3

‘What’s your poison?’ Ryan asks Richa opening the fridge and doing his head-popping dance move.

Ryan is a good dancer: he calls it ‘busting moves’.

‘Got any pop?’ Richa asks.

Ryan takes out a big bottle of lemonade and pours two glasses.

‘Maybe add some ice? It’s thirty-odd degrees in here,’ Brianne says, striding into the kitchen. Her hair is still damp from the shower and she smells of her fancy shea butter shampoo. Ryan ignores her and hands out the drinks.

‘Ugh. You’ve been eating straight out of the tub again.’ Brianne snatches the ice cream off the side, tosses the spoon into the dishwasher and puts the lid back on.

‘Hey, I was eating that,’ Ryan says.

Brianne answers by handing him the ice-cube tray and putting the ice cream back in the freezer. She turns to Richa all smiles. ‘Hi, I’m Brianne, Leo’s sister. I’m not actually the eldest but I’m the most mature.’ She glares at Ryan.

‘Most boring more like,’ Ryan retorts.

Brianne ignores him, smiling again at Richa instead. ‘You’re Richa, right? I’ve just been talking to your mum out the front. She looks like she’s struggling in this heat.’ Brianne sighs and shakes her head slowly, making her long earrings sway from side to side.

Richa is guzzling her lemonade, having not bothered waiting for the ice, and doesn’t answer my sister. The kitchen feels very busy and full of words. Brianne carries on regardless.

‘It will be really nice for Leo to have someone his own age living next door. You going to Lakeside Primary in September?’

Richa splutters into her lemonade and launches into a coughing fit. Once recovered, she notices my sister’s expectant eyes still on her and manages a quick nod.

‘That’s great!’ says Brianne. She claps her hands and her bangles jingle together. ‘Leo says Year Sixes are allowed to walk into school without an adult. You two can go together now.’

‘We’ve got the whole holiday first,’ Richa protests, almost in a panic. Maybe Richa doesn’t like school much either, or maybe she’s just worried about the thought of walking in with me.

‘Yeah, Brianne,’ says Ryan. ‘Only nerds, like you, study in the summer. These kids just want to hang out.’

‘At least they really are kids,’ Brianne bats back.

Ryan grunts and gets the ice cream back out of the freezer.

‘What you going to play then?’ asks Brianne.

Richa shrugs and glances at me. I know what she’s thinking: what games can you play with a boy that doesn’t talk?

‘You could play Domino Falls. You love that game don’t you, Lion?’ Brianne says.

Feeling my face heat up, I look at Patch who is sat on Richa’s feet having his black ear tickled.

‘You could read? Leo has got loads of books.’

Snatching a glance at Richa I can tell from her freaked-out expression that she’s thinking of making a break for the door.

‘Or you could make mud pies?’ suggests Brianne, adding to my embarrassment. ‘Once you start digging at the ground Patch will probably join in. He loves digging up the mud for Leo’s pies.’

‘Way to sell the boy, Brianne,’ Ryan says through his ice cream.

Richa laughs and looks more at ease again, but my face is on full burn. This is a total disaster. I try and hide my shame in my lemonade.

‘Why don’t you suggest something then?’ Brianne snaps.

There’s a moment of nothing that seems to stretch long, just like the hot of the heatwave.

After Ryan sets up the PlayStation we play Sonic with the windows open but the curtains closed. Patch sits as close to Richa as possible. There’s a hot, closed-in smell to the room, sweetened by Richa’s coconut sun cream. It’s difficult to concentrate on the game, with everything racing around inside me, but I’m still better than Richa. Her player keeps running into walls and off the edges.

‘Is it unlimited lives or something?’ she asks.

I can’t say, so instead I watch her play and puzzle out how to pick up the game again once she’s died.

‘Imagine if, in real life, you could just start over,’ Richa says, scrunching up her face in concentration. ‘Every time you made a mistake you could just go back to the beginning and try again. Would you do that, or would you just keep going?’

I’d keep going. I never want to re-live bad things that have happened, like Theo’s party, but I can’t tell her that.

Richa tells me the reason she is rubbish with games is because her mum and dad won’t buy her a phone and that’s how everyone learns to play video games. I’d like my own phone too. It would make a lot of things easier. Richa chats on over the sound effects of the game. She asks and answers her own questions. Looking sideways at her, I start to remember Tiffany. There’s a dull ache in my stomach when I think of what happened.

Tiffany was new in our class and didn’t know anything about me or my SM. She’s really good at football and immediately took over the playground. One day, Tiffany kicked the ball and it came skidding and skipping right over to where I was stood, partly hidden by the trees, watching. The ball hit my shins. It was surprising to me that I felt it. It was like something coming alive out of the TV and I remember just staring at it rolling around me. Tiffany ran towards me and shouted, ‘Come on, kick it over. Come on, we’re in a game. Just kick it.’

And I did! I kicked it and she cheered and said, ‘Come and play, we need someone to mark Theo.’

But I shook my head, because I couldn’t climb inside the TV, besides it was Theo and the humiliation of his party was still raw.

I kept watching, though, and pushing myself to go and join in with the game. Tiffany gave me a few more chances, waving an arm through the air to call me in. I wanted to, but I couldn’t.

It got me thinking – maybe Tiffany was different, because I wasn’t invisible to her like I was to the other kids. Maybe she could teach me how to play football? I wanted to be part of something and not feel so lonely, so I started to follow Tiffany around. Even when she became friends with Scarlett and Maryam, I still followed her.

There would be a moment at the start of playtime, I thought, when she would say, ‘Hello Leo,’ all friendly, and grin at me. She’d gently pass me the ball and I would pass it back and she would say, ‘Not bad for a beginner’.

But then I heard them talking and everything changed.

‘What’s up with the pale boy with the big orange hair?’ Tiffany asked Scarlett in book corner one afternoon. The shock of hearing me being talked about made me duck behind the shelves. My heart was thumping so loud it almost drowned out their voices. I strained to listen, wanting to hear but dreading it at the same time.

‘You mean Leo?’ Scarlett said.

‘Yeah. I think he’s following me about. It’s a bit odd,’ said Tiffany.

‘He has a thing,’ Scarlett explained.

‘What do you mean? Is he autistic or something? He doesn’t say anything, ever.’

‘That’s his thing. He doesn’t talk. Mrs Malik told us all about it in Year Two. He’s got mutism something. He’s terrified of talking. It makes him a loner because it stops him from making friends.’

‘Why’s he following me?’ Tiffany asked.

‘Don’t know. Maybe he wants to hang out.’ Scarlett giggled.

‘How can you hang out with someone who doesn’t say anything? I mean, that’s what hanging out is. That’s literally all it is. You hang out and talk to each other.’

‘Yeah, I suppose,’ said Scarlett.

‘That’s probably why he hasn’t got any friends,’ said Tiffany. ‘I mean, you can’t be friends with someone who can’t talk, can you?’

The whole conversation was beyond horrible but that one hit me hard. A square punch to my chest. I was finding it difficult to breathe. I couldn’t stop listening, even though it was causing me actual, physical pain.

‘I don’t really notice him, to be honest,’ said Scarlett, ‘You know, because he’s so quiet. I forget he’s there. But just before you came to Lakeside, Theo had his birthday and he invited the whole class to RollerCentral – that roller-disco place?’

Oh no – please don’t tell her about Theo’s party.

‘Oh yeah,’ said Tiffany. ‘It’s cool there.’

‘The whole class goes to Theo’s party, even Leo, but he totally freaks out. He doesn’t skate at all. Can’t even get his boots on. His big brother has to come and get him and take him home.’

‘What do you mean, freaks out?’

‘He freezes solid, like a statue. Can’t move at all. He made this funny groaning sound in his throat. It was beyond weird.’

‘I’m staying away from him,’ Tiffany said, decisively and the conversation was over.

I was left reeling. It would not be different with Tiffany. I knew then that I would never have a real friend; it was impossible. I would manage to stay unnoticed, hide myself and my pain, then and forever afterwards too.

Richa does her dues and stays for the full half an hour, but I know she can’t wait to get home. After Richa leaves, Ryan comes to sit next to me and we play Sonic together for a minute or two without saying anything. I know he wants to talk and here’s the thing, I know I’ll be able to talk back. I don’t make the rules about my SM; I just have to obey them.

‘Richa seems cool,’ is Ryan’s opener. ‘Patchy is properly into her.’

‘Yeah,’ I say, eyes on the screen.

‘Dogs are a good judge of character.’

‘I know,’ I say and there’s a pull of longing for a friend so hard it hurts my chest.

‘You’ll need to explain,’ Ryan says at last. ‘People will always want to know why.’

‘There is no why,’ I say, like I have a thousand times before.

‘No, but Richa needs to know that you’re cool too. You’re just a silent kinda cool.’

I smile at that, because I want to believe my brother. I want to think that I’m cool, but in a different, quiet way. ‘How?’ I ask him.

‘Please tell me you’re not taking advice from Ryan?’ Brianne is watching our game from the living-room doorway. Her long, blonde hair is now bone dry, all the moisture sucked up by the heatwave.

‘Butt out, Brianne,’ says Ryan, not taking his eyes off the screen. ‘Besides, you practically had the girl running for the hills with all your mud pie and domino talk.’

‘Hah,’ says Brianne, ‘you missed it, you’ll have to go back now.’

‘Your fault for distracting me,’ Ryan says, backtracking his player a level down.

‘Why don’t you write it down?’ suggests Brianne to me. ‘You could put it in a letter, explain how it works so that Richa understands.’

‘That’s actually not a bad plan, Sis,’ agrees Ryan and I’m amazed. Ryan never agrees with anything Brianne suggests.

I think about Brianne’s idea as I play. I don’t want Richa to find out about my SM the same way Tiffany did. It needs to be my words so that she understands what it’s like for me. Neither of us have phones, so I can’t text her; not that it would work by text. The letter idea might be the answer, but I need to get it exactly right.