‘But I thought it might be an emergency so I picked it up and there was’ – Hangman blocked ‘someone’ – ‘a person on the other end but—’
‘I believe,’ now Dad’s palm said HALT!, ‘I just asked you a question.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘What question did I just ask you?’
‘“What’s the rule about not going into my office?”’
‘So I did.’ Dad’s a pair of scissors at times. Snip snip snip snip. ‘Now, why don’t you answer this question?’
Then Julia did a strange move. ‘That’s funny.’
‘I don’t see anyone laughing.’
‘No, Dad, on Boxing Day when you and Mum took Thing to Worcester, the phone in your office went. Honestly, it went on for aeons. I couldn’t concentrate on my revision. The more I told myself it wasn’t a desperate ambulanceman or something, the likelier it seemed it was. In the end it was driving me crazy. I had no choice. I said “Hello” but the person on the other end didn’t say anything. So I hung up, in case it was a pervert.’
Dad’d gone quiet but the danger wasn’t past.
‘That was just like me,’ I ventured. ‘But I didn’t hang up straight away ’cause I thought maybe they couldn’t hear me. Was there a baby in the background, Julia?’
‘Okay, you two, enough of the private eye bizz. If some joker is making nuisance calls then I don’t want either of you answering, no matter what. If it happens again, just unplug the socket. Understand?’
Mum was just sitting there. It didn’t feel at all right.
Dad’s ‘DID YOU HEAR ME?’ was like a brick through a window. Julia and me jumped. ‘Yes, Dad.’
Mum, me and Dad ate our butterscotch Angel Delight without a word. I didn’t dare even look at my parents. I couldn’t ask to get down early too ’cause Julia’d already used that card. Why I was in the doghouse was clear enough, but God knows why Mum and Dad were giving each other the silent treatment. After the last spoonful of Angel Delight Dad said, ‘Lovely, Helena, thank you. Jason and I’ll do the washing-up, won’t we, Jason?’
Mum just made this nothing-sound and went upstairs.
Dad washed up humming a nothing-song. I put the dirty dishes in the hatch, then went into the kitchen to dry. I should’ve just shut up, but I thought I could make the day turn safely normal if I just said the right thing. ‘Do you get’ (Hangman loves giving me grief over this word) ‘nightingales in January, Dad? I might’ve heard one this morning. In the woods.’
Dad was Brillo-padding a pan. ‘How should I know?’
I pushed on. Usually Dad likes talking about nature and stuff. ‘But that bird at Granddad’s hospice. You said it was a nightingale.’
‘Huh. Fancy you remembering that.’ Dad stared over the back lawn at the icicles on the summer house. Then this noise came out of Dad like he’d entered the World’s Miserablest Man of 1982 Competition. ‘Just concentrate on those glasses, Jason, before you drop one.’ He switched on Radio 2 for the weather forecast, then began cutting up the 1981 Highway Code with scissors. Dad bought the updated 1982 Highway Code the day it came out. Tonight most of the British Isles will see temperatures plunging well below zero. Motorists in Scotland and the North should be careful of black ice on the roads, and the Midlands should anticipate widespread patches of freezing fog.
Up in my room I played the Game of Life but being two players at once is no fun. Julia’s friend Kate Alfrick called for Julia to revise. But they were just gossiping about who’s going out with who in the sixth form, and playing singles by the Police. My billion problems kept bobbing up like corpses in a flooded city. Mum and Dad at lunch. Hangman colonizing the alphabet. At this rate I’m going to have to learn sign language. Gary Drake and Ross Wilcox. They’ve never exactly been my best mates but today they’d ganged up against me. Neal Brose was in on it too. Last, the sour aunt in the woods worried me. How come?
Wished there was a crack to slip through and leave all this stuff behind. Next week I’m thirteen but thirteen looks way worse than twelve. Julia moans non-stop about being eighteen but eighteen’s epic, from where I’m standing. No official bedtime, twice my pocket money, and for Julia’s eighteenth she went to Tanya’s Night Club in Worcester with her thousand and one friends. Tanya’s’s got the only xenon