Читать книгу Feather Boy онлайн | страница 14

Of course, I don’t yell if Mum’s home. Well, I did once, blasted into the kitchen shrieking, “I can see you!” at the top of my voice. Mum was sat at the kitchen table drinking a cup of coffee.

“That’s lucky,” she said, “or you’d need new glasses.”

They call it obsessive-compulsive behaviour. Or compulsive-obsessive or Chance House Bonkers or something. People do it with hand-washing. I read that in the newspapers. They wash their hands again and again and again, four times, six times, twenty times. Then as soon as their hands are dry, it’s back to the basin again, wash, wash, wash. Washing until they bleed. By comparison I have to be a mild case. Almost normal in fact. Norbert Normal.

Anyhow. I’m in the house. I’d like to tell you that I get a chocolate biscuit and then go straight on to the computer. Well, I do get the biscuit but then I go upstairs to paint my models. Niker, when he came round, called me a “Saddo”. I didn’t tell him we don’t have a computer because of the money. I told him I like painting model soldiers. Which, as it happens, I do. That was a little while after the Grape Incident. Which took place in The Dog Leg. Anyway, I didn’t tell Mum anything about anything. But she’s not stupid. She’d watched me avoiding The Dog Leg, even though it’s the quickest way to school. And one afternoon she asked:

“Is someone on your back?”

“No.”

“Someone bullying you?”

“No.”

“Do you want to invite anyone home for tea?”

“No!”

“If someone’s on your back,” she said, “you can always try to make a friend of them. Ask their advice. Get them to help you with something. Invite them home. It sometimes helps.”

“Right.”

How come grown-ups are always so smart about your life, but not quite so smart about their own? Slap, slap, slap. That was Dad hitting her on the landing. Well, hitting her on the face actually, out on the landing. Or maybe on the shoulders. I didn’t really want to look. I could hear plenty enough. Anyhow, I didn’t notice her trying to make him into a friend next morning.