Catcall (13 page)

I nodded. ‘And when Mister had to be put to sleep, Splodge was upset for days. He kept looking for Mister all over the house and all over the garden. Kept miaowing for him.’

‘Change,’ said Dad. ‘That’s what’s difficult.’

I looked at him.

‘Lots of people don’t like change,’ he said. ‘Grown-ups as well as children. Animals as well as humans. We like what we know, and it upsets us when we have to get used to something different, especially if we haven’t chosen it. You and Jamie have had to face a lot of changes, haven’t you? The Kim and Kevin situation, as well. Perhaps it’s all been a bit too much.’

Kevin? I ignored that, and said, ‘Will Jamie be all right, then?’

‘I’m sure he will,’ Dad said. ‘It may take time, but I’m sure he will. D’you know who’s going to be the biggest help to him?’

I shrugged. ‘The psychologist?’

Dad put his arm round my shoulders and pulled me close. ‘You are. His big brother. I know how much you’re helping him through this. I’m proud of you. And so’s Mum, because you’re being such a good big brother to Jennie as well.’

I felt funny and squirmy, the way I always do when Dad talks like that. Besides, it wasn’t
true.
But it made me decide that I’d try to be a better brother, to both of them.

We were nearly home now. ‘I wonder if that bonfire’s still burning?’ Dad said. ‘And if there’s any of that cake left?’

22

A
SHES

I
t’s always like this, every time I decide I’m going to be better, or nicer, or try harder at school, or whatever. Something always turns up to make me fail. P’raps it’s a kind of test–
OK, let’s see how you handle this. Let’s see how you shape up.

Well, if this was a test, I failed big time. Mind you, only a saint could have passed, and then only on a good day.

I
don’t know what Dad said to Jamie when they went to the park, or what Jamie said back. Jamie seemed excited, out by the bonfire, and when we were eating–happier than I’d seen him for ages. But later, after Dad and Kevin had gone, he went quiet again. Sunday morning, I couldn’t get a word out of him. He’s often like this after we’ve seen Dad.

I woke up early, and read for about half an hour before Jamie even moved. Then I noticed that he was lying in bed with his eyes open.

‘Hi, Jame,’ I said.

He wouldn’t even look at me. Slowly he rubbed his eyes and propped himself up.

‘Open the curtains if you want,’ I said.

Nothing.

I got out of bed, and opened the curtains myself. Jamie just lay there, staring at nothing. The bonfire, Dad coming, the private talk–none of it might have happened, for all the difference in Jamie.

I didn’t feel like going back to bed. Mike quite often works on Saturdays, so Sunday’s his only chance of a liein. Usually Jennie wakes up early, but Mum feeds her and Mike goes down to make tea, and sometimes they go back to sleep again, unless Jennie won’t settle. If Jamie or I get up early, we’re supposed to be quiet till at least eight o’clock.

While I was getting dressed, I felt the crackle of paper in my jeans pocket and took out a folded page. It was that poem Floss had given me, the one about the jaguar. I read it properly now, and liked it. It had this really good bit about the jaguar prowling up and down in his cage, with his eyes boring into the dark like drills. I could see that, and I already had just the right picture of a jaguar, so I decided to copy and print the poem and stick it in my Book of Cats.

When I’d done the print-out, I looked round for my book. It was usually on the desk, but the computer and printer now took up nearly all the space. Not there. Course, I took it downstairs last night, when Mum and Mike made me show it to Floss. Hadn’t I brought it back up? No, can’t have. I went down to the kitchen, but the table had been cleared. Checked the worktop–not there either. Looked in the lounge.

Jamie was still asleep, hunched away from me, when I went back to our room. I looked everywhere–under the desk, in all the drawers, under both beds, even in the wardrobe. No sign. Down again to double-check all the places I’d already searched. I began to think Floss must have stolen it, put it in her rucksack, and taken it home. I didn’t really think Floss would do that, but couldn’t come up with anything better.

I was working myself up into a real fume, ready to march straight round to her house and demand my book back. Then I remembered something.

Last night, when Dad was ready to go home, he called for Jamie to say goodbye. Mum and Mike thought Jamie was upstairs in our room, but he wasn’t. I was the one who noticed the back door wasn’t quite closed. When I opened it wide and looked out, there was Jamie, by himself, standing by the remains of the fire–no coat on, no hat or gloves.

‘What you doing?’ I called. ‘Come on in–Dad’s going now.’

He must have heard me, but he didn’t answer, or turn round.

‘Jamie?’ I called, starting to shiver. ‘Come on–I’m not standing here all night!’

He came in then, and Mike said, ‘Jamie? What were you
doing
?’

And Jamie peered at him like someone groping through a fog, and said, ‘Just making sure.’

‘Making sure the fire’s safe? Don’t worry,’ said Mike, ‘I was going to do that, when I lock up.’

Dad kissed and hugged us both, and said he’d be back on Monday, and Jamie and I went up to bed.

No!

He wouldn’t–he couldn’t have…

My hands were shaking so much I could hardly unlock the back door. I went across the wet grass in my slippers to the blackened patch where the bonfire had been. It was just a pile of ashes and crumbly twigs, with charred bits of paper the flames had missed. I poked at the ashes with a stick, turned over a curl of paper, and saw something startling, something familiar–

An eye, a single amber lion eye, wise and unblinking, stared up from a triangle of torn black paper.

An eye from the cover of my Book of Cats.

Something had got inside my chest, pushing against my ribs, pressing up to my throat. I could hardly breathe. I poked and twisted, saw fragments of my own handwriting, a corner of a photo, bits of printing. I lifted a handful of ashes and let them filter through my fingers, leaving me with scraps and tatters of paper, brown and flaky-thin. There was still a little warmth left at the heart of the fire.

The whole book, not just the cover.

Gone.

Destroyed.

That’s what Jamie had been doing, out here on his own last night.

A choking sound burst out of me. He couldn’t have–not
all
of it, every page! I looked in the dustbin, just in case he’d chucked some of it in there. Inside, I saw the back cover, made of thick card, with its spiral binding twanging away from it, bent and spoiled when the pages had been ripped out. The only bit that wouldn’t burn. For some reason that made me even more furious. He’d
planned
this, thought about it!

I ran inside, startling Splodge, who was waiting by his food bowl in the kitchen. I thundered up the stairs, not caring if I woke the whole house.

‘Jamie!’ I yelled. ‘JAMIE!’

He was still in bed, curled up like a dormouse. I bounded across the room and hauled the duvet off him.

‘Why?’ I shouted. ‘Why did you do it?’

I
f he’d been asleep, he was certainly wide awake now. He wriggled back against the headboard, making himself as small as he could. His eyes, bright and worried, made me think of a frightened little animal. A squirrel or a shrew, quivering with fright.

I was too angry to care. I wanted to hit him, hurt him, make him pay. ‘Why? Come on–I know you did it!’ I was kneeling on his bed, pushing my face close to his. I saw tears well up in his eyes, then spill over, big and splashy.

‘That’s right, start blubbing! Go all pathetic! You did it, didn’t you? Last night. I know you did, you burned my book–come on, tell me WHY!’

He started to snivel. ‘You told me! You told me to!’

‘I did not! Don’t try to blame me!’

‘You did!’ he whimpered. ‘And I tore up Leo as well and threw the pieces on the fire–’

‘What, your pathetic paper mask? You think that makes it OK?’ I bunched the duvet in my hands, gripped and twisted it. ‘I hate you, Jamie, I swear I do––’

Suddenly Mum was in the room in a flurry of blue dressing-gown. ‘What on earth’s going on? What’s the matter?’

‘
He’s
the matter! He–he––’ Tears blurred my eyes, my voice gave way, a big sob pushed at my throat. ‘He burned my Book of Cats! Tore it up and chucked it on the fire! Like it was–like it was rubbish––’

‘No! Jamie wouldn’t do that––’

‘He
did
! Go and see for yourself if you don’t believe me! I’ll never forgive him for that, ever!’ I swiped at my eyes with the back of my hand and stood up, turning my face to the window. All I could think of was my book, my beautiful book. My work of art, Mum had called it last night. My book that I loved. My project, just for me. My special book that I’d worked at for months–the pictures I’d cut out and collected, cuttings from newspapers and magazines, the photos of Mister and Splodge, things that could never be replaced.

Mum sat on Jamie’s bed. ‘Did you do it, Jamie?’ she asked, very serious. I didn’t even look round, just stared out of the window at the paper-boy’s bike leaning against a lamppost. Jamie snivelled and sniffed, didn’t answer, but he must have nodded, because Mum went, ‘Oh, Jamie!
Why?
Josh’s lovely book!’ When I turned, she was cuddling him–cuddling
him
!–and rocking him like a baby, and he was gulping and sobbing and wiping his runny nose on his pyjama sleeve.

‘That’s right!’ I shouted. ‘Let him get away with it, sweet little Jamiekins! What if I’d ruined something of
his,
done it on purpose, then what? I’m sick of this! I’m not sharing a room with him any more–I hate him!’

In the background Jennie started to cry, and Mike brought her in to see what all the yelling was about. For a confused few minutes it seemed we were
all
crying, except Mike, and even he looked pretty upset. He stayed with Jamie while Mum and I went down to the garden to examine the evidence.

‘Oh, dear, and I thought last night went so well!’ She was shivering, cuddling herself into her dressing-gown. ‘Joshie, I know you’re upset–your beautiful book! It was an awful, awful thing for Jamie to do, and he’ll have to realise that. This thing of his about Leo and lions! I wish I understood it.’ She was talking in the sad, worried voice she used so often nowadays, the small defeated voice. ‘D’you know, I nearly said something to you last night, when I saw your front cover with the eyes on it. All those eyes staring. I was going to say perhaps you should put it away in your desk, after all this business with masks and nightmares. Only with Floss and Kevin and Dad here and the bonfire, I forgot.’

‘Right, so it’s my fault?’ I fired back.

Mum tried to hug me, but I wriggled away. ‘No, no, of course not!’ she said. ‘But Jamie’s very disturbed, and we’ve all got to try to help him. I know it’s hard for you, but he needs you, Joshie. We all do. Come on, it’s cold–let’s go in and do something about breakfast. Then I’m going to phone your dad and tell him what’s happened, and I’m going to try to have a good talk with Jamie. Have you got any plans for today? Do you want to see if Brody can come round, or Noori? Or both of them?’

I mumbled a No. I hadn’t told Mum about the fight with Brody and I didn’t want to think about that now. Whenever I was at home with nothing particular to do, I went back to my Book of Cats. Without it, I felt sick and hollow.

We went in, and Mike came down to make porridge while Mum went up to Jennie. I didn’t want to eat breakfast with Jamie, and didn’t see how he could begin to put things right. Tears would be useless. Sorry would be useless. The only thing that wouldn’t be useless was to give me back my Book of Cats. Undo what he’d done.

Peaceful Sunday morning, not. But that was only the beginning.