The Boy Who Lived With Ghosts: A Memoir (25 page)

And anyway, Margueretta has taped a piece of cardboard over the vent.

“Well then,
you
come up with a fucking plan to make us rich! You always say my plans won’t fucking work!”

“But your plans always involve my sister being naked.”

“People will pay good fucking money for that. My dad always says it’s the oldest business in the fucking world, doing it for money. And he should fucking know. He was in the navy.”

“Well, I’ve got a plan.”

“Fuck. Now you tell me. What?”

“We don’t have a tuck shop at school…”

“That’s because no one’s got any fucking money.”

“Some kids have got money.”

“Who?”

“The fat kids.”

“Which fat kids?”

“All of them. Like Viola Pinkerton. Have you seen her in the swimming pool? She looks like a whale. But pink. You have to eat a whole week’s worth of food every day to get that fat.”

“Yeh. But she wants to do handstands with us. I couldn’t hold her legs up. No fucking way. Legs the size of fucking tree trunks.”

“And then there’s Ian Tucker. He’s as fat as Billy Bunter. He’s so fat he has to get a note from his mum every week so he doesn’t have to play football.”

“Fuck, he doesn’t want us to see his fat belly hanging over his cock. And don’t forget Beryl. She’s got a bigger arse than a Number 17 bus. My dad always says that a big arse is what a woman needs to keep a man fucking happy. That, and a never-ending supply of Newcastle Brown Ale.”

“So that’s the plan.”

“What plan? Don’t fucking get it. What have fat kids got to do with making us rich?”

“We are going to sell chocolate and sweets to fat kids.”

“That’s the fucking plan?”

“Yep. Fry’s Turkish Delight. Cadbury’s Dairy Milk Chocolate. Also Rowntree’s Fruit Pastels and Maynard’s Wine Gums. We’re going to sell chocolate and sweets to fat kids.”

I got the idea last week when I went to tea with Ian Tucker. The only reason I went to tea with him, and he knows this, is that he has all of the Thunderbirds models and he said I could play with them. Otherwise, there is no way I would go to tea with a fat kid who gets a note from his mum every week because he doesn’t want us to see his fat belly hanging over his cock. Anyway, his mum made us a “chocolate tea” because it was a special occasion on account of me being the very first friend he had ever brought home. Everything was made from chocolate. Chocolate spread sandwiches, chocolate Jaffa Cakes, chocolate McVitie’s Digestive biscuits, Cadbury’s Chocolate Fingers, and Bourneville chocolate drinks. It made me feel sick but fat kids love it.

But when I broke his Thunderbird Two model, the green one with the removable loading bay, he started crying like a girl and told me to get out of his house and never come back. He also said he would not be my friend anymore and I told him I wasn’t his friend in the first place and I only came round his house to play with his Thunderbirds. His mum said that I was an ungrateful filthy little brat who did not have any respect for other people’s possessions and she was sorry now that she had made Ian’s favorite chocolate tea for me to share.

Well, Ian Tucker will be singing a different tune when I show him the Sweet Shop.

“But how do we fucking make money?”

“Easy. We sell the sweets at twice the price we buy them for.”

“Why the fuck would anyone pay twice the price?”

“I’ve thought about that.”

The Sweet Shop is made from a cardboard box that I have cut into the shape of a sweet shop with a sign and everything and decorated with pictures of sweets cut out from the Littlewoods Catalog and
Woman’s Own
magazine.
I have installed small shelves and miniature lighting. The tiny lights came from Woolworth’s and they make the whole Sweet Shop look very realistic.

“Look at this! It’s ‘The Sweet Shop!’”

“Fuck! It looks fucking amazing!”

Then I showed Danny the secret. I have covered one of the miniature light bulbs with a piece of red cellophane from a Quality Street’s chocolate that I had at Christmas.

“Watch this.”

I flashed the red light on and off and on and off.

“Fuck yeh. A flashing red light.”

“Yep. I will flash this light at the fat kids during playtime and lunchtime and they will know the Sweet Shop is open.”

“Why don’t you just tell them it’s fucking open?”

“The fat kids will see that red light and every time they see it they will start thinking about sweets and chocolate. They won’t be able to resist. And they’ll pay double.”

“But I can only think of four fucking fat kids. We can’t get rich with only four fucking fat kids.”

“Yes, we can.”

“How?”

“We sell them as much chocolate and sweets as they want. No limit.”

“What, even if they puke from eating all that fucking chocolate?”

“Yep. Even if they puke. We’re not responsible for how much they eat.”

69

S
ome people just don’t want to see others succeed. Take Mr. Parsons, for instance. He only comes into our classroom to tell us we are a useless bunch of lazy, good-for-nothing clods and we will never amount to anything in this life because we are stupid, stupid, stupid. Today he asked Gary Gibly what is two minus three and Gary Gibly said it was zero because it was a trick question and you can’t have less than nothing. And then Mr. Parsons asked him what weighs more, a ton of coal or a ton of feathers and Gary Gibly said it was another trick question and the answer is the feathers even though he really thought it was the coal. We will therefore all end up as dustmen or on the Welfare.

Everyone knows that Gary Gibly is stupid. Mr. Parsons knows just how stupid Gary Gibly is because he is always bottom of our entire year unless you count Tommy Collins but he is simple and that is different from being stupid. So Mr. Parsons is just showing off by picking on a really stupid boy rather than an averagely stupid boy. And if we are all so stupid then Mr. Parsons is stupid for being the headmaster. And Mr. Hudson is stupid for being a teacher here or he is a really clever dirty old man because he wants to look at girls getting undressed for swimming and touch Mandy’s breasts and he knows that we are all too stupid to tell on him.

But I will show them who’s stupid. The Sweet Shop has only been in operation for a week and it’s amazing how much money fat kids will spend on chocolate and sweets. All I have to do is wait for playtime and then start flashing that little red light. Danny makes all the kids stand in a line and
hurries them along when they can’t make up their minds. As I suspected, the Sweet Shop works best with fat kids because they are always hungry and they have money to buy cakes and pies and also sweets.

I am sure everyone is really impressed with the Sweet Shop and now Mr. Hudson has sent me to the headmaster’s office where he’s waiting to see me—no doubt to apologize for calling me stupid.

“OK, Mitchell. Viola Pinkerton’s mother was here this morning. And do you know why?”

“No, sir.”

“You know very well why she was here.”

“I don’t, sir.”

“So you know nothing about the Sweet Shop?”

“No…I mean yes…”

“Ah! So you do know why her mother was here?”

“No, sir.”

“Lies, lies, lies. You clods are all the same. You’d lie to save yourself, wouldn’t you?”

“No, sir.”

“I’m looking for answers, Mitchell. Answers. Now, did you sell Viola Pinkerton five bars of Fry’s Turkish Delight?”

“I don’t think it was all in one day.”

“That’s not the point. What the hell do you think you are doing?”

“Trying to make money, sir.”

“Did you know she ate them all yesterday afternoon and was violently sick when she got home? All over the sofa?”

“No, sir.”

“You are responsible.”

“Me, sir?”

“And Mr. Hudson said you have a flashing red light.”

“Yes.”

“And you were using it to attract fat children?”

“Yes.”

“And you are doubling the price of the sweets? Don’t lie to me. Is that true?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What did you expect to achieve from this, Mitchell?”

“A profit, sir. I’m using the money to buy more chocolate and sweets. But also bags of crisps and small packets of biscuits…”

“You will not make a profit by exploiting fat children! Not in my school. Next it will be gambling and all manner of distasteful things. Sodom and Gomorrah. Jesus drove the moneychangers out of the Temple of God! Out, I say! Out!”

And according to the letter I have to take home to my mum, I offered Mr. Parsons a bribe. That is not at all what happened. When Mr. Parsons complained about me making profits, I thought it was because I was keeping all the profits for myself. So, I thought he meant that the profits should be shared with the school and used for something like the orchestral instrument fund. So I offered to continue with the Sweet Shop and share the profits with him. I did not mean him personally. I meant the school. So it was not the offer of a bribe.

And one more thing. Mr. Hudson confiscated the Sweet Shop and all of its contents. Now, I think that is pure theft because all of the chocolate and sweets were paid for with my pocket money that I have saved for months. He could have let me keep the contents and the lights but he said it was a punishment to fit the crime—whatever that means.

And later today I saw Mr. Hudson outside the Staff Room eating a packet of Rowntree’s Fruit Pastels and offering Madame Auclair a Fry’s Turkish Delight bar. And there is no tuck shop in the school so I know exactly where he got them.

One day, I will show him that I am not as stupid as he thinks I am.

70

I
am disappointed that Margueretta has not tried to kill herself again. The bread knife is lying there beside the bread and most of the time there’s no one to stop her from cutting her throat. Mum says she is highly strung and she has no intention of killing herself with the breadknife or any other knife for that matter. That’s why we have not hidden the breadknife.

Now Margueretta says that we are all infected with some disease that she will catch if she shares dishes with us. But we only have the melamine Ready Brek dishes so she washes them over and over again even when they are already clean. This is to kill the dangerous germs. And because we put our actual lips on those coffee cups, she has to wash the cup under water continuously for what seems like ten minutes and then she holds it up to the light to see if there are any germs on it and she sniffs it before she will make her coffee. I don’t think germs are visible. Or smell of anything.

And when she is running the tap water to wash the cup it is very important that the water must not form itself into a single tube of water that looks like glass. So the water has to splash when it comes out of the tap. She says that all those things are still talking to her and we will all find out ourselves, soon enough, when they start on the rest of us.

Mum said she needs to stop this ridiculous behavior and they even had a fight about it in the kitchen tonight when Margueretta was making her coffee. Mum tried to snatch the clean coffee cup away from her because it is an insult to us all to say that we have germs that she doesn’t have. So Margueretta picked up the Camp Coffee bottle and threw it at the wall and it
smashed and thick black liquid ran down the roses on the wallpaper and onto the floor and made a small puddle. I think she smashed the Camp Coffee bottle because she knows that the melamine cups are unbreakable. Mum said she could buy her own Camp Coffee now, which is only reasonable. But no one cleaned up the coffee. Misty sniffed at the puddle but she never licked it.

Last week, Margueretta asked Mum to fit a lock on her bedroom door. Mum said no immediately, of course. But when she asked her why she wanted a lock on the door Margueretta said it was to stop something from getting into her room and she said it’s something in the house and she’s warned us all before but we don’t listen and she can’t sleep anymore unless there is a lock on the door.

She never leaves that room. She even has a small paraffin heater in there so that she doesn’t have to spend time with us. She only comes down now for
Top of the Pops
, especially when Cliff Richard is curling his top lip singing “Congratulations” because she is in love with him. She used to be in love with Davy Jones but now she thinks he is too short.

And because Mum said no to the lock, Margueretta went to Woolworth’s and bought a bolt-lock and screwed it onto her door herself. Mum said she would break the door down if she ever finds it locked.

It was locked tonight.

We all woke at the same time because it’s hard to sleep when there is a banging sound like someone was being thrown against a door. And it wasn’t just a banging sound. There was a terrible screaming and pleading and we ran out onto the landing and even Akanni woke up this time and leapt out of his box bed.

Margueretta’s door was closed as it always is and it sounded like someone or something was being thrown at her door over and over. And the screaming. Margueretta was screaming for her life. Mum tried the door and it was locked and she already warned her that she would break it down if she ever found it locked. So she did. The door gave way easily against Mum’s shoulder and it flew open with the sudden force and I could see the small bolt-lock broken away from the wood.

Margueretta’s face was wet and covered with snot and matted long, blonde hair hung in strands over her eyes. Her hands were bunched up into fists and I thought she was going to hit Mum and then she just stopped dead and her arms dropped to her sides and she stood in the middle of the small room and stared at the floor and small drips of snot fell off her chin.

Drip, drip, drip.

“What in God’s name is going on in here?”

I tried to see past Mum and Margueretta into the room. Bedclothes lying on the floor. Nothing unusual there. Dressing table with her transistor radio sitting on top next to a hairbrush. A poster of Cliff Richard on the wall.

She never answered Mum’s question. She didn’t speak a word. She just stood there in her old, gray nightie, shaking and trembling, staring down at the floorboards.