CHAPTER SIX

The Grandpa Situation

It was about twenty past three when I let myself in at Grandpa’s house. Mum had given me the key so she wouldn’t have to bother coming round again. Pretty lazy if you ask me. But I suppose she does do all my cooking and cleaning and laundry – so I’ll give her a pass this time.

As usual, Grandpa was nowhere to be seen.

‘Yo, Grandpa! David Chesterton! Where you at?’ I called.

There was no answer. I dumped my school bag in the hall and walked into the living room. I figured they’d be curled up together in their usual spot. But when I got there all I found was a grandpa-shaped dent in the sofa.

‘Hello?’ I said more quietly.

Still no answer. I checked the kitchen, the dining room – no sign of them. It looked like Auntie Uzma had been busy though. There were pots and pans everywhere. And food. So much food. Cakes, pastries, pies. She was in cooking overdrive. I guess she needed to unwind after a hard day’s teaching or something, but this seemed a bit mental. I mean, she could have catered for a wedding with the amount of food she had in that kitchen.

And if you’ve ever been to an Asian wedding you’ll know what I’m talking about. They have so many guests even the bride and groom don’t know half of ’em. Second cousins, third cousins, fourth cousins, former neighbours, ex-doctors, childhood postmen – everyone your family ever met, lived near or shared a lift with is there. And they all want feeding. Hell, half the time they’re only there for the food.

And Auntie Uzma could have done it with this lot. It was like she was getting ready for the apocalypse. Making sure she and Grandpa would have enough food to last them to the year 3000. It goes without saying that I helped myself to a gulab jamun or two. It’s what Auntie would have wanted. And it’s not like anyone would have missed them – there were, like, seven hundred of the things just sitting there on the counter.

I munched one down as I walked upstairs.

‘Gwampar?’ I called out with a full mouth. ‘Dabid Chestertom?’

Still no answer. I checked the bedrooms, the bathroom, the airing cupboard. No sign of Grandpa or David Chesterton anywhere. Then I had an idea.

I fetched a chair from the bedroom and, climbing on to it, hooked a finger into the loop hanging down from the loft hatch. As it creaked open, two faces appeared in the darkness above. One belonged to a fluffy, overfed cat, and the other to the oldest uncle in the universe.

‘All right, Grandpa,’ I said, smiling up at him. ‘What you doing in the loft?’

‘What do you think, David Chesterton?’ asked Grandpa. ‘Can we trust him?’

David Chesterton stared at me long and hard.

‘Purr-rrp,’ he replied, then turned away, walking back into the attic.

Grandpa smiled.

‘Hello, boy,’ he said, and lowered the ladder.

Up in the loft, I took a seat beside Grandpa on the floor. I figured he might explain what he was doing up there, but, instead, he just sat staring at me.

‘So, uh …’ I began, ‘why you in the loft, Uncle? You been practising magic tricks?’

He didn’t smile, just leaned in close, with this intense look.

‘Hiding,’ he whispered.

‘Hiding? What you hiding from?’

‘That creature,’ he replied.

‘Creature? There’s a creature in the house? Damn, man, why’d no one tell me? I could have been eaten!’

‘It’s gone out,’ he replied matter-of-factly.

‘Gone out? Then let’s go lock the door!’

‘It has a key,’ said Grandpa, as though this was obvious.

‘A creature with a key? Does Auntie Uzma know?’

He gave me a weird look, like I was the confused one.

‘Auntie Uzma is the creature,’ he whispered.

‘Huh? What you talking about, Grandpa?’

‘Auntie Uzma is not Auntie Uzma,’ he said, leaning in. ‘It is an imposter.’

‘An imposter?’ I replied, raising my eyebrows and looking over at David Chesterton, to see if he also thought Grandpa might be losing it. ‘I see …’

‘I am not mad!’ snapped Grandpa.

‘Hey, no one said you were mad,’ I replied in my best calming voice. ‘It just all sounds a bit … you know … mad.’

‘That thing, cooking, cooking, cooking all the time! That is not my wife!’ barked Grandpa.

‘Right, well if it ain’t Auntie Uzma, then you must have got an upgrade, cos that thing sure can cook. I’ve never seen so much tasty food! Maybe we can swap my mum out for one of them too?’

‘This is not funny,’ said Grandpa, and I could see he meant it.

‘Grandpa, man. It is your wife. It is Auntie Uzma. I spent the whole day with her at school. She’s just the same as always.’

‘I knew you would not believe me,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Only David Chesterton sees it.’

David Chesterton gave me a pretty severe look for a cat. I didn’t know what to say. I mean, this was properly crazy. Grandpa had always seemed pretty together mentally. I know old people sometimes get confused, but Grandpa wasn’t that kind of old person. He was the other kind that can’t open jars.

We sat in silence for a while after that. I wasn’t really sure how to respond to the whole ‘imposter auntie’ bit. I mean, what do you say to something like that? As a kid, it was a bit above my level of expertise.

‘I’ve been practising,’ I said, slipping the old coin from my pocket. I showed him my best attempt at the disappearing coin trick. It wasn’t perfect yet, but it wasn’t bad either. Grandpa smiled a small smile as he watched me.

‘Good,’ he said after a time. ‘Good.’

It was all he said.

We didn’t learn any more tricks that day. I sat and practised the coin trick in silence until Auntie Uzma came home. I thought about telling her what Grandpa had told me, but decided against it. Better just to leave them to sort it out themselves.

I felt a bit sad walking home that afternoon. I realized I’d actually kinda been looking forward to hanging out with Grandpa. This just wasn’t the same. Damn.

Back at school the next day, Auntie Uzma was upping her game yet again. She’d come up with a brand-new lesson idea: cake review! I’m not too proud of myself when I say that I totally forgot about the whole Grandpa situation the moment Auntie Uzma dropped that fat slice of cake on my desk.

‘Pinch me, Umer,’ I murmured. ‘I don’t think I’ve woken up yet.’

‘Can’t …’ he replied. ‘I’m dreaming too. Chocolate double fudge …’ he moaned. He was actually drooling.

When she’d finished giving everyone a slice, Auntie Uzma turned and faced the class.

‘OK, my beautiful, cuddly kiddiewinks!’ she said with a giggle. ‘Today we will be reviewing Auntie Uzma’s chocolate double-fudge gâteau.’

The class cheered. Only Wendy Wang looked puzzled. She raised her hand and waited to be called on.

‘Yes, Wendy?’ said Auntie Uzma.

‘I was just wondering,’ she said, lowering her hand. ‘What’s the academic merit of this lesson?’

‘Cake,’ replied Auntie Uzma with a big grin.

Again the class cheered.

‘Sure,’ said Wendy, forcing an awkward smile. ‘I enjoy cake as much as the next student, but I don’t understand how we’re learning anything from eating it.’

‘Quiet, Wendy!’ I shouted across the room. ‘Why would you argue with cake?’

‘Educational value aside,’ continued Wendy, ‘I’m just not sure it’s all that healthy.’

‘Right!’ snapped Auntie Uzma, the smile vanishing from her face. ‘That’s enough of that kind of talk. Go to the headmaster this instant!’

The class gasped. Wendy Wang was getting sent to the headmaster? I’d known Wendy for as long as I could remember, and that had never, never ever, ever happened before. Ever!

‘Excuse me?’ said Wendy, like her brain genuinely couldn’t compute what she’d just heard.

‘I will not put up with this kind of disruptive behaviour,’ continued Auntie Uzma. ‘You will spend the lesson with the headmaster and stay behind after school. For double cake review!’

I’d never seen Auntie Uzma look so strict. She was actually a bit scary. Wendy had gone as white as a sheet. Everyone sat quietly as Wendy pushed her chair out with a noisy squeak and made her way to the door.

‘I was just …’ she began.

‘Go!’ shouted Auntie Uzma.

Wendy pulled the door closed behind her without another word. A moment passed in total, stunned silence. Then Auntie Uzma turned back to face us with an enormous, happy grin.

‘OK then, my chubby little beauties!’ she said. ‘Dig in!’

Slowly, one by one, the class began to eat their slices of cake. Little whispered conversations began to spring up around the class and, though I couldn’t hear them all, I knew they were about Wendy.

‘What was that about?’ whispered Umer, as he plucked off a hunk of cake between his finger and thumb.

‘I don’t know, man,’ I replied. ‘I’ve never seen her snap like that before. I mean, she can be grumpy, but that was pretty severe. I don’t think Wendy’s ever been sent to the headmaster.’

It was weird, but I found myself feeling a bit sorry for her. Normally Wendy’s just there to grass on me or make me look stupid in tests. Usually I’d be all on board with her getting in trouble. But now that it had happened, it just felt a bit … unfair.

Oh well, it was still pretty good cake. I was confident that I wouldn’t worry about it for long. And I didn’t.

Two hours later Umer and I were running down the hall as fast as we could go. We weren’t after a good place in the lunch queue this time – we were heading to our music lesson!

Today was the big day. The day I was gonna lay down my new vocals. I’d been working on them whenever I got a chance – though that seemed less and less of the time, what with Grandpa and cricket and all the eating I’d been doing. But it didn’t matter: my lyrics were perfect now. They were ready to go.

‘I’ve got a good feeling about today,’ I said to Umer as we tore up the stairs towards Mr Turnbull’s room. ‘I think we might finally get this track locked down.’ I was pretty sure Mr T would be as excited as we were.

We skidded to a stop outside his room, out of breath and grinning like idiots. We had arrived well ahead of the rest of the class, which meant we could set up in peace. The door was closed, which I knew meant Mr Turnbull was taking today seriously as well. He was probably already in there setting up microphones and doing sound checks.

I turned the door handle and walked in.

‘Yo, yo, yo! Little Badman in the house!’ I said, stepping through the door, eyes closed, head back and hands in the air, like I was walking on stage to the cries of a thousand star-struck fans.

But when I opened my eyes there was no Mr Turnbull. No recording equipment. Nothing but a sizeable Pakistani lady in a fluorescent green shalwar kameez. She was sitting on a child-sized stool in the centre of the room, smiling.

‘Jelly Baby?’ she said, holding out a little white paper bag full of sweets.

‘Uh … where’s Mr Turnbull?’ I asked.

‘Oh, poor man,’ said the woman. ‘He has gone loopy-loopy-mad and lost his job.’

‘Loopy-loopy-mad? What you talking about? Mr Turnbull ain’t mad,’ I told her.

‘Oh, I’m afraid he is. Yes, yes, he is,’ she replied with that same weird smile. ‘That poor man is wearing shoes on his hands and gloves on his feet, and a hat glued to his bottom, of all places.’

‘What?’ I cried. ‘He ain’t done that! You’re making it up!’

‘Why would I make it up? I am just here to help,’ she said, still smiling, still holding out the bag of Jelly Babies. ‘So many ill teachers right now, so much misfortune in one school. Thank goodness for all the local aunties, offering to help.’

‘But what about my track? We’re meant to record it today!’

‘Oh no, no,’ she replied. ‘Today we are singing songs about delicious food, and then we are trying those foods, and then we are singing more songs and eating more foods! Won’t it be wonderful?’

‘What is it with you and food?’ I yelled. ‘I get it: aunties like feeding people, but this is getting ridiculous!’

‘Hey!’ she suddenly snapped. ‘We will have none of that kind of talk! We aunties are here out of the kindness of our hearts. But if you continue with that I will send you straight to the headmaster.’

‘Don’t even worry about it,’ I said. ‘I’m going there anyway! Come on, Umer.’

‘Can I have a Jelly Baby?’ asked Umer.

‘No!’ I snapped, grabbing him by the arm and dragging him off in the direction of the headmaster’s room.

Mr Offalbox was sitting behind his desk when we ran in. Actually, he was sort of sitting all around it. He was so big for the room he had to lean forward a little so he didn’t bang his head on the bookshelves behind him.

His great big gorilla arms covered most of the surface area of the desk, making his laptop look like a birthday card. He hunched over the tiny machine like he was guarding it from being stolen by other, smaller apes.

‘In trouble again, are you?’ he said before I could speak.

‘No!’ I replied, offended. ‘I mean, yeah, I suppose, but I’d have come here anyway.’

‘What’s all this about, boys? I’ve already had Wendy Wang writing lines in the corner all morning. That was unsettling enough for one day.’

‘Where’s Mr Turnbull?’ I demanded. ‘There’s some weird old auntie in his room.’

‘Ah, yes. You’re quite fond of Mr Turnbull, aren’t you, Humza?’ he said, nodding his head. ‘Well, your concern is appreciated. I had a call from his doctor this morning. She explained that he’s not been doing too well. He’s been suffering from nervous exhaustion and will be requiring some time away from work.’

‘Nervous exhaustion?’ I replied. ‘Have you met him? Nothing fazes that man. I’ve seen sloths more uptight.’

‘Nonetheless, he’s been under rather a lot of pressure apparently and will need to recuperate at home for a time. Thankfully, though, Mrs Jahib has been kind enough to step in and fill his position for the time being. She has some truly original ideas about combining music with food. So hurry back to class or you’ll miss out.’

‘But …’ I protested.

‘No, Humza – now!’ snapped Mr Offalbox.

It was useless. He wasn’t listening. Umer and I trudged back to class in stunned silence.

It was the worst music lesson ever. Worse than that. Worse than detention, mystery stew and not having a proper phone combined. The other kids seemed to enjoy it somehow. They were playing stupid songs about food on their recorders and tambourines, then eating whatever they’d sung about.

Mrs Jahib had brought in a whole suitcase of different treats. But I wasn’t hungry. I just sat at the back and shook my head. Why did no one care about Mr Turnbull?

‘This is terrible,’ I said to Umer.

‘Uh-huh,’ he agreed, then continued work on his song about doughnuts.

‘What are you doing, man?’ I snapped at him. ‘Stop supporting this! You’re betraying Mr T!’

‘I’m just doing what the teacher asked,’ said Umer, looking a bit hurt by my accusation.

‘She ain’t a teacher. She’s some kid’s auntie. She’s only qualified to cook daal, pinch cheeks and make older cousins feel bad they ain’t married yet. She definitely ain’t no Mr Turnbull.’

‘I’m not saying she is, but what can we do?’ asked Umer.

‘I don’t know yet,’ I replied, staring hard at Mrs Jahib. ‘But I’m gonna figure it out.’

As I walked out the school gates that afternoon, with my head down, I reminded myself that the only good thing about such a terrible day was that it definitely, absolutely, without doubt couldn’t get any worse … And then Dad grabbed me by the collar and yanked me into a minivan.

I thought I was being kidnapped for a second, until I saw the rest of the cricket team in the back. My dad might try to kidnap one or two kids at once, but not twelve. There must be something else going on.

‘What the hell, man?’ I yelled. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Cricket match!’ said my dad with a grin. ‘We are late!’

He slammed his foot down on the accelerator and we took off like a rocket. I barely managed to get my seat belt on as we tore out of the school lane and into the high street, narrowly missing an old lady and her terrified dog. I was pretty used to my dad’s terrible driving, but the rest of the team had no idea what was going on. They were doing their best just to stay inside the vehicle. Cricket equipment and school bags were flying about all over the place as the van bounced round corners and over hills. Kids screamed and turned green as we raced through the streets at breakneck speed.

‘Slow down, Dad!’ I shouted. ‘You’re gonna get us all killed!’

‘I will slow down,’ he shouted back, ‘after we get there!’

I was pretty sure he was enjoying this. I mean, why wouldn’t he be? He was combining his three favourite things: driving badly, cricket and ruining my life.

‘Humza!’ shouted Jamal Jones from the back. ‘Tell your dad we’re sorry. Tell him we’ll behave and do whatever he tells us if he just stops the van.’

‘Sorry, Jamal,’ I shouted back at him. ‘He won’t listen to me. All we can do is pray for a quick death.’

But a quick death didn’t come. Somehow we managed to get there in one piece with only Imran Yusuf losing his lunch. Unfortunately, he’d had second helpings of kheer for dessert, so it wasn’t a pretty sight. (Picture a kind of rice pudding that already looked like sick before you ate it. Now picture it all over a minivan and you get the idea.)

We staggered out of the van like a dozen four-foot zombies and collapsed on the grass. You had to give it to my dad: having learned to drive on the streets of Karachi, he could handle himself behind the wheel. Don’t get me wrong, it was a horrible experience – I’d rather eat a book than go on a driving holiday with him – but, if you’ve got to do some dangerous driving, he’s your man.

By the time Imran had finished throwing up, Dad had found where we were meant to be playing and began shepherding the team towards the cricket field. I say ‘cricket field’; it was more like an area of dirt where slightly less of the grass was dead. Like a filthy little oasis, in a really filthy desert.

‘What is this place?’ I asked my dad.

‘This is the other school’s playing field,’ he said, sounding excited.

‘What school?’ I asked, starting to feel nervous.

‘Grungle’s Academy,’ he replied.

‘You what?’ I cried. ‘Lester Grungle’s Academy for Aggressive Boys? Are you insane?’

‘Do not be such an elderly woman,’ replied Dad, shaking his head.

‘Have you even heard of this place?’ I said, desperate to talk some sense into him. ‘Rumour is they ate one of their dinner ladies! The school motto is “A punch in the face”. Even the teachers are on day release from prison. We can’t play them! We shouldn’t even be here!’

‘Sounds like someone has pre-game nerves to me,’ chuckled Dad.

‘I’ve got pre-getting-murdered nerves!’ I yelled, but he wasn’t listening.

‘Ah, here they come now,’ he said with a broad smile.

The rest of our team had fallen silent. I turned to see what everyone was staring at. The other school were making their way across the wasteland towards us. Damn … I’ve never seen an under-twelve with a beard, but somehow they’d found one. They had one kid who was over six feet, another kid who was built like a fridge, one with facial tattoos and another half dozen or so who could have been extras in Mad Max.

‘OK,’ said Dad cheerfully. ‘Time to get changed.’

‘What?’ I cried. ‘Where?’

‘Right here.’

‘Here? There ain’t no changing rooms here!’

‘You don’t need changing room,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘No one is watching. No one cares.’

‘What? What about the psychos on the other team? They’re watching!’

‘Don’t be so stupid, boy!’ said my dad. ‘They are professional young men. They will not laugh. Now strip to your knickers!’

This sucked so, so, so, so, so, so, so bad. I can’t tell you how bad this sucked. The other team began to crack up almost immediately as we started getting into our cricket gear. They were pointing at us and making comments.

I felt like an idiot. My dad didn’t seem to notice. He was just talking to their teacher. I say ‘teacher’ – he looked like a gang leader. He had an eyepatch, a ton of piercings and chunks shaved out of his hair, seemingly at random.

When we were changed, a few members of the other team walked over to us.

‘Uh … all right?’ I said to the bearded guy.

He stared at me like I was roadkill.

‘We hate cricket,’ he said in a voice much too deep for any twelve-year-old. ‘We hate cricket so much.’

‘Ah, man! Me too!’ I replied, relieved that we had something in common.

‘They make us play it for discipline,’ said the guy who looked like a fridge.

‘They make me play it for discipline too!’ I told him, excited by the thought that we might get along after all.

‘It fills us with anger,’ added the facial tattoo guy. ‘We’re going to take that anger out on you.’

‘Oh …’ I replied, the excitement fading from my voice.

‘Come on, son,’ called my dad from over by the stumps. ‘Stop making boyfriends. Time for cricket!’

‘Ah, man,’ I groaned. ‘Please don’t listen to anything that guy says. He ain’t stable.’

‘Is that your dad?’ asked bearded guy.

‘Uh … yeah, but only biologically.’

‘Then this is on you,’ he said, giving me a long, hard, bearded stare, before walking away with the rest of the team.

‘Why does everyone keep saying that?’ I cried.

‘I think you just made another enemy,’ said Jamal Jones, bumping my shoulder as he walked past me and on to the field.

For the first time since this had all begun, I was grateful we were playing cricket. Don’t get me wrong, I still hated cricket, but at least it wasn’t football or rugby. Imagine if we were up against these guys in a rugby match. I’d spend the next year in hospital if I was lucky. But, with cricket, at least you barely get anywhere near each other. How much damage could they really do to me? It would probably all just be insults and intimidation.

And then they bowled the first ball. I say ‘bowled’, but this wasn’t any type of bowling that’s ever been seen in cricket before. It was more like they loaded a cannon and fired it into my face. I was up to bat first, and their bowler was the guy who looked like a fridge. I’ve never seen such muscles on a kid. His bicep was as big as my chest. When he threw that ball – overarm and with all his force – I didn’t even see it fly. One second it was in his hand, the next second the whole world turned black …

When I came to, the first thing I was aware of was terrible music. Real wedding party stuff. Had I fallen asleep at a wedding? I couldn’t remember. If it was a wedding, they had an awful singer.

I opened my eyes to see Dad on the seat next to me in the van, singing at the top of his lungs. He looked happy. More than happy … excited. Then it all began to come back to me. The cricket match, the other school, the opening bowl …

‘What happened?’ I murmured.

‘Oh, he is awake!’ shouted my dad over the music.

‘What’s going on? Why are you happy?’ I asked.

‘We won!’ he replied. ‘We beat the other team!’

That didn’t make any sense at all. What had I missed? I looked back and saw the rest of our team in the van behind me. They weren’t celebrating like my dad was. They looked pretty miserable. And they all had big round bruises on their foreheads. I touched my head lightly.

‘Ow!’ I cried.

Looking in the wing mirror, I saw that I had a big red welt of my own right there in the centre of my forehead.

‘The other team were disqualified for disorderly conduct,’ said my dad with a big smile. ‘We won by default!’

‘Default?’ I said, still feeling confused.

‘But it is still a win!’ snapped my dad. ‘I told you I would coach you to victory!’

So this was what winning felt like. Hmm … I wasn’t sure I liked it after all. My head hurt, my teammates hated me and my dad had stolen all the glory for himself. All in all, this had been a pretty terrible day.

‘Who wants to go for UFC? My treat!’ shouted Dad over his shoulder to the rest of the team.

‘Ultimate Fighting Championships?’ asked Jamal, sounding surprised.

‘What? No!’ replied Dad. ‘Uzbek Fried Chicken! Half the price of upmarket brand.’

There were some uncertain murmurs from the back seats, which my dad took as a yes.

We sat in silence at the Uzbek Fried Chicken restaurant, eating the greasy meals that we’d had to pay for ourselves, cos one of the kids from the academy had stolen my dad’s wallet. I found myself wondering if this was what rock bottom felt like.

Turned out it wasn’t even close.