‘Bye, Mollikins. Talk soon. Love you.’
‘Dad? Are you ever going to stop calling me Mollikins?’
‘No.’
‘Oh, OK. Bye, Dad, love you too.’
I clicked off the call, and lay down on my bed. Facetiming my dad is always really nice, but I can’t help feeling sad when it’s time to say goodbye. I hadn’t seen Dad for ages and ages, and even though I’m often mad at him, I really, really miss him. The first tears were coming to my eyes when Beth flung the door open and threw herself on to the bed beside me.
‘You’ve been talking to your dad, haven’t you?’ she said.
‘How do you know?’
‘Wild guess,’ she said pointing to my eyes. ‘I’m sorry, Moll – it sucks having your dad living so far away.’
It was nice of her to say that. She was right, it did suck having my dad so far away, but her mum is dead, and that has to be a million times worse.
Beth hugged me and then she jumped up. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘I’ve got some pocket-money left. How about I buy us both ice-creams?’
‘Sounds like an excellent plan. Let’s go.’
* * *
We were nearly at the shop when we heard the sound of cheeps and quacks coming along behind us. It was so loud – it was like a riot in a bird sanctuary. ‘OMG! What on earth is that noise?’ said Beth By the time we turned around, the noise was right next to us.
‘Hi, girls,’ said a familiar voice over the quacking noise. ‘How nice to see you.’
‘Graham!’ said Beth. ‘What are you doing? I didn’t even know you were back from your holidays.’
‘I just got back last night – it was a wonderful trip – one of the best ever.’
Graham smiled at us and tossed his head to get his long hair out of his huge dark-brown eyes. He’s tall and skinny and he was wearing ripped denim jeans, and a t-shirt with a picture of his favourite rock band. He was carrying a huge shopping bag – not that unusual really, except that the bag was wriggling and shaking like it was alive.
‘Please don’t say that awful noise is coming from your bag,’ said Beth.
‘What have you got inside there?’ I asked.
‘Oh, it’s just a mother duck and her babies,’ Graham said casually, like the bag held nothing more special than a loaf of bread and a carton of milk. ‘They were lost on a very busy road, so I rescued them from certain death, and now I’m bringing them to the pond where they’ll be safe.’
‘That’s really nice of you,’ said Beth, laughing. ‘But what is it about you? How come you always show up when weird stuff happens?’
‘I wasn’t the only one who showed up,’ he said. ‘Lots of people were there.’
‘And why didn’t they help?’ I asked.
‘Who knows?’ said Graham. ‘Some of them ignored the ducks, but others stopped to take photos and then left the poor creatures to their fate.’
‘That’s really mean,’ I said.
‘Can Molly and I come to the pond with you?’ asked Beth.
‘Of course you can,’ said Graham. ‘We can rescue this little family together.’
* * *
At the pond, Graham put down the bag and the mother duck tumbled out, shaking herself and ruffling her feathers. She quacked loudly, and five totally adorable, fluffy little ducklings rolled out of the bag and waddled out after her. Then all six flung themselves into the water, like they’d never seen anything so amazing. The mother looked back at us for a second and quacked.
‘She’s thanking you, Graham,’ said Beth. ‘She knows you saved her family.’
Then the mother and her babies swam off, and seconds later they were hidden in the clumps of weeds in the middle of the pond.
‘Molly and I were on our way to the shop to buy ice-cream,’ said Beth. ‘Do you want to come?’
‘Sure,’ said Graham. ‘But first there’s something I have to do – I always do it when I come to this park.’
I couldn’t help feeling excited. I don’t know what the opposite of boring is, but whatever it is, that’s the best word to describe Graham.
We followed him up the short steep hill to where the monument is. Then he stood for a second letting the wind blow through his long hair.
‘Now what do we do?’ asked Beth.
‘This!’ said Graham, as he flung himself down on the grass and rolled down to the bottom of the hill.
I looked at Beth for a second.
Weren’t we too old for rolling down hills?
What would Mum say if we got grass stains on our clothes?
What if there was dog poo – which had to be the grossest thing in the world?
But then I looked at Graham, who was sitting on the grass below us, breathless and laughing like a little kid.
‘Last one down’s an idiot,’ I said, and then Beth and I rolled to the bottom of the hill where we lay on our backs and looked at the sky and laughed till we felt sick.
‘You know you’re crazy, right, Graham?’ said Beth when she got her breath back.
‘Thank you, Beth,’ said Graham. ‘That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me all day.’
Beth was right. Graham is crazy. He’s the craziest nearly-seventy-year-old I’ve ever met.
* * *
Graham is Beth’s dad’s uncle. He always wears jeans and t-shirts and when it’s cold he puts on weird jumpers he buys in a village at the top of a mountain no one’s ever heard of, somewhere in South America. He knows about nature and art and music and films and books and sport. He travels the world for months at a time, and we never know when he’s going to show up at his tiny little house not far from where we live. He’s the most fun person I’ve ever known.
* * *
On the way to the shop, we passed the animal shelter.
‘Let’s go in for just one second,’ begged Graham, like he was the kid and Beth and I were the adults. ‘I love to see the puppies and kittens.’
So we followed him inside and for twenty minutes we petted and stroked every kind of furry creature we could see.
On the way out we passed a poster saying ‘ALL DONATIONS WELCOME – PLEASE SUPPORT OUR WORK.’ Graham dug around in his pockets and put all the money he could find into the collection bucket.
‘Hey, Molly,’ said Beth. ‘How badly do you want the ice-cream I promised you?’
I actually wanted it fairly badly – in my head I’d already chosen the chocolate brownie and salted caramel flavours. I could already almost taste the creamy coldness and the squishy caramel pieces on my tongue – but then I saw the huge eyes of a darling little puppy staring at me from the poster and I shook my head.
‘Who needs ice-cream?’ I said, and then I helped Beth to put the coins through the slot.
That’s the weird thing about Graham – he’s wild and crazy and funny, but there’s also something else about him – just being with him makes you want to be a better person.
