Assembly is always best when Mrs Slade does it. She asks lots of questions and everyone thrusts their hands up and makes little bursting noises in the hope that she will pick them. Today she is holding a bag and it looks like she is going to do something fun.
‘What night is it tonight?’
There’s a sound like wings as more than a hundred arms part the air.
‘Yes, Kyle?’
‘Halloween!’
‘That’s right. Halloween’s usually in half term, isn’t it? But not this year.’
Mrs Slade talks about Halloween. She gets a funny mask out of her bag and asks for a volunteer to wear it. Then she produces a pumpkin-shaped bucket and talks about trick-or-treating safely with big brothers and sisters or mums and dads.
Jacob has never been trick-or-treating. Two years ago, when he was really small, Sister Stevens did a Halloween party in the car park at church and it was completely ace. It was called Trunk or Treat because car boots in America are called trunks. All the children walked from car to car saying, ‘Trunk or treat?’ and the trunks were open like mouths and full of candy, which means sweets. Last year there wasn’t a party because Halloween was on a Sunday. Today is Monday – Family Home Evening. Jacob will suggest that they all go trick-or-treating later, after Dad has given the lesson. There are some old costumes in the wardrobe that Mum made for dressing up and World Book Day. He can wear one of them and maybe it will be all right for Zippy to take him out, just once around the houses that ring the park.
‘Who knows what the day after Halloween is called?’ Mrs Slade asks. Hands shoot up again. ‘Yes, Abigail.’
‘The first of November?’
‘That’s certainly true, but I’m thinking of something else. The day after Halloween is called All Saints’ Day. And the day after that, the second of November, is All Souls’ Day. It’s a day when everyone used to pray for the souls of people who’d recently died. They used to believe that everyone who died wandered about the earth until All Souls’ Day, when they finally moved on to the next world.’
All Souls’ Day – Jacob’s never heard of it, never. It must be one of those things they do at school that they don’t do at church, like Advent, Lent and Harvest. Sometimes it’s hard to work out how all the different bits of both worlds fit together. Once, he thought that the word penis was part of church because he’d never heard anyone at school say it – they said dick and willy. He asked Mum about it and she laughed and said he could say willy too, if he liked.
All Souls’ Day, he whispers the words to himself so he doesn’t forget them: All Souls’ Day. All Souls’ Day. All Souls. All Souls – that means Issy too, doesn’t it? All Souls’ Day, when people who’ve died move on to the next world … or come back to this one.
At News time Mrs Slade asks everyone to write about What I Did At Half-Term. George Hindle writes, ‘I went to the Norf Pole and saw 100 pengwins.’ Jessie writes about the cinema. Jacob writes:
I waited on the stares for sumthing to happen.
Underneath the words he draws a side view of a staircase with him sitting on the top. Mrs Slade says it’s an unusual thing to have done during the holidays and she asks if he would mind telling her what he was waiting for.
‘It’s a secret,’ he says.
After lunch, Jacob takes the Box of the Dead out of his tray. He flicks it open and touches the dry, curled-up dead things. None of them came back to life. Nothing happened, despite all his prayers, all his practice. But Fred came back to life, the prayers worked for him. Jacob isn’t sure why, maybe there’s something special about fish; fish are in the Bible, Jesus feeds them to people, the disciples catch them and Jonah is swallowed by a big, whaley sort of fish. There must be special rules for fish.
George Hindle pokes him in the back as he closes the glasses case. ‘What’s that?’
‘Nothing.’ He shoves it back in his tray.
‘Mrs Slade, Mrs Slade! Jacob’s got a load of dead stuff in his tray!’
Mrs Slade is fiddling with the SMART Board. ‘Sit down, George,’ she says.
‘But, Mrs Slade, Jacob’s got –’
‘No I haven’t.’ Jacob’s words are loud and he feels the lie spread straight to his face where it burns his cheeks.
‘George, that’s enough. Stop making up stories and sit down, both of you.’
George glares at Jacob. ‘Pants on fire,’ he whispers as they sit.
Jacob looks away. Lying is wrong. He has to tell the truth to Mrs Slade or he will be in trouble with Heavenly Father. What’s the best way for him to tell her that there really are dead things in his tray? He can’t decide. She will be so disappointed in him. She’ll think members of the Church are liars and one day, when the missionaries knock on her door, she won’t want to learn about Jesus. She’ll say, ‘Jacob Bradley is a member of your Church and he tells lies.’ And then she won’t be able to go to the Celestial Kingdom and it will be completely his fault.
After Dad has collected him from After-School Club, Jacob goes up to his room and says hello to Mum. She’s awake, but she doesn’t say anything back. He looks in the wardrobe. There’s a furry Dalmatian costume, a fairy dress, a Victorian child’s outfit that’s just an old school uniform with some holes cut into it and a Harry Potter cloak with a red-and-yellow scarf Nana knitted. He decides on Harry Potter. He ties the cloak over his school uniform and wraps the scarf around his neck. There isn’t a wand so he goes downstairs, takes a piece of paper out of the printer, rolls it over and over and finishes it off with some sticky tape.
It’s teatime when the bell rings. Dad opens the door and Sister Stevens is there, wearing a Cookie Monster onesie. She says, ‘Coo-kie,’ in just the right voice and then she says, ‘Happy Halloween.’ She’s holding a big pot and there’s a lovely, meaty smell wafting out of it. She says it’s a special Cowboy casserole for pioneers and she hands it to Dad. Then she dashes back to her car and returns with a pie and a carrier bag.
‘Pumpkin pie,’ she says. ‘Especially for Halloween. And coo-kies.’ She does the voice again and everyone laughs.
‘How’s Sister Bradley?’
‘She’s a little better,’ Dad says. ‘Thank you for the food, it looks wonderful. I’m sorry you had to come out to deliver it on a Monday.’
Sister Stevens tells Dad not to be silly. She says something about man not being made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath for man, which, she thinks, also applies to Mondays and Family Home Evening. Dad nods, thanks her again and closes the door.
As they turn to head down the hall Jacob glances up at the stairs and thinks of Mum, who is not a little better. Then he hurries to the table with the others and they all stuff themselves with Cowboy casserole, pumpkin pie and coo-kies until there’s hardly any space left for sadness.
At the end of the Family Home Evening lesson, which is about patience, Dad says, ‘Any questions?’
Jacob likes to think of really difficult questions because it makes Dad happy to answer them; questions like, if you got baptised on the same day as other people, and you were the last one in the font, would you get dirty standing in the water which had washed away their sins?
Today he asks another hard question. ‘Is it ever OK to tell lies, Dad?’
‘No, Jacob, it’s not. Always tell the truth.’
‘Even if you’re going to get into trouble?’
‘Yes.’
Maybe he will have to tell the truth to Mrs Slade … but then he thinks about Dad and the way he keeps pretending Mum is just a little bit tired. ‘Is it OK for you to tell lies about Mum?’
‘Jacob!’ Zippy’s eyes go all googly and she shakes her head at him.
‘No, it’s a fair question,’ Dad says and he thinks for a moment. ‘I was wrong. I think maybe it is OK to tell lies in certain, special circumstances. Abraham had to lie to the Egyptians. He had to tell them that his wife, Sarah, was his sister. He was worried the Egyptians might kill him if they knew the truth.’
‘Talk about moving the goalposts,’ Alma huffs.
‘No one’s going to kill you for telling the truth about Mum though, are they, Dad?’
‘No, but sometimes you can’t tell the whole truth, even if you want to, sometimes there are valid reasons not to be one hundred per cent honest, but it doesn’t happen often.’
Maybe it was OK to lie to Mrs Slade about the Box of the Dead, then. It might be of those times when it was best not to tell the whole truth, even though he wanted to. He tries another question.
‘Can I go trick-or-treating?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘But I’ve got my costume on and everything. Someone could come with me,’ he suggests, remembering what Mrs Slade said about safety.
‘Mum could go with you,’ Alma mutters. ‘She could be a zombie, she wouldn’t even have to dress up.’
‘I beg your pardon? Would you like to say that again, out loud?’ Al shakes his head and Dad glares at him. ‘I don’t like Halloween. I don’t think it’s conducive to the Spirit.’
‘Everyone does it in Utah,’ Zippy says. ‘Sister Stevens thinks it’s great.’
‘That’s not saying much – Sister Stevens thinks everything’s great.’
‘Alma Bradley, if you can’t say anything nice, you know what to do. I’m not prepared to accompany any of you while you knock on the neighbours’ doors, bothering them.’
‘Save that for the missionaries.’
‘Enough, Alma.’
‘Did you get anything for the trick-or-treaters, Dad?’ Jacob asks.
‘No.’
‘We have to give them something –’
‘Look, I’ve got more important things to worry about than buying sweets for other people’s children. You’ll have to give them a biscuit.’
Alma snorts. ‘It’s not like we’ve got any nice biscuits since Mum stopped doing the shopping. And they’re not getting any of Sister Stevens’ cookies, no way. “Trick or treat” – here, have a Rich Tea biscuit! Ha ha! That’s so bad it’s hilarious.’
‘There’s an easy solution,’ Dad says. He gets up, tugs the curtains closed and turns off the lights in the lounge and the hall. Then he goes outside and returns holding the doorbell battery.
‘But, Dad, I really wanted to go trick-or-treating.’ Jacob stands up and waves his paper wand at Dad, as if it might charm him into saying yes.
‘Come here,’ Zippy says. ‘Come on.’ She takes his hand and leads him out into the hall. She opens the front door and gently pushes him outside onto the step. ‘Knock,’ she says and then she shuts him out.
Jacob stands on the step in the deep dark. He turns round to face the road and the park. The dark is cool and velvety; it collects between the street lights, right at the tips of the trees where Issy might be floating about, waiting until it’s precisely the right time and the right day to come back.
He knocks.
Zippy answers. ‘Yes?’ she says.
Alma is standing behind her, holding the bag of cookies.
‘Trick or treat?’
Alma gets a cookie out of the bag and extends his hand but at the last minute he pulls it back and stuffs the whole cookie in his mouth.
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake.’ Zippy takes the bag off Alma while he laughs, shooting crumbs over the hall carpet. ‘Here you are, Harry Potter.’
Jacob takes the cookie and waves his wand – ‘Wingardium Leviosa.’ He pretends the cookie is flying up to his mouth and copies Alma by stuffing it all in at once. Then he comes inside and Zippy locks the door.
When it’s time to go to bed he takes his costume and school uniform off. He leaves them on Mum’s dressing table and he steps into his pyjamas. Dad comes up and Jacob manages to talk him into reading a story from the big fairy-tale book. After Dad has finished ‘Hansel and Gretel’ he asks, ‘What’s the moral of the story?’
Jacob isn’t sure. ‘Is it to do with not stealing food?’
‘I think it’s a lost-and-found story,’ Dad says. ‘When good people get lost, someone always finds them.’
Dad says this so emphatically that Jacob wonders if it’s a rule.
Dad says, ‘I hope so,’ and then he says goodnight.
After Dad goes downstairs Jacob gets up and puts the Harry Potter cloak back on. If he was a real wizard he would use magic. He’d talk to Issy in photographs, he’d fight battles and make her soul shoot out of the end of his wand so he could talk to her again. He sits on the big windowsill, where he can look out over the park. He tucks the curtain behind him and shivers because the air next to the window is cooler than the air in the bedroom. The front door is locked and the whole front of the house is dark; he hopes Issy isn’t trying to get in. He rests a cheek against the icy glass. If she looks carefully, she will see him sitting there, watching out for her. The autumn leaves on the trees across the road seem blacker than the sky behind them. Every so often there’s a breeze and the leaves part to show a slice of path or a line of light from one of the lamps that surround the lake. He is sleepy but he keeps watching, murmuring the words of a Primary song to keep himself awake.
Sing your way home at the close of the day.
Sing your way home; drive the shadows away.
Smile every mile, for whenever you roam
It will brighten your road,
It will lighten your load
If you sing your way home.
He wakes up in Dad’s bed. It’s dark, but it’s morning. He can hear cars on the road outside and he lies still for a moment and watches as their lights stroke the walls.
He feels around his neck; he isn’t wearing the cloak any more, Dad must have taken it off. Dad is still asleep, breathing heavily. Jacob slides out of his side of the bed. He tiptoes to the door. The cloak is on the dressing table with his school uniform. As he passes he picks it up and sneaks out onto the landing. He fastens the cloak around his neck, sits down on the top stair and waits.
Zippy is up first. ‘What are you doing?’ she says.
‘I’m waiting.’
‘Oh. Shall I wait with you?’ She sits on the step next to him and puts her arm around him. ‘You’re nice and warm,’ she says.
Jacob wriggles out from under her arm.
Dad gets up next. He wanders down the corridor scratching his tummy. ‘What are you two doing?’
‘We’re waiting,’ Zippy says.
‘It might be a good idea to do it somewhere else so people can get up and down the stairs.’
Alma stumbles out of his room, eyes half shut. ‘You woke me up! I could’ve had another ten minutes. What’s up?’
‘We’re waiting,’ Jacob says.
‘What for?’
‘It’s a secret. But I can tell you something, something completely ace that you’ll never guess.’ They look at him and he can see they’re listening. He rearranges his cloak. ‘So, guess what.’
‘What?’ Alma says.
‘No, guess.’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘Come on.’
Zippy has a go. ‘You got a certificate at school?’
‘No.’
‘You got picked for the School Council?’
‘No. Way better than that. Way, way better. Issy’s fish got resurrected.’ He nods at them. They don’t look impressed, so he nods harder, until the stairs go all swimmy.
‘Oh yeah,’ Alma says. ‘I heard about that.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Dad rubs his cheeks with the palms of his hands and it makes a scratchy sound.
‘Sister Anderson was going on about it last week when she came.’
‘What? When did she come? Never mind – what makes you think the fish was resurrected, Jacob?’
‘It was dead before I went to bed. I prayed it would come back to life and when I got home from school the next day it was alive.’
Dad sighs. ‘Oh, Jacob.’
Zippy wraps her arm around him and this time he doesn’t shuck if off. They don’t believe him. He can’t understand how they can go to church week after week and talk about miracles, and faith, and the resurrection, and believe it all but not believe him.
‘You can think the fish was resurrected if you like,’ Alma says. ‘If it makes you feel better you can think it. Brother Rimmer thinks all sorts of stuff and it makes him feel better, so why shouldn’t you?’
Dad looks sad. ‘That’s not exactly right. There’s no point in believing something that’s not true, even if it makes you feel better.’
Alma does a long, mean laugh which Dad talks over. ‘Jacob, when the fish died, I went to the shop and bought a new one. I didn’t want you to be upset about Issy and the fish. I didn’t realise you already knew the fish was dead. I’m sorry.’
‘What did you have to tell him that for? Now you’ve made things even worse.’ Alma stomps to the bathroom and shuts the door.
‘Never mind, Jacob,’ Zippy says. ‘Let’s have a sing. Shall we do your favourite?’ She begins to sing ‘Here We Are Together’ all by herself, not realising it’s a rubbish idea until she gets near the end. ‘There’s Mum and Dad and Zippy and Alma and Jacob and …’ She stops singing and squeezes him hard and he lets her; she’s not as soft as Mum, but she’s better than nothing.
It’s still All Souls’ Day tomorrow, isn’t it? That hasn’t changed. He tries to chivvy himself up but it’s as if there’s a little magnet stuck in his throat and every fragment of unhappiness and gloom, every ache of missing Issy is racing towards it.
‘Oh dear,’ he says. ‘Oh dear.’
He is lost like Hansel, all his breadcrumbs have been eaten and he doesn’t know how he will ever get Issy home.