The news that Adolf Hitler had shot Katy Newman in the middle of her play, knocking her offstage, spread through the school on a wave of shocked whispers and giggles. Within ten minutes the story saturated every classroom and had been bent and twisted into even more colorful versions of the truth. This was precisely why Mr. Mallison had waited until everyone, even the teachers, had returned to their classrooms, before leaving the backstage area with Nelson. Once the corridors were clear, Mr. Mallison laid one of his large hands on Nelson’s shoulders and they began a brisk walk to the headmistress’s office.
* * *
It’s funny how your body can get on without you at times. It doesn’t need your approval for every heartbeat or reflex, and right now Nelson had never felt more detached from himself. He knew he was walking swiftly through the school, he could hear the footsteps from Mr. Mallison’s huge shoes echoing off the walls, he could see the corridors lined with paintings made by students to illustrate climate-change issues, the anti-bullying posters, and the photo montages of classes planting vegetables in the new flower beds, but it felt as if his mind was separate from his body, like a kite on a long, long string floating high above it all. Connected, but only just.
* * *
Mr. Mallison didn’t even knock; he just strode right into the secretary’s office, making her jump up from behind her computer with a startled squeak.
“Sorry, Judy—I should’ve knocked but…” Instead of words, Mr. Mallison finished his sentence with a nod of his head toward Nelson. Judy, a nervous, sparrowlike woman, nodded emphatically in reply, leaped to her feet, and skittered across the room.
Ah, so this is Judy, thought Nelson. The woman he had heard breaking the news to Mr. Mallison.
Judy knocked on the headmistress’s door but didn’t wait for a reply before opening it. The door swung open to reveal a large, wood-paneled room and the kind of desk Nelson had only ever seen presidents sitting behind in apocalyptic action movies. Mrs. Vigars would have made a convincing world leader: a mighty oak tree of a woman wrapped in a dark blue dress, black cardigan, and burgundy scarf knotted around her neck. Her magnificent face was framed with dark hair pulled into a no-nonsense bun, and “no-nonsense” was exactly the way in which she was speaking into her telephone right now.
“As soon as you hear anything more, you will call me first. No one else, do you understand, Daphne?” If I was Daphne, thought Nelson, I would totally understand, and even if I didn’t, I would say I did. Mrs. Vigars was seriously impressive and even put the phone down without saying goodbye. He’d seen her before in assembly, of course, but never up close. Wow.
This is the portrait of Mrs. Vigars that hung in the entrance hall of the school.
“Bob, couldn’t you have at least cleaned him up a bit?” said the headmistress, rising from her chair and picking up a small black handbag that sat on top of a pile of books beside her desk, but she didn’t wait for an apology. “Your mother is going to be here very soon, Nelson, and I’m not sure she’ll want to take you home looking like Hitler.” Mrs. Vigars turned to her secretary with a cold steely command. “No calls, and get me some cotton pads.”
As Judy and Mr. Mallison skittered away Mrs. Vigars opened her handbag and took out a packet of Werther’s Original sweets and some baby wipes. She put a sweet in Nelson’s hand and then popped one in her own mouth without taking her eyes off him. Nelson felt obliged to do the same. The sweet clacked around in his dry mouth like a pebble. Nelson could hear at least two telephones ringing in the secretary’s office as Mrs. Vigars led him to a seat by the window where a small mirror hung next to the most recent school photo. She handed Nelson the baby wipes, but Nelson just stood there looking at them with no idea what to do.
“Never mind, I’ll do it,” she said, and with one finger under his chin, Mrs. Vigars tilted Nelson’s face up toward her. She then put on her reading glasses and set to work. “Eyes closed,” she said, and Nelson obeyed. The cold wipes traced the lines of his face with soothing strokes. Mrs. Vigars seemed to be paying particular attention to the place under his nose where the horrid little mustache had been painted.
“You’re being very brave,” said Mrs. Vigars.
“Have they found her yet?” Nelson whispered back.
“Not yet, but they will.”
“I don’t think she’s dead.”
“Neither do I.”
“Cel’s a great swimmer. She probably swimmed away to a big rock or something.”
“Swam,” said Mrs. Vigars, and Nelson could hear the smile in her voice. “She probably swam away to a big rock.”
“Swam,” said Nelson. He heard the secretary enter the room but didn’t bother to open his eyes. Mrs. Vigars took the cotton pads from her and used them to apply a moisturizing cream.
“What’s that?” asked Nelson.
“This is my special de-Hitler cream,” she said in mock seriousness. Nelson liked the smell of it. Coconut. The door creaked open once more and Nelson heard Mrs. Vigars say, “Ah, you must be Mrs. Green.”
“Mum!” yelled Nelson, opening his eyes and turning toward the door, but instead of his mother, he was met by the sight of an extremely small woman who was as round and wrinkled as a turtle.
“No, no, no,” said the woman as she stepped forward. “I’m a neighbor, aren’t I, dear? Live three doors down. Hilda Mills.” Though in her late sixties, Hilda had thick curls of blond hair and her glasses made it look as if she had joke-shop eyes.
“Where’s Mum?” asked Nelson with real concern.
Unfortunately Hilda was the kind of person who was incapable of answering a simple question with a simple answer.
“Oh, she’s a mess. Well, she would be, wouldn’t she? I mean, you hear about terrible things happening in foreign countries, but you never expect them to happen to you, do you? That’s why I never go abroad. No. Just not safe, is it?”
“You’re taking him home by car, I assume?” asked Mrs. Vigars.
“Well his mother can’t drive, can she, not in the state she’s in right now,” said Hilda in her rattling voice. “Besides, she’s busy packing.”
“Packing? For what?” asked Nelson, but Mrs. Vigars stepped in.
“Mrs. Mills, I appreciate your coming to collect Nelson. Now I think it’s best if we let you get him home as quickly as possible.” The headmistress took one last look at Nelson’s restored face and said, “It’s going to be all right.”
Nelson nodded. Mrs. Vigars could have said she was from Mars and could melt cheese with her mind and he would have believed her. She was just one of those people you believed. And right now, believing that everything was going to be all right was a very good thing indeed.
* * *
Hilda parked her car in front of her own house and climbed out in a cloud of cigarette smoke before opening Nelson’s door, which was protected with a childproof lock. “I’ll see you in, dear,” she said, and even though he really didn’t want anything more to do with her, Nelson felt it best not to protest.
The first thing Nelson noticed was the two taxis parked outside his house. The drivers stood leaning against their cars.
* * *
The apple-green front door was ajar, there were two open suitcases piled high with clothes by the door, and Nelson could hear his mother’s voice, thick with tears, coming from the kitchen. The house was a bomb site.
“Mum!” called out Nelson, and his mother came running toward him in her dressing gown, with the phone pressed to her ear and her face drenched with tears. “He’s here,” she sobbed into the phone, before falling to her knees and hugging Nelson as if she was trying to stop herself from falling down a hole. He’d seen his mother cry a million times— she would even cry at baby-wipe advertisements (“Oh, it doesn’t seem that long ago I was doing that for you!” she would gulp)—but he had never seen her so drained of happiness. It freaked Nelson out to see his funny and crazy mum looking so sad.
“Thanks for bringing me home, Hilda,” said Nelson, who made a move as if to close the door.
“I expect you want me to stay for a bit.”
“No thanks.”
“Oh. Well, you know where I am if you need anything, dear” were her last words before Nelson managed to close the door.
“Speak to your dad,” said his mother in a shuddering voice, and as Nelson took hold of the phone his mother crumpled onto the bottom step of the staircase as if she was a puppet and someone had just cut all her strings.
“Dad?” said Nelson, and there was silence on the other end.
Then, “Nelson, my love,” said his father, “are you all right?”
Nelson nodded before remembering his father couldn’t see him. “Yes, Dad. I’m fine. Is there any news?”
Nelson’s mum was trying to close one of the suitcases, but there was too much spilling from the sides for the locks to connect.
“They haven’t found her yet, Nelson. But the police are looking for her, and we’re going to help them.”
“There are two taxis outside, Dad.”
“Yes. That’s right. Listen, Nelson, I’m going to fly straight to Spain from Brussels, okay? Your mother is meeting me in Cadaqués, and I need you to help me get her into that taxi. Her plane leaves in two hours.”
“What about me?”
“Nelson, I need you to be really grown up now. You are going to stay with Uncle Pogo. Remember him?”
“Yes, but … No!” pleaded Nelson. “I’m coming with you!”
Nelson’s mother was still trying in vain to close her suitcase.
“Nelson, I know this is horrible,” said his father, “but we don’t know what to expect and we can’t take you with us.”
“I’m not staying with Uncle Pogo. He’s a nutcase.”
“I promise you—I promise—we will be back before you know it, and everything is going to be fine.” Nelson felt his father wasn’t telling the truth.
“Who’s going to look after Minty?” he said, spying the dog fast asleep by the back door.
“Hilda’s agreed to pop in and feed her while we’re away.”
“I could stay here too then.”
“Look, we have to do this, and you just have to … You just have to be my big guy, all right? Get your mother in that taxi, Nelson—she cannot miss that plane. Okay?”
“Okay,” said Nelson.
“I have to go now, Nelson.”
“Okay. Bye.”
Nelson put the phone back on its base and noticed the flashing red message light. There were twelve new messages. They’d never had that many messages before.
Every single thing about today was crazy.
In less than two minutes Nelson had managed to finish packing his bags, fetch his mother’s wallet and passport from his father’s desk drawer, and close both her suitcases. One of the drivers took the luggage and Nelson’s mother dropped into the back seat of the taxi before lurching forward to kiss Nelson.
“Don’t worry, Mum. I’ll be fine. Just get on that plane, all right?”
“Did your play go all right, love?” she mumbled.
“Yeah, fine.” Nelson looked at the taxi driver, who was clearly feeling rather uncomfortable.
“She has to go to Terminal 5 at Heathrow. She mustn’t be late.” The driver nodded and started the engine. Nelson kissed his mother then closed the door, and the taxi drove away. He waited to see it turn the corner before looking back toward the house.
“So I’m taking you to Hammersmith—Box Elder Drive, is that right?” said the second taxi driver, reading from his phone.
“Er, yeah,” said Nelson. “I’ll just go and get my bag.”