Is (9 page)

The other major surprise of the evening was that Isabel was there. How Kevin managed to persuade her to part with two quid as an investment I'll never know.

She was leaning against a pillar in the corner of the hall when I went over to her.

‘Didn't think you liked this sort of music.'

‘I don't.'

‘Kevin get you to invest too then did he?'

‘Yes.'

‘Looks like he got most of the school.'

‘Mmm.'

‘Still, it's not as bad as I thought it would be.'

‘No, surprising isn't it?' She smiled and looked away.

When she turned back her face was serious. ‘Sorry.'

‘Sorry for what?'

‘You know, telling you all those things. I can't help myself.'

‘Forget it.'

‘No, it's just that…' At that point whatever she said was drowned out by Kevin screaming ‘Come on baby I want you so bad' into a microphone, followed by an horrendous squeal of feedback.

‘Come outside!' I yelled above the cacophony. ‘We can talk outside.' Silently Is followed me into the car park.

‘It's just that…' she began.

‘Yes?' I prompted.

‘I've never spoken about my dad before, not really.'

‘You miss him a lot, don't you?' I asked gently.

‘Yes. I think that's what turned me against Mum.'

‘How?'

‘Oh, Mum's not so bad, but she does fuss. All the time. Like an old hen. It gets up my nose. And when – when Dad died she became totally overbearing. I couldn't stand it. She was trying to step into his shoes as well. And she couldn't. That's when I started thinking of her more like a stepmother than my real mum.'

‘But why did you tell me your father was still alive?'

‘He is still alive – to me anyway.' Her mouth sank into a sulk and she turned away to face the wall outside the hall. Behind her head someone had scrawled on the brick: Help preserve wildlife – pickle a squirrel, which made me smile.

‘It's not funny,' Is countered, seeing my grin.

‘It wasn't what you said,' I mumbled, feeling foolish.

Is peered at me then, unblinking. Her dark brown eyes searched my face as if she didn't know whether she could trust me or not. I got the impression she was turning things over in her mind, wanting to say something but not knowing whether she dare.

‘What is it?'

‘Nothing.'

‘Come on, try me.'

‘Dad was an engineer too you know. Sort of runs in the family, you see.' She permitted herself a slight smile at this remark.

‘What did he do?'

‘Nothing very grand. He worked for a small tractor company. He didn't design anything. Nothing like that. All he did really was put other people's ideas into practice.'

‘Still, it takes skill to do that.'

‘Oh, yes, he had a certain skill all right. He didn't have an actual talent for engineering, that's all.'

‘Like Isambard you mean.'

‘Isambard had genius.'

‘Well, yes of course,' I agreed.

And inwardly I felt enormously relieved. At last she seemed to be talking about Brunel in much the same way I would – in the same way anyone would. Finally I thought I'd got to the bottom of it. All her talk about being Brunel was tied up with her father's death. The profound effect it had had on her was probably what started her off.

She obviously wanted her father to be something more than he was. ‘Nothing very grand' was how she had described him. So more than likely this stuff about Brunel being reborn as Isabel Williams was a way of compensating for what her own father hadn't achieved.

‘That's the reason then, isn't it?' I said, before I could stop myself.

‘What's the reason?'

‘You know: your obsession with Brunel. It's because of your dad.'

Is looked at me with a mixture of horror and hate on her face.

‘It's okay,' I said quickly. ‘Don't worry, I understand.'

‘No you don't. No you don't. Nobody does.'

She turned and walked away. I watched her disappear down the street, thinking how totally, absolutely stupid I was. One day I'd learn to keep my mouth shut.

Then someone opened the door of the hall to leave the rehearsal, and the strains of Kevin and the Morons (sorry, the Strangers) burst on to the pavement like a drunk being thrown out of a pub.

* * *

There was the school trip coming up in the next few days – to the Science Museum in London. I wanted to go to the Natural History Museum where they have the dinosaurs. There I could see one of Mr Gregory's ancestors I thought – Brontosaurus Gregorius himself.

But the Science Museum it was.

My mum was very sceptical about it. ‘You won't be having a school trip to London every week will you Rob? You're more out of the classroom than in lately.'

‘I know,' I admitted.

‘Well I don't mind,' she continued, digging in her handbag for some money, ‘but it gets a bit expensive you know.'

‘I doubt there will be any more trips this term, Mum,' I reassured her. ‘It's just that there's something special on at the Science Museum this week.' I'm glad she didn't ask me what, because I didn't have the faintest idea.

‘Everybody's going,' I added cheerfully as she dropped some coins into my hand.

As it was, not everyone in the class did go. At the last minute, John Carter managed to get a severe nose bleed. Nobody found out how. All he would say was he had walked into a door post. I took him down to the Deputy Head's room to see Mrs Pearson, the nurse.

‘Come on,' I said as we walked down the green-and-cream-painted corridor, ‘you can tell me, it wasn't a door post was it?'

‘I can't stand that sort of music, you know I can't,' was all he could splutter through the red- stained handkerchief. ‘Give me Mozart any day.' Ah, well I thought, but look where it got you – preferring Mozart to the Strangers…

I hurried back to find everyone in the classroom waiting for me. Mr Phillips was drumming his fingers on the desk and weaselly Mr Bartholomew, the history teacher, was standing nervously next to him.

‘Come on, Morgan, I don't know why it takes you so long to do things. You're too slow to catch a cold you are,' said Mr Phillips in his usual grumpy way.

‘I came as quickly as I could,' I protested. ‘We had to wait for Mrs Pearson.'

‘Yes, yes. Well, you're here now, so let's all get going, shall we, or we'll miss the train.'

The train was pretty well empty. There were a couple of women chatting at one end of the carriage and two or three businessmen quietly reading their newspapers. Not for long.

A group of us piled in and all round one unfortunate businessman, our parkas flapping round us, taking up the whole carriage. He was reading the Financial Times, which looked really dull. We started talking about interesting things like music and football in our normal loud manner, which annoyed him no end. I bet he was reading the same paragraph over and over again with us talking across him – especially as we kept having to lean out to look round his paper to see each other. He started making grunting huffy noises and then, in an exaggerated way, he started opening his newspaper right up each time he wanted to turn a page, which with a paper the size of the Financial Times meant he needed half the carriage.

Even that didn't have any effect on us. After a while, he let out this enormous grumpy sigh, screwed his paper into an untidy ball, stood up and got his briefcase from the luggage rack. He went down the other end of the train where Veronica Biggleswade, Isabel and the other girls were. Not that they were behaving any better.

He finally got off; slamming the door shut in fury, while we carried on to London and caught the tube. It was packed so most of us had to stand. We had a great laugh trying to stay upright without holding on and then being thrown from one side of the carriage to the other as the train rattled along. At one point I was thrown backwards and about eight of us went over like dominoes. I went sprawling over the dirty wooden floor.

‘For goodness sake,' yelled Mr Phillips above the noise of the train, ‘hold on would you!'

As I picked myself up I caught sight of Is. ‘You okay?' she asked with a smile on her face.

‘Oh, yes, course.' I replied, trying to brush off my blazer and grab hold of a handrail to haul myself up at the same time.

I made it back to my feet and stretched up to reach one of those hanging grips they have in tube trains. Isabel, I noticed, was only holding on to the handrail lightly with a thumb and finger.

‘You must have good balance.'

‘Oh, I've had plenty of practice,' she answered.

I knew then that what had been said the night of Kevin's rehearsal was now forgotten and we were friends again. But, more than that, she was acting as if nothing had happened at all – just like before. It was very weird the way she could just switch on and off like that.

Finally the train slowed down and clattered its way into the next station. As the signs saying South Kensington came into view, Mr Phillips leapt up. He had been first on the train and grabbed a seat before anyone else had had a chance.

‘Right, this is it! Come on you lot, hurry!' he called. ‘Or the doors will shut on you.'

‘Yes, get a move on,' added Mr Bartholomew. To get from South Kensington station to the Science Museum means walking down this ridiculously long tunnel. It starts from inside the station and then runs along under the street somewhere until you come up some steps right by the museum. At least you wouldn't get wet if it rained.

But it's really boring, there's nothing to see except endless tunnel, covered in brick-shaped cream tiles. It's only every now and then that you can catch glimpses of the outside world through sort of windows above your head.

But as soon as we set off along the tunnel we discovered the one good thing about it was the echo it made. We clattered along the concrete floor making as much noise as we could with our shoes. Some of the boys had metal tips and they were really good, ringing and echoing the whole length of the passage.

‘Can you all try to walk a little quieter?' yelled Mr Phillips above the clatter.

‘Sorry, Sir, we'll try, Sir!' we yelled back in unison, making as much noise and additional echo as we could.

‘Then please do,' said Mr Bartholomew, who was nothing if not polite. ‘Or I shall have one of my headaches.'

‘Poor old Digger. He has terrible trouble with his headaches,' I said to Is, who was clattering along beside me.

‘Digger? Who's Digger?' she replied.

‘Mr Bartholomew,' I explained. 

‘But why “Digger”?' she whispered.

‘Because his name is James C. Bartholomew – JCB,' I answered with a grin.

She still didn't understand.

‘His initials are JCB. Get it?'

She obviously didn't because she just shook her head in puzzlement and carried on walking. We passed signs saying to the Natural History Museum where I really wanted to go, and to some other museum, but on we trudged.

Up ahead there was a busker playing an acoustic guitar and singing this Bob Dylan song really badly. So badly it made Kevin sound absolutely amazing. Thankfully he stopped playing as we went past, which was a great relief. No doubt he figured it wasn't worth wearing his fingers to the bone for us. There was no way we were going have enough money to drop it in his guitar case.

A few minutes later we came to the end of the tunnel. Mr Phillips stopped by some steps and pointed up them.

‘Okay, you lot, this is it, follow me!' And we all trooped up behind him, squinting into the bright sunlight.

We turned right at the top of the steps and there we were – at the entrance to the Science Museum.

8

Big is Beautiful

In we all went, through the large glass doors of the entrance hall. Mr Phillips went up to someone dressed in a uniform, who kept looking over at us while nodding at something Mr Phillips was saying to him.

We just hung around taking it all in. I'd never been to the Science Museum before so I didn't know what to expect. Clever Trev, needless to say, reckoned he'd been loads of times. He was probably born there.

‘Right, we'll go through here first,' announced Mr Phillips. ‘Follow me.'

So, with Mr Phillips at the front and JCB at the rear we marched through the Science Museum. Whenever we got to a particularly uninteresting pile of junk, Mr Phillips would stop and point enthusiastically at it.

‘Ah, this is a particularly interesting exhibit, isn't it Mr Bartholomew?'

‘Mm yes,' JCB peered at it inquisitively.