In the two days after Auntie Alison’s arrival, life became more difficult. Walker was the only one who seemed happy about planning a new robbery. He kept promising us that it would work and that everything would be fine. I wanted to believe him but I couldn’t. Jim Roland’s granny had almost caught us. Now we were planning on sneaking into a security warehouse and jumping into a van unseen, overcoming a grown man (I didn’t care how small he was) and stealing bank money. That made us bank robbers. This was not good. It was not good at all.
Every time I closed my eyes I had a terrible nightmare. I was trapped in a box or a cage or underwater or in a bin or under a bed. Once, I was stuck in the U-bend of a toilet. That was the worst. I forced myself to stay focused on the fact that Johnny J and I had seen the hummingbird. Whenever my faith wavered I thought about that. We can achieve the impossible! Then I thought, even if we did achieve the impossible and we got the money, sent Mrs Tulsi to America and saved her life, it still didn’t mean we wouldn’t get caught. Seeing a hummingbird did not mean you’d never go to jail. I tried to think of anything else we could do to get the money to save Mrs Tulsi and avoid spending the rest of my life sharing a very small room with bars on the windows with a boy called Stab-a-Rasher for a cellmate.
Johnny J was nervous too. In a bid to avoid robbing a security van, he tried to sell his guitar, a speaker and his bike by putting notices up in all the local shops, but no one came knocking.fn1 Charlie said everyone was too absorbed in the football to buy things. She was probably right. But I hoped he could, because I really didn’t want to rob a cash van. His mam was spending more and more time in bed, and he sat by her bedside playing games of I spy and talking about their favourite things. One of the days, I called in to pick him up for rehearsal with my stupid brother. Uncle Ted let me up the stairs. Mrs Tulsi was so small in the bed I couldn’t really see her under the mountain of covers. Johnny J sat on the floor, his back resting against the bed frame, but his hand was raised and his mam was holding it tight. They were mid-game so I just stood in the doorway and kept quiet.
‘My favourite ice cream is rum raisin,’ Mrs Tulsi said.
‘Chocolate chip,’ he said.
‘My favourite superhero is Batman,’ she said.
‘Superman,’ he said.
‘My favourite time ever is the day I had you,’ she said.
‘Me too,’ he said, and I heard her cry out a little, and he turned and gave her a kiss on her cheek and fixed her blankets the way my mam fixed mine.
‘It’s going to be all right, Mam, I promise,’ he said.
Johnny J accepted that nobody wanted to buy his second-hand stuff quickly enough, so when he wasn’t with Mrs Tulsi he was either planning the robbery with Walker or practising in the band with my brother. He couldn’t quit rehearsals as long as we needed to keep Rich quiet.
I missed my friend. I was also anxious all the time. Everyone was talking about the match, my brother’s stupid gig or the robbery, and so I spent most of my time battling stomach pain and running to the nearest available toilet.
My worst moment was when I heard Mr Lucey talking to my dad about the Rolands’ robbery and how the police thought it was boys from a local rough estate.
‘Really?’ my dad said.
‘Sure who else would it be?’ he said.
Eh … me! I thought.
‘I hear they threatened to give her a kick,’ Mr Lucey said. WE DID NOT!
‘Animals,’ my dad said.
‘I heard the guards raided a few houses last night. It was a big operation, Ron,’ Mr Lucey said.
‘Go on!’ my dad said, and I had to clench really hard to hold my insides in! ‘They broke down the Fitzers’ door,’ Dad went on.
‘No!’ Mr Lucey said.
That was it, the moment I made a weird sound I’d never heard from myself or anybody else. Mr Lucey and my dad looked around at me.
‘Are you all right, son?’ Dad said.
I nodded, but I wasn’t all right at all – that was Freaky Fitzer’s mam and dad’s door they broke down! He was a bully, but he didn’t deserve that.fn2
‘Word on the wind is they didn’t find Roland’s cash,’ my dad said.
Of course they didn’t – my friends and I had it! The local newspapers had carried loads of stories about it. One of the articles featured a comment by Jim Roland’s granny. ‘I’m not the same since,’ she said.
It was terrible to read. I thought I’d be sick. I was still off my food and my mam wasn’t happy.
‘Maybe I’ll take you to the doctor.’
‘I’m fine, Mam.’
‘I’m not sure you are.’
‘I am. I’m just not hungry.’
I heard her talking to Rachel on the phone. ‘He’s losing weight, and the smell in the bathroom after him. It would burn the eyes out of your head.’
‘MAM!’ I said, and I could hear Rachel laugh at the other end of the phone. I left when she started talking to Rachel about the robbery. I couldn’t listen to it any more. Jim Roland’s granny’s words – ‘I’m not the same since’ – really played on my mind. What if we’d ruined her life? It was a huge burden. What if we do succeed in robbing the security men and they lose their jobs? What if they can’t get any other jobs? What if their families end up starving and homeless? I had started something that I couldn’t stop. I was trapped. I was tormented.