Daniel believed he and his friend Sailesh could send each other messages through their trainers. I stared down at my Nikes.
‘Harry calling Daniel. Do you read me? Harry calling Daniel. Come in, please.’
Pa tugged me closer so the lady could see.
‘Just like this one, only smaller,’ he said. ‘Head up, Harry.’
I got my head up.
‘Please, Harry, co-operate.’
I opened my eyes. The lady was called Lorraine. It said so in red letters on her white apron. Pa stood, arms stiff by his sides. He clutched his Biro like a knife.
The Lorraine lady said, ‘I shall have to call the supervisor, Sir.’
Her customers were getting restless. You could tell by their shoes. I ran my eyes along them, tried to imagine what the people looked like. Black, scuffed Doc Martens, one of them tapping. High-heeled sandals, strappy ones, white. A pair of those boat-shaped things for old ladies who have trouble with their feet.
‘We’ve seen the supervisor. Head up, Harry. Please, Miss.’
Pa fished in his pocket, pulled out his wallet, took out Dan’s photograph. Mo’s library card fell to the floor. I kept my eyes on it. We’d best not leave anything else at the service station.
‘Head up, Harry,’ Pa said. ‘Lorraine, if I may, Lorraine, please. Take a good look at him.’
He handed her the picture.
Lorraine’s eyes rolled from grinning Daniel to gloomy me and back again.
Granada, Here to Help, her label said.
Help, then. Help.
Or stop staring.
Enough people had cut me with their eyes: So, you’re the boy who didn’t check his little brother was on the coach.
‘Now I come to think of it I do believe there’s a lad the spitting image of this one here over there in the kitchen having a chat with Grumpy Chef.’
Typical Daniel, poking his nose in, asking how the chip fryer worked and did the tomatoes arrive in those water-thin slices or whole, and, if whole, where did they keep the knives, and if a lady cut herself was she allowed home or did she have to stay working and do something that did not involve fingers. Daniel could easily forget about the coach.
‘Have you checked the driving machines, Sir? Little boys do get carried away on those.’
That’s what she really said.
Pa’s Biro broke in his fist.
‘My son’s been missing three hours and forty-five minutes.’
You could count to twenty in the time it took Lorraine to get it. Dread spread like nettle rash across her face. I picked up the library card.
Someone laughed, ‘Oooh! You little devil!’
Strappy Sandals gabbing into her mobile, just as I had imagined her.
Bunion Shoes said, ‘My tea’s going cold if anyone cares.’
Lorraine rose up behind her till and snapped,
‘This little man –. I’m sorry, Sir. This man’s little boy has gone missing half the night, Madam. Will you shut up and be patient, please.’
Doc Marten stopped tapping. Strappy Sandals clapped her hand over her mouth like she’d bitten her tongue. Bunion Shoes chuntered and walked off with her tray, not paying.
Lorraine handed Dan’s picture back.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I only wish I could help. You could talk to Desmond, love, on litter patrol. He’s got a good eye for faces.’
‘We’ve talked to everyone,’ said Pa. ‘You’re the very last one.’
I remembered that night on the ferry the summer before when me and Dan were too excited to sleep. We climbed on deck with Mo and peered into the dark. The boat moaned and creaked. Spray wet my face, salt got up my nose, my stomach rolled, my legs played tricks on me. I didn’t dare look down in case the sea swallowed me.
‘Land Ahoy!’ Daniel yelled.
He bounced up and down. Mo took hold of his hood like he was a giant yo-yo.
‘Home,’ she said.
I swung round searching for Ireland. I saw a dark lumpy strip and pinpricks of light. That wasn’t Ireland and it wouldn’t be until I raced my cousins across the sands to hunt jellyfish and shout at the sea. That lumpy thing was only a glimpse of what we had coming. Same as each time someone said missing or gone, lost or disappeared, seasick sloshed in my belly, but somehow I knew it was going to get rougher than this.
A policeman waved a flashlight and ran across the car park shouting, ‘Found Him!’
Pa stopped with a jolt. His mouth dropped open like in a cartoon.
‘You’ve found him, then!’ said the policeman.
Pa’s mouth slammed shut. He gulped.
‘His brother. Only his brother.’
‘My mistake, Sir.’
That policeman could have kicked himself, I bet.
You’d think there’d be helicopters casting super-beams over miles and miles of countryside, sniffer dogs and teams of square-jawed men with guns shouting ‘Hut-Hut-Hut!’. The motorway stopped, cars searched, drivers spread-eagled, interrogated, frisked.
It wasn’t like that.
Beyond the petrol pumps, I could see, I could see but I couldn’t believe it, cars pouring back onto the motorway.
At school, when Joshua Bernstein’s glasses went missing for the third time in one morning, Miss Bliss made us search the whole classroom. We couldn’t find them.
The bell rang for lunch.
Miss Bliss said we should sit with our eyes closed until someone gave them back.
Miss Bliss said, ‘It’s chicken stroganoff for lunch.’
Chairs scraped.
‘I understand when that runs out there’s Mrs Stothard’s veggie bake.’
Vomit bake, we called it. Kids nudged other kids.
I peeked and caught Scurfy Murphy slipping his hand inside his book bag.
Miss Bliss said, ‘I hear there’s apple crumble for dessert.’
Scurfy slid Joshua’s glasses case across the table towards My Sissay. As if she had done it! Then, you know what? Well, I’m not going into that now. I mean, the point is, they were only glasses and Daniel was, Daniel.
I wanted Pa to take the policeman and shake him until we got Daniel back. Why didn’t they do something? Instead, they wittered over the same old details that had got us, so far, precisely, nowhere.
I tried to take everything in before more cars sped off and disappeared into the night. On a trailer, in front of us, three long rowing boats cut in half. How would they stick them together? A sign on a Toyota Landcruiser said, ‘Cambridge University Boat Club.’ A baby cried. Someone hoiked and spat. I didn’t hear it land. Two motorbikes, Moto Guzzis, ticked. I saw no stars. There was a taste of metal in my mouth. How could the policeman possibly know which of these details were clues?
He was talking to me.
‘Pardon?’
‘So you didn’t see Daniel after you got on the coach, Harry?’
As if I hadn’t told them already.
‘He’s not stupid. He wouldn’t wander off on his own.’
Then I remembered, the way Daniel saw it he wasn’t alone. He had Biffo with him. Darkness swirled round me. The tarmac sped up towards me, but when it hit me it was soft and warm and smelt of Pa.
Next thing I knew we were driving down a big wide street like Ladbroke Grove, only it was quiet and empty except for one black cab, its top light off and no passengers, seemed like a funeral car, swinging round the corner.
We pulled into a street a lot like our street. I yawned, rubbed my face and saw the pub, the second-hand clothes shop, Alastair’s restaurant, the Aids place, like on our street. I didn’t get it, never known a morning that didn’t have a bedtime first.
By the time I’d worked that out, something else had crept up on me. Daniel had been gone the whole of the night.
Mo tumbled from the house in her leggings and crocodile boots. Her coat snagged on the roses. She gawked into the car. Me and Pa got out, shut the doors. Mo’s face crumpled. There were no hugs, no words. She turned and walked into the house. Pa followed after.
Felt like the roses holding me back.
‘Psssst. I thought you was with Daniel.’
‘Oh, yeah. Look who’s talking.’
‘Kiddo, there’s no time for recrimanotwots, OK? I’m here to help.’
That one again.
‘I have to tell you, boy, it’s time to quit dreamin and be realistic. You gonna need some protection.’
‘Look, I’m nine and a bit. I don’t believe in crappy invisible friends. And if I did –’
It was Pa. I told him, Biffo. He shivered, passed a hand in front of my face.
‘You’re asleep on your feet, honey. Come inside. Just a dream.’
I hoped it was. I had enough on my plate.