Five Things They Never Told Me (10 page)

I've decided to introduce Frog Boy to Martha. After all, if he's going to help me come up with a solution to the Martha Problem then he needs to know what we're dealing with and he told me that he's never really met her properly, apart from that horrible day when she fell out of her wheelchair
and he came to the rescue. I ask Beatrice to bring Martha to the water fountain in the afternoon and we're waiting for her, sitting side by side on the bench when she arrives.

Beatrice leaves and we sit in silence until I realize that it's probably my responsibility to do the talking.

‘Er – so, this is Martha,' I say, gesturing towards Martha where she is sitting in her wheelchair with an amused expression on her face. ‘And … er … this is Fro–' I stop, mid-word, horrified with myself.

Frog Boy looks at me quizzically.

‘What were you about to call me?' he asks.

‘Nothing!' I say, my voice sounding squeaky.

‘Yes, you were,' he says. ‘You were introducing me and you said “This is fro–' What's “fro”?'

‘You misheard,' I mutter. ‘I was telling Martha that your name is –'

I stop again and close my eyes, wishing that I could start this all over again. I am not doing well.

‘My name is …?' questions Frog Boy. He's not going to let this go. ‘Oh, wow! You can't actually remember my name, can you?'

I open my eyes and look at him with the best apologetic look I can muster.

‘I am SO sorry. I couldn't remember it after we first met, and it hasn't come up since. And then I forgot that I didn't know.'

‘So what have you been calling me, then? You know – in your mind,' he asks. I look at him and try to feign confusion, but I know exactly what he means. We've spent hours together – he knows that I must have been referring to him as
something
in my head.

‘Er …' I say intelligently, looking at Martha and hoping that maybe she'll do something amazing and distract him from this topic of conversation. No luck there, though – she looks like she's thoroughly enjoying every moment of my discomfort and has absolutely no intention of breaking up the entertainment.

‘I've been calling you Frog Boy in my head,' I say miserably, mentally waving goodbye to a beautiful friendship that will now be over before it even began.

‘Frog Boy?' He sounds confused. ‘Why would you call me that?'

‘You know. The frog. The weird, warty one that you thought was so fascinating, the day we met. I thought you must have a thing about frogs, so I called you Frog Boy …' I tail off, sounding pathetic.

He looks at me, utterly bewildered for a moment, until suddenly a short laugh bursts out of his mouth. It's followed by another, longer laugh and it's so infectious that Martha joins in. Her laugh is totally silent but her body is shaking and her eyes look happy. I'd join in too if I wasn't feeling so awful.

Eventually they calm down and he turns to me.

‘But, Erin, it wasn't even a frog!' he says, and bursts out laughing again. ‘It was a toad,' he splutters, leaning across the bench and grasping Martha's shoulder for support as laughter wracks his body, making him shake.

‘All right, whatever,' I say, feeling a bit grumpy. It's not that funny, or if it is then I don't get the joke. ‘Toad, frog – they're all the same thing.'

‘No, they're not,' he tells me, sitting up straight and obviously trying to get a grip. ‘But the point is, you should have been calling me Toad Boy all along!' This starts him off again and I look away in disgust. I'm glad he isn't upset but we've got serious business to get down to here, and I don't like being laughed at.

‘Anyway,' he says to Martha, taking a deep breath. ‘Let me introduce myself to you. My name
is Frog Boy and I'm very pleased to meet you!' He holds out his left hand towards Martha's left hand and she shakes it, her eyes dancing and her mouth grinning widely. She obviously thinks he's completely fantastic, which is good – as long as they don't both forget who introduced them in the first place.

‘I'm sorry,' I say to him. ‘What IS your name?'

Frog Boy leans back on the bench. ‘Frog Boy,' he tells me.

‘No! Seriously. Just tell me and we can forget about this whole, stupid conversation.'

He grins at me, a wicked grin that makes me feel a bit nervous. ‘I think Frog Boy really suits me. You can always call me Frog for short, if you feel it's a bit of a mouthful.'

‘Fine,' I say, shrugging my shoulders and looking past him to where Martha is sitting. ‘Just remember this is your choice.'

‘Absolutely,' he says firmly.

‘And I think you're completely weird,' I add.

‘Undoubtedly,' agrees Frog.

‘Fine, then,' I say.

‘Yes, it is,' he says, nodding at me.

I have lost any control of this ridiculous situation and feel the need to change the topic of conversation as quickly as possible.

‘So, what shall we talk about?' I say breezily, while mentally kicking myself.
What shall we talk about?
How is that ever going to be a conversation starter?

‘Er … I don't know,' says Frog. ‘What do you normally talk about?'

That is a good question. What
do
we usually talk about? What did we talk about yesterday? Oh yeah – I had a mental moment at Martha. I feel myself going red at the memory but fortunately, Martha has written a note.

Dancing

Unfortunately, she has chosen my least favourite topic of conversation.

‘We do
not
normally talk about dancing!' I tell her.

‘I don't mind if that's what you like talking about, Erin,' says Frog, grinning at me.

‘I
don't
!' My voice comes out in a squeal and I take a deep breath, trying to get it under control.

‘I quite like dancing,' he continues. ‘As long as nobody is actually watching!'

‘Yes, well, I don't,' I state. ‘Now someone suggest a sensible topic of conversation.'

Cue another note from Martha.

Jitterbug

I groan. ‘Martha, we are so not talking about dancing. If that's what jitterbug even means. Sounds like some weird kind of insect to me.'

‘You aren't very cultured, are you?' says Frog and I elbow him in the ribs.

‘And I suppose you are?' I ask him as he doubles up dramatically, clutching his side.

‘I'm cultured enough to know that the jitterbug was this type of crazy dance people used to do in the nineteen forties and nineteen fifties. Am I right?'

He looks at Martha, who nods and smiles. Encouraged, Frog keeps talking. ‘It's really energetic, lots of swinging around and jumping and moving your feet really quickly.'

‘Well, I can tell you right now that I would be terrible at it,' I say. ‘I do not have any dancing ability whatsoever. In fact, I have this recurring
nightmare where I'm dancing on a stage and everyone is watching me and pointing and laughing.'

‘Do you have any clothes on?' sniggers Frog and I round on him.

‘What sort of a question is that? Yes, I have clothes on. Jeez – what is with you today?' I huff and turn to Martha. ‘Anyway, as I was saying, in my dream I –'

I am rudely interrupted by another note, which is thrust in front of my face.

Nobody cares if you can't dance well – just get up and dance!

‘Yes, well, thanks for the motivational quote. It's easy for you to say,' I start, and then I realize what I've said. ‘Oh no, I didn't mean it was easy like that; I mean, I know you can't dance now or anything and …' I trail off. I am just making it worse. I need to shut my big, fat gob before I do any more damage. Or create a diversion, maybe.

‘So,' I say, ‘anyone fancy taking my dad's van for a spin?'

There is silence, only broken after a few humiliating moments by the sound of Frog swallowing loudly.

‘Did you dance the jitterbug, Martha?' Frog isn't looking at me so the weapons of mass destruction that I am firing out of my eyes miss him by a mile. It's kind of hard to imagine Martha dancing, when her legs obviously don't work.

I tense, waiting for Martha to get upset, but she surprises me, though – she sits up straight and nods.

‘Do you miss dancing?' asks Frog quietly. I glare at him – that's kind of an insensitive thing to say to someone who will never dance again. And can't he tell that I'm trying to change the subject? But Martha turns her head, stares hard at him and smiles a sad little smile, before sinking into her wheelchair and lowering her head so that her chin droops down on to her chest.

I elbow Frog in the ribs. ‘Maybe you'll be able to dance again, one day,' I tell Martha. ‘If you work on your exercises. Those ones that Beatrice is always telling you to do.' Frog frowns and opens his mouth to speak but I don't want him doing any more damage so I interrupt him. ‘You could show us how you used to do that dance. The jitterbug, wasn't it? I'd love to see that.'

I'm keen to cheer Martha up by any means possible, even if it does mean telling the odd little white lie.

I rattle on for a few more minutes, with Martha ignoring me, and Frog watching us both, with a funny expression on his face. It's a relief when Beatrice walks round the corner to take Martha back to the house. I am not skilled at social chit-chat.

I round on Frog the second that Beatrice disappears along the path.

‘What did you say that for, you big idiot?' I ask him. I'm really cross. I wanted him and Martha to get along and everything was going fine until he opened his huge mouth and upset her.

‘What's the problem?' he asks.

‘You're the problem, dumb-head,' I say. ‘Asking Martha if she misses dancing.'

‘It was just a question,' he says, and I sigh, wondering if all boys are this insensitive.

‘Yes,' I tell him. ‘But all that talk of dancing made her realize that her dancing days are over. How upsetting is
that
for poor Martha?'

Frog looks at me like I'm being a bit stupid and I resist the urge to punch him on the leg.

‘Erin,' he says slowly. ‘I think Martha knows that she won't be doing the jitterbug again, don't you?'

‘But it doesn't hurt to tell her that she might, does it?' I explode at him. ‘You know – give her something to look forward to. A bit of hope.'

‘I think you're wrong,' says Frog, standing up and walking over to the fountain. ‘I think lying to her is patronizing. She's not a child. She knows what she can and can't do. I think Martha would prefer people to be honest with her.'

‘Oh, and you're basing this on knowing her for all of five seconds, are you?' I'm properly angry now. How dare he waltz in here and act like he knows Martha better than I do. She's MY friend.

OK, yes – she IS. She's actually my friend. I've told her stuff I haven't told anyone else and I'm the one who can help her to get better.

‘You can't help her get better from being old,' Frog tells me, once again behaving like a freaky mind reader. ‘And the reason I asked if she missed dancing was because I thought we could figure out a way to show her some jitterbug dancing. Like on YouTube, or something.'

‘Oh.' I am quiet for a moment, letting this new information sink in. ‘I suppose that
is
quite
a good idea.' I know that my voice sounds grudging but I'm a bit fed up that I didn't think of it myself.

‘I know you want to help Martha,' says Frog, coming back to sit next to me on the bench. ‘And so do I. But I don't think you have to pretend that she's going to suddenly leap out of her wheelchair and start racing round the garden. I think she just likes having a bit of company.'

I look at the water fountain. The water has gone – it's completely dry because of the baking hot sun.

‘I don't even know why she mentioned dancing in the first place,' I grumble. ‘Not if it was just going to make her all miserable and depressed.'

Frog picks up a pebble and throws it towards the fountain. It falls into the lowest basin with a clattering sound.

‘I think she likes remembering. Memories are probably a bit pointless if you've got nobody to share them with.'

I choose a pebble and aim it carefully.

‘Ten points if I get this in the top basin,' I say, but my throw goes wide and the pebble shoots off into a bush. ‘That was a practice shot,' I inform Frog, bending down and choosing another pebble.
‘So you reckon it'll cheer Martha up if we show her some clips of people dancing the jitterbug?'

This time my pebble flies through the air beautifully, curving down towards the water fountain and falling into the top basin with a satisfying thud.