We Can Be Heroes (28 page)

After lunch, I do some drawing. Granny lets me sit in the posh dining room – the one that only gets used when they have visitors. She tells me not to worry about the washing-up today: she and Jed will do it. Jed complains for a bit, but Granny shoos him off and tells him to get started.

I think she's being extra nice to me because my mum is going home today. I've spent all morning trying not to think about it. The police coming was kind of good because it was a distraction, only then I felt bad because a kid going missing is not exactly the sort of thing you should be glad about. And perhaps
I shouldn't be trying so hard to forget about my own mum either.

In any case, when I sit down at Granny's best dining table with my notebook in front of me, I can't think of anything else. I thought drawing would take my mind off it, but I can't seem to think of anything to draw. I just sit and stare at the crochet doily thing in the middle of the table with the silver salt and pepper pots on it.

In the front of my sketchbook is another card from my mum, which arrived this morning. This one doesn't have a picture, just a message spelt out in letters cut from magazines – like a ransom note in a film. It says,
Roses are red, violets are blue. Home is home, but not sweet without you
.

I glance around the room at the glass-fronted cabinet with Granny's best wedding china in it, the grandfather clock that actually did come from her grandfather, and the pictures on the wall of me and Jed, and Dad and Uncle Ian as babies. Everything in here is neat as a pin – Granny dusts and polishes every day – but it still has that untouched feeling that rooms
get when no one has been in them for ages.

I wonder if that's how our house felt when Mum walked into it today. Is my stuff still where I left it: my school bag and PE kit by the back door, my maths textbook sitting on the side in the kitchen, a dirty pair of football socks on my bedroom floor? Just like it was that morning when she left. Just as if nothing had changed.

But
she
must have changed, mustn't she? I don't remember the last time she went away, so I don't know if she was different when she came back. I want her to be better, but what if she doesn't seem like my mum any more? What if she doesn't need me now she's OK?

I stare out through the patio doors to the garden, where Grandad is watering the Busy Lizzies. He told me once that he hates them, and he only plants them because they're Granny's favourite. I flick to the back of my sketchbook and I start to draw. I draw Grandad watering the flowers; I draw Granny in the kitchen, washing up; I draw Jed scowling with a drying-up cloth.

And I draw my mum, holding up a ransom note. Wearing dark black lipstick and not so skinny any more.

They still haven't found Stevie by the time we go to bed.

‘Do you reckon they'll let us help with the search?' I say to Jed, who's still being weird with me about what I said to the police.

‘I doubt it,' he says. ‘There's no point anyway. She's most probably dead by now.'

‘Why do you say that?'

‘You heard what they said: the first forty-eight hours are crucial. That's because if kids go missing for longer than that then odds on they're dead.'

‘But if the kidnappers kill her then they won't get the ransom money,' I say.

‘They don't just nick kids for the money, stupid!' says Jed.

‘What do you mean?' I say.

‘If you don't know then I'm not going to tell you,' he says. ‘It'll give you nightmares.'

I can't get to sleep anyway. I think about Stevie's mum saying, ‘We just want you back, baby girl!' and Jed's mum, hanging around the party just to catch a glimpse of him. Then I think about my mum again. Does she know about Stevie? About what's happened? If she hasn't turned on the TV or the radio then maybe she still hasn't heard. If she has, I know she'll be worrying about me. Because she's like that. Or at least she used to be.

I'm still awake when Uncle Ian turns up and by then it's nearly midnight.

Uncle Ian takes Jed off for a ‘boys' breakfast'. Jed says he doesn't want to go, but Uncle Ian just starts shouting at him and Grandad says Jed needs to be taught some manners, which just makes Uncle Ian even crosser.

Uncle Ian doesn't look like he's slept or washed since the wedding-party day. His face is all stubbly and he's acting like Jed does when he's in one of his weird moods. None of us says so, but we all breathe a sigh of relief when they've gone.

When the post comes, there's another card for me. This one has a picture from the film
Ghostbusters
on the front and on the back it says,
Still stronger than the ghosts and the monsters under the bed! Times two! Love you!

It makes me smile because it reminds me of a song my mum used to say was our song. I try to sing the rest of the words to myself under my breath, but I can't remember them all. I wonder if she knows
what's going on yet. I wonder if she'll call.

I ask Granny if I can go over to Priti's.

‘OK then, but go straight there – no detours. Your mum won't forgive me if anything happens to you.'

‘Really?'

‘Of course not,' she says, but she doesn't look at me as she says it.

So I go straight across the cul-de-sac, which is now full of TV crews and reporters. One of the reporters shouts, ‘Hey, kid! Were you friends with Stevie Sanders? When did you last see her? Were you with her on the day of her disappearance?'

But I just say, ‘No comment.' I've always wanted to say that, but it sounds weird when I do somehow.

Priti must have seen me coming because she answers the door before I've even rung the bell. She's still in her pyjamas and she ushers me in quickly. ‘Don't want them taking pics of me in my jimmy-jams. Look what that did to Cherie Blair!' she says. I have no idea what she's talking about, but this is nothing new.

‘Wicked, isn't it? Having reporters on your doorstep!' She giggles. ‘My mum says you can't
even go out to get a pint of milk without one of them accosting you. This must be what it's like to be famous!'

According to Priti, Zara is skulking in the bedroom, so we go to the dining room and hang out under the table again.

‘Have the police been here?' I ask in a whisper.

‘Yeah. They wanted to know all about when we saw Stevie and who was in the park and stuff. Did you tell them that Zara was there?'

I shake my head.

‘Cool! I nearly texted to tell you not to, but then I remembered you didn't have a phone, so I just tried to use ESP instead.'

‘ES – what?'

‘ESP. Telepathy. Mind-reading, whatever. You know, you seriously need to extend your vocabulary.'

‘Right,' I say. ‘And . . .?'

‘And you obviously got the message.'

‘If you say so. Anyway, I didn't tell them Zara was there, if that's what you mean. Or Tyreese,' I add.

‘Oh, I said he was hanging with the others.' She
scrunches up her face. ‘Shouldn't think it matters though. So long as you didn't mention Zara that's OK. Or Mik,' she adds quickly.

‘Why not Mik?' I say, colouring.

She ducks her head quickly out from under the tablecloth to check no one is around then leans in close and whispers, ‘Mik got beaten up.'

‘When?'

‘The night of the party.'

‘Was it the bikers?' I ask.

‘He won't say, but it must have been.'

I fiddle with the hem on the tablecloth. ‘Jed lied about him and his dad going back to the park.'

‘What did he want to do that for?'

I shrug. ‘Dunno.'

‘He's been acting weirder than ever since his crackpot mum showed up,' says Priti. ‘My mum says he's a troubled boy. Which I suppose is only to be expected, since he's dying and that.' (Jed made me promise not to tell Priti about Granny Brenda, so she still thinks he's terminally ill.) ‘Hey! You don't reckon she did it?'

‘Who did what?'

‘Jed's mum – stole Stevie?' Priti looks excited.

‘Why would she do that?'

Priti's all fired up and starts talking in this deep voice, like she's doing a movie voice-over. ‘She can't have her own child so, crazed with desperation and vengeance, she steals someone else's.' Priti grins. ‘Perhaps she'll hold Stevie to ransom until she gets Jed back.'

I imagine a crazed Auntie Karen with wild eyes, holding Stevie Sanders bound and gagged in a cave.

‘Auntie Karen's not that bad,' I say.

‘She's a loon.'

‘She's just upset because she's lost her son. Granny's hair went grey when my dad died and my mum . . . My mum got thinner.'

‘Yeah, and look what happened to you.'

‘I haven't got grey hair and I don't go screaming outside people's houses or stalking people or stop eating – or whatever.'

‘No, but you do reckon everyone's parents are basically good, nice human beings, just as long as they're alive.'

‘No, I don't.'

‘Go on then, name one person's mum or dad who you don't like.'

‘Jed's dad,' I say quickly, triumphantly.

‘You're right,' says Priti. ‘He's a creep!' She pauses for a second as she puts on her psychiatrist hat. ‘OK, you've just got a mother complex then. You think all mums are saints.'

‘No, I don't,' I say, trying to think of an example of a mum I don't like. ‘What about Britney Spears?' I say eventually.

‘Well, that's just crap! Britney would be just the best mum ever!' Priti exclaims. ‘She and I would have SO much fun shopping together!'

We're not allowed to join in when they search the park for clues and Jed and his dad still aren't back, so me and Priti just sit in the tree house and watch.

Loads of people come to help and the police make them stand in a big long line while they shout instructions to them. There are people I recognise from the wedding (although they look really different
in jeans and stuff) and all the neighbours are there, and some people I recognise from the shops at the parade, as well as a lot of people I've never seen before. Granny and Grandad turn up, and Stevie's dad and mum (even though the reporter on the radio said her baby is due any day now and she should have her feet up rather than putting herself through this ordeal).

Priti's got a little portable radio that belongs to Shakeel, so we listen to the reporters talking about the search while it's going on. They say things like, ‘The strain on Stevie's parents is showing,' and, ‘As each day passes, the chances of finding their daughter alive are diminishing.' Meanwhile, the TV cameras film Mr and Mrs Sanders holding hands and walking across to the park to join in the search. I reckon reporters like the doom-and-gloom stuff almost as much as my grandad does.

Even Tyreese and the other bikers are there. Priti says it's probably the first time they've ever cooperated with a police enquiry in their lives.

The police officers make everyone stand in a long line with their backs against the perimeter fence and
then tell them to shuffle forward, dead slowly, eyes to the ground, looking for clues.

‘I've seen this on
CSI
,' says Priti.

‘What do you reckon they're looking for?' I ask.

‘Footprints or blood or bullet casings or something,' she replies.

‘Why would there be bullet casings?'

‘I dunno, do I? Maybe there was a shoot-out!'

‘Wouldn't we have heard gunshots?'

She thinks for a moment. ‘I suppose so. I'm not sure how loud guns are though.'

I'm amazed to hear Priti admitting she doesn't know something. ‘I thought guns were illegal in this country anyway?' I say.

‘Doesn't mean to say no one's got one,' says Priti. ‘Gun crime is a growing problem in Britain's cities,' she says, sounding like she's quoting something she's read again.

The park is pretty big, so the general public are combing the play area and the football pitches, while the police search the wooded bit. They've got big dogs with them.

‘Sniffer dogs,' says Priti. ‘They're bound to work out Zara's been in there.'

‘What will happen then?' I ask.

‘Dunno,' says Priti, who's picking a bit of bright pink nail varnish off her fingernail and doesn't seem that interested in what will happen to her sister. She's dressed as an emo goth today – which means loads of black and jeans that are too big for her – ‘out of respect for Stevie'. (I want to point out that she always said she didn't like the kid, but I don't.)

‘What are you drawing?' she asks, peering over my shoulder.

I hand over the latest Bomb-busters strip.

‘Jed-eye gets held hostage by crazy Big Momma terrorist,' says Priti. ‘I like it! Bagsie Lil' Priti gets to rescue him.'

‘Jed will hate that,' I say.

‘Exactly.' She grins. The black top she is wearing is covered in little pink CND symbols with a sparkly pink
Ban the Bomb
logo – the same colour as her peeling nail varnish. I wonder what Shakeel makes of it.

‘How's Mik?' I ask.

‘The doctor reckons he may have cracked ribs,' says Priti, flicking bits of peeled-off varnish on to the bare wooden slats.

‘Really?'

‘And his face is pretty messed up.' She pulls a scrunched-up face which I guess is meant to be Mik.

‘Do you know what happened?'

‘He won't talk to anyone except Zara. So did you hear from your mum?'

I look down at the wooden slats, dusted with pink flakes that look like dead skin. ‘Why would I?'

‘Jed said she got out of hospital.'

How does Jed know? Did Granny tell him?

‘Yeah, yesterday,' I reply, blowing away the pink varnish flakes and tracing my finger along a pattern in the bare wood.