Flyaway (4 page)

‘Sure, sure.' Dad brushes away her concern, catches sight of Jack in front of the telly. Jack shuffles over on the couch, making way for him, and Dad's already talking about the swans.

‘The power lines, right?' Jack asks. ‘No markers?'

Dad shakes his head. ‘Swans didn't have a chance.'

He flops down next to Jack and the energy seems to drain out of him immediately. He's suddenly as saggy as the couch. Mum comes over to where I'm still standing by the door, takes my head between her cool fingers.

‘You all right, babe?' she asks. She's looking at me carefully. I try to force my features into a grin and reassure her. It's not me I want her to be worried about.

‘I'm fine,' I say. I want to tell her that Dad's not, though. I want to tell her how sick he looked at the reserve, but already she's hugging me against her fleecy jumper and brushing her fingers through my hair.

‘Pizza for lunch?'

I wince as her fingers get caught in a knot. She takes a comb from her bag and tries to brush through it. I pull away from her strokes, go upstairs and change out of my muddy trousers. When I come back down, Dad has changed too. He's sitting back on the couch in his pyjama bottoms. I sit on the floor, lean up against his leg. Dad's still talking about the swans, trying to work out where the rest of the flock has moved on to.

‘Maybe they've gone back up north,' Jack suggests.

Dad's not convinced. ‘There are other lakes around that part of town,' he says ‘Behind the factories, the hospital. The swans are still nearby.'

‘You can feel it, can you?' Jack smirks at Dad. He always makes fun of the way Dad thinks he has some sort of a psychic
connection with swans.

‘Yeah.' Dad smiles crookedly. ‘I'd feel it if they went somewhere else, sure!'

Jack squawks with laughter and Dad joins in a little.

‘What?' Dad protests, still smiling. ‘I would!'

I think about that young, grey swan circling around the wetlands on her own. Would Dad also feel it if she went? Would anyone? I turn around to face Dad.

‘Can we keep looking for the swans tomorrow after school?' I ask. ‘Maybe go back to the reserve?'

Dad starts to nod. But Mum's in the doorway straight away.

‘Doctor first,' she growls.

Dad holds his hands up in surrender. He winks at me. ‘Sorry, Bird,' he says. ‘Soon.'

I turn back to the telly, rest my head against Dad's knee. It's kind of nice to hear him call me by my kiddy name again. He hasn't done it for ages. It's what he started calling me when I was a baby, before I had a name. He said I looked like a tiny bird, something fallen from a high place. It makes me feel small and young to hear it again.

Jack turns the telly volume down on the hospital drama he's been watching to talk to Dad. I can smell the mud on the bottom of his trousers and guess he's been playing football this morning. I think about last weekend when he let me and Saskia come with him. He didn't seem to mind too much, even though his mates were all there. Sometimes he's good like that. Or maybe he just felt sorry for me because he knew Saskia was leaving. Maybe Mum told him to do it.

The hospital show switches to an operation scene and I turn away from it. Instead I remember playing in Jack's football game; how Crowy, Jack's friend, passed the ball across to me. It felt like I could run with it for ever. All the way down the pitch with Saskia cheering on the side. All the way to the moon. That's what I feel like doing now, running. My mind is full of images of the dead swans. Running helps with getting rid of images, somehow. The faster you run, the harder it is for thoughts to stay in your head.

Dad starts telling Jack about how the swans hit the wires. Jack wants to know every detail . . . the smell, what bones were broken, how cold the water was. It makes me feel sick, hearing them talk about it. I try not to hear what Dad's saying by pressing my ear more firmly against the material of his pyjamas.

Then the phone rings. I feel Dad's leg tense when Mum answers.

‘I'm sorry to hear that, Martin,' I hear Mum say. ‘I'll let them know now.'

She waits a second or two before she comes into the living room. I know already what she's going to say. I see the frown on Mum's face as she tries to work out how to tell us.

‘It's the swan, isn't it?' I ask.

She just nods. I hear Dad sighing behind me, thumping his head back onto the couch.

‘Should have taken it to a proper vet,' he murmurs.

CHAPTER 6

T
he rain lashes against the car as Mum drives Jack and me to school. Mum's talking quietly about Dad, telling us he needs to get tests done this week.

‘They think it might be his heart,' Mum murmurs.

I can't hear the rest of what she says above the sound of the rain.

I look down Saskia's road as we pass it, or the road that used to be her road. The ‘For Sale' sign is still in front of her house. I hated helping her pack up her room last week; taking down all the silly photos of us she'd stuck to the wall. Hated watching her family drive away. I press my forehead to the cold window glass, wonder what school will be like without Saskia. She'll be up in Glasgow by now, already starting at a new school. Making new friends. Fitting in. Forgetting me. I don't want to think about it. Instead, I scan the sky. I'm
looking for the swan flock, though I know they won't be flying so close to the city. We drive past the corner shop where Saskia and I buy gummi bears. I glance back to the sky. Saskia's migrating too, sort of. Though I don't know when she'll be coming back.

Mum stops near the bus stop and Jack's out of the car really quickly. He runs to catch up with Crowy and Rav who are already at the school gates. I crane my neck to catch a glimpse of Crowy but he's got his back to me and I can only see his school jumper and longish hair. Mum turns around in her seat, waits for my kiss on her cheek.

‘You'll be all right without Sas,' she says. ‘You'll make new friends, you'll see.'

But I'm not so sure.

Art is first and there's an empty seat next to me where Saskia would have sat. Usually I love Art because it's the only lesson I'm actually pretty good at, but without Saskia here it's different somehow. The boys at the back stare at me when I come in, and Mrs Diver gives me a small, sympathetic smile. I stretch out my stuff and sketchpad over the table so no one else will sit next to me.

‘We're going to keep focusing on our all-important observation skills,' Mrs Diver says.

She places bits of fruit on everyone's desk, and we all groan. We already did Still Life last year.

‘These skills will help us when it comes to your major projects for the term,' she continues, ‘which will be to do with movement and flying.'

I glance up at her then, and she places a wrinkly-looking apple on my desk.

‘What's an apple got to do with flying?' I murmur.

‘Remember, a solid base in observation always helps you in design.' She winks at me, then goes back to the pencil-sketched picture of Leonardo da Vinci that's always hanging up behind her desk. ‘Remember Leo?' she says. ‘The greatest artist that ever lived? He did thousands of 2D designs before he ever attempted to make models. We'll find out about some of these sketches in our next lesson.' She looks fondly at his old, wrinkly face, as if she were looking at a poster of her dad rather than someone she'd never met.

I go back to my apple. It has a soft, brown bruise and a hole where a worm's eaten into it. It smells sweet and rotten, and it's the last thing I want to look at for the rest of the lesson. I sketch it out really quickly.

‘Try and make your picture come alive, as 3D as you can . . .' Mrs Diver is waffling on and on, waving her arms about like she does when she gets excited.

I turn towards the window. The rain is still so heavy, and the sky is grey as concrete. I wonder where the swans go in weather like this. I think of them huddling together, heads tucked back into their feathers. I wonder if the rain's been too heavy for Dad to drive to the surgery.

I hear the boys at the back laughing as they talk to the new girl, Sophie. I think they're teasing her about her accent, saying something about didgeridoos and
Neighbours
. I suppose I should invite her to sit next to me and give her a break
from them. But I don't. I don't want anyone to sit there, not yet. No one apart from Saskia. It seems wrong to have a new girl in our class already, someone to replace her. I fold my arms on the table and rest my head down onto them, and listen to the pattering of the rain against the windows. It sounds a bit like swans taking off from a lake, their webbed feet smacking against the water.

CHAPTER 7

D
ad's in and out of the doctor's surgery for most of the week, getting tests done and finding out what's wrong. He pulls me aside on Saturday morning, right after I've stuck bread in the toaster.

But instead of telling me if he's sick, he says, ‘Let's go to the reserve today. Find the swans, and take some photographs.'

‘Why photographs?'

He flashes a piece of paper at me which I have to grab from him to read. It's some official-looking letter he's typed out.

‘I've written to the council,' he explains. ‘Told them what happened with the swans and the power lines. Now we just need photos: evidence!' He's grinning excitedly.

‘But are you OK now?' I ask. ‘With the tests and everything . . . ?'

Dad rolls his eyes. ‘I don't look sick, do I?'

I shake my head slowly. Because he doesn't. Not right now when he's jumping around the kitchen, thinking up plans.

‘But Mum said . . .'

Dad shrugs. ‘Until the doctors know what's wrong, I'm not getting worried about anything. It's probably all just a false alarm anyway.'

He can see I'm still reluctant. He sighs as he leans back against the counter.

‘What about if I take you to get your hair cut, after the reserve?' Dad crosses his arms and waits for my answer.

He has been listening then. All those times when I've pleaded with Mum to take me to the hairdresser.

‘Mum would kill you,' I say, starting to laugh at him.

Dad frowns as he thinks about it. ‘I'll say you wanted me to take you before I go into hospital?'

‘Hospital?' There's a soft clunk from the toaster. But I ignore the toast and keep looking at Dad. ‘What do you mean, hospital?'

Dad reaches across to pick the toast out. He flings it quickly onto the bench as it burns his hands.

‘It's nothing serious,' he says quickly. ‘They just want to stick a tube thing into my heart, see what's going on in there.'

‘That sounds serious.'

‘I'm only in for a day, a couple of hours really.' He smiles at me then leans forward to touch my hair. ‘So . . . reserve first, then haircut?'

He curls a strand of hair around his finger and then lets it
bounce back into place. I study his face.

‘What if something happens at the reserve?'
Like last time
, I want to add.

‘What can happen?' he says. ‘Anyway, don't you want to find the swans?'

I nod. ‘Course, but . . .'

‘Settled then.'

He picks the toast up from the bench and flings it at me. I catch the two pieces, just. I dig in the fridge for the butter. I use Jack's dirty plate, avoiding the Marmite stains as I cut the toast into four. Dad reaches over my shoulder and grabs a quarter.

‘Hey!' I slap his hand, but he moves away before I can grab the toast back.

He grins, only a little apologetic. ‘We're going to find that flock today,' he says. ‘I can just feel it. We'll look at the reserve. But there are other lakes around we can try. I'm pretty sure there's one by the hospital for a start.'

He crunches down loudly on the toast and I move the plate before he can get another piece. Dad does seem better today. Back to his usual self. Maybe he is right when he says it's all just a false alarm.