Boy Underwater

Mum shook, and she shook, and I couldn’t make her hear me. There was nothing I could do, so eventually I took my hand back and went upstairs to my bedroom. It was quiet in there. Everything was really still. I took a Lego model to bits and put it back together again, though it didn’t look quite the same. I got an Asterix from the shelf, but for the first time ever nothing inside it made me laugh. Not even Obelix. So I just sat there, snizzling Mr Fluffy, until I heard footsteps on the stairs. But they went past, and I heard Mum’s bedroom door opening. And closing. I walked out on to the landing and listened, but I couldn’t hear anything. So through the door I said, ‘Mum?’

There was no answer. I tried again.

‘Mum?’

‘Oh,’ she said from the other side of the door. ‘Hi, Cymbeline. Listen, champ, I’m not feeling very well, okay?’

‘Oh. Can I get you anything?’

‘No, that’s all right, love. A bit of a headache. I put a pizza in the oven. Is it okay if you take it out when the bell goes and have it for supper?’

‘On my own?’

‘Yes, love.’

‘All right,’ I said.

‘You know how to do that, don’t you?’

‘With oven gloves.’

‘And turn the oven off. Then there’s ice cream in the freezer. Remember to push the little door shut tight, won’t you?’

‘Okay.’

‘And then …’

‘Yes, Mum?’

‘Can you tuck yourself up into bed? Clean your teeth first.’

‘All right.’

‘And I’ll come out then and give you a kiss goodnight.’

‘All right,’ I said again. She never did, though. I left the pizza in too long and it was black round the edges. I ate the middle. The ice-cream tub was wedged into the freezer compartment so tightly that I couldn’t pull it out. I had a yoghurt instead. And two chocolate biscuits. And another two chocolate biscuits. And a small packet of Haribos. I cleaned my teeth and had a wee, even though Mum hadn’t reminded me to do that, and then I had just one more chocolate biscuit. And then I cleaned my teeth again and lay in bed waiting for her. She always kisses me goodnight. Always, even if I’ve done something I perhaps, maybe, should not have, and she’s just spent half an hour doing LOUD at me.

But not that night.

I called out for her, and then went out on to the landing and knocked on her door. She didn’t answer. Or come out.

I went back to bed, sure that I’d never fall asleep, though I did in the end. I know that because I had a dream, a really horrible one, like what had happened to me that day, though the water wasn’t blue and shiny but brown and dirty and cold, and it went in my throat and eyes and I was turning over and over until I was spat out awake. It was terrible, believe me, though nothing compared to waking up the next morning. That was way worse, because of what I found out then.

My mum wasn’t crying any more.

And she wasn’t shut up in her bedroom.

My mum was gone.

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Lance once asked me a question. We were in the hall doing PE, something I’d been looking forward to all week, but which turned out to be terrible. We were starting Year 3 then with Mr Ashe, who I happen to know is a boss footballer. He coaches the Year 6 team and we sometimes interrupt our Year 4 Saturday-morning training to watch their matches. Before every game he does kick-ups and catches the ball on the back of his neck while the Year 6 kids all groan. So I thought PE would be a chance to improve and perhaps even overtake Danny Jones. But it wasn’t. That term, Mr Ashe explained, as we lined up near the wall bars, we would not be doing football. Or rugby. Not even netball, which would at least have involved a ball. Instead we were going to be doing gymnastics, and if you don’t think that’s terrible it means you are probably a girl (though if you’re not, BIG SORRY AND RESPECT). The girls all squealed with delight, and soon I could see why.

Now I have to admit something. I like girls as much as the next boy, and maybe a little bit more, but I’d always thought that when it came to sport girls just weren’t quite as good. That day I found out that I was wrong. Hardly had the words left Mr Ashe’s lips than I was staring in mouth-wide amazement as girl after girl did the most incredible things. Laura Pinter did a cartwheel that was just like a real wheel going round, especially when she kept going and did three in a row. Rachel Jones then did another one but sort of twisted round halfway in the air so that she ended up on two feet, facing the way she’d come, her arms pointing up to the ceiling.

Wow! It looked so easy but when I tried I just got tangled up. The other boys were the same, looking like rejects from a toy factory, the ones that didn’t work right. The girls were smug too, standing up straighter than they normally did and raising their chins as they walked back to start again. In contrast, our own rubbish-ness was sort of humiliating, though there was one moment I did enjoy. Vi Delap did this thing that I simply COULD NOT believe. She stood straight and bent over backwards, reaching up and behind her. In less than a second she’d put her hands on the floor into a bridge, and then flicked her feet over so that she was standing up again. Billy Lee saw her and tried himself. The very loud echo, when his head connected with the wooden floor, is still one of my Top Five Sounds Of All Time.

‘Cymbeline,’ Lance said, sitting down beside me and rubbing his elbow. And his knee. And then his bum. He looked miserable, though I didn’t think it came from the gymnastics. ‘Where did you get your name from?’

‘My name?’

‘Yeah. I mean, I always thought it was normal because it’s what you’re called, isn’t it?’

‘So why don’t you think it’s normal now?’

‘Well, my dad –’

‘Wait, Lance. Is this your dad-dad you mean, or your new-dad?’

‘My new-dad. I told him you were my best friend and he thought you were a girl. When I told him you weren’t, he laughed a bit and told me he’d never heard that name before and it must be because I went to ‘that kind of school’. He didn’t tell me what ‘that kind of school’ was because my mum came in. So where did you get it from?’

‘I could ask you the same thing.’

‘I suppose,’ Lance said. ‘Though my name’s not as weird as yours. I’ve never met another Cymbeline but there’s another Lance in this school. And another kid called Lance in me and my dad’s cycling club.’

‘Your dad-dad?’

‘My dad-dad.’

‘But still, if you ask me, I can ask you. Why are you called Lance?’

‘I’m not allowed to tell you.’

‘What?’

‘It’s my dad,’ Lance explained.

‘Your dad-dad?’

‘Yeah, my dad-dad. He says I shouldn’t say. Or, if I do say, I have to say that it’s just a random name. I’m definitely not named after Lance Armstrong.’

‘Lance who?’

‘Never mind. But why are you called Cymbeline?’

‘Because of my dad,’ I said.

‘Your dead-dad?’