Elliot Pie's Guide To Human Nature

By Chantelle Atkins

One boy's mission to find the good in people.

Twelve-year-old Elliot Pie lives a solitary life with his agoraphobic mother. He is desperate to help her and he also wants to find out what happened to his Uncle Liam, who walked out one night leaving his dog and his car in the back garden. While his mother sinks further into the darkness, Elliot finds comfort in people-watching. He is determined to prove to her that good people still exist and when a stranger is kind to him one day, a plan is hatched. A plan to save his mother. A plan that might help him find Uncle Liam. Elliot's collection of strangers all have stories to tell about human nature, but is he placing his trust in the wrong people? Or is the real danger closer to home?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pict Publishing
• Release date: Oct 5, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386373681

Chantelle Atkins

Chantelle Atkins was born and raised in Dorset, England and still resides there now with her husband, four children, and multiple pets. She is addicted to reading, writing, and music and writes for both the young adult and adult genres. Her fiction is described as gritty, edgy and compelling. Her debut Young Adult novel The Mess Of Me deals with eating disorders, self-harm, fractured families and first love. Her second novel, The Boy With The Thorn In His Side follows the musical journey of a young boy attempting to escape his brutal home life and has now been developed into a 6 book series. She is also the author of This Is Nowhere and award-winning dystopian, The Tree Of Rebels, plus a collection of short stories related to her novels called Bird People and Other Stories. The award-winning Elliot Pie’s Guide To Human Nature was released through Pict Publishing in October 2018. Emily's Baby  is her latest release and is the second in a YA trilogy.

Book preview

2

Elliot

It was the debt collectors who discovered Mrs Allen.

That was her name. Only we had never known it. They came to collect their money the next morning, and she didn’t let them in because she was dead in the hallway.

We were eating chocolate spread on toast and watching from the window when they carried her out. Uncle Liam’s Staffordshire Bull Terrier was in the back garden, barking at something. BBC South Today was on the TV. The reporter was talking about a body that had been found in the river.

My mum stared through goggle eyes, with her lips twitching and her throat swallowing. She kept shaking her head. There were people all out in the close, watching.

‘Bloody ghouls,’ she said, raising her top lip. ‘Look at them all! Never bothered with her when she was alive, did they? Now look at them all. Can’t get enough of her.’

‘Did you ever speak to her, Mum?’

‘Don’t have a go at me, Elliot.’

‘I’m not! I’m interested. Did you ever talk to her?’

‘Not even once,’ she replied thinly. ‘You?’

‘I was stroking one of the cats once and she said hello dear to me.’

‘I didn’t notice her ever talk to anyone.’

‘Do you think she was lonely?’

‘How should I know? Stop getting that all over the curtains!’

‘Sorry.’ I let go of the nets and sucked the chocolate from each finger slowly, whilst watching the close. There was an ambulance in the way, but eventually we saw the paramedics carry the body out. We both leaned forward and gasped.

‘Mum, what about the cats?’

‘Eh?’

‘What will happen to her cats? Will someone look after them?’

Mum frowned and shrugged, her eyes on the ambulance. I felt restless. The cats were bothering me. Did the paramedics know about the cats? Would they pick them up and take them too? Did they do that sort of thing?

‘I’ll go and ask them,’ I sighed, putting my plate down on the floor and moving away from the window.

She reached out and pulled me back. ‘No, don’t go out there!’

‘Why not?’

I saw that she was slightly panicked, not just cross, like normal. She was still swallowing lots and her lips had a life of their own, and when she looked back out of the window she held onto my arm.

‘Just stay here. Don’t go out there and gawk like them. Don’t be like them.’

‘I’m just worried about the cats.’

‘Forget about the cats. They look after themselves.’

‘Well, shall we stop watching then? Otherwise aren’t we just like them, but inside?’

She nodded. ‘Yes, okay. Put the kettle on then. And get that bloody dog inside before I murder it.’

I hurried into the kitchen, where I opened the back door and whistled for Tizer. He was only barking because he wanted to get into Uncle Liam’s car. I tempted him in with a bit of ham from the fridge and closed the door. He gulped the ham and then sat on the mat, wagging his tail and whining to go back out. I ignored him and put the kettle on.

‘He’s gonna’ drive me mad,’ my mother called out from the lounge. ‘The neighbours will tell the landlord and get us evicted. That might be a good thing. No more bloody dog.’

‘Mum!’ I yelled back at her. ‘Don’t say that! He’s a nice dog. He’s just missing Uncle Liam.’

‘Bloody mental dog,’ she snarled. I peeped around the door to see that she had finally moved from the window. I couldn’t see where she was, but I could hear her muttering. ‘Bloody nuts. Barking all day and night to get in the stupid car. Jesus Christ, I’ll go mad.’

I made the tea and carried both cups through to the lounge, with the dog at my heels.

‘Mum, your tea.’

‘Shh a minute.’

‘What’re you doing?’

She was at the front door. ‘Shh!’

I shut up and sipped my tea with Tizer beside me on the sofa. I fell into a bit of trance like that, with my head resting on one hand, and my fingers searching my scalp. Sometime later Mum slunk through from the hallway, blowing out her breath and shaking her head. She immediately slapped my hand away.

‘Stop picking your head!’

‘I’m not!’

‘Yes, you were. Now listen, apparently, they think she fell down the stairs and died in the hallway.’

‘Really?’

I thought to myself what a horrible and sad thing this was. I couldn’t help picturing the old woman in my head. Stooped and small and grey. She always wore a tan coloured coat and shiny black shoes. She walked with a stick. Most mornings she would leave her house at the same time and walk to the shop to get a paper.

‘Tripped,’ Mum went on, sinking into the arm chair and pulling at her lower lip with her finger and thumb. ‘Tripped and fell to the bottom. God knows how long she lay there waiting for help that never came. Oh, my God Elliot, I can’t bear to think of it...’

‘That’s so sad.’

I knew there were no words for it. It was horrible. It made a cold, empty space start to grow inside my belly. I rubbed at it and thought about filling it with more warm tea and toast.

‘How can someone just die like that and no one notices?’ Mum was staring at the floor, her hands clinging to the arms of the chair. ‘How disgusting, Elliot. It’s like her life never mattered.’

‘She probably has family somewhere,’ I suggested, in hope.

‘She can’t have. They would have missed her. Three weeks they were just saying out there. Three weeks she was probably lying there.’ Mum suddenly moved her hands to her face. She disappeared behind them, inhaling breath and quivering. I watched her, frozen. ‘What if she was lying there in the hallway? Dying?’

‘Mum...’

‘Dying,’ she sobbed. ‘We all kept walking past her and she was dying! And none of us even noticed anything...And all that lot out there staring and enjoying the show! Horrible lot!’

She wept softly while I drank my tea and patted Tizer. I gazed at the dog instead of my mum and wished that Uncle Liam would hurry up and come back. He knew how to cheer Mum up. He’d say something outrageous and she would soon be laughing.

Uncle Liam had been gone for two months. He’s gone to sort his head out, they’d said at first. Now they were saying things like; we have to be realistic. I sometimes squirmed with the desire to know more, but it was not a subject up for discussion.

Mrs Allen dying alone hit my mum hard. For the next few days she didn’t say much, but if she did have anything to say, it was about Mrs Allen dying. Not just her dying, her whole life before that too. The fact we didn’t know her name until she’d been found. The fact we had never checked on her, or offered to help her. The fact that at her age she had felt desperate enough to get a loan out. The fact that the neighbours didn’t give a shit either. I knew that she blamed them, that lot out there, and that she blamed herself and me too. She was probably right. We were all to blame.

3

Elliot

It should have been a day just like any other. But it wasn’t and I felt it strongly. Maybe she was ill? Maybe that was it. This strange tension in the air around her, like something had shifted, or altered. Something I couldn’t put my finger on, or explain.

‘Aren’t you going to work?’ I asked her when I came downstairs. She shook her head very slightly and yawned.

‘I feel awful Elliot. Can’t stop shaking.’

‘Oh no. Do you want me to get you anything?’

‘Can you get some tea on your way back from school? Something to microwave? Or chips if you like?’

‘Yeah course.’

‘Money in the pot.’

I got the pot from the windowsill in the kitchen and dug out a few pound coins.

‘Oh, and Elliot?’ she called out.

‘Yeah?’

‘There was something I had to tell you the other day, but I didn’t want to worry you, and as it turns out, it was nothing to worry about anyway.’

I walked past her, heading for the door with my bag on my back. ‘Oh. Okay then. What was it about?’

‘Liam,’ she said with a sigh and a tiny smile. ‘I’ll explain later. Go on. You’ll be late.’

‘Okay. Hope you feel better.’

The close was busying to life. I’d always enjoyed the layout of it. The circular formation of the close dotted with homes was more comforting somehow, than straight roads lined with houses. Mrs Allen’s house was still empty. The windows had been boarded up and there was no sign of the cats.

I glanced to the left, where the dog from number twenty-six was staring back at me between the fence panels. My mother had nicknames for everyone on the close and the people at twenty-six were The Fat Arses. They were the only people to have fenced off their front garden, because this was where they kept the large, white dog. This meant they had nowhere else to park their three cars but the close, which was one of the main reasons my mother hated them. The big white dog lived out its days in the front garden, mostly in silence. I could lean out of my bedroom window and look down at it. Sometimes it lifted its massive head and stared back up at me with pale, still eyes that chilled me to the bone. I’d stare back and imagine falling into its silent jaws.

I closed the front door behind me and glanced at number thirty, the other house joined to ours. The Whingers, were a family of five, whose two young blonde haired daughters were constantly crying and screaming. They’d recently had another one so now they were even louder, as the new one joined in with the older ones when they screamed. It was another girl and my mother told me that the dad had wanted a son.

Their mother was very talkative, and spoke so quickly it was difficult to understand or keep up with what was being said. My mum claimed that she just liked the sound of her own voice.

The two little girls were in their front garden, clutching their lunch boxes. I offered them a smile and then set off quickly for school before their mother could catch me and start talking. She was always angry with her girls, who were usually sobbing or screaming about something. Their bed-time routine was like a horror movie we had to endure through paper thin walls every evening from seven until ten pm.

Next door to the Whingers lived the Robinson family. Mum didn’t mind their dad Andy too much. She felt sorry for him because his wife had gone off to sing on the cruise ships. He smoked and drank a lot and was often in his back garden, throwing a ball for their collie and smoking roll-ups. They had a son who’d left home, but Bill and Emily still lived there with Andy. They both went to my school but Emily was fourteen and Bill sixteen, so they didn’t ever speak to me, which was a shame because I thought they both seemed cool.

Next to them lived a mother and daughter who kept entirely to themselves and didn’t speak to anyone. They had dark skin, so Tony across the close who Mum claimed was a busybody and a racist, assumed they were foreign and couldn’t speak English. He didn’t think that about me and my olive coloured skin, but he did once ask Mum if I was adopted.

Tony was the one she despised the most. She despised his nifty silver sports car and the coloured ceramic balls he had sitting in his front garden. She despised the way he wore jeans with shirts and blazers and the way he laughed after everything he said. He did try to ask her out once but she wasn’t very impressed.

I liked watching the residents of Hoppers close. I knew that my mum was not on particularly good terms with a lot of them, so I tried to make up for this with a well-meaning smile or nod whenever I could. The people were so familiar to me because I had a constant view of them and their lives. I felt like I knew them even though I didn’t.

On the other side of the alley, there was an older couple who my mother had never bad-mouthed. They took in parcels for her if she was out, and she did the same for them. Mrs Carter was short, grey haired and always in an apron. Sometimes if you took their parcel across, she’d come to the door with a wooden spoon in hand, and the smell of cakes following her down the hallway. The husband was also quite short and grey haired, and he was always out on the close working on a car.

Next to them lived The Twats.

They all had very dark thick fuzzy hair. The mother, nearly always wore a red jumper and black leggings. There were three more adults who all went out to work, and they had a brown Labrador that they sometimes dragged about on a lead on the fields out the back, but they never let it run free, and this pissed Mum off. Everything about them pissed her off. Walking slowly past them, I made a list in my head to see how many reasons I could remember;

-They never let the dog off the lead

-They didn’t walk it every day

-They didn’t pick up its poo

-They threw their rubbish down in the close

-They had millions of cars and took up all the spaces

-They were always washing their cars

-They didn’t say hello to anyone except Tony

I walked past Mrs Allen’s boarded up house and suddenly remembered the cats and on an impulse, I turned around and asked the close; ‘Does anyone know what happened to her cats?’

The dark-haired man stared back and sipped his tea. The Carter man was under his car and probably didn’t hear. The fat man and his chubby daughter looked at each other and then went back to their cars. The blonde woman smiled in a painful way and carried on shepherding her offspring into the car.

I shrugged, turned around and kept walking. I thought about Hoppers Close and about how the word ‘close’ was very deceiving.

It’s like that round here, Mum was saying in my head, no one cares, no one talks to you, no one even looks at you.

I thought about it all the way to school.

Although I got picked on a fair bit, I quite liked school. I enjoyed the lessons, especially History. I liked the library and spent most of break and lunch time in there. I liked my friends, Finn and Leah. I didn’t really like Spencer Reeves calling me Pie-face all day or swatting my arse with his bendy ruler when he sat behind me in Science, but I was able to tolerate him.

After school, I headed to the library to do some research into my Tudors project, and after that I walked back home. It was a walk I enjoyed. My mother often accused me of being nosy but I thought it was natural to be curious about other people’s lives. Down the hill from school and through the posh, new estate, up the hill on the other side, then cut through the grounds of the leisure centre.

Down at the far end was a big metal gate. From there I crossed over the road, under the flyover and back onto the Holds End estate. My Nan once told me it was called Holds End because the village of Hold Hurst which sat right behind it, once ended there, so it was called the end of the town.

From the edge of the estate to our house on the other side, was a maze of alleys and paths and blocks of garages, and metal bollards, and broken fences and gardens and dogs barking and cats on walls. I liked it. And I knew that was the difference between me and my mother. She hated where we lived, whereas I sort of loved it.

When I arrived home, I found Mum in the lounge crying and shaking. I asked her what was wrong and for a few minutes she just shook her head and chewed her lips. I hovered around the edge of her and then finally she exploded.

‘There was a robbery. At the post office. Few hours ago. I was in there! I was right there. I was in there.’

‘Oh my God!’

‘Two men, with black scarves round their faces. They just ran in screaming and shoving everyone and just screaming and waving swords about Elliot! Swords!’ She was sort of screaming now. I tried to sit next to her but she didn’t want me near her. She jumped up instead and ran into the kitchen, covering her face. ‘Police everywhere, had to stay for hours...they took money...swords! Not going out there again!’

I gave up trying to comfort her. I did the next best thing; I made her a cup of tea and called my Nan.

4

Elliot

Nan did not hesitate. She caught the bus to ours and there was much weeping and wailing behind the closed door of the kitchen, while I watched CBBC in the lounge. I’d been told to stay out of it but I was determined to keep one ear on the kitchen door and the noise behind it. From eavesdropping, I learnt the following things;

-Mum hid behind the toilet rolls when the men burst in.

-A middle aged man got hit on the back but didn’t die

-The lady behind the till in the post office gave them money

-They had black scarves on and black clothes

-They ran off afterwards

-The lady behind the till fainted

-Someone called the police and ambulance

-Mum was still shaking and would never be able to sleep again.

Their conversation was a warm and familiar noise to me. It was the same words and phrases batted about from their frantic lips. I was even able to silently mouth the phrases I knew they would repeat. My Nan; Oh, and do you know? And; you’re having a laugh! And my mother; be the bloody end of me, it will, something I’d heard her say a million times over catastrophes as small as running out of milk and as large as Uncle Liam doing a runner.

They never wanted anyone else joining in. I’d learned that over the years too. Curious about the things I was pushed away from, I’d mastered eavesdropping and sneaking around at an early age. That was how I found out about Uncle Liam.

When Liam first came to live with us Mum said it was to help us pay the rent. This made sense, because we’d had students and lodgers in and out for years. My mother was very fond of telling me how hard she worked to hang onto the house.

Perhaps they had an agreement that would help them both out. But there was more to it, and I picked up crumbs of information here and there. Uncle Liam had broken up with his girlfriend Emma because their baby died. Nan had been particularly devastated at the break up. That girl’s been the making of him, she would often say.

Uncle Liam was probably my best friend in the world. I talked to him all the time, you see, even when he wasn’t around. I’d picture him in my head, tell him whatever I was worried about, and he would answer right back. But everyone was relieved when Liam had settled with Emma and had a baby on the way. I can let her worry about him now, Nan declared.

I didn’t really understand what went wrong with the baby. About a year ago, my mother came up to my room in the morning to tell me Emma had given birth but the baby had died.

She said it all in this very quick, clipped way, not stopping for breath. I didn’t ask too many questions, because Mum was both crying and pushing me away like she always did. She wanted to make me tea and toast, so I let her. That evening Uncle Liam came around, drunk a lot of beer, and slept on the sofa. I heard him and Mum crying into the night.

They didn’t let me go to the funeral. I was a bit angry with my mother about that, but kept it to myself. I always tried not to get too angry with Mum, because I knew she did everything for my best interests. I knew very well how hard she had worked and scrimped and saved to keep this house with the garden for me.

You were born in this house, you know.

She liked to mention that quite a lot.

Slipped right out of me, you did. Right out on the bathroom floor.

When they finally came back from the funeral, Nan smelled of sherry and my mother was red-eyed and silent.

Here are some things to know about Milly, who should have been my cousin;

-She died during the birth because her oxygen got cut off

-It was no one’s fault but they wanted to blame someone

-She had tufts of blonde hair like her dad

-She was six pounds three

-Emma had ‘lost the plot’

-Liam had ‘hit the bottle’

-There was no justice in the world

-She was with the angels now

-She was with Grandad Pat

They took some photos of baby Milly and Nan kept one in her handbag. I thought Milly looked exactly like Uncle Liam. Her eyes, her lips, her hair.

After Liam and Emma broke up, Liam and Tizer moved in with us. One day we were sat side by side on the sofa watching Doctor Who and I decided to ask Uncle Liam how he was feeling. Liam responded with the drowsy grin I knew so well, and then he reached out and messed up my hair.

You’re a good boy Eli, he told me with certainty, you’re one in a million. Don’t let anyone ever tell you different.

What like Spencer Reeves calling me Pie-face all the time?

He’s a cunt and the world is full of cunts Eli. But don’t you ever join in and be one of them. You’re a good boy and I want to keep you that way.

Nan agreed with Mum. They were all adamant that he would never be the same again. The light has gone out his eyes, they said often enough. He’s not the same no more. How can we help him? I don’t know what to bloody say! There are no words, are there?

When he lived with us, Uncle Liam slept in the spare room with Tizer. When he left two months ago, he left Tizer and the car behind. I found this a bit odd, and I knew what they were all thinking and whispering, but not me. If I spoke to Uncle Liam in my head, he still answered me back, so that meant he was okay.

Mum and Nan sat in the kitchen talking about the robbery. Nan tried hard to soothe her.

Now, now my girl, she kept saying, you calm down and listen to your mum! Nothing is going to happen to you! Not over my dead body!

It was Nan Mum inherited her height from. My Nan stood at barely five feet one and everyone knew she could talk the hind leg off a donkey. She would make time for anyone and give you her last penny. All of this was true, but the one thing they never said about her was that she always smelled of sherry.

Nan had the same pale blonde hair as Mum, but she wore hers in a hair-sprayed halo of sticky, sweet-smelling waves. She liked to wear tight pale, blue jeans and black ankle boots with a high heel. She had large square glasses and a filthy laugh. She didn’t drive. She lost her licence after Grandad Pat died which was before I was born. Nan believed I was the spit of him, even though we looked nothing alike.

His eyes, his laugh, his mannerisms, isn’t that so Laura? Isn’t he just the spit of your dad? She was proudly insistent about it. Everything I did was like Pat. Nan seemed unable to notice that it drove my mum mad. She’d grit her teeth and shake her head, and sometimes when it was just me and her, she would touch my face and tell me that I was a one off and like no one else.

After the robbery, Nan did all she could to calm Mum down. She made lots of tea and she put on some chips, and she sat and watched Eastenders with me before my bedtime. She told me I was a good boy and no trouble to anyone. She said there were wicked people out there in this world and my mum had seen too many of them and she’d had enough. She did everything she could to soothe my mother, but it didn’t work.

5

Elliot

The next morning something about Mum frightened me. She sat slumped at the kitchen table in her dressing gown. She stared into space and spooned soggy Weetabix into her slack mouth. Her eyes were fixed on one spot on the wall.

‘I’m giving up on men,’ she said quietly, even though she’d said this before.

‘You don’t have to give up completely. Just keep looking until you find the right one.’

She didn’t reply to this, so I tried to fill the silence. ‘I’m sure there are loads of nice ones out there really. Like Leah’s mum and Derek. He’s nice. Now they’re going to have their own baby.’ Normally she would tell me to shut up, but this time she didn’t. The Weetabix fell off her spoon and landed on her dressing gown and still she just stared.

Later she asked me to call in sick for her. I phoned the care home and explained to Sylvia, the boss she hated, that she wouldn’t be coming in today. Sylvia sounded irritated and skeptical with my explanation.

‘What is actually wrong with her?’ she kept asking. ‘We will need a doctor’s note, you need to tell her.’

I promised I would get one for her and hung up. After that, I began to feel nervous. Mum got back onto the sofa and Tizer started barking at the car again. I decided to take him for a walk to give her some peace and quiet.

I walked the dog around the back of the estate, with my hands in my pockets and the sun on my back. I started thinking about the summer holiday and having six whole weeks away from Spencer Reeves, who totally and utterly hated me. There was also the camping trip with Uncle Liam to look forward to. Mum got a funny look on her face every time I mentioned it, but he would be back for that, I was sure.

The field stretched around the back of the estate, like a soft green arm cradling the houses. Beyond the field was farmland, and on the other side of that; the villages of Hold Hurst and Thorpe. There were cows out grazing on the field. I decided I would walk Tizer around there one day in the holiday. We could walk right the way around and come back onto the estate at the other end. I remembered doing that when I was a little kid on my bike, when the loop of old road seemed to go on forever.

As I took Tizer past the skateboard park, I scratched at my head, looking for scabs. It was a weird habit I had. I searched for scabs and then picked them off. If I didn’t have any scabs, then I sort of picked at the skin so that there would be a scab the next day. It drove Mum crazy and she even took me to the doctor about it once, when I was younger, but most of the time I had no idea I was even doing it.

You’re a dreamer, Eli, Uncle Liam said inside my head, and I agreed with him. I really was.

It was starting to drizzle and the sky had darkened. Tizer, who was not a fan of the rain, was hurrying back to the house. I followed him home and there he was, sat beside Liam’s car, thumping his tail.

‘All right then, you win,’ I told him. ‘You can stay there for now.’

I made Mum another tea and tried to talk to her about what her boss said on the phone. She flicked me away with tears in her eyes, so I gave up. I wanted to help her by myself, and be the man of the house for her, but underneath all of this I was brewing guilt. So, I decided to keep a close eye on her and note down any changes.

I noticed several things right away. I listed them in my notebook and the more I thought about it, the less sure I was about the order of things. But everything played a part. I was certain of that.

-She was having nightmares

-She avoided going to bed

-She slept on the sofa a lot

-She kept calling in sick

-She chewed all her nails down until they were bloody

-She stopped wanting to answer the phone or the door

-She stopped taking Tizer for walks

-She stopped going to the shops

-She cried a lot but wouldn’t say why

I wrote these things down and showed them to Nan when she next came over. She arrived in a taxi with some shopping bags and started busying around the kitchen, putting on some dinner. Mum was on the sofa in her dressing gown, sniffing into a tissue. By now, she had taken another whole week off work. I felt a building sense of urgency about the situation. I couldn’t stop worrying about her getting the sack. I pulled up a chair in the kitchen and watched Nan.

Eventually she said; ‘And what are you doing sat there spying on me young Elliot? Cat got your tongue?’

‘Did Mum call you over?’

‘No. She wouldn’t answer the phone so I came over anyway. Anything else you want to know, nosy parker?’

‘What’s wrong with her?’

‘Eh? Nothing! Well, nothing a good sleep won’t fix. She’s just worn out, that’s all Els. She works hard and she’s bringing you up alone. It’s not easy for women you know!’

‘I know that,’ I reassured her. ‘You lot are always saying it.’

She grabbed a damp tea towel and swatted it across my shoulders playfully. ‘Oi you! Cheeky!’

‘I wasn’t being cheeky,’ I tried to point out, while she went back to opening a tin of beans. ‘Is she ill though Nan? Should we call the doctor? She hasn’t been to work all week.’

‘Hmm.’

Hmm was what Nan said when she didn’t know the answer yet. I decided to hit her with the evidence, so I opened the notebook and read out the list. She kept her back to me but I could hear her sigh.

‘Oh Elliot, don’t be such a busy-body.’

‘I’m not! I’m worried.’

‘Yes, I know you are love,’ she turned to look at me.

I tapped my notebook with the pen. ‘If she’s ill we should call the doctor. Her boss said so.’

‘Well yes, she’s right about that. You can’t stay off work for too long without a sick note, can you?’

‘You’ll have to tell her, Nan. Tell her to go to the doctor. I don’t mind calling them. I’ll call them tomorrow and make her an appointment.’

Nan ruffled my hair and turned back to the beans. ‘You’re such a good boy Elliot. I don’t know what we’d do without you.’

So, we had an agreement. Nan was to convince Mum she must go to the doctor, and I would make the appointment. That night, Mum refused to come to the table to eat. She said she felt sick and she had a headache and could we both stop going on at her please?

She went to bed after that little outburst and Nan and I swapped looks.

‘Well, she always was a stroppy little madam,’ said Nan, as we sat in the kitchen with our beans and eggs on toast. ‘Especially when she was a teenager! Oh! She was dreadful!’’

‘Not a good boy like me then?’

Her eyes wrinkled up as she grinned back, with her mouth full of toast. She shook her head and her stiff blonde hair moved with it.

‘No Elliot, I have told you a million times. You are an angel sent to earth to teach us all how to behave!’ This cracked her up and she laughed for ages.

I lay in bed that night and thought that the plan had to start now. Starting with tomorrow. No more messing around.

6

Elliot

My mother didn’t take the news well. A doctor’s appointment first thing Monday morning was apparently not at all what she needed. After the tantrum, Nan slipped quietly out of the front door. I followed suit, slinking away up to my room and staying there. Mum was in a foul mood; stomping around downstairs and slamming cupboards in the kitchen.

It was raining outside. I knelt on my bed and leaned out of the window. I didn’t understand why people complained about the rain so much. I liked the sound of it pattering down from the sky, and the way it fizzed against the hot ground and made everything smell different. Dark and earthy. People didn’t notice that though. They just started running and hurrying out of it.

I scanned the close slowly, my gaze moving up and down as I noted who was home and who was out. Down below, the large white dog sat morosely on the doorstep and their cars were all gone.

Leaning out further gave a glimpse of the fields to the right, just behind the Carter’s house. I smiled to myself, taking in the bright, fat greenness of the trees and the shrubs. Satisfied that all was well in my world, I ducked back in, my face wet with rain. I lay on my stomach and attempted to do some homework.

After a while the noise downstairs stopped, so I closed my books and slipped out of my room. Maybe she had calmed down and made us some dinner. I trotted down the stairs and peered around the lounge door. There she was. Curled up on the sofa, her arms wrapped tightly around herself, her face blank. Until she saw me.

‘Right little sneak, aren’t you?’ Her voice was short and hard. I flinched, then walked past her and into the kitchen.

‘Well, you made me call your boss and your boss said you needed a note...so...’

I looked around the kitchen, but the oven was cold and nothing was cooking.

‘Well, one thing Elliot Pie, it is none of your business what I do, and two, you should not be involving your Nan who is very old and frail! And three I don’t need to go to the doctor now that I am feeling better. So, I cancelled the appointment.’

‘Oh.’ I couldn’t help feeling deflated. Like she had thwarted my plan to help her. I sighed before asking; ‘Mum, shall I make something for tea?’

‘Elliot, don’t change the subject. That’s very rude.’

‘I’ll make beans on toast then. Or do you want eggs?’

‘You do that all the time,’ she moaned back at me. ‘You ignore what I say and start talking about something else. It’s impossible to talk to you!’

I opened the fridge and realised that she hadn’t been shopping in ages.

‘Mum, there’s nothing in the fridge!’

‘I know. I’ll go tomorrow.’

‘There’s no eggs.’ I pulled open the low cupboard where she kept the tins and packets. Empty. Nothing except Weetabix and porridge oats. ‘No beans either! What shall I do?’

‘Christ, I don’t know. I’m not even hungry. Marmite?’

There was no Marmite.

‘Cuppa soup?’ I offered weakly, and when there was no reply I made us a mug each anyway and carried them through to the lounge.

We sat side by side on the sofa, sipping soup and watching the news. Mum held the TV remote in one hand, lifting and then lowering it, as if she wanted to change the channel but couldn’t quite make herself. She had this strained look on her face. The news was one horror story after the other. Terrorist attacks. Crazy people driving vans into crowds. Children getting bombed in their beds. Nazis on the rise. I didn’t understand any of it. The remote control started to shake in her hand. In the end, I took it from her and turned the channel over.

‘People are wicked,’ she murmured, shaking her head. ‘Look at ‘em. Wicked.’

‘Let’s watch Hollyoaks instead. You like that.’

‘It never changes, does it? The news was the same when I was your age. Wars all over the place. Always over nothing. Oil or money. Killing children.’

‘I’ll make us a tea in a minute.’

‘Just evil. Everywhere you look.’

‘You mean like the men in the Post Office?’

She got up then, pushing her mug at me. She looked scared and angry and like she had nowhere to go. ‘Yes, like that. People taking what they want, taking from others. Just going around hurting people! And all that lot out there! Gossiping about that poor old woman...and those bastards, those bastards taking money off her every week! What is wrong with people?’

I shrugged. ‘Probably not as bad as they used to be.’

‘What? They’re worse! It’s always getting worse! It’s not safe anywhere! And if they’re not trying to bomb you or kill you or steal from you, they just won’t even look at you or talk to you. They think you’re not worthy. And that’s not all, is it? There’s bloody plastic in our food now, you know! And in our water! We’re killing the earth, Elliot, and no one cares! No one is going to stop it!’ She stormed into the kitchen and I heard her wrench open the back door. She didn’t go out though. I sat forward and watched her curiously from the sofa. She was stood there, hands gripping the door frame. Breath coming fast and hard.

‘Are you all right?’

‘I can’t...I can’t!

‘Mum what?’

I put the mugs down and went to her. She never normally wanted me, but she was trapped, I could see that. She wanted to go out but she couldn’t. Her mouth was open, her eyes staring. And then she backed up quickly, hand banging at her chest, shaking her head from side to side...

‘Can’t breathe, can’t breathe, can’t breathe!’

I grabbed hold of her arm, closed the door and stared into her face. ‘Yes, you can, you’re breathing, I can hear you.’

‘My heart, my heart!’

I managed to push her into a chair. She sat with her legs apart and her hands pressed against her chest, and her mouth hanging open as she tried to catch her breath.

‘My heart, my heart is racing!’

I was scared to touch her. She wriggled away and flapped at you, so there was never any point. I put one hand shakily on her shoulder and suddenly her hands were over mine, digging into my skin, holding me in place.

‘Mum you’re okay, you’re really okay, I promise you.’

‘Stay with me Elliot, don’t leave me, will you? Just a minute, just a minute...’

‘Course I will. Take deep breaths, they say. In and out. In and out.’

For the first time in my life she listened to me. It made me feel strange as I stood there behind her. It felt like I was useful for once. She closed her eyes and took long deep breaths. When her breathing sounded more normal she started murmuring to herself.

‘They say that, don’t they? Deep breaths, deep breaths. In and out, in and out. Deep breaths. Calm down. Calm down.’

‘You scared me, Mum.’

She didn’t hear me though. She was too focused on her breathing. Eventually I freed my hand from her grip and put on the kettle just like Nan did every time there was an emergency. She took the tea and held the cup in both hands, keeping her eyes closed, keeping the breathing going.

‘Like when you’re in labour,’ she said. ‘Just like this. In and out. In and out.’

‘I’m glad you’re okay. I’m glad you’re feeling better.’

‘That didn’t work with you after a while. You came too quick. You were in too much of a hurry. Did I ever tell you?’

I rolled my eyes. ‘Millions of times, Mum.’

‘I had the midwife on the phone. She said the ambulance was coming. In and out, in and out, she kept saying to me. It will help the pain. Slow things down. But you were in too much of a hurry.’

‘I know, Mum.’

‘Don’t roll your eyes, that’s very rude.’

‘Sorry.’

‘She said keep breathing, keep doing your breathing. But you just fell out. Right out onto the bathroom floor. It was all I could do to stop you going down the toilet...’

She laughed a little and I could see that this old story was soothing her, calming her down. So, I went along with it. I asked her questions I already knew the answers to. Before