My Brilliant Idea (And How It Caused My Downfall) (7 page)

“Where have you been?” she asks me. “Dad said you were only going to the shop.”

“That's what I told him,” I say. “I was really round at Chris Yates's house, getting help with my studies.”

“Really?”

She's so impressed, she lets her guard down and allows me to grab a few chips.

“Good for you,” she says. “I'm glad you're starting to take things seriously. There's not long now.”

“Yes,” I say. Just like the bampot. And this time I get it right. She can't think of anything else to say.

I take a few more chips, and she tells me that's enough.

“I thought Dad already made your dinner,” she says.

“He did,” I tell her. “But it wasn't very good.”

“What did he give you?”

“Cold pizza and boiled-up peas. I've got a blister on my tongue.”

At that moment Dad wanders into the kitchen, looking quite pleased with himself.

“I thought I told you to make Jack a proper dinner,” Mum says.

“I did,” Dad replies.

“What did you make him?”

“Pizza and peas.”

“But that's not even a thing,” Mum tells him.

“It is now,” he chuckles, and goes over to the fridge to take out another beer.

“Be serious,” Mum says. “You can't just feed him rubbish, Andy. He's growing. When I say make him a proper dinner, I mean make him a proper dinner.”

“Here we go,” Dad says, and I slip out of the kitchen and head upstairs to my kid room, as the Regular Madness gets going all over again.

I lie on my bed and listen to it for a while, quite enjoying the normality. It seems preferable to living in a house where it wouldn't be unusual for me to paint both of them in the nude. I listen until they get onto the topic of my job prospects again, then filter it out and start thinking about Operation Yatesy's Stand-In.

I lied when I told Yatesy I had a few possible randoms lined up to take the blame for him. I didn't want to give him any reason to believe it was going to be easy for me. I want to have him thinking that it's going to take everything I've got, just to make sure he thinks it's a fair trade. Over the next few days, I might even make up some stories to tell him about how hard it's turning out to be. But the thing is, in reality, I know exactly who I'm going to ask. It's all under control.

All the time I had spent looking at Drew's and Yatesy's profiles earlier in the evening gave me a little mini-idea later on, once the Regular Madness had settled down and I was getting ready to put myself into hibernation mode. It occurred to me that if I could deal with Elsie Green online, especially when it came to working on Objective-C, I might be able to avoid her altogether in the real world and narrowly escape ending up in an insane asylum. So I got out of bed again and searched about for her crazy profile, then zoomed off a friend request. Elsie wasn't anything like Drew, though. I checked for the red sign a few times before I fell asleep, and I checked it once or twice before I went to school in the morning, I even kept an eye out using my phone in between lessons, but each time there was nothing. I didn't see her anywhere at school, either, and the longer it all went on the more my mind began to play tricks on me. I started to imagine that she'd found out about Drew being Yatesy's sister's boyfriend and she'd done something drastic. Swallowed one of those lover's draughts I'm always hearing about in English or something. It seemed like the typical thing to happen just when I had everything sweetly lined up and ready to go. The perfect way for my big idea to go up in smoke.

The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized I was probably just winding myself up. And I decided she probably just had a cold or something.

But guess who I did see! Or rather, guess who saw me. I was making my way from geography to English, just getting ready to send a text to my potential stand-in for Yatesy, when somebody tapped me on the shoulder and nearly knocked the phone out of my hands. I turned round completely off guard, and Drew Thornton was standing there.

“Hi, Jackdaw,” he said, with a big friendly smile on his face.

“Oh,” I said. “Hi, Drew.”

“Thanks for the friend request,” he told me. “I just thought I'd come and say hello. What's up?”

That again.

“Not much,” I replied. Then something occurred to me. “I was over at Chris Yates's last night,” I told him. “He showed me some paintings he'd made of you. Looked good.”

Drew nodded. “Chris is a genius,” he said.

“Anyway,” I went on, “Chris told me you were quite a cool guy, so I sent the request. Just on the spur of the moment. You can delete me if you want.”

Drew shook his head. “No problem,” he said. “One of my friends said you were probably trying to scam me, though. He says you always do that kind of thing.”

I gave him a little smile. “Your friend might be right,” I said. “I'm usually in at something or other. You should delete me to be on the safe side.”

He laughed. “That's funny,” he said. “What have you got now, Jackdaw?”

“English,” I told him. “Hands Anderson.”

“I don't get him,” Drew said. “I get Larkin. I'd better go. Arithmetic with Nelson. See you later.”

Then he ran off, doing a strange little skipping-type run. He's quite a small guy when you're standing beside him. And pretty weird and boring. It doesn't really compute that a little unnoticeable guy like that could lift Greensleeves to such a bonkers state of medieval passion, so much so that she might even throw back a lethal dose of the hemlock because he's going out with another little third-year. I shook my head and checked the time on my phone. I was running pretty late for English now, and late is something you don't want to be when you've got Hands Anderson. So I stuffed the phone into my pocket, forgetting about my text for the time being, and I made a sprint for it.

The stand-in I have in mind for Yatesy is my cousin Harry. I think he'll do it, too. The only problem is, he hasn't been talking to me for the past week or so. He hates me at the moment. I kept texting him all day, but he didn't reply. At break times and between lessons I scoured the corridors and playground for him, but I couldn't find him anywhere. I know if I can get hold of him, I can talk him round. The whole falling-out was based on a misunderstanding, anyway, and I know that once I have him face to face I can get him onboard with the scheme. But he's a couple of years above me, and I don't know his movements. By the last lesson of the day (French) I was checking my phone almost constantly, looking for my acceptance from Elsie and a reply from Harry.

Eventually, Mrs. Peterson caught me at it and confiscated the phone till the end of the period. I felt pretty jumpy without it. By the time I got it back I was having major palpitations, and I turned it back on and checked up on things as quickly as I could. Still nothing. From either of them. So instead of going home, I decided to go straight round to Harry's house, to see if I could sort things out.

He lives in the new builds, over the bridge and down past the roundabout. I always have the feeling I'm walking into a toy town or something when I go down there. The houses don't seem real to me. It's kind of strange.

I always forget which house is his at first as well—they all look exactly the same. But I finally find it and ring the bell, and it's the lunatic who comes to the door: my uncle Ray.

“Jackdaw!” he shouts as soon as he sees me. “Get in, get in. I'm just burning some toast in the kitchen.”

He looks a bit like a bull, my uncle Ray. A bull with a big, bushy mustache. I don't know if you get bulls with mustaches. Probably not. It's not a good look. He has two new additions to his appearance since I last saw him, though. A massive black eye that's all badly swollen and oozy, and a big chunk missing out of the middle of his chin. He hurries me into the kitchen, where he really is burning some toast. The place smells like it's on fire, and smoke pours out of the toaster where two charcoal-black pieces of toast sit smoldering. Uncle Ray takes hold of them and throws them into the bin. Then he opens a cupboard door and clatters about amongst some glasses.

“Sit down,” he tells me. “Are you drinking yet? Will you have a beer?”

“No, thanks,” I say.

“You're still not drinking? Come on, Jack. What age are you now? Fifteen?”

I nod.

“I won't say a word to your dad,” he tells me. “Scout's honor. Half a bottle?”

I shake my head. “I don't like beer,” I tell him. “It muddles my thinking. I need to keep my head clear in case a new idea pops up.”

He nods sagely. “Understood,” he says. “Forget I asked. What's the latest scheme, then? Have you got anything on the go?”

“I've got a few things bubbling,” I tell him.

He sits down at the table, pouring beer from a bottle into his own glass. “Let's have a little preview, then,” he says. “What's the inside lowdown?”

Inside lowdown?

“It's quite complicated,” I tell him. “I'm working on an online thing, but I have to try and trick a few people into helping me with it.”

“You'll go all the way,” he tells me. “You're like me—you've got the spunk. Have you noticed my eye, by the way?”

I try to pretend I haven't.

“Belter, isn't it?” he says. “Hurts like a bastard.” He touches it lightly with his finger and winces. “How about the chin?” he asks, pushing it out toward me as if I wouldn't be able to see it otherwise.

“What happened?” I ask him.

“Dissatisfied customer,” he says. “Some turnip asked me to stop singing while I was driving. Me! ‘That's what I do,' I told him. ‘You don't get in my taxi if you're not going to appreciate it. Everybody knows the deal.' Not this guy. Told me it was giving him a headache. A headache! He told me to quit it or he'd make me quit it. So I stopped the cab, right there. I told him to get out, and he said he'd get out if I got out with him, if we could take it onto the street. So I got out.” He touches his eye and winces again. “Mind you,” he says, “you should see the state of him.”

“Is he bad?” I ask.

“Well . . .” he says, “mainly psychological damage, I suppose. Badly scarred emotionally.” He laughs. “Anyway, all's well that ends well. We both got back into the cab when the thing was over, and he gave me a nice enough tip when I dropped him off. Even joined in with the singing for a wee while. Told me I wasn't really all that bad. Cheeky bastard. Not all that bad! I could've been the next Pavarotti.”

He's always saying that. I don't know if it's true. I don't really know who Pavarotti is. Maybe he could have been, if Pavarotti is someone who can't really sing.

“So what brings you to this corner of paradise?” he asks me. “Come to see your cousin?”

I nod. “I couldn't find him in school,” I say.

Uncle Ray drains most of the beer out of his glass, slurping and burping. Then he wipes his mustache. “He should be back soon,” he says. “Mind you, I say that, but Christ knows where he is. We're not talking at the minute. I've had it with him, to be honest. I should speak to your dad, see if he'll do a swap. How come I wind up with the idiot? You should come and live here, Jack. We'd have a laugh together.”

He reaches across the table and rubs my hair, more or less ruining the perfect sweep I had going on. He sort of embarrasses and terrifies me at the same time, my uncle Ray.

“Me and The Jackdaw!” he says. “What a team!”

A few minutes later, the front door opens, and Uncle Ray puts a finger up to his lips. I hear Harry clumping along the hallway and then dumping his bag at the bottom of the stairs. He takes his coat off, and I hear that going up on the rack, and then he carries on into the kitchen. You can tell he isn't expecting anyone to be here, and he jumps a bit when he sees us. He looks kind of startled, and when he realizes I'm here he turns round and walks back out again. We hear him stomping up the stairs and then going into his room.

“Must be Tampon Time,” Uncle Ray says. “He didn't look too happy to see
you,
either.”

“We fell out a couple of weeks ago,” I tell him. “Just a misunderstanding. I've come to sort it out.”

“Good luck with that,” Uncle Ray says, and he takes his glass across to the sink and rinses it out. Then he puts another couple of pieces of bread into the still-smoking toaster. I get up from the table and push my chair in.

“See you later, Uncle Ray,” I say, and then I make my way up to Harry's room and knock lightly on his door.

My cousin Harry's room is just like mine, a kid room. He still has a poster of a dragon above his bed, and over on the other wall he has a chart for this game he plays on the computer. He even still has a few toys lying about that he's never bothered to throw out. Sad. His room really makes me want to fix up mine.

While I stand at the door looking around at all this stuff, Harry sits at his desk glaring at me. He didn't answer my knock on the door, so I just came in, but it's clear he's not too happy about it.

“Beat it!” he tells me. “I haven't got anything to say to you.”

“Maybe I've got something to say to you, though,” I reply. “Maybe I've come to apologize.”

“Did you bring my iPad?” he asks me, and I shake my head. “Beat it, then. I'm not interested.”

I close the door and come a bit farther into the room. Harry turns away from me and hunches over the books that are lying open on his desk, pretending he's getting to work on something. I go over and sit down on his kid bed.

“I've brought you something to make up for the iPad,” I say. “I'm still trying to get that back, but I've brought you something better in the meantime.”