LITMIR.BIZ

       Jake

       February 2002

      The motorway that’s whizzed by for most of the journey melts away into grey pavements and red-roofed houses, and Jake can see his reflection in the car window. He turns away. His mum always says he’s striking looking, but Jake’s not sure that’s a good thing, even though she tries to make it sound that way. The last time his dad, Terry, caught her saying it, he’d said Jake was a freak. That it was her fault their son had been born with a cleft palate and different coloured eyes. Having a normal healthy baby, he’d yelled, was more than she was capable of.

      The car journey’s taken forever. They’d left Birmingham as dawn was breaking and Jake can’t wait to get to their destination. He’s fed up of moving houses. He’s twelve or thirteen – he doesn’t know his actual age because his dad won’t let them celebrate his birthday, even though his mum has tried to – and they’ve moved at least six times that he can remember.

      Finally, they roar up outside a white house with pebbles on the bottom half and a red front door. It has double-glazed windows, and the small front garden has trimmed grass. It’s nice. Hopefully it’ll last more than a few months. His dad called their last house a shithole, but it hadn’t been when they first moved in. Even Jake knows that if you don’t mow the lawn, if you leave rubbish in the grass, and kick in the walls and doors when you’re angry, a house will soon fall apart. Just like a family will if you don’t care for it.

      A few minutes later, he’s following his dad up the beige-carpeted stairs with a heavy box in his arms. ‘You’re probably not going to be happy about this, because you’re a moaner like your mum,’ Terry smirks, ‘but your bedroom is at the back of the house, and well … Follow me.’

      There’s a sinking feeling in Jake’s stomach as he trudges along behind his dad’s bulky body. Opening the white door at the end of the corridor, Terry makes a sweeping gesture with his arm. As Jake walks in, the first wall he sees is candy-floss pink. The carpet is thin, also pink, with coloured dashes and dots of what looks like dried paint ground into it in patches. Purple, green, brown, black, yellow, grey and blue. The room is babyish and girly, and he looks at his dad questioningly. He tries not to flush with discomfort but knows he hasn’t succeeded when his dad lets out a nasty laugh.

      ‘It was the daughter’s bedroom. I know it’s going to embarrass you when you have mates around – if you manage to make any this time, that is – but you’ll just have to wait until I have time to paint it another colour.’ The gleam in his eye says he’s enjoying this.

      Jake can feel his jaw quivering with rage. One day he’ll be strong enough to punch his dad right in his big, stupid mouth.

      Then he steps around the corner and his mouth drops open. There are doors painted on the two walls nearest the window. He thinks the first set of doors is supposed to be the wardrobe leading to Narnia, but he doesn’t recognise the others. What he does know is that they’re really cool. He longs to step through one of them into another world, but he rearranges his face so his dad can’t tell, shrugging his shoulders the way he’s learnt to. Like he’s not bothered. ‘I’ll have to wait until you’re ready then, I guess.’ He tries to inject a note of disappointment into his voice and turns away to traipse over to the window.

      ‘Come on, boy.’ His dad yanks him backward so he nearly trips over and bumps his head on a set of empty bookshelves

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