” and she said, I know.

      Then Dad went to the fridge, got another bottle of beer, said, “You know this not talking isn’t very clever. It’s not clever at all.”

      I remembered when we all went to the Bishop’s Palace in Wells, by the big yellow cathedral. There was a moat and an open window by the drawbridge. Swans were waiting there. Two of them reached their necks up and pulled a blue rope to ring a bell. They were mute swans. They didn’t speak or squawk. They used the bell to tell someone they were hungry.

      Mum said, “What beautiful creatures. Can you see how clever they are to find a way to speak to us like that, to speak of everything about themselves?”

      And I felt the churning and the yearning inside for how Dad was back then. How he’d listened to her and looked at her. How he saw all of us, saw the way we wondered at the swans, and had said, “I see it too.”

      24.

      JESSICA STUBBS BROUGHT IN A FOLDED NOTE at afternoon registration and I could tell by the way Miss Steadman looked up that the note was about me. She came over when it was quiet in maths and we were doing some difficult division.

      “Mrs Brooks wants to see you before you go home. I think you know what it’s about.”

      Mrs Brooks had a new pair of sunglasses perched on her head. She came down the corridor carrying a bin liner tied into a bundle. The air trapped inside made it into a puffy black balloon. She was walking with a lady from the office, saying, “If you could find the caretaker, let him know I need to see him. Straight away!”

      Mrs Brooks came into her office, opened the window and left the bag by it. She huffed loudly, sat down hard in her chair, said, “Firstly, we need to talk about the fact that Miss Steadman tells me you’re not participating in lessons.”

      Her new sunglasses had black lenses with white around the outside.

      “Can you tell me what this is all about?”

      There was a long silence.

      “You know all this not talking is starting to become a bit of a problem.”

      She waited. “What about that dog on the playing field? Is that something to do with you?” She linked her fingers and leaned across her desk.

      “I mean to get to the bottom of this because that dog’s been into school again and left a nasty mess. Daisy Bouvier’s new shoes are ruined.”

      She nodded towards the bin liner. She polished her sunglasses, sighed and waited, then said, “I think it’s about time we asked your dad to come in for a chat.”

      25.

      “YOU CAN GO EXPLORING ON THE COMMON ON one condition,” said Mrs Cooper. She gave me an alarm clock. “When that rings, you’re to come home.”

      I nodded. Me and Sam had a plan. I’d given Sam cards saying BIG, DOG and FIND, and he’d nodded like mad. He went to ask his mum if we could go on our own.

      Mrs Cooper tapped on Sam’s hand, pulled the blue bag off his back. There were other conditions.

      “And you’re not to let him go swimming, Cally,” she said.

      I nodded. Sam didn’t want to know. He pulled his hand away from his mum and went over to the wall, felt for the calendar hanging there. The dates were in normal writing with Braille bumps on each box. I watched Sam’s fingers run over the boxes and stop where a red sticker circle had been stuck.

      “It’s dangerous for Sam to swim in chlorine or cold water because it makes his asthma bad,” said Mrs Cooper with her hands on her hips. She looked hard at Sam, went over and took his hand away from scratching at the sticker and trying to peel it off.

      “Really bad,” she said again. “A paddle in the stream is fine, but nothing more.”

      She smoothed Sam’s hair and sighed. “Let Cally push you in the buggy.”

      Sam huffed and shook his head, but she soon persuaded him he was going in the buggy or not at all. Sam’s buggy was a bit like a baby’s pushchair with three wheels. It was black and faded with orange tatty pockets that Mrs Cooper had filled with bottles of drink, carrier bags with some snacks, Sam’s puffer and the alarm clock. When Sam sat in it, his knees were up high and his elbows stuck out the side. I could see why he didn’t want to go in it.

      Mrs Cooper chewed her thumb while she watched us cross the quiet road and bump on to the open common with all the ‘just-in-case’ things and Sam’s boxes of cards on his lap.

      Sam stuck his arms out and I pushed left or right, straight on or round in circles, wherever he pointed. He reached for the bracken, the long grass, the tree trunks we passed. Softly he hummed, changing pitch when we went over bumps, downhill or uphill. Sometimes he just laughed and laughed or waved me to go faster.

      Suddenly he sat up straight and pointed both his arms down for me to stop. He held up a card – WATER. We were by the stream and little brick bridge where Luke had gone when we first saw the flat.

      Sam took off his socks and shoes and waded in. He walked against the flow, bent over so his fingers trailed in the water. He looked like he belonged there.

      I met him coming out the other side and he pushed me gently to sit in the pushchair, went round the back and leaned on the handle with his skinny middle. He rested his hands on my shoulders so he could feel me lifting my arms to point left or right. At first I didn’t know where to go. But I followed my nose over the far side of the common where I’d seen Homeless run and soon we were pushing through the trees and bushes in the green gloom and standing in front of some gates.

      Swan Lake was spelled out in curled metal writing along the top of the tall rusted gates. Heavy links of chain with a chunky padlock were wound round them to keep them closed.

      We left the pushchair in a bush, took all our belongings in the carrier bags and I helped Sam, step by step. We crawled in through a hole, over the crumbled bricks and creeping ivy, under the tangle of branches. We pushed through the bushes, came out in an opening.

      There was a small building. Green paint peeled off the door like sunburnt skin so you could see it used to be painted red underneath. Brick steps led up from beside the boarded window to the trees at the top of the bank. They circled high above a black silent lake in the middle.

      Sam reached out and felt along the wall. I led him inside the open door. It must have been the ticket office for the old miniature railway Dad told me about. There was a wide counter under the window. A sweeping brush with a broken handle leaned against the wall by a camping stove, some plates, a saucepan and

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