The Boy Who Could Do What He Liked

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Alfie Moore had a routine. To be honest, he had a lot of routines. He had a waking-up routine, a getting-dressed routine, a cleaning-his-teeth-in-the-morning routine, a breakfast routine, a clearing-up-after-breakfast routine, a getting-his-schoolbag-ready routine, a checking-he-had-everything-before-he-left-the-house routine, a walking-to-and-from-school routine, a having-tea routine, a clearing-up-after-tea routine, a homework routine, a limited-amount-of-TV routine, a bath routine, a cleaning-his-teeth-in-the-evening routine (which, to be fair, was pretty similar to his cleaning-his-teeth-in-the-morning routine), a getting-undressed-and-putting-pyjamas-on routine and a going-to-bed routine.

Alfie was eleven and the routines had all been worked out by his dad, Stephen. Each one was precisely written out, listing all the things he had to do, and the times he had do them by, on pieces of paper pinned up on different walls of his house. For example, the waking-up and getting-dressed routines were on his bedroom wall, along with the getting-undressed-and-putting-pyjamas-on and going-to-bed routines, only on a different piece of paper (placed very neatly next to the first one).

But Alfie never needed to look at those pieces of paper because he knew all his routines by heart. Plus, he wore two watches, one on each wrist (one digital and one analogue, both given to him by his dad) to make sure he always knew the time. As a result, he was never late for school, always knew what clothes to wear, was never tired from going to bed late and always got all his homework done.

Alfie was perfectly happy. The routines made his life work very, very well; it only wasn’t operating under a routine when he was asleep, although Alfie didn’t really know about that because he never seemed to have any dreams.

Alfie’s routines did, of course, involve his dad and his stepmother, Jenny. His parents were there at exactly the right times to prepare his tea, to help him with his homework, to kiss him on the top of his head when the back of his head hit the pillow, as it always did at 8.35pm on weekdays and 9.35pm on weekends. But every so often Alfie’s parents did go out, to dinner parties and other things that they said they liked, but often came back from crosser and more miserable than they were before they went out. That could mean a disruption to Alfie’s evening routines.

Luckily, they had a babysitter who was completely up to speed with how Alfie lived his life. Her name was Stasia and she was Lithuanian. If anything, she was even more efficient than Alfie’s dad at making sure Alfie stuck to his regular timetable.

Stasia would arrive, promptly, at 6pm and everything would run smoother than smooth with Alfie’s having-tea routine, his clearing-up-after-tea routine, his homework routine, his limited-amount-of-TV routine, his bath routine, his pretty-similar-to-the-cleaning-his-teeth-in-the-morning-cleaning-his-teeth-in-the-evening routine, his getting-undressed-and-putting-pyjamas-on routine and his going-to-bed routine.

But then, one day, Alfie came back from school to find his stepmum, Jenny, video-calling Stasia on her smartphone. He wanted to interrupt her and tell her all about his science class, which he had really liked that day because they’d been doing space travel, but he could see that she was preoccupied.

“But what are we going to do?” his stepmum was saying. “We’ve got a dinner party tonight. It’s Stephen’s boss. I really don’t think we can cancel.”

Alfie’s stepmum, it should be said, was not quite as concerned about the routines as Alfie’s dad. In fact, if anything, she was a bit worried that Alfie was being teased at school for his punctuality and his always-having-his-homework-doneness: she thought she’d heard a boy called Freddie Barnes shout: “BORING, BORING ALFIE!” at him in the playground.

But she knew the routines had started soon after Alfie’s biological mum had died and that they had made day-to-day life much easier while Stephen was a single dad. And, even though Stephen wasn’t a single dad any more, he seemed to want to stick with the routines and Jenny didn’t like challenging him about how he had decided to bring up his son.

“I am sorry, Mrs Moore,” said Stasia from the phone screen. “I cannot help it. My family needs me. I must catch a plane at 7.30.”

Jenny shook her head. “How heavy is this pig?”

“Was. The pig is dead.”

“Dead? Running into your mother killed the pig?”

“No. Because she broke my mother’s leg, the pig has been destroyed.” There was a short pause. “Although we will eat her later.” There was another short pause. “The pig. Not my mother.”

“OK …” said Jenny. “Fine. Of course. I understand. Go. We’ll … find someone else.”

But when she clicked off and looked up, Alfie could tell she was worried. And he was worried too because they’d never had any other babysitters, apart from his grandparents, and both sets lived too far away to reach his house in time.

Who were they going to get to look after him?

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The situation got worse when Alfie’s dad arrived home and discovered that Stasia had to fly back to Lithuania to deal with her emergency pig-induced crisis. Going to his boss’s dinner party was non-negotiable, he said. Alfie wasn’t sure what non-negotiable meant, but it seemed to suggest that his parents were going to go out whatever happened. He started to think they might just leave him home alone or, worse, take him with them and then he’d have to talk to grown-ups about management consultancy, which is what his dad did, and Alfie had even less idea what that actually meant than non-negotiable.

“There must be someone else we can call,” said Jenny. “What about the next-door neighbours?”

“They’re away on holiday,” replied Alfie’s dad.

Alfie, not really liking it when his dad and stepmum got frantic, went over to the other side of the living room where there was a chest of drawers. Inside the top drawer there were lots of bits of paper, including some of the bits of paper that his dad had first drawn up his routines on. Alfie liked to look at these sometimes to see how his routines had changed as he had got older.

“OK,” said Jenny. “What about the other side? Mr Nichols …”

“Are you serious? He stands all day at the lights on the High Street, directing traffic with a spoon.”

Jenny nodded. “You’re right. Bad idea.” She sat down, took out her phone and started tapping. “We could call an agency …”

“No, Jenny.”

“No?”

“No. I don’t want someone we’ve never met. How could we trust them to be on top of everything?”

“On top of every … what thing?”

Stephen looked at her like she was mad. “The routines, Jenny. Alfie’s routines.”

Alfie’s stepmum stopped tapping. She put the phone down and sighed.

“Then I’m out of ideas,” she said.

Alfie’s dad put his head in his hands. “What are we going to do?” he said, sounding muffled.

“What about this?” suggested Alfie.

He held out a small card that he had found under some of the bits of paper in the chest of drawers. It had gone slightly yellow with age, but you could still make out a picture of flowers on it. In the middle of the flowers were printed the words:

and a phone number. On the back of the card someone had written, in biro:

His dad looked at the card. He turned it over. He seemed, for some reason, shocked by it.

“Um … well, I guess … we could try her.” He showed the card to Jenny.

“Do you know her …?” said Jenny, surprised.

“No, I don’t think we ever used her, but …” He turned the card over so that Jenny could see the writing on the back.

Jenny squinted at it. “Is that …?”

“Yes.”

Jenny thought for a while. “Well then, I guess it must be OK. Although, looking at the state of that card, I think Mrs Stokes might be quite old now.”

Jenny was right. When Alfie first saw Mrs Stokes, he didn’t think he’d ever seen anyone so ancient. She made his oldest grandparent, Grandpa Bernie, look like a member of a boy band. She had a Zimmer frame, two hearing aids and – although Alfie didn’t know how tall she might have been before – seemed to have shrunk with age to the size of a munchkin. And it took her so long to walk up the drive that, by the time she was actually inside the house, Alfie wondered if it was too late for his parents to go out.

How on earth, he thought, is she going to look after me? And, more importantly, make sure I get through all my routines?

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The first problem, in fact, was making Mrs Stokes understand what a routine was.