A Window into Time (Novella) Read Free Page B

space for any other furniture.
    Rachel didn’t like me being in the flat. Their bedroom was next to mine. I overheard them sometimes at night. She would say stuff like: “Of course I don’t mind. I just wasn’t expecting this right after we were married, that’s all.” And: “He’s a nice boy. I’m sure he’ll be lovely when I get to know him better.”
    She looked at me, when she thought I couldn’t see her doing it. It was sort of a look that said:
I know I’ve got to put up with you, but I don’t have to like it.
    After I’d been there a week, I asked Dad: “Rachel doesn’t want me here, does she?”
    And he answered: “You’re my son. This is your home.”
    Which is the way politicians weasel their way out of answering questions they don’t like: They give an answer to a slightly different question they’ve made up in their heads. I see it a lot on the telly.
    One night I heard Rachel say: “He could go and live with your parents.”
    I’d been streaming a new
Arrow
episode on my tablet, so I paused it and took off my headphones so I could listen.
    “In Spain? You’re kidding.” But my dad didn’t say it with much conviction, almost like he’d considered it as well.
    “It would do him good, Dave. He’d get to see something of the world.”
    “He’s thirteen and his mum’s just died. Give him a break. Besides, he can’t handle big changes well. You know that.”
    “Yeah.” She sighed.
    It was quiet for a minute, then their bed started creaking. Rachel giggled. I put my headphones back on and turned up the volume.
    I was kind of expecting life to be worse in London. If you keep telling yourself something’s going to be bad, then there’s a chance it might not be quite as bad as you’ve convinced yourself it’s going to be, which makes it easier to live with.
    I didn’t mind too much about living at the flat with Dad and Rachel. They went out a lot at night, so I could watch whatever I wanted and surf the Internet.
    Trouble was, I’d only thought about living at the flat, not the rest of it. Turns out being crammed in with Dad and Rachel was the best part of London. I had to go to school again.
    Dad was good about it. He gave me time after the funeral, and even took some days off himself to be with me. We didn’t do much. I wanted to surf the Internet, but we played some games. I’d brought his PlayStation present with me, and we played Destiny and FIFA (which I don’t like; it’s football), which were the games that came with it. After a couple of hours he got bored, and we watched some films on Netflix. I stayed in the flat by myself for the rest of the week and watched the shows I wanted—old stuff like
Stargate
and
House, MD,
which was great. I like House; he’s smarter than everyone else, and he’s not scared to show it. I’m going to act like that when I’m older.
    Then the next week I went to St. George’s. I don’t know why; it was only three weeks until summer holiday. But Dad said it would be good for me, like a taster, so when I went back after summer holiday I’d know the people there and the school routine, which would help me, and that way I’d have a proper school year without problems.
    I don’t know what he was expecting, but schools are pretty much the same everywhere. Full of stupid people who don’t like me. Instead of Scrap Owen and Mods Haffla I now had Jeff Murphy and Kenan Abbot. Most of the teachers were okay—they kept the other kids from buzzing me in lessons—though I didn’t like Mr. Reham, the principal. He was always talking in what Uncle Gordon calls psycho-bollock-speak, telling me and Dad that I would have to “reestablish a normality reference,” and how “the school will provide Julian with a fully holistic interactivity agenda of support functions.”
    I think my dad agreed with Uncle Gordon about Mr. Reham; I could tell it from the way he said less and less during the interview. But St. George’s agreed to take me first