The Bubble Wrap Boy (16 page)

I
had no clue what to do.

Sinus's plan was huge. And exciting and potentially game-changing. But it came with huge risks. Especially when you factored Mom into it. I was tiptoeing around her still, studying her every facial expression for evidence that Dad had told her what I knew, but all I got was the same mixture of glacial annoyance and distracted worry.

Did I dare go ahead with Sinus when there were already way too many secrets? I'd tried to tackle Dad about Dora again but got absolutely nowhere.

“When
are
you going to tell her, Dad?” I demanded. There was a different answer every time I asked.

“Once Dora's settled down.”

“When the specialist has assessed her.”

“When hell freezes over.”

“When the takeout earns a Michelin star.”

All right, the last two were exaggerations, but it felt like there was always a better reason than the best one of all.

The truth. And after two more weeks of waiting, I decided that if Dad wasn't going to be honest about it, then I was going to go for Sinus's plan.

And Dad was going to be an accomplice.

I hit him with it when Mom was out (presumably at the hospital, visiting Dora).

The afternoon rush was over and he was wiping the surfaces down, buffing them to a mirrored sheen.

“You said you'd help me,” I said quickly, before I could change my mind.

“Sorry?” He looked surprised to see me.

“You said if there was anything I wanted, anything at all, that you'd help me. Remember?”

“I do,” he replied. He already looked nervous and he hadn't even heard what I was after yet.

“I want to get back into skateboarding.” It wasn't until I heard the words out loud that I realized how much I meant them. So much it physically hurt.

“You do, do you?” His tone gave nothing away.

“More than anything. And there's a competition coming up. So I need you to help me, Dad. I need you to get me back on the board.”

He looked like I'd asked him to break into Fort Knox.

“But I don't know anything about skating, Charlie.”

“I'm not asking you to train me. I just need you to cover for me, keep it from Mom if she asks where I am.”

He shook his head so hard it blurred.

“I can't do that, buddy. You know how she feels about it. She'd lay me out on this chopping board if she found out!”

“But you promised, Dad. You said you'd do anything.”

“And I will, except that.”

I had my reaction planned, and although I didn't want to carry it out, I had to convince him that I would.

“Okay.” I shrugged, like I didn't care. “I'll tell Mom what I'm going to do myself. Right after I ask her about Dora.”

Dad went white.

“Play fair, son.”

“What? Fair like you two did? I'm not the only one keeping secrets, am I? I'm a novice compared to you two.”

He had no answer to that. There wasn't one.

“What do you need me to do?”

I stared at the sky outside; there was still another hour of light.

“Nothing yet. But I do need you to close up early.”

“I can't do that, Charlie….”

“Not till nine. And, anyway, it's Tuesday. Nobody wants your food that late on a Tuesday. No offense.”

“I think I'm about to be
more
offended by what you're about to involve me in.”

“So you'll do it?”

“This time, yes. But if there is a next time, I need notice. Time to get someone to cover both the kitchen and my back.”

“Thanks, Dad.” I laughed. “You'd better have your car keys ready. Soon as it gets dark,
we
get started.”

The headlights worked like a charm. With the brights on, they lit the ramp perfectly. There was no issue getting the car close enough; couples had been using the park for make-out sessions in the backseat for years, so Dad simply edged the front wheels up to the fence and flicked the lights on full.

He wasn't happy about it, though. At first he sat and gripped the steering wheel, knuckles turning white, then blue. But after a couple of minutes it was too much for him and he joined me by the ramp.

“For god's sake,” he groaned, “don't fall off, will you?”

“Can't guarantee that.” I grinned, checking the sorry excuse for a board that the other kids had given me. “That's half the fun.”

“Your mother will kill me if she finds out about this. And you better be wearing a helmet this time. Got it?”

“Then you're stuck, aren't you, because I'll rat you out if you don't help me.” I would've asked who he was more scared of if I'd thought the answer was me. We both knew that wasn't the truth.

We shared a grin. “Must be dreadful being a dad, huh? All these moral conundrums…”

“What do you think?”

I didn't answer. Instead, I rammed the board beneath my feet and pushed off, feeling a thrill as it rolled beneath me.

I'd forgotten how amazing it felt. How at home I was on one.

The board wasn't as good as my old one, obviously. I'd modified the one they'd left me with, but the wheels still didn't run or turn as quickly. It was okay for now, though.

Maybe once I had Dad fully on my side, I could persuade him to tell me where my real skateboard was. If he even knew.

I pushed myself around the park, the car's headlights sending long, freaky shadows bouncing off the pavement.

I took the dips and rises of the old pool slowly at first, feeling my confidence grow, until after about twenty minutes, I was attacking them, feeling the buzz of air between my board and the pool.

At first I thought I was getting too excited, making little whooping noises and gasps. Until I realized it wasn't me. It was Dad, unable to stop himself out of sheer dread.

“Careful now,” he begged as I zipped up a slope. He was even standing funny, mimicking my crouch on the board, like he was riding it. He looked ridiculous. I told him so.

“Hey, Dad?” I said with a grin, when my legs were finally feeling tired. “Why don't you try it?”

“I don't think so, Charlie.”

“Come on. I must have gotten the love of it from someone. Maybe it's you and you just don't know it.”

I didn't expect him to give in quickly, but there was no way I was letting him off the hook. He still had plenty of payback heading his way, starting right here. So after ten more minutes of teasing, cajoling, and eventually cold, hard threats, I forced him to stand uneasily on top of it, arms snaking around me for support.

“What do I do now?”

“Well, you row,” I joked. “What do you think you do? You stand on it and push with your foot.”

I knew it wasn't that simple—had weeks of bruising to prove it—but there was no way I was sharing that pearl of wisdom. Instead, I watched him lurch and wobble just as I had, arms waving maniacally when I finally got him rolling along.

“Too fast. Too fast!” he yelled at first, although after a short while he started to relax and risked the briefest of grins before careening onto his ass.

I smiled too. Couldn't remember the last time I'd seen him smile about anything but his food or his kitchen. Decent memories of him away from his woks were way too few. I hoped he might recognize that too. Even if he was bruised beyond belief by morning.

I tortured him for a good while, long enough for him to start panicking about the car's battery running down, which seemed a good enough reason to stop. Stranding ourselves our first time out wasn't an option.

“Thanks for tonight, Dad,” I said as I pulled him off the asphalt for the twentieth time. “Couldn't do it without you.”

“It makes me nervous, Charlie, all this.”

“I know it does. Me too, but that's why I have to do it. Can't be scared forever, right?”

He glanced up at the ramp. “I'm glad you're not going on that tonight.”

It towered above us both, winking at me, daring me to set foot on it. I shuddered at the thought of what had happened last time.

“Me too. I'm not sure either of our nerves are up to it yet.”

Dad breathed out noisily in relief.

“Next time, huh?” I winked at him.

He nodded, knowing that, unfortunately, there
would
be a next time.

“I can't wait,” he said, pulling me close and squeezing as he guided me back to the car.

I
should've been happier. I knew that. I didn't want to be an ungrateful little turd, not when I had a best friend cooking up the comeback of the decade and a dad doing every unreasonable thing I asked of him.

I just couldn't help it. It just all felt kind of…overpowering.

The plan, the sneaking around, and, of course, the simple fact that I was still living in the middle of the HUGEST lie imaginable.

Skating was the only thing that kept me sane.

While I was skateboarding, you see, my brain rested. It forgot to wrestle with images of Mom at the ramp, or Dora sitting broken in her chair.

Once the board was hidden away, it was a different story.

My head flooded with too many emotions: guilt, anger—jealousy, even, that I'd been cut out of something so important. It felt like everything I knew had been thrown into the air and all I could do was run around like an idiot, dodging all the jagged lies as they crashed down around me.

The truth distracted me; I was walking around school like a chicken with its head cut off, clumsy dumb Charlie at his worst again. And when I messed up and the hyenas surrounded me, I didn't notice how long the tunnels were anymore. Kicked shins stopped stinging after a few minutes—the ache Mom had caused made me want to double over all day long.

Being in her company brought my confusion to the boiling point. I'd promised Dad I'd give him more time, but trying to act normal around her was impossible. I just wasn't as good a liar as she was.

“You have a class tonight?” I found myself feeding her a lot of questions, knowing the answers would be lies. It wasn't like I expected her to suddenly blurt out the truth; it was more that I wanted to reinforce in my own mind just how angry I was with her.

“Oh, yes,” she replied, the picture of calm.

I watched her for signs she was lying: eyes darting nervously, the rub of an ear, even an uncomfortable cough as another whopper passed her lips. But there was nothing. Not a flicker.

It made me wonder what else she wasn't telling me. Were there bodies hidden under the floorboards? Her parents, perhaps? Maybe they'd gotten on her nerves one day and she'd bludgeoned them with a couple of splintered chopsticks.

All right, I know I was being silly, but it summed up what my head was doing to me.

Not that she noticed.

“What about you, Charlie? What's going on today?”

I paused. The truth burned my tongue, and I felt the most overwhelming desire to breathe fire and tell her I was going to spend it skating. That way I could start a fight; that way I could goad the truth right out of her.

“More toast?” Dad interrupted, getting right into my face, eyes wide, half pleading, half threatening. He knew how close I was to blowing it. Knew he'd be the one left with a dustpan and brush to clean it up if it did all go south.

I was pleased he knew how I felt. Didn't want him getting complacent, ignoring the fact that he had to speak to Mom sooner or later. Because at some point, I was going to lose it. I wouldn't have a choice.

“Me and Charlie are going to spend it together, aren't we?” Dad said.

“How nice,” she answered. She even looked like she meant it.

“Shame this course is taking up so much time, Mom.” I wanted to dare her, make her tell the lie again. “How long until it finishes?”

“Oh, ages yet. Exams aren't for another couple of months.”

I felt a noose of anger pull tighter around my ribs, then Dad's hand gentle on my shoulder.

But as Mom stood from her chair, I thought I saw tears collect in her eyes. My gaze focused on her and she noticed, trying to stretch her face into a yawn, to pass the tears off as mere tiredness.

There it was. A moment to jump on the rarest of things: a trace of weakness. If I pushed hard enough, or even just told her that I knew everything, then she wouldn't deny it.

She couldn't.

My heart pounded at the prospect, but as the words formed in my brain and marched down to my mouth, she turned, a tear slipping down her cheek. She didn't even bother to wipe it away.

And that was it. All bravery, all momentum gone. I was as weak as she was. All I could do was swallow the truth like a sixteen-pound bowling ball and watch her as she gathered her bag and coat.

As the door swished shut, Dad sighed loudly, looking almost as broken as she did.

“Thank you, son.”

“What else was I going to do?”

But I wasn't sure I could do it again. Wasn't sure I could carry another lie. Not when they weighed this much.

I wasn't spending the day with Dad, obviously. I left him venting his frustration on a hunk of meat big enough to come from a bear, and retrieved my board from under the bush. I wasn't sure it mattered who saw anymore.

Throwing it to the ground, putting my feet on top of it, I pushed hard, feeling the edges of my anxiety peel away. I leapt from path to road, feeling my hopes bounce with the skateboard as people blurred past. I felt good, alive, calm again.

I hadn't planned a route, or thought I hadn't. But maybe it wasn't a surprise that I found myself on the other side of town, that my left foot didn't stop pushing until the board jutted up against a set of iron gates, with a sign reading
OAKVIEW
. Breathing heavily, I rested my forehead against them, looking at the grounds and the house beyond.

It wasn't like I'd forgotten about Dora completely, although it would've been easy to lose sight of her in all the drama. She'd constantly appeared in my head: her similarity to Mom, but also the differences, just how frail she was, as incoherent as Mom was pushy. I'd wanted to come back sooner and sit with her again. Maybe there was something she could tell me; after all, she and Mom seemed to communicate somehow. But then I remembered the number of doors to get through to reach her, the nurses and reception staff. It wouldn't be easy to bluff my way past them a second time. Not without Sinus and his iron nerve.

But for once the sun was shining on me—on everything, in fact. The gardens were slowly baking in the heat. There was one spot by an especially large oak that shone extra brightly, because I saw a wheelchair parked beside it, a small, creased figure wedged inside. And I knew instantly it was Dora.

I scanned the rest of the grounds, saw a man wearing a dark blue shirt and pants marching away.

I scanned every inch of the lawn, knowing full well that at any moment Mom could appear, even though this wasn't the time for a visit.

Yet somehow, seconds later, I found myself striding across the grass, chest banging harder than it had been when I was flying on the board. Maybe I just didn't care anymore. Maybe I wanted Mom to catch me. Force the issue. Have it out once and for all.

I reached Dora just as the guy disappeared. But as I made sure I was on my own, with a look behind me, I tripped over her wheelchair.

To make it worse, I woke her up, a banshee's howl ripping from her lips as her eyes flew open. I tumbled across her lap, trying desperately to make as little contact as possible, and fell to the ground.

Was this how it would pan out? I'd get arrested for squashing flat the aunt I never knew I had? Why, when you took my board away, did I have to be so clumsy?

I lay crumpled on the lawn, senses unscrambling as I heard a noise.

Not a yelp of pain or distress, but a throaty, rumbling sound. The sort of loud noise that normally accompanied lightning. I looked up from the ground to the wheelchair and saw Dora's head twisted uncomfortably but her eyes dancing, mouth wide open. Her laughter bounced off the trunk of the tree, ricocheting past me and up toward the house.

We must have looked crazy: me, lying there grass-stained and wheezing, my skateboard sitting the wrong way up on her lap, wheels spinning gently in appreciation. She looked far more capable of pulling some tricks on it than I did.

I chanced a glance over my shoulder, back toward the house, but there was still no one around. I had time, but I had no idea what to ask her, or what answers I thought I might get in return.

All I could do was start with the blindingly obvious. I was good at that, if nothing else.

“Hello, Aunt Dor.” I grinned, stretching the kinks out of my back. “Remember me?”

She looked at me hard, squinting, before grinning with her whole face.

I might've been wrong, but I could swear she nodded, and anyway, her eyes told me she knew who I was.

I knew I was right to be here. Knew I was right to stay awhile. Even if it meant getting caught.

Because my aunt Dora wanted me here.