Catcall (4 page)

7

C
AT
G
OT
Y
OUR
T
ONGUE
?

I
like school, really, and it would be good seeing Brody and Noori. All the same, it was an effort to drag myself out of holiday mood and get back into the routine–packing my school bag, reminding myself which lessons we’d have and whether I’d done my homework. First day back it was Maths, English, double Science, French and PE.

St Luke’s Juniors is on the same site as my school, Langtree High, with a fence and a gate in between. Mum likes me to walk Jamie to school and collect him on the way back, unless she’s coming herself. Arran–he’s Jamie’s best friend–waits for us at the corner of Harcourt Drive, and usually we meet Noori and Brody by the paper shop, so all I do is keep Jamie in sight and make sure we cross the main road together. On the way home, though, there’s ten minutes to wait outside St Luke’s, because the juniors finish a bit later than we do. Brody has to collect his little sister, and most days Noori comes too. That time of day, there’s this gaggle of mums and toddlers and buggies and the odd dad or grandad waiting outside the juniors, so we hang back by the play area and this little garden they’ve made, with a pond and a bridge.

Sometimes, Mr Rose comes over to talk to us. When
we
were at St Luke’s he took our class for Year 5 and Year 6, so we know him quite well.

Everyone likes Mr Rose. He runs the football team, and organises all the matches. Mum jokes that he looks about eighteen, with his short spiked hair and his sports gear. Noori and Brody and I used to be in his team, so sometimes when he comes out we have a chat about fixtures or how Chelsea are doing, or how we’re getting on at Langtree. Quite often he doesn’t speak to us at all, because parents often want to talk to him, but he always gives us a nod and a wave.

That first day back, though, he seemed to be looking for us. He came straight over.

‘Josh?’ he called. ‘I hoped I’d catch you. I’m a bit worried about Jamie–I don’t think he’s well.’

‘Oh? What’s wrong?’ I asked. Jamie had seemed perfectly all right when we walked to school in the morning.

I followed him in through the side door. Noori and Brody waited outside.

‘He hasn’t spoken all day,’ Mr Rose told me. ‘Not a single word. Has he got a sore throat, lost his voice?’

‘Not this morning he hadn’t.’ I tried to think back as far as breakfast. We’d all been there, all four of us–I mean all five, counting Jennie in her crib. Jamie had talked then, I was sure–we’d all have noticed if he hadn’t. Yes, I remembered now. Mike had this new coffee machine he’d bought in the sales, that foamed the milk with a great hissing of steam. He was going, ‘You like-a, ah? Espresso splendido for the lovely
signora.
’ And Mum said, ‘That makes the coffee taste better. Definitely.’ Then Mike taught Jamie and me to count up to ten in Italian, and we’d chanted the numbers together as we walked along our street.
Uno, due, tre, quattro, cinque
…They were nice words to say.

‘Yes, he was counting in Italian,’ I told Mr Rose. ‘Mike started teaching us. You know, our stepdad.’

‘He’s not from Italy, is he?’

‘No, from Leighton Buzzard.’

‘And did Jamie speak in English as well?’

‘Yes! He seemed perfectly OK.’

‘He didn’t say anything about feeling unwell? Having a sore throat?’

I shook my head.

‘He’s not said a single word since he got here, not even to Arran, not even to answer his name in the register.’ Mr Rose looked at me anxiously. ‘Was he upset about coming back to school after the holiday?’

I shook my head. ‘Don’t think so.’

‘And he’s not been ill over Christmas and New Year?’

‘No!’

We were in the corridor now. I could see the open door to my old classroom, the grouped tables, the little class library and reading corner, and dollopy paintings all along one wall. There’s something different about the smell of this school–warm, and polishy, and dinnery–that made me sad to have left it all behind.

‘Jamie’s in the sick room,’ said Mr Rose. ‘I thought it best if he waited for you there. Make sure you get him straight home, won’t you?’

‘OK. I’ll just tell Noori and Brody not to wait.’ I didn’t really see what the fuss was about. Maybe Jamie just didn’t feel like talking. More often we got told off for talking when we shouldn’t.

Two minutes later, I was in Mrs Curwen’s office. She’s the school secretary, and must be about as old as Nan. ‘Hello, Josh! How nice to see you!’ she said from behind her desk, all smiles. ‘Gosh, you’re getting tall! Jamie’s the spitting image of you, when you were here.’

Everyone says we’re alike, Jamie and me. He’s a smaller version of me. We’ve got the same thick brown hair (‘like a thatched roof,’ Mum says) and the same greeny-blue eyes as Dad’s. We’ve got some of the same expressions, according to Nan, but of course I can’t see what my own face does, so can only go by Jamie’s. When he started school, none of the teachers had any trouble knowing who he was–they’d say, ‘Oh, you must be Josh’s brother!’ Still, sometimes, Mr Rose calls him Josh by mistake. That always makes Jamie furious.

‘How’s things at big school?’ Mrs Curwen asked.

‘It’s OK,’ I told her. I was feeling a bit homesick for
this
school, to tell the truth.

She got up and pushed back the curtain to a screened-off area at one side of the office. ‘Josh is here, Jamie,’ she called. ‘You’ll be going home in a minute.’

Jamie was huddled up on the bed in there, and Arran was sitting on the edge. He’s OK, Arran, and a good little striker. He’s Jamie’s best friend.

‘Jamie? How you feeling?’ Mrs Curwen gave his shoulder a nudge.

‘All right, Jame?’ I said, in a jokey way. ‘Thought you’d get out of lessons, did you? Good one!’

Jamie didn’t say anything–just looked at me, then hid his face under a curled arm.

‘Don’t feel like talking today, is that it? Cat got your tongue?’ said Mrs Curwen. ‘That’s what we used to say when I was a girl. Funny old saying, when you think about it.’

‘Don’t you feel well?’ I tried.

No answer.

‘Lost your voice? Can’t you talk?’

A shrug.

‘Has something happened?’

Nothing.

Mrs Curwen looked at Arran. ‘You haven’t had an argument, you two?’

‘No!’ Arran shook his head vigorously.

‘Did something upset him in the playground? Someone push him, or hurt him, anything like that?’

‘I don’t know what’s wrong!’ Arran told her. ‘Not a single word since we got to school! I showed him my new calculator and my new coloured pencils and he wasn’t even interested.’

‘What about this morning, walking in? Did he talk then?’ I asked him. We were all talking about Jamie as if he wasn’t there. His arm was bent over his face and I couldn’t tell whether he was listening or not.

‘At first he did. He started telling me about going to stay with your dad.’

‘And then?’

‘Well, you were waiting for us at the main road, and remember Troy came up and started yakking? I don’t think Jamie said any more after that.’

I didn’t get this. ‘Why should Troy coming up make Jamie stop talking? What did Troy
say
?’

Arran frowned. ‘Can’t remember, really. Nothing much. He just sort of witters on and on. That’s why I didn’t notice Jamie wasn’t talking.’

‘I phoned your mum, ten minutes ago,’ Mrs Curwen told me. ‘And I took his temperature, but it’s quite normal, so she thought he’d be all right to walk home.’

I wished Mum was coming to fetch him. I don’t like anything to do with illness. Mum could easily have walked here in ten minutes, but I suppose she was too busy with the baby as usual.

‘We’re going home,’ I told Jamie. ‘Come on! Get your shoes on.’

Nothing.

‘Are you mucking about?’ I was starting to get impatient. Did he think he was going to lie here all night? I looked at Mrs Curwen, then at Arran.

Mrs Curwen nudged Jamie to make him get up. ‘Come on, then! Rise and shine! Josh’ll look after you. I expect you’ll be right as ninepence when you’ve had a good rest.’

At last she got him into his shoes and coat and scarf–pushing his arms into the coat sleeves and tying his shoelaces, like he was one of the infants. I said goodbye to her and Mr Rose, and we set off for home.

The way Jamie walked, you’d have thought he was a zombie. We trailed along like this till we reached Arran’s turning. Arran said, ‘Bye, Jamie. Hurry up and get better.’ Jamie gave no answer–no sign of having heard, even.

I was thinking of what Mrs Curwen had said:
Cat got your tongue?
I’d heard it before, but never really thought about it. It was a horrible idea–a cat swiping someone’s tongue out of their mouth, then playing with it, batting it about like Splodge did with his toy mouse. But of course Jamie still
had
a tongue–he was choosing not to use it, that was all.

There was something quite deliberate about this, I felt sure. He could have talked if he wanted to. He was kidding us there was something wrong with him, for a joke or something.

Anyway, we’d be home in a minute. I could stop being sensible big brother, and hand him over to Mum. She’d know what to do.

8

O

T
he problem was, she didn’t.

Soon as we got in, she was all over Jamie. ‘How do you feel, darling? Are you hot? Dizzy? Tummy-ache? Headache?’

She got him to open his mouth wide so that she could look at his throat. She made him drink hot Ribena. She felt his forehead, she found the thermometer and took his temperature, she asked him again what the matter was. It was no use. Jennie was more talkative than Jamie was–she said ‘a-a-ah!’ and ‘mm!’ and other baby sayings that no one else understood.

‘Can you write it down for me?’ Mum tried, after she’d run through everything that might possibly be wrong, from sore feet to earache. ‘Can you write down why you can’t talk? Josh, could you fetch a pencil and paper?’

I ran upstairs and found a blunt pencil, sharpened it, got some drawing paper and went down. Mum had sat Jamie at the table, ready to write.

‘Thanks, Josh,’ she said. ‘Now then, Jamie. Write it down for me, there’s a good boy.’

Jamie picked up the pencil. He felt the sharp point with his finger. He held it in both hands and rolled it between finger and thumb. I watched him, thinking: he’s teasing us, making us wait. At last, he gripped the pencil in his right hand, leaned over the paper and drew, very carefully,
.

Mum leaned forward eagerly, waiting for more, but that was it.
.

‘O! What does that mean, O? O or naught?’

Jamie put the pencil down and leaned back in his chair. Mum and I both gazed at him, but he didn’t look at either of us–he looked towards the window with that odd blank look I was getting used to.

‘What does it mean, Jamie?’ I started to guess. ‘Zero? Nil–like West Ham on Saturday? A circle? A ring? A hoop? O for Orange? Oxygen? Or for Owl…Octopus…Ostrich?’

Jamie looked at me, and I could tell that this game had got him interested.

‘Orang-utan?’ I tried. ‘Osprey? Okapi?’

He picked up the pencil and carefully shaded in the centre of the
.

‘Can’t you tell us what it means?’ Mum pleaded. ‘Write some more, Jamie! Write words!’

But the pencil was lying on the table, and Jamie was sitting back with his arms folded, like infants do to show they’ve finished.

S
o the writing hadn’t worked, but now I thought of something that might. What if I could get Jamie to laugh?

He’s got this peculiar laugh, Jamie has, that sounds like hiccups.
Hic-hic-hic-a-hic-a-hic-a-hic-a-hicca-a-hic,
he goes. Quite often it
gives
him hiccups. It’s the sort of laugh you can’t listen to without laughing yourself.

‘Mum! I’ve got an idea,’ I whispered.

We retreated to the sink, and Mum switched the kettle on. Its whishing noise covered up what we said–not that Jamie was taking much interest, anyway.

‘You know that old Mr Bean video of Mike’s?’ I said. ‘The one where Mr Bean pretends to be a hairdresser and starts cutting people’s hair? Jamie loves that. It’ll make him laugh. And once he laughs, he might talk.’

‘Oh, Josh! That’s a clever idea.’ Mum’s face lost its anxious look. ‘Why didn’t
I
think of it? You find the tape–I’ll bring Jennie in, and we’ll all watch it.’

I went back to Jamie. ‘Come on, Jamie! We’re going to watch Mr Bean!’ I found myself doing the thing I’d noticed other people doing–speaking to him very loudly and clearly, as if he was deaf. As if he was an idiot.

Jamie didn’t smile, but quite eagerly he got down from the table and into the lounge, where he sat on the sofa. I found Mr Bean, stacked with all the things Mike records and then never gets round to watching. Mum and I settled down to watch–Mum next to Jamie, Jennie lying on her back on her cushioned mat, me sharing the bean bag with Splodge. Splodge thought the bean bag was his, so he gave a little
yah
of protest as I pushed him gently aside. Jamie looked round, startled.

‘It’s all right, I’m not hurting him!’ I brushed white cat hairs off my sweatshirt. ‘I want to share, that’s all.’

This Bean tape of Mike’s was pretty ancient, but still good. It doesn’t spoil it at all, knowing what happens next. Mr Bean’s waiting in the barber’s when a boy comes in with his mum. The mum mistakes Mr Bean for the hairdresser, so she tells him to cut the boy’s hair while she goes somewhere else to find her purse. Mr Bean can’t resist having a go. He gets out the clippers and shaves a great thick parting down the middle of the boy’s head, making him look a complete prat.

I laughed loudly. So did Mum. The boy looks at himself in the mirror, and instead of going ballistic like you’d expect, he decides he likes it. Then the mum comes back in, and Mr Bean plonks the boy’s cap back on before she can see the new haircut. She pays him, and even gives him a tip!

By now, Mum and I were putting on a real laughing performance. It’s a lot harder than you’d think. We chuckled and giggled, we rocked with laughter. We collapsed in our seats, limp with laughing. We looked at each other and at Jamie to share every joke. All the time, I took quick little looks at him out of the corner of my eye, and I saw Mum doing the same. He was watching the screen, all right. Once or twice he gave half a smile. But he didn’t laugh out loud, not once. Not a single
hic.
It hadn’t worked, but just in case, I carried on watching the next episode. Mum sighed, and went out to the kitchen to start getting tea ready.

‘Come on, Jamie,’ I told him, getting fed up with this. ‘It’s a game, isn’t it? I know you can talk if you want to.’

He looked back at me, and just for a second his mouth quivered as if he was going to speak. Then I saw the determination come back into his face and he gazed at me steadily.

He wasn’t mucking about. He was asking me for help.