Birthday Boy

This was not true of Grandma Glenda, who ate virtually nothing – constantly counting calories, and demanding no butter on her bread, and refusing pudding unless it was the dullest puddings, rice ones with skimmed milk and NO JAM, for example – but was shaped not unlike a large balloon. Although one filled with flesh, rather than air.

“Oh yeah?” said Grandma Glenda, getting up from her chair and leaning over the table and putting her face very close to Grandma Poppy’s. “And who’s going to stop me?”

“I am!” said Vicky, coming into the living room with a teapot. “Come on, Mum, Dad, Glenda, Mike … We’re not going to be fighting today, remember, because” – and here she glanced significantly in Sam’s direction – “it’s a special day.”

All the grandparents looked at each other.

“Oh yes!” they said at once. “Happy birthday, Sam!” they chorused.

“Yes, it’s strange,” said Grandma Poppy. “We all woke up with those words in our heads, didn’t we?”

“I suppose so,” said Grandma Glenda, as if it was hard to agree with Grandma Poppy about anything. “Well, I mean, yes, we did. All of us.”

Then they folded their arms and sat back in their chairs and did their best to smile at each other.

That was when Sam really started to believe it was true. Because what his grandparents usually liked to do, when they came round, was fight. And shout and swear at each other.

The only days they didn’t do that were his birthday, and Ruby’s birthday. He knew it wasn’t Ruby’s birthday. So it must be his birthday. Again. Today.

For a second, it bothered him that his mum had referred to today as a special day. Because if it was a special day, what did that make the day before, which had been Sam’s real birthday?

But, then again, today was feeling pretty real, birthday-wise. His dad had come back from the shops with loads of new presents. Stuff left over from his birthday list that he hadn’t got the day before. A chess set, a lava lamp, two video games, three new T-shirts and a pair of headphones! Wireless, with Bluetooth, and noise reduction! Plus his mum had nipped out when his dad had got back and got him a book to go with his telescope, with maps of stars and constellations to find and check against the night sky.

And his grandparents had brought him presents too! Rubbish ones, of course, but they always did that. Well, not rubbish ones – ones that they would have got when they were children, basically. Grandma Poppy had got him a pipe that blew bubbles; Grandpa Sam gave him an old watch, which he said he’d like to see him – Sam – wear every day; and Grandpa Mike and Grandma Glenda had got him a pack of cards with which you could play Happy Families. So … yes, rubbish ones.

But Sam still thought: Well, it’s not actually going to be like a birthday. Yes, I’ve got presents, and, yes, my mum brought me breakfast in bed, and, yes, my grandparents aren’t fighting, but it’s not— and then the doorbell rang.

“Who’s that?” said Sam.

“Why don’t you go and see?” said his dad.

Sam shrugged, and went to the door, assuming that it would be the man with the shaven head and the tattoos on his face who sold dusters and kitchen cloths for £10 each and had a card saying he’d recently come out of prison. He often came round on a Sunday afternoon.

But, as Sam approached the door, he could tell that it wasn’t him. It looked like a much bigger person, with about ten strange heads. When he opened the door, though, it wasn’t a much bigger person with about ten heads. It was Finn and Jake and the Ice Queen and … and a whole bunch of other characters from Adventure Time! And, weirdly, Richard the rabbit dad from The Amazing World of Gumball.

“Oh!” said Sam, with some surprise.

“Happy birthday again, Sam!” chorused Finn and Jake and the Ice Queen from Adventure Time. And Richard the dad from The Amazing World of Gumball.

Except it wasn’t actually them. This story isn’t that magical (it’s more … everyday magical). It was all Sam’s friends from Bracket Wood, in costume: Barry and Lukas and Taj and Fred and Ellie and Morris and Isla. It was Morris who’d got it wrong and dressed as Richard.

“Oh!” said Sam again. “Come—”

He was going to say “in”. But by then everyone had already piled in, rushing past his astonished face.

CHAPTER 8 (#ulink_0e651ded-51f5-5baa-91db-04a864aa5c50)

NEW KID (#ulink_0e651ded-51f5-5baa-91db-04a864aa5c50)

After the party was over, Sam realised he hadn’t properly had time, what with all the second-birthday-in-two-days activity, to play with his skateboard. So, while it was still light, he took the lift down to ground level, holding his board.

The lift at Noam Chomsky House was a massive silver (not real silver, obviously: painted silver) box. It smelt not unlike a big toilet, particularly in one corner, and when they all took the lift together Sam and Ruby would always try to push each other into that bit. And it creaked a lot. But Sam didn’t mind that. It got him to the bottom all right, and on the ground outside the tower block there were loads of concreted-over areas, some of which had humps and tunnels and ramps that made it almost like a little skate park.

The lift doors opened, and Sam got on to his board and skated out to the concrete. He sailed easily over the paved path, and then down one of the ramps into a small bowl-like section, which cut underneath the main tower. It was a touch grim in there – sometimes Sam felt that it looked like a place where one of those crime dramas that his parents watched on TV would have their final big shootout scene – but it was the best part for skateboarding. Then he stopped. Because someone was already there.

It was a kid about his own age, but a little smaller. He had cropped short hair, and dark skin, and wore a grey hoody. But these things were not important. What was important was that he was an amazing skater. Alpha flips, Ollie norths, Ollie souths, 720s, spins, tail grabs, pull-ups – he could do them all. He made the grim bowl-like area under Noam Chomsky House feel like a skate park in one of those places Sam had seen on YouTube, in America or wherever, where the sky always seemed to be blue and the wheels and helmets of the skaters dazzled in the sun.

Sam watched for a while, awestruck. Then the boy must’ve noticed him, because he flipped the board round, and skated effortlessly towards him. At which point, Sam noticed that, despite being a brilliant skater, this kid was not riding a brilliant board. It was scratched and battered, and although that did make it look kind of cool, the wheels were pitted, the grip-tape was worn out, the trucks were bent and none of the parts were from any top-level brands.

And then, looking up from the board, Sam noticed something else. The skater wasn’t a boy. He was a girl.

“Hello!” she said.

“Hi,” said Sam. “Do you live round here?”

“Yes,” said the girl. She had a strong accent, which Sam couldn’t place, but sounded similar to the way frightened people spoke on the news in reports from countries that always seemed to be at war. Except she didn’t sound frightened. “Fifteenth floor. My family were just placed here. By the government. I don’t know how long we will be staying.”

“Oh right,” said Sam. “You’re a great skater.”

“Thanks,” she said. “Where I come from, we had to stop going to school. And we lived near a car park, but no cars ever came there any more. So just to keep me busy my father” – and here she held the board up, a little apologetically, as if knowing it wasn’t quite as flash as it should be – “he built me this board and I went to the car park every day and learnt a lot of tricks.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why did you stop going to school?”

“Because the school was bombed.”

“Oh …” said Sam, feeling a bit stupid, because up to that point he’d quite liked the sound of not having to go to school.

“That’s OK,” the girl said. “Hey! Who wants to go to school?”

Which made Sam laugh. But she was too busy looking down at his new present to notice. “Nice board …”

“Thanks. Do you want to have a go?” he said, holding out his shiny and sparkling new board. “Sorry … I don’t know your name …?”

“My name is Zada. And you should try out your board first. It’s your birthday, isn’t it?”

Sam stared at her. “How do you know that?”

Zada frowned. “I’m not sure. Good guess, I suppose.”

Sam considered saying, “Well, now that my birthday might be happening every day, you were on fairly safe ground with that guess,” but thought that might be a bit complicated for a girl he’d just met.

“OK,” he said instead, and kicked off. He felt a little nervous, actually, skating in front of someone who was so good. He tried a few of his more limited tricks, but as he went round the bowl, he went too fast, and ended up falling off.

Zada was really nice about it, though.