Mum had been crying, that much was obvious, but she’d also been doing something else. Something much worse. She had been packing.
Flat-packed boxes were piled around the living room. Some were empty, some were full. There was no order that Carl could see to the work. It was as though she had simply started to throw everything they owned into crates.
When Carl had arrived home, he’d found her sat in the middle of the floor. She had been caught, midway through her work, by a photo album that she’d made the mistake of opening. Her expression, as she slowly turned the pages, said everything and nothing at the same time.
She looked up at him as he walked in. ‘Grandma and Grandad have offered to put us up for a while. After that, we can find somewhere up near them.’ There was a resigned tone to her voice.
‘Dad will come back!’ Carl tried to sound more confident than he felt. ‘You know how he is… he just needs to work it out. He just needs time.’
‘I’ve given him time. So much time,’ she said quietly. ‘I can’t do it any more.’ She closed the photo album and put it in the box next to her.
‘I don’t want to leave school,’ Carl lied. ‘I’m settled there.’
Uprooting Carl from school had always been the strongest argument Mum or Dad could ever come up with for not moving. Every time either of them had thought about the possibility of moving to a less expensive area, or a city with better job prospects, the subject of Carl’s schooling had come up and that had put an end to it. Carl, apparently, was ‘settled’ where he was, and that was that.
In truth, Carl wasn’t bothered. School was OK. He could take it or leave it. He had friends there, and he had enemies, just as he would anywhere else. Starting a new school might actually be quite fun, and anyway, there’d always be Facebook.
But Carl wasn’t ready to give up. Dad had gone deep this time, deeper than he’d ever been. In his mind, he was lost in a Jurassic jungle, but Carl was sure there was a way back. There was always a way back.
He just needed time to work on him. There was no sense trying to force him back to reality – that risked driving him deeper still. You simply had to be there and wait for him to come around.
‘How long have we got?’ he asked.
‘I’ve already spoken to your school,’ she said. ‘We’re moving on Saturday’.
‘The day after tomorrow?’ Carl felt as if he’d been hit in the stomach. He only had one day?
‘I’m sorry. I really am, but if I don’t do it now…’ She trailed off. ‘You’re going to have to say goodbye to your friends at school tomorrow.’
The next day however, Carl did not say goodbye to his friends, because he didn’t go to school. Instead, he got straight on the underground to the museum. There was no time to wait for Dad to come around now. It was now or never.
He punched in the entry code and walked purposefully up to the grey door to the lab. Then he paused. He realised he had no plan. Slowly he turned the handle and pushed.
Dad was sitting at his desk, his back to the door. He had his elbows on the table and his hands up to his face. He was staring up at the huge skeletal face hanging above him, looking into its empty, glaring eyes.
‘Where are you sleeping?’ Carl said quietly. Dad turned. He looked as though he wasn’t sleeping anywhere, but he nodded towards the corner of the room. A sleeping bag was rolled up against the wall. He looked back at his laptop screen. It was covered in a pattern of red, blue and green blocks arranged in a complex grid.
‘It’s human,’ he said dejectedly.
‘What’s human?’
‘The DNA on the slide. It’s human.’
‘You have to snap out of this right now, Dad,’ said Carl.
Dad’s eyes suddenly widened, as though an idea had struck him. ‘Did you touch the slide?’ he demanded accusingly.
‘What?’
‘It was contaminated with human DNA,’ he snapped. ‘And it’s not mine!’
‘I didn’t touch it,’ sighed Carl.
‘What about the skull? Did you touch the skull?’
‘No, Dad, I didn’t. It could have come from anywhere!’ Carl almost yelled.
‘But you were here. You were in here.’ Dad looked angry. Angry and desperate. He was standing now, pointing at Carl. ‘You could have accidentally – ’
‘Mum wants to move.’ Carl cut him off. ‘Tomorrow.’
Dad stopped for a second, frozen as though part of him had suddenly glimpsed what was really happening to his life. Then the other part kicked in. ‘This is a laboratory!’ he barked. ‘It’s not a place for children!’ Behind his shoulder, the skull watched them with predatory eyes.
‘Did you hear me?’ Carl said each word, slowly and deliberately. ‘We… are… moving… tomorrow.’
Again, Dad paused. Carl knew he was on very dangerous ground. ‘Look, I’m sorry,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m sorry there was no DNA. But that’s it now. You know there’s nothing there. It’s over. You can come back.’
Dad looked at Carl, then back at the skull.
‘It’s only a fossil, Dad. Is it really worth losing everything for a piece of rock?’ Carl searched his father’s eyes for some kind of recognition. And there was something there. Carl saw his eyes dart one way and another, as though he was a hunted animal looking for a way out. He was thinking, beginning to understand…
Suddenly, he gasped, ‘No! No. That was just one sample.’ He stepped towards Carl, grabbing his shoulders, smiling a triumphant smile. Carl’s heart sank. ‘I’ve got dozens of samples. They’re all scanned. They’re all on the hard drive.’ He pointed at the laptop on the table in front of the skull. ‘I will find it!’
That was it. Carl had lost him. There was no way back now. No hope. That computer held enough work to keep Dad obsessed for months. More than long enough to destroy him, and his family. Carl looked into his father’s eyes. They were filled with a strange and desperate energy.
Carl wrenched himself free from Dad’s grip and grabbed a flask of liquid from the bench next to the microscope. The liquid was clear and the flask unlabelled, but Carl knew what it was. It was strong acid for dissolving stone. He yanked out the stopper, and before Dad could stop him, he poured the contents over the laptop keyboard.
The screen went blank instantly and there was a fizzing, buzzing sound as the liquid soaked through the keys and started to burn through the hard drive. Fumes began to rise in front of the skull’s snout.
Dad was staring at the laptop in horror, his mouth hanging open. ‘What have you done?’ he screamed, rushing towards the corroded computer.
Carl barged into his father, blocking his way. From behind him he felt a heat on his back like the breath of a dinosaur. Dad pulled back one arm, clenching his fist. Carl closed his eyes.
Nothing happened.
He slowly opened his eyes again. Dad was standing in front of him, head and shoulders down. He was shaking.
‘I… I’m sorry,’ he started. ‘I’m so, so sorry.’
Carl paused. ‘I’ve ruined your laptop,’ he said.
Dad shook his head. His eyes were full of tears. ‘It’s OK. There was nothing important on it anyway.’ He reached out his arms and held Carl for a long time.
‘Come on,’ he said eventually. ‘It’s time to go home.’
At the door, Dad stopped and looked back at the skull, still staring down at them. ‘My grandfather discovered it, you know,’ he said.
‘I know.’
‘I just wanted to add something to it. You understand?’
Carl shrugged. ‘Sort of,’ he said.
‘I hope your mother will take me back,’ Dad said finally, after another long pause. ‘I’ve been an idiot.’
I hope so too, thought Carl.