Lifesaving for Beginners Read Free Page B

and white and straight but that’s only because they’re not real. Her real teeth rotted in her head because she never took care of them. She told me that one day, when she was in the house and Mam was giving out because I hadn’t brushed my teeth.
    Damo didn’t call for me this morning. He always calls for me. Or else I call for him. Whoever’s ready first. Usually me, because of Damo and the way he stays in bed way after his mam tells him to get up. She says one of these days she won’t bother calling him. She’ll call Mr Pilkington, the head master, instead. But she hasn’t done that so far.
    Here comes Adrian again. He knocks and pops his head round the door. He says, ‘You wanna go out, mate? We could go to the park? Or the cinema? I think the new Batman one is out.’
    I look at my watch. It’s still twenty past nine. I say, ‘The cinema’s not open yet.’
    ‘We could go to the park first.’
    ‘ Batman ’s not out till next week. Mam said she’d take me. She said she’d be back on Sunday.’
    Adrian walks towards me. He stands on my clothes but I don’t think he notices. He sits on my bed. He looks like he’s going to say something but then he doesn’t.
    I say, ‘Half four.’
    Adrian looks at me. ‘What?’
    ‘She said she’d be back at half four if the ferry was on time, which it usually is at this time of the year on account of the weather being nice.’
    Adrian looks at me like I’m talking some foreign language. Italian, maybe. He can’t speak Italian. He’s not too bad at French, though.
    We don’t say anything for ages and then I say, ‘Is today Thursday?’ If today is Thursday, that means that Mam left yesterday but it doesn’t feel like yesterday. It feels like ages ago.
    Adrian doesn’t say anything. He covers his face with his hands and, even though he doesn’t make a sound, I think he’s crying. His shoulders are sort of moving up and down.
    Adrian never cries. Even when he was a kid and was always getting into tricky situations. Like nettles, for example. He was always falling into bunches of nettles. Getting stung by wasps. And bees. And horseflies. Except I don’t think horseflies sting. I think they bite. He even fractured his skull once. The time he cycled his bike along the back wall, pretending it was a tightrope. Mam said that was the last time she’d take him to the circus. He still has the scar on his forehead from the stitches. Mam said he could have supplied a blood bank for a week with the amount that poured out of his head. The doctor said he was very lucky.
    But he never cried. Not when he got the stings from the nettles or the wasps, or the bites from the horseflies or even the fracture in his skull. Everyone says that Adrian never cried.
    He’s crying now.
    I wish he’d stop.
    I wish it were yesterday.
    Wednesday.
    I wish it was Wednesday and the ferry got cancelled because the weather was really stormy. But it’s not Wednesday. It’s Thursday. And the ferry didn’t get cancelled because it’s June and the weather is lovely in June. Glorious. That’s what Mam says when the weather’s good. She says, ‘Isn’t it a glorious day?’ to the regulars at the Funky Banana.
    The phone rings and I run down the stairs and answer it. I don’t know why but I keep thinking it’ll be Mam, laughing her head off and saying she’s grand and there’s been a mix-up and she’s coming home and could I put the kettle on because she’s gasping for a mug of tea. She’s always gasping for mugs of tea.
    I answer it and I say, ‘Hello? The McIntyre Residence,’ in a posh voice cos I know that’ll make Mam laugh, except it’s not Mam. It’s a woman and she wants to know what the arrangements are. I don’t know what the arrangements are. She says, ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’ I think she means Mam.
    I go into the kitchen and put the kettle on anyway. If it were Wednesday and the ferry got cancelled, Mam would be here and we wouldn’t be eating leftover