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  The kite was like some sort of wild creature, tossing and lurching angrily through the air and wrenching him along with it. He’s not big, Hal, though he’s wiry and plenty strong, I’d have thought, but it was as if a rag doll was taking a very large and bouncy dog for a walk, the kind of dog that is always jumping into bins and sniffing up lady dogs and making loud and enthusiastic snuffling sounds and whining with excitement and skittering along with all four paws going in different directions.

  So there Hal was, dancing about at the end of the kite string, being pulled along like a feather duster tied to the back of a juggernaut breaking the speed limit. I began to imagine that he might get yanked out over the water, and I didn’t think he’d go floating off merrily like Mary Poppins, waving a stately good-bye. No, there’d come a sudden gust and a flurry, and he’d be whisked out to sea, and then there’d be a crash landing on an inconveniently placed rock, and it’d be good-bye for keeps, Hal, it’s been nice knowing you, weird boy.

  “Oi, oi! You kids, oi!” came this voice over the wind, which was whipping my hair around my face at this stage.

  You read about people shouting “oi,” don’t you, but I’d never heard anybody actually yelling it in real life. It was like a bad mobile phone connection, because of the way the wind whisked bits of the sound off in different directions, but we got the message all the same.

  We spun around. Well, I spun around. I don’t know about Hal; he was probably spinning anyway, at the end of the kite string.

  The owner of the voice was this enormously fat man, like Tweedledee and Tweedledum rolled into one, with the tiniest little dog you ever saw yapping along at his feet. He wasn’t wobbly fat, the Tweedle character. He was just a walking mountain. His feet were quite small. I couldn’t imagine how his ankles didn’t buckle under the weight of his body. Also, I wondered where he found clothes to fit him. If you took off his belt and laid it out along the ground, it’d reach from here to Limerick. No, that’s an exaggeration, and I am trying to break my exaggeration habit. From my house to Hal’s house, then.

  “Oi!” he yelled again, and he was beckoning toward us with an arm as big as a branch. His voice sounded English, though it was hard to tell from a single syllable.

  There was something irresistible about this huge person in unbelievably enormous trousers with his teeny little dog frisking about his ankles, so I went and stood in front of Tweedledeedum and said “Yes?” with as much dignity as I could muster, considering most of my hair was in my mouth.

  The little dog started to lick my toes excitedly, with his hot, damp tongue. It was quite nice for just about a second, but then it got cold almost immediately. I wondered if my skin tasted salty.

  Tweedledeedum looked down at me and shouted, “Will you tell your foolish young friend there to bring down that kite at once, like a good girl? This is no weather for kiting. Look sharp now, chop-chop, no time to lose, we don’t want to be fishing him out of the sea, do we?”

  He was English, all right, but not like a real English person who you might see on the telly having a beer and telling a joke—more like a person out of one of those musty old books Larry used to read when he was my age, which he got from my dad, who also used to read them when he was my age. I read one or two of them myself, and they are not too bad, though they are mainly for boys and have more shipwrecks in them than you’d really want to read about.

  He was right, Mr. TD. We did not want to be fishing Hal out of the sea, and I was kind of relieved that a grown-up person was being bossy about it.

  I turned my head and looked at Hal, who was still racing along in pursuit of the kite.

  “I don’t think he can,” I said to TD. “I think it’s out of control.”

  He sighed a great fat sigh and then he lumbered steadily toward Hal, and I trotted along after him.

  Hal had stopped running. He seemed to have worked out that running after the kite was only encouraging it, so now he was standing still and hanging on for dear life. When Tweedledeedum got to within a foot or two of Hal, he boomed out, “May I?” and at the same time he reached over Hal’s shoulder toward the kite.

  Hal was still hanging on to the bobbin, or whatever you call the thing you wind the string around, but he stepped back to make space (a lot of space) for TD, who caught hold of the kite string rather awkwardly between his huge flat thumb and his equally huge index finger, like an elephant getting hold of a lollipop. The kite bucked and tossed like a mad bird over his head, but he just stood placidly watching it for a moment, like a great, thoughtful human anchor. After a minute or two, he signaled to Hal to pass him the bobbin, and then, slowly, unconcernedly, as if he were landing a small and unchallenging sprat, he wound in the line and brought the kite down.

  “Er, thanks,” muttered Hal, half-resentful and halfgrateful. His face was bright red and streaming with perspiration, and his chest was heaving with the effort of controlling the mad kite.

  “My pleasure,” said the large gentleman, with a small inclination of his head, and I declare to goodness, it was almost a bow. “Now, my advice to you young’uns is to fly this kite in a brisk breeze—a breeze, mind, not a storm-force wind. You never fly a kite in a small hurricane, if you want to keep it.”

  It wasn’t a small hurricane—that was an exaggeration, and he threw in the “small” so you’d be distracted into thinking he was being accurate—it was just a bit on the stormy side.

  “Er, thanks,” said Hal again.

  “Rightio, then,” said Tweedledeedum. “And by the way, your kite needs a tail. Helps to stabilize it, you know. Cut along home, now, both of you, and don’t talk to any more strangers.”

  We had, of course, completely forgotten we weren’t supposed to talk to strangers, and this one definitely qualified as strange. I slapped my hand across my mouth to keep from laughing, but I could see he knew I was giggling—I couldn’t help it, it was the way he talked. He shook his head gravely, as if he was disappointed in me, but he bowed almost imperceptibly again, and then he whistled to his dog (though the dog was right there at his feet all the time) and continued on calmly with his walk.

  We watched his back view as he sailed along like a giant iceberg in men’s clothes. The wind flapped frantically at the edges of his jacket, and his tie flew out first on one side and then on the other, but he just ploughed implacably forward. After a few moments, as a particularly nasty squall of wind blew up, he bent down and picked up the little dog and tucked him in between his elbow and his body, and on he continued until he was out of sight.

  “That was a close one,” I said to Hal as we walked off.

  “Yeah, I was afraid it might disintegrate up there,” he said.

  “It wasn’t the kite I was worried about,” I said. “It was you.”

  Hal stopped walking and looked at me. “Me?” he said incredulously. “Why me?”

  “Because you were on the end of the string,” I said. “You were going to be yanked out to sea at any minute.”

  “No, I wasn’t,” said Hal. “I hadn’t a notion of it.”

  “You didn’t need to have a notion of it,” I said. “It was the wind that had the notions.”

  “Not at all,” said Hal again, but he had a secret little grin on his face. I think he was pleased that I’d been worried about him.

  He is a daft old thing.

  Chapter 6

  Hal had not forgotten about his life-changing plan. This was the deal, right: Larry was to leave a message on Alec’s voice mail after office hours on Friday evening. Hal had written the whole thing out.

  One thing you need to know, by the way, is that Alec is a painter. Not an artist—a housepainter. My dad says he makes loads of money at it, but people always think that about other people’s jobs, don’t they? Anyway, that’s what he does, and he has a little white van and overalls that are all multicolored from the different paints he’s spilled on them over the years.

  This is how the message went, the one Larry was supposed to leave on Alec
’s mobile:

  Hello, Mr. Denham, Balnamara General here, Clem Callaghan, maintenance manager. We have a painting job, bit of a rush on it. We need you here first thing in the morning, double rates, no, sorry, triple rates because of the bank holiday weekend. Now, this is where you have to go …

  Then came directions about what he was to do when he arrived at the hospital. Something about turning right past the physiotherapy department and a long, low building with a green door, and then something about how the paint would be there, no need to bring any.

  That was it. That was the master plan that Hal was so proud of. He was going to get Alec to paint a long, low building behind the physiotherapy department at the local hospital. Well, big deal! That was really going to get Alec out of his life, right?

  I don’t think so.

  “I’m not doing it,” Larry said flatly, when he saw the speech.

  For once I could see his point of view. This was the weirdest thing that weird-boy Hal had come up with in living memory.

  “Clem Callaghan,” I said. “What a name! Did you make it up, Hal?”

  “No,” said Hal, “I got it in the phone book.”

  “Hal, if you’ve stolen someone’s name out of the phone book, that means they are real, and they might sue you or something.”

  “No, it’s not a real name.”

  “You just said you got it in the phone book. They only have real names in the phone book, Hal.”

  Hal threw his eyes up. “You use a pin,” he said.

  “Yes?” I said.

  “You close your eyes and stick the pin in.”

  “And you get a real name,” I said.

  “No,” said Hal, “you get a real surname. Then you do it again, on a different page, and you get a first name. Then you put them together and you have a new name. It doesn’t belong to anyone.”

  “Oh!” I said.

  “Cool, isn’t it?” he said.

  “Yeah, brilliant,” I said sarcastically.

  Hal ignored me. He turned to Larry.

  “Larry, please,” he said. “You have to do it. Please.”

  “I don’t have to,” said Larry. “You can’t make me, and it’s a stupid idea.”

  “But, Larry, you’re the only one with a grown-up voice.”

  Larry smirked.

  “And you’re such a good actor,” Hal said.

  Which is total rubbish. Larry smirked some more.

  “Look, Hal,” Larry said, and there was a swagger in his voice, as if he was a very wise old person talking to a very silly young person, “there’s a flaw in this plan of yours.”

  Hal made his eyes go wide, as if he was ever so grateful to Larry for taking the trouble to point this out to him.

  “What’s that, Larry?” he asked humbly.

  “Well, in the first place, how do you know Alec won’t just answer the phone? Then I wouldn’t get to leave the message. I’d have to talk to him, and he’d be sure to ask an awkward question that I couldn’t answer, and then the whole thing would just collapse.”

  “I can see that you might be concerned, Larry,” said Hal. “But you see, the thing is, he always turns off his mobile when he comes home. My mother doesn’t want people ringing Him in the evenings. It’ll switch to voice mail when you phone Him. And he does check his voice mails, he has a business to run.”

  “Hmm,” said Larry. “But he’ll try to ring this Clegg person back, won’t he?”

  “Clem,” said Hal. “But here’s the thing. We’re going to make the phone call from a public phone box. There’s one in the Market Square, opposite the post office. It’s working, I checked. So it won’t matter if he does try to phone back. Nobody will answer it. He won’t be able to get hold of Clem. He’s probably gone out anyway. It’s Friday night, remember.”

  “Who?”

  “Clem!”

  “Clem doesn’t exist, Hal.”

  “Well, then!” said Hal, as if he’d just proved a point.

  I didn’t think it was much of a plan, and I could see that Larry wasn’t impressed either. Even if we could make it work, what was the point? So what if we got Alec to paint a long, low building with a green door? That was hardly going to change the world, was it? It certainly wasn’t going to have any effect on Hal’s mum’s and Alec’s wedding plans.

  Can you just imagine it? “Oh, you painted that building on Saturday, the long, low one. I don’t think we can be married after all. Sorry.”

  “Hal,” I said, “what exactly is the point here?”

  “The point is,” said Hal, “that if Alec is out painting this … this place on Saturday morning, then he can’t take my mother down the country to her golf tournament, can he?”

  “Your mother is going to a golf tournament?”

  “Not just going to it. She is playing in it! She has been looking forward to it for weeks.”

  “And you don’t want her to play in it?” I asked. “Is that it?”

  I always think golf is like hurling, standing still. I can never understand why people want to play it. But then I’m not a grown-up. They’re different.

  “No, that’s not it,” said Hal. “Not exactly. The thing is, they have a date for it, my mother and Him.”

  “A date? They live together, Hal. People who live together don’t go on dates.”

  “That’s the problem,” Hal explained. “He never takes her out, my mum says. And she’s always moaning that he doesn’t take her golf seriously, so this time he’s promised faithfully to go with her, and she’s all excited about it. She’s even bought a special outfit and everything. But now, if he gets this important job with all that extra money … he won’t go with her and she’ll be furious. There’ll be a big row. She might even kick Him out.”

  His eyes were shining at the thought of it.

  You think this is a fairly feeble plan, right? I do too, but at the time it did seem to make some sort of weird sense. Hal can be quite convincing when he’s all worked up about something. And he really was worked up about this.

  “So, let’s imagine that Larry leaves this message on Alec’s phone,” I said. “Then what?”

  “Then he will take the job, and the next morning early, we are going to follow Him, to see how it all works out,” Hal said.

  “Not me,” said Larry quickly. “I have a plane to catch on Saturday morning. School trip to Paris.”

  “Not to worry,” said Hal. “Just me and Olivia will be plenty. You go to Paris, Lar, we can handle the rest.”

  I don’t think Larry knew what hit him. Somehow, it seemed, he was going to make this crazy phone call, even though he’d never actually agreed to doing it. I suppose he could have put his foot down, but Hal had somehow bamboozled him, blinded him with the brilliance of it all or something, I don’t know.

  “Me?” I squeaked. “Follow him! Oh, Hal, I don’t like this. This is a weirdness too far for me.”

  “But, Olivia, I’m … desperate,” Hal said.

  “You’re desperate, all right,” I muttered. I don’t think he heard me. “Why, Hal?” I said aloud. “Why is it so important?”

  “She’s … they’re …”

  “What, Hal?”

  “Boarding school,” he said. “She said if I don’t start getting on with Him, I’ll have to go to boarding school. She says I make her life a misery, and she can’t stand it any longer.”

  Boarding school. Well, that mightn’t be too bad. There might be making apple-pie beds and having midnight feasts and putting whoopee cushions on the teachers’ chairs and that sort of thing. It might be quite fun.

  But I didn’t say any of that to Hal. I just asked, “Well, do you, you know … make her life a misery? Apart from leaving the taps running and so on.”

  “No.”

  “So, what’s her problem then? Why is she going to send you to boarding school?”

  “Well, I suppose it’s because I don’t talk to Him.”

  “Oh, Hal!”

  “I wish you wouldn’t alway
s say ‘Oh, Hal!’ Olivia.”

  “Sorry, but you mean, you don’t talk to him at all? As in, not a word? As in, ‘Will you ask him to pass me the sugar?’”

  “Yeah, pretty much.”

  “And you haven’t spoken to him for two years?”

  “No!” said Hal. “I mean, I used to talk to Him. I used to say, ‘oh, hello’ and ‘well, good-bye,’ and that kind of thing. But since he moved in with us … well, you can’t always be saying hello to someone if they live there, can you? It’s not like they are a guest anymore.”

  “So you say nothing at all?”

  “Yeah,” said Hal. “I mean, he shouldn’t really be there, should he? So I pretend he’s not.”

  I couldn’t think of an argument against that. It made a sort of Hal-ish sense.

  “And now they’ve started threatening you with boarding school?”

  “Well, it’s mainly her. I don’t think he really minds much. But she does. She’s been on about it for ages, but now we’re coming to the end of primary school, so it’s getting a bit more urgent. She has brochures for places where they make you play rugby.”

  I looked at Hal and tried to imagine him in rugby gear. It didn’t work. He kept disappearing up his own sleeves.

  “OK, Hal,” I said with a sigh. “I think this is a daft plan, but if you really feel you need to take a stand, well, I’ll go with you. But I’m only going to make sure you don’t get into trouble, OK?”

  Ah me, doomed words.

  Chapter 7

  Saturday morning came. I could have had a nice lie-in, but no, instead I got up early and bicycled over to Hal’s house before breakfast. There’d been a small change of plan. It seems we would never be able to follow Alec in his van, so now, instead of that, we were going to cycle ahead of him to the hospital and wait there to see what happened. I really didn’t see the point of all this, but Hal insisted.

  Normally I couldn’t have got away with leaving the house at the crack of dawn, I’d have been missed at home, only they were all fussing about getting Larry to the airport in time for his flight and giving him long and complex instructions about how he was to behave himself when he got to Paris and how he was to have absolutely NO alcohol of any description, no way, no, no, no.