Probably the first really noticeable thing was Mum coming back from the hairdresser’s on Friday afternoon, wearing a small black beard.
I sat at the kitchen table, staring.
‘What?’
‘Mum? You’ve got something…’
‘Yes, Sam, dear?’
‘Mum – you’ve got a beard.’
Mum stood in front of the tiny mirror stuck by the back door.
‘Yes, dear – don’t you like it?’
It’s Saturday, and Mum’s beard hasn’t gone away.
She’s up in the bathroom right now, wrapping it in tinfoil.
‘Sam,’ says Dad. He pulls on his jacket. ‘Would you like to come into work with me?’
I nearly choke on my cereal. He knows I can’t stand his work. Dad runs the City Museum. The really boring, really big City Museum stuffed full of stuffed things in dusty boxes; beyond your wildest dreams of boring. It’s so dull that you have to leave your brain behind at the door to stand it for more than a minute. Dad manages to make it even more boring by giving the same tour every time we go round. If I have to listen to it again, I think I might actually be sick.
‘Um …’ I stare at my spoon and hope that this might blow over on its own.
‘I know you hate the museum, but…’ Dad pours himself a cup of coffee, and slurps half of it down, ‘…I thought that just this once, you might like a wander round before we reopen to the public on Monday? It’s changed in there, really. We’ve updated it. I’d love to see what you think.’
I’m still staring at my spoon.
‘I’m driving; you won’t even have to walk,’ says Dad.
I shake my head. ‘No thanks.’
‘Perhaps you could bring Ursula?’ Dad checks his tie in the mirror. ‘We could pick her up on the way. She could bring her camera – go behind the scenes, while it’s all fresh and new? Record it for posterity.’
‘No thanks, really. Dad? Have you noticed that Mum’s got a beard?’
‘Yes, good, isn’t it?’ He glugs down the rest of his coffee. ‘The builders are finally moving out of the museum – they’ve redone everything; they’ve even installed air conditioning. It’s all terribly exciting – it feels like a rebirth.’
I stare at him. Sometimes I worry about someone who can get this excited about dead people and air conditioning.
‘The museum’s just like a new baby – it needs visiting, welcoming. It needs young friends. Friends like you and Ursula.’
Dad really hates to give up.
‘What? When?’ says Ursula, camera bags dangling from her wrists.
‘Now, in a minute – Dad’s outside in the car, he’ll take us round, it won’t take long – I agreed just to keep him happy.’
Ursula raises an eyebrow. ‘Honestly, Sam – don’t you know how to say “no”?’
We walk into the newly cleaned-up hallway of the museum. It’s all very shiny and light. It seems bigger, taller. It used to be crammed with stuffed birds in cases, stuck onto broken twigs and labelled with curly brown scraps of typing. Now there’s a huge TV showing floaty skeletons and cave paintings.
‘Where’s the dodo gone?’ asks Ursula.
‘Sorry – it went to auction – same with the cassowaries and the hummingbirds. We thought we’d get modern, so we’ve got an interactive monitor coming with films of birds in their natural habitat. Good, eh?’ Dad presses a button and a pair of glass doors glides open. ‘This way,’ he says, sweeping us through.
‘Wow!’ says Ursula, snapping away with her camera. ‘Impressive.’
It is impressive, for a museum. There’s a bank of glass cases, glittering with cleaned-up Egyptian relics. It used to be a single dusty case that looked more like a jumble sale than an exhibit, crammed full of sarcophagi and jars. The doors to some of the cases are open, and serious-looking people in white gloves are rearranging the neat white labels. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a new baby, but they’ve certainly spent some money.
I’m almost tempted to read one of the labels, but I discover the floor’s been polished and that I can skid all the way from one end of the room to the other. ‘Wheeeeeeeeeeee,’ I cry.
‘Sam!’ Dad looks pained.
‘Sorry,’ I say, trying to look serious.
‘We’ve cleaned everything,’ says Dad. ‘Recatalogued. Taken out some of the questionable items.’
‘Like what?’ asks Ursula, filming one of the open cases.
‘Odd things. All impossible to authenticate and not really of archaeological interest.’
‘What did you do with those?’ asks Ursula, her camera trained on his face.
But Dad’s ahead of us now, running his fingers over the gold painting on a sarcophagus. For a moment, in the reflected light, he looks a little mad.
‘Are you meant to do that, Dad?’ I ask. I’ve never been allowed to touch anything – that’s partly why I hate the place so much.
‘What?’ Dad looks surprised and steps back. ‘Sorry, I don’t know what came over me – no, I’m absolutely not.’
I look at the sarcophagus he was stroking. It’s got a beard too, just like Mum’s. I look at the label; it’s not a man, it’s a woman. A pharoah-ess, presumably. How curious. Bearded Egyptian women; something I’ve never noticed before. Perhaps it’s a new fashion?
‘C’mon, Sam.’ Dad whisks us through the rest of the downstairs. Ursula films it all, but then she films almost everything. We wind up at the refurbished gift shop.
It’s the same old tat, but the shelves are shinier. A kit of a catapult that will never work properly; a bent arrow and bow; a plastic Viking sword; a pencil sharpener in the shape of a funerary jar. I pick through the guns in case there’s one I haven’t got.
‘So – did you enjoy that? Record it all?’ Dad asks Ursula. He’s playing with a paper sarcophagus mask; he holds it up over his face. ‘We could do the Americas now, upstairs. It’s been revamped.’
Ursula fiddles with her camera case.
‘Actually, could you take us home?’ I ask. ‘I was thinking of taking my Derf guns onto the common.’
‘Yeah, I could film you,’ says Ursula.
‘I can’t tempt you with the bloodthirsty Aztecs then?’
‘Um, not really, thanks, Dad. I’m kind of museumed out.’
Dad opens his mouth to plead with Ursula, but she interrupts him. ‘Yes, Mr Lloyd, I think we’ve had enough of history. For today.’