CHAPTER 3

Ava was right. Dad needed a nap. He was showing signs of being sleep-deprived, something Dad says happens when you have small children. Mum had it just after Ava was born. Half the time she was cranky, or dozy, and the rest of the time, she forgot stuff. Important stuff like attending school interviews and paying the garden contractor. I gave Dad a nudge and encouraged him to go up to his room to have a quick nap, but I couldn’t get him to move from the table. It was as if he was a flagpole, cemented in place. He stared at the screen with hollow haunted eyes. Something was definitely up. I was going to have to look after Ava until Mum came home.

Even though it wasn’t my job to change her, I took Ava to her room and set her down on the floor while I rummaged in a drawer for a clean Pull-Up. I found one with a pink and blue Disney Sleeping Beauty on the front. But when I turned back to Ava, my little sister had stepped out of her soggy nappy and was dashing down the hall, giggling. I caught a glimpse of her bare bottom as she skedaddled into Jason’s room.

Oh no. I had to get her out of there. Jason would have a hissy-fit if he found out Ava had been in his room. There was no telling what he would do if she touched his things—medieval torture sprung to mind.

“Ava,” I called. “Come on, out of there.” I looked around the door frame. Ava was jumping on the bed.

“Jump-ing, jump-ing,” she said when she saw me. It was understandable. I’d jump for joy too, if I’d been squeezed into a high chair all morning.

“Ava, let’s get your pants on,” I said, dangling the Pull-Up in the air.

“No pants,” Ava said, jumping even harder. A couple of bounces and she’d moved to the other side of the bed and out of reach. Jason’s pillow fell on the floor.

This could be a problem. Ava didn’t always cooperate at changing time. Sometimes, she’d clamp her hands to her sides like a toy soldier and refuse to be dressed. Dad called it her screaming-iron-girder trick. I needed to play this carefully or I could end up chasing her around the house for hours.

“No pants, huh? Well, if you’re going to be a rudey-nudey, I should turn the bath water on…” I said.

“Pants on,” said Ava quickly. She stopped jumping and slipped tummy-side-down off the bed. With her hand on my shoulder for balance, she stepped into the Pull-Up.

I took Ava to the kitchen and gave her a cracker and some cheese. The kitchen clock said three thirty. Still hours until Mum came home. I didn’t know how Dad looked after Ava every day. Just a couple of hours on the job and I was already exhausted. Maybe that’s why Dad had stayed in his pyjamas today. Could this be a strike? Maybe he was refusing to work until his demands were met. No, he wouldn’t deliberately ignore Ava. It had to be something bigger.

The doorbell rang. I couldn’t leave Ava.

“Visitor, Ava,” I said. She ran to the front door ahead of me, tiptoeing and stretching her fingers to the limit trying to reach the handle.

“Me, me,” she said.

I opened the door.

It was Darren. His face was red, and he was puffing. He must have biked here because his hair was plastered to his head where he’d taken off his bike helmet.

“Hey,” I said, but already he was pushing his way into the house.

“Everything’s wrong,” Darren said, his eyes wild. “I think it could be the beginning of the apocalypse.”

Ava was climbing down the front step, about to make an escape onto the street. I pulled her back by her t-shirt and closed the door while Darren caught his breath.

“Well, maybe not the apocalypse, but something,” Darren went on. “First, no teachers, which was weird. Then, Mr Davies didn’t turn up to coach football practice. He didn’t come, Seb! That never happens. We played for twenty minutes, until J.D. took his ball, then we called it a day. But when I got home, Mum was sitting on the couch checking her social media. And not just now and again. She was checking her phone for updates every minute. Sometimes after less than a minute. And she hardly spoke to me.”

Now I knew he was serious. Darren’s mother not speaking? Mrs Howard never stopped talking. Words sped out of her like kids from a waterslide. Whenever I went over there, she was all, ‘How was your day, boys? Anything interesting happen in school? Any teachers I need to have a word with? Would you like a slice of cake? How about a biscuit?’

Darren shook his head wearily. “I don’t know what to do, Seb. She just ignored me.”

Nodding, I stepped aside so Darren could see Dad at the kitchen table. It wasn’t a pretty picture. Dad’s skin was as grey as day-old Weet-bix. His eyelids were drooping, and his dressing gown hung from his shoulders. He looked pathetic.

Darren gave a low whistle. “Your dad, too? What are we going to do?”

“It’s okay. Mum’ll be home soon. She’ll know how to handle it.”

Darren didn’t look convinced. “It’s all right for you. You have your mum and Jason. I don’t have anyone else. There’s just Mum and me.”

I’d forgotten Jason. I checked the kitchen clock again. Where was he anyway? He was usually home by now.

All of a sudden, Darren broke into a grin.

“What?”

“Jason. When I came up the driveway, I saw a light in the garage.”

I felt a wave of relief. My brother was home. If anyone knew what was going on, he would. I picked up Ava and the three of us dashed outside and across the yard to the garage. Ava giggled at being jostled and jolted, but there was nothing funny about it. It was like trying to run while juggling a cabbage.

I had to put her down on the driveway while I yanked up the roller door. The door was a bit sticky at knee height, so Darren got his fingers under it and together we heaved it up. Ava raised her arms too—although by that time the door was already over her head. I made a grab for her hand before she got any ideas about running off.

We peered inside.

Jason was sitting at the back of the garage, silent in the gloom. Wearing the same clothes as last night, he was hunkered over his desk with his headphones on. The eerie glow from his laptop lit his face.

“Jase?” I said.

My brother took a swig from a bottle of neon yellow energy drink. His eyes didn’t stray from his screen.

“He can’t hear you,” Darren said, cupping his hands over his ears. “Headphones.”

Slipping her hand out of mine, Ava copied Darren, only instead of cupping her palms to her ears, she jammed the heel of her hands in, her fingers outstretched the way Mum did when Jason and the Argonauts were making a racket. She screwed up her face. It was cute, but it didn’t stop the hair on the back of my neck prickling. So Jason hadn’t heard me. Hardly surprising with his headphones on, sound blasting in his ears, but why hadn’t he noticed the daylight spilling in when we raised the roller door?

I held Ava’s hand, and we crept forward. My neck tingled—it was as if an entire flea circus was practising somersaults back there. This was Jason, my brother. I’d known him all my life, and as brothers go, he was a pretty good one—providing I didn’t mess with his stuff—but right now I couldn’t be sure what he would do.

I reached out and touched him gently on the shoulder.

Jason jumped, and I gave a little jump myself. He took his headphones off and hung them around his neck. For a second, I thought I could hear the beat pumping from them, but my heart was pounding pretty hard, so I couldn’t be sure.

Jason turned to face me, his movements slow and stiff as if he could do with a good stretch. “Yeah?”

Those circus fleas were killing me. “You okay?”

“I’m fine. Lost track of time, I guess. Tell Mum I’ll head up to bed in a tick. I just want to sharpen the bass on this track…” He turned his attention back to the screen and slipped his headphones back on. It was as if we weren’t even there.

My mouth went dry. Jason had been in the garage all night and half the day working on his computer. He was behaving just like Dad.

“Jason!” I shouted. I swivelled his chair and yanked his headphones down.

“What?”

I put my hands on his shoulders and shook him hard. “Come on! Dad’s acting really strange. I need your help!” My chest heaving, I stared into his eyes.

But Jason pushed me off, twisting out of my grip. Putting his headphones on, he turned back to the screen. “Yeah, I said I’ll be a minute. Just let me finish this,” he said. He went back to his tapping.

I looked at Darren and shook my head. We backed out of the garage and pulled down the roller door.

“Ta-ta, Jason!” Ava said, bending over to wave as the gap got smaller and smaller.

We stood on the driveway in the sun. There was no one about. Darren wiped his face in his hands. “What did I tell you? It’s the apocalypse.”

“No, it’s not. It’s not the end of the world. It can’t be. Things are a bit weird, that’s all.”

I marched the pair of them inside, one hand grasping Darren’s elbow and the other on the top of Ava’s head. Twisting free of my grip, Darren flopped on the sofa. “Well, what is it then? Your dad, my mum, Jason. They’re all acting like somnambulists.”

“Like what?”

“Somnambulists. Sleep-walkers.”

It did seem that way. Even Ava had said Dad was sleeping. I glanced at Dad, who was mesmerised by whatever he was watching. He didn’t look up.

Tipping a puzzle of coloured shapes on the floor for Ava, I said, “I thought Dad might be tired from looking after Ava.” I stood up. “You know, it could still be that, because Jason was up all night…”

“It doesn’t explain my mum though, does it?” Darren said. “Or Mr Davies. Not everyone can have sleep deprivation.”

“It’s not the end of the world,” I said again, as Ava mashed the yellow circle into its space, pushing it from side-to-side until it fit. “We’ll figure it out.”