I went to bed while it was still light outside. My limbs felt heavy, my brain exhausted. I must have fallen asleep within minutes to the sound of a blackbird singing outside. When I woke up it was dark. My clock glowed red: 2:34 a.m. Something had disturbed me, but in that just-awake state I wasn’t sure what; and then I heard knocking on the other side of my wall.
Tap, tap, tap.
I sat up and listened again.
Tap, tap, tap.
“Can you hear that?” I whispered to the Wallpaper Lion. “She’s doing it again.”
I closed my eyes and listened.
Tap, tap, tap.
“Are you there, Goldfish Boy? Are you back in your tank?”
It was Casey. I clenched my hand into a fist, ready to thump back if she did it again. I waited for ten minutes, but there was silence.
Dad came up to see me at lunchtime on Saturday, waving a letter addressed to “The Parents of Matthew Corbin.”
“We’ll soon have you sorted out, eh, son? Get you back on your feet. Blimey, it’s hot in here.”
Unlike Mum, he had no hesitation about coming into my room. He walked in and opened my window using his bare hands, a big grin on his face, as if this mysterious letter’s arrival would suddenly cure me of all my “issues.”
“Dad, what are you doing? I don’t want my window open!”
I jumped onto my bed and pulled my knees up, hugging my legs.
“Course you do. Bit of fresh air won’t poison you, will it?”
My curtains blew in the breeze, the germs squealing with delight as they skydived onto my carpet.
“Me and your mum are off to Auntie Jean’s picnic in a bit. How about coming with us, now that you’re on the mend? All your cousins will be there.”
Auntie Jean’s Mighty Picnic used to be the highlight of my summer. A red ring would mark the date on our calendar, and I’d count the weeks until school was over and the picnic was here. It had started off as a small family get-together for my cousin Darcy’s sixth birthday, but it went so well that Auntie Jean had organized one every summer since.
Last year’s picnic had been epic. We all arrived in convoy and parked next to each other by a patch of field at a big, countryside park. The grown-ups hugged and kissed one another first and then turned their attention to the kids.
“Oliver, that can’t be you under all that hair, is it?”
“How old are you now, Darcy? Fourteen? Wow, is it eight years we’ve been doing this, Jean?”
“Make sure you’re on my team later, Matthew. How many runs did you get last year?”
I grinned at Uncle Mike, who put his arm around my shoulder.
“I think it was twelve, Uncle Mike.”
It was twelve. I just didn’t want to sound like a show-off.
Before we unpacked the cars all twenty of us went for a long walk to work up an appetite. We followed the same path that we did every year, but as always there was a disagreement over the route: “It’s left here, Brian. I remember that tree.”
“No, it’s definitely right. And how can you remember a tree? They all look the same!”
Auntie Jean took charge and turned left and we laughed as we followed her. Toward the end of the walk we slowed down, with the youngest kids at the back whining about sore feet, but then someone shouted: “Picnic ahoy!”
Our cars glinted in the sun at the top of the hill, and the thought of lunch helped speed us onward. There was a mad frenzy as everyone unpacked their coolers and wicker baskets, laying the picnic blankets out in one huge patchwork.
I scarfed down as many sausage rolls and ham sandwiches as I could, impatient for everyone to finish so that the real fun could begin. Finally, Uncle Mike announced: “Okay, who’s up for some baseball?”
I was the first on my feet as the adults tried to organize the teams fairly.
“You take Uncle Reg, and we can have little Martha.”
“But Uncle Reg can’t run! That’s not fair!”
“Matthew can do the running for him. Can’t you, Matthew?”
I grinned and nodded as I smacked the smooth bat in my palm, eager to get started.
The game went on for hours until some of the adults said they wanted a rest and the younger kids drifted off to try and catch some grasshoppers. I sat next to Mum and she patted me on the shoulder.
“So you didn’t beat last year’s record then, darling? How many did you get?”
“Only nine this year, Mum.”
“Only nine, eh? Well, next year I’m sure you’ll beat it.”
Auntie Jean was passing around a huge bowl of chips and they landed in front of me.
“Go on, Matty. Dig in.”
I looked down the hill at the old brick restroom hidden in a small copse of trees.
“Mum. I think I’m just going to go wash my hands. I won’t be long.”
I headed toward the bathroom, the long grass scratching at my ankles. The sound of my family’s excited chatter faded as I stepped into the cold, dank building. The lights weren’t working and there was only a tiny rectangle of window above the sinks, so it took a while for my eyes to adjust. I didn’t feel bad, exactly; I just knew I’d feel happier if my hands were clean. I stood alone, listening to the steady drip, drip, drip of the toilet as I washed them in the darkness.
“Come on, son, it’s the Mighty Picnic! You can’t miss it, you’ve got to try and break that baseball record, remember? How many runs did you get again?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Dad walked around my room, looking at my books, my desk, my papers, almost touching things. I sensed he was daring me to ask him to leave.
“You’ve certainly been busy keeping things nice and tidy in here. Where are your dirty socks? Moldy cups? Empty soda cans? The things normal boys would have lying around?”
Did you hear how he said normal, Lion? Did you hear that? That’s not right, is it?
I said this in my head as I looked up at the misshapen wallpaper in the corner of my room. Dad’s mouth was smiling, but the rest of his face didn’t mean it. You had to be careful with him sometimes.
“So, how about it, then? The barbecue? Auntie Jean’s? You going to come?”
I stood up and began to look at the things on my desk as if I had something really urgent that I had to deal with.
“I can’t. I’ve got a load of schoolwork to do. Tons of it,” I said, shaking my head with the utter annoyance of it all.
Dad was still grinning. He knew I was lying to him. Hovering next to me, he reached out and picked up one of my notebooks. A navy blue one that I’d filled from cover to cover to pass the time.
“But it’s vacation now. And you can’t have that much—you’ve hardly been there, have you?”
He began to flick through the book, licking a finger as he turned each page, his eyes scanning my writing. I shuddered.
“I’ve got a lot to catch up on. A … a big project, for a start.”
He didn’t look up.
“What’s this about then? All these lists? Times and stuff?” He held the book out a bit and began to read. “3:04 p.m., Mr. Charles is feeding the fish in his pond. 4:18 p.m., Mum has just come in from work. Blimey, son. You need to get out more.”
I snatched the book from him, instantly feeling infected.
“It’s for the project I just told you about. On statistics. A math thing … And I need to get started on it as soon as possible.”
He looked at me and then at the book, which I now held pinched between my thumb and index finger.
“It looks like a lot of mumbo jumbo to me, Matthew,” he said, his grin gone.
“Yeah, well. You were never very good at math, were you, Dad?” I laughed nervously, not sure if I was getting away with it. “General knowledge is your thing, isn’t it? Not numbers.”
I sat back on the bed and glanced up at the Wallpaper Lion. His wonky eye looked down at me reassuringly. You’re doing okay, he was saying.
“What do you keep looking at up there?”
Dad gazed at the bare wall.
“Nothing.”
He walked around, scanning the corners of the room, looking at the ceiling and then back at the wallpaper.
“It could do with some decorating in here—get all this old stuff off the walls. A couple of coats of paint. It’ll transform the place.”
“No!”