What I Did (3 page)

— And there's really no chance of changing their minds? he says.

I go a few steps farther away to the roundabout thing and get on it and go round half a turn and get off the other side. Thank you, roundabout.

— That's what they said, word for word? It's final?

Dad's job is called communications projects. He does it on his own except when he does it with other people. He used to have a different job in a big building where there was a man in charge of him but now he can do his own communications projects for clients at home in his study-office which is in fact a sediment of his and Mum's bedroom. Shortest possible commute, Son. Laptop, phone, know-how, and low cunning. When Dad speaks to people on his phone to do with work his voice sounds different, sort of hopeful and disappointed all at once. If you know him well like me because we are connected, Son, you can tell that he is saying one thing but really he'd like to say something else much crosser. The man in charge at his old office was just called the man.

Now Dad is using a voice which sounds like the one you might use if you got a present you didn't really want at Christmas, so that although what you really want is to say no, no, no that's not the right thing, you've got it all wrong, you can't, because if you're ungrateful for one present you might not get another one ever again, so you say thank you anyway, but it comes out like a mouse peeping from a hole, gray and small and ducking back in again quickly.

— Well thanks very much for all your efforts. Next time, perhaps.

This sounds like the end but it isn't because now he's got his eyes tight shut like he needs to answer a really hard question or perhaps even pluck up the courage to ask to go to the toilet in the middle of Miss Hart's storytime, and the knuckles of his good hand have gone pointy yellow like teeth, and he's carrying on.

This is bad so I walk farther away toward the goals.

 

The Year Threes from school play football here. They wear boots. Strangely their boots are not boots, though, but instead they are shoes with little teeth knuckles of their own called studs. And here's the evidence: hundreds of tiny holes. I kneel down on the mud and put my fingers into the dents which are slug-size. Sixty million years ago the earth was teething with fossils like this. Yes I am excellent at spotting them in the modern world and, look, here are some more next to these worm-casts. Tracks. Worm-casts aren't like plaster casts at all because for one you can crush them very easily between your fingers and for two they are all the same color. Perhaps these tracks were not made by Year Threes playing football but sand people from
Star Wars
. There's only one way to find out and it's a good thing I thought of it because it means that instead of going away from Dad, which is really what I want to do, I can think no I'm actually following some tracks in search of my very own prey. Don't bother with praying, Son, he can't hear you because he doesn't exist. That said, there's nothing wrong with sitting quietly for a think from time to time.

It's windy on the football-pitches bit of the park and my coat has somehow come undone which gives me two choices. Actually it's just one choice with two bits to it: common mistake, Son. First I could try to zip it up, or second I could run to keep warm. Zips are a right pain. Even when your fingers have come straight out of a nice warm bath zips will defeat them. So two seems the obviously best option, doesn't it? If I run like this, following the tracks by keeping my eye on them, then quite quickly my heart will start pumping blood from the hot bits of me like my knees and ankles to the incredibly cold bits like my ears. And I'll also be faster at hunting down my prey, and this is excellent, because it is called a wing-wing situation.

The football pitches are quite big and empty like Canada.

Canadian wolves are tireless like prairie dogs.

I wish Mum was here but she is working tirelessly.

Prairie dogs, wolves, and Mum. They all use the tireless method of hunting their prey. It is called loping. And since I am a wolf with my nose to the ground loping tirelessly onward it is no problem to cross one pitch and then the next and then cut through the line of popular trees that stand like soldiers at the top end of the big flat bit, with their leaves all shedded off by the wind, so that they're naked soldiers in a way, which is quite funny, or at least it will be when I tell it to somebody, somebody being Ben. Ben laughs the whole time, except when he doesn't, but mostly he does, particularly if you mention naked things, or things that have done a poo, or even a wee. Ben may find it funny, Son, but surely you don't? You're not a baby anymore, are you?

No! I'm not! So why does he have to say that in front of my friend, because he might as well tell Ben
he's
being a baby, only he can't do that because he only ever says things like that to me. Why? I don't know. But I do know I am not going back there even though back there is a long way away now. You can't even see it because of the popular trees.

I switch off my loping tirelessly which is called calling a halt, and I've run quite a long way. There aren't any stud marks here, or if there are they are covered by all these shedded gray leaves. Don't go too far, Son. Stay within sight. He likes saying that but he's not here to say it now and it's a silly thing to say in any case because you could stay really close and hide behind something or go miles and miles away and still be in sight if you were on a salt pan. And I'm six. And there are cars over that side of the park. You can hear them. Their tires on the damp road make a sound as if they are tearing cardboard lids off Cheerio boxes, and I'm hungry.

I reach into my pocket for the chocolate coin. It's there and I pull it out and look at it and notice that it has gone a bit sticky along one edge; you can actually see the melted chocolate grinning out of the gold seam. Go on, it says, lick me but I won't. I won't!

And it's all his fault for making us come out before breakfast.

And I can hear him in the distance, calling my name, and there's something odd about the way he's calling. — Billy. Billy?

He is worried.

I stand up again. And I don't know why. But instead of walking back toward where his voice is coming from through the trees I decide to do the exact opposite and I begin loping tirelessly farther away toward the road with cars on it instead.

 

One of the best places is the car but watch out, it can also be the worst. Seat belts are difficult to put on. You can pull them across you but if you let go when you're looking for the hole they rush back inside themselves again. Snails also do it, if you touch them. Inside the car we're all together which is good until you need to get away and then that's it, you're stuck, and there's no way you're getting out of there again. But that's not true, not precisely. Because if you're very cunning which is quite like stealthy only in your head, there are one or two things you can say to make the car stop so you can get out. I need the loo can work but not if you say it too often. I feel sick is another one though whether or not that does the job depends on what sort of mood they're in. Birds regurgitate food for their young. What a wonderful trick that would be if you could do it. I feel sick stop the car please no yes I do feel sick no you don't really I do stop it whoa regurgitate. A trick is not always the same thing as lying.

Even once you've stopped the car and been sick or gone to the loo the problem is that you have to get back in again. They can't leave you there. You wouldn't want them to. Many animals, birds and fish, including wildebeests, albatrosses, and salmons, migrate, covering epic distances across the planet in vast schools and flocks and herds. Predators pick off the weaklings which means the old and the sick. And the young. Keep up at the back there! Put your coat and shoes on! Lope!

 

I go round the edge of a hedge which rhymes and look back round it and I can see he's running too. His red arm is waving back and forth. In PE Mr. Reilly says you should run by pumping up your legs with your arms so well done, Dad, top marks, inflatable. Mr. Reilly has a mustache and colored laces in his shoes. He lives with Mr. Sparks who teaches the Year Fives. They love each other and come to school on bicycles with suspension which is excellent. My lungs hurt. I can hear him shouting at me now from quite far away but not as far away as he was. Bats have incredibly sensitive hearing which is so good they can hear electric eels, but don't touch one. I wish I could stop. No, that's not quite right. What I wish is that I had already stopped quite a long time ago because now I've come this far I can't stop. No, that's not quite right either because sadly I will have to stop eventually because nothing not even wolves can go on forever, not without pausing for things like water and meat and having a sleep which actually means stopping totally and lying down.

— Stop! Stop, Billy! STOP!

His voice sounds red like his arm. In nature red is used primarily for warnings about danger so I lope on and as I lope I realize a funny thing which is this: I am not in fact chasing my prey with studs on its feet anymore because I am in fact being chased, and nothing chases wolves, so I can't be the predator wolf but instead I must be some kind of prey.

And what does a clever prey do? Easy. It runs for cover. At home where we have beds upstairs they have covers on them which you can hide under in a game but this is not a game but a park which is big and open and desperate. The only cover was behind the popular trees and that hedge but he is already past them with his red arm pumping and I am running too but he is catching up which is called againing.

— COME HERE! STOP! BILLY!

His voice is purple now, very serious.

 

Reading is very serious too and grown-ups do it as well. Dad likes reading and so do I but not as much as him and sometimes it's something I don't want to do. Most nights he says after bathtime, — We're going to do some reading practice, me and you.

— Why do polar bears hibernate when Siberian tigers don't? I might say, or, — Which do you think has a better memory, African elephants or Alaskan salmons?

He's trying to be cheerful with me so I'm talking about something interesting with him which is nice of me.

— Hmm, he'll say. — Scarcity of relevant food in winter and elephants without a doubt. Clean your teeth and go to the loo. I'll get the book.

Reading books can be quite interesting but they are never as good as when Mum or Dad does the reading and you just listen because the stories are more complicated and therefore interesting then. But that's not the point, he says. The point is to learn how to read for yourself so you can read what you want when you want and make the world your oyster. In his bedroom which is also a study or office he has books from the floor right up to the roof. I'd make the world my lobster if I was limited to crustaceans and had to choose.

But dolphins are far cleverer than lobsters. They exhibit more intelligence than anything else on our planet instead of us, except hold on, what about prime-apes? It is a proven fact that both prime-apes and dolphins have powers of communication but do they read? I don't think they do.

— Come on, sit down, let's do this together, he says.

And I'll sit down but the electricity will probably make me hop up and sit down again with one leg out and roll onto the other knee and wriggle forward or sideways again. I don't know why the electricity picks then but it does and instead of sitting still which is easier if I'm watching television I just find it hard to stop moving.

— Calm down, relax, sit still, he might say. And this is a warning because if I don't the next thing might be a grip around my arm. — Five minutes. For just five minutes, for Christ's sake,
sit still
.

And there are tactics to help you, like thinking you're a cat lying in wait or an owl on a branch or, stillest of all, a crocodile basking under a lamp in the Zoo. Keep still, letters, for Christ's sake, keep still! Reading isn't hard. One letter goes after another and they're just squiggles you can learn and when you know them you look at the word and say it and what it means sort of wriggles through or surfaces like a dolphin which is a mammal too.

 

— BILLY!

The road is my cover.

I make a final really fast run which is called a sprint for it very impressively. There are no railings on this side of the park because they couldn't get them back after killing people with them in the war. Instead there is a low wall thing which I try to jump over but sadly I don't make it and the brick edge of it bites the inside of the top of my leg very hard which makes me yelp. And it's his fault, not mine: he may as well have leopard-bitten me himself. But I am quickly up because I'm a tough one, very durable, and I'm onto the wet pavement and my coat is sort of falling off because the zip is completely undone but never mind. There are cars parked along the road here. James at school can tell you all the makes if you ask him but I prefer animals. Black car, gap, gray car, gap, red car red car, bus stop, bins. My leg bite hurts. I can hear Dad's feet behind me now and cars ripping more Cheerio-box lids in the wet road and he's panting and I wish I hadn't woken up early and I wish I'd put my shoes on more quickly and I didn't mean to spill the coffee and it wasn't my fault his phone brought bad news so I duck round the back of the bin to get away.

But sadly I'm too slow.

He's got hold of me.

He's gripping my arm.

— BILLY, YOU LITTLE . . . he roars in my ear, so his voice goes black.

But wait! My arm is coming off! Not my real arm ripping off my body but the arm of my coat sliding off my real arm and sometimes even in the most impossible situations the prey can still get away if it person-veers.

I shut my eyes and wriggle like hell and the coat comes off. There's a lady coming toward us and there's Cheerio noise in the road and I am spectacular. He plunges for me again. I duck and run. Modern cars are shaped quite like trainers. I dart off the curb between parked trainers and I'll make it across the road because sooner or later the wildebeests must cross the river to spite the crocodiles.