How I Saved the World in a Week Read online

  They dress in normal clothes like jeans and a T-shirt, and the T-shirt might have writing on it or something sparkly and a picture of something or other. They wear different colours; coats that are the bright red of a cherry, jumpers with black, bold stripes.

  Sylvia wears old-looking clothes that are all the same shade of grey-green. And she wears the same pair of trousers and boots every day. She has this funny green thing that’s a bit like a jacket, only it has no arms, and it’s got loads and loads of little pockets on the front. I’ve never seen anyone, let alone a mum, or a dad, wear anything like her jacket.

  Other people’s mums speak in the same way. In fact they speak a lot, with so many words that they run into each other and sometimes I can’t hear much more than a whirring drone.

  Sylvia is silence. There have been days where she hasn’t spoken to me at all. Sometimes that means that I might not speak to anyone if it’s the school holidays. I don’t mind, but I know it’s not how other mums behave. It’s not even how Sylvia used to behave.

  When we first moved here, one of the boys from school, Emmanuel, invited me round to his house one night, before he knew what being my friend would mean.

  We haven’t been here long. We move around a lot. Sylvia says it’s not good to stay in one place for too long or to get to know too many people.

  The last placed we lived was on a houseboat while the owners were away and before then, we had a room in a house with other people who came and went and we never got to know properly. Sylvia says it’s best not to trust other people. It’s Survival Rule number three: Trust no one – you may only be able to rely on yourself. The places before then have blurred in my head and I get mixed up because there have been so many. I like the South London flat that we’re in now – it’s just the two of us living here and it’s got way more space than the boat.

  I don’t like having to start at new schools, although you would think that I would be used to it by now. It’s funny how sometimes the more times you do something, the harder it becomes. It’s kind of the opposite to what Sylvia has been teaching me; that practice makes perfect, that each time you repeat something, you get a little bit better at doing it. That’s another one of the Rules: Master your fears – through practice, planning and taking action.

  The teacher sat me next to Emmanuel on my first day and we got on okay. He asked me round to his a week later. I didn’t really want to say yes, but there was another bit of me that couldn’t help but say yes. I’d not been round to someone else’s house for so long, I wanted to see whether I was exaggerating how different Sylvia had become to other people. Maybe it was all in my head and she was like other mums after all.

  Emmanuel’s mum was called Patrice. She told me that I could call her that, and she asked me questions even if she didn’t always listen to what my answers were because Emmanuel had a little brother called David who was still a baby and kept crying.

  ‘Oh, David, David, David,’ she said, rocking him back and forth. ‘Can’t you see that I’m trying to get to know Billy?’

  We ate pizza which Patrice ordered from a takeaway place because she said she was too tired from looking after David to cook and it was nice to have a treat sometimes. I didn’t tell them it was the only time in my life that I’d ever had takeaway pizza.

  ‘Just help yourself, Billy,’ Patrice said, yawning loudly. ‘Eat what you want.’

  I kept going back to the large flat box again and again to have another thick, greasy triangle. I couldn’t stop myself; it tasted so delicious. I could feel it settling in my tummy, a lovely weight that made me feel whole and complete.

  And I knew then that I was right about Sylvia being different.

  So I didn’t ask Emmanuel to come over to our flat for dinner.

  I didn’t even ask Sylvia if I could; I just didn’t want it to happen.

  I knew that we’d eat something like kidney beans with wild rocket that we’d pick from the verge on the side of the road on our way home from school. Or maybe Sylvia would insist that we try to cook outside on a fire. She does that sometimes. It takes ages for the fire to get hot enough to heat anything and even then the food might still only be lukewarm.

  It would never be something that Emmanuel would want to keep going back for, like me and the pizza. I knew dinner would be embarrassing and odd but, more than anything, I just couldn’t imagine it ever happening. I couldn’t picture him in our little flat with just Sylvia and me; I couldn’t imagine how it would be. It was easier not to have to think about that at all.

  Emmanuel doesn’t even talk to me any more. I think that he might have forgotten that he ever tried to be my friend.

  I’m absent from school so much that I often feel like my classmates have forgotten who I am. They learned pretty quickly that there was no point in getting to know me because I would most probably not be in the next day, or the day after that.

  And I don’t know when Sylvia will move us away completely. I’ve had the feeling recently that she might pack everything up and we’ll be gone. There’s an energy that she gives off when she’s thinking of starting over. A new home, a new school. All new people, again.

  I mean, what’s the point in trying to get to know someone when you might disappear at any moment?

  HOW TO USE A HELIOGRAPH: PART I

  On Christmas morning, I wake early.

  It’s completely dark outside and the flat is still and quiet in a way that I know means Sylvia is not yet awake.

  I reach around the end of my bed and find a few small packages have been placed there while I was asleep. Taking care not to make too much noise, I shift myself gently out of bed, but I’m not quiet enough. A moment later, I hear the creak of Sylvia moving in her room.

  When I get dressed and go into the living room, she’s standing straight-backed in front of the window, sipping from a mug. She told me she chose this flat because of the trees that surround our block. Their branches are almost level with our window, as though we live in a treehouse. It makes it harder to see in, she says.

  I notice there’s a few cardboard boxes stacked up in the corner that weren’t there yesterday. I wonder if that does mean Sylvia is thinking about moving again. I don’t want to ask her. I don’t want the answer to be yes.

  ‘Happy Christmas,’ I say, but she doesn’t turn around.

  ‘Sylvia,’ I try again. ‘Happy Christmas.’

  This time, she turns her head towards me.

  ‘Happy Christmas, Billy.’

  I go to stand next to her and look out at the skeleton branches of the trees in the dark light of the morning. The wind makes the branches wave and tremor and for a moment I imagine them as the limbs of some kind of giant creature coming to life.

  ‘What do you see?’ Sylvia asks me, breaking my daydream.

  I blink, chiding myself for not paying attention to my surroundings like I’m supposed to. Sylvia’s right, I do need to work on that Rule more.

  ‘Trees,’ I answer quickly.

  ‘Just trees?’

  ‘Trees and…’ I peer out of the window. ‘Squirrels!’ I spot them, two of them, racing across one of the branches.

  ‘Anything else?’

  I look at the ends of the branches, at a dancing leaf, one of the last to fall. And then at the thick trunk which leads down to a car park below. That’s when I spot him, a man sitting in a car. I can’t see what he’s doing but I think I see him staring up towards the windows of our block of flats.

  ‘There’s a man in a car.’

  ‘Good,’ Sylvia says, turning away.

  ‘What’s he doing?’ I ask. ‘Why is he just sitting there like that?’

  ‘Who’s to know. Maybe he’s waiting for someone. Maybe he’s a taxi driver. It could be completely innocent.’ Sylvia slips her hand in mine and leads me gently away from the window. ‘Or maybe he’s watching us, maybe he’s come for us and we have to make sure that he doesn’t see us—’

  ‘But why would—’ I start to say, but Sylvi
a interrupts me.

  ‘Remember Survival Rule number two, Billy.’

  ‘Pay attention – keep constant observations of your surroundings,’ I say immediately.

  ‘Good. You have to take notice of what’s around you, Billy. Then if things change, if something happens, you are the first to notice and you can get a head start. Remember that, okay? That’s another reason why Rule three is so important, too.’ She looks at me expectantly.

  ‘Trust no one – you may only be able to rely on yourself,’ I say without hesitation, eager to please, but the words fall like stones, dull and heavy. It makes me feel alone, somehow, just saying them out loud.

  ‘That’s right,’ Sylvia says. ‘You must keep all the Rules at the forefront of your mind. Don’t let yourself forget them, even if it’s Christmas Day.’

  I nod although I don’t understand what she’s saying really. ‘Can I open my presents now?’ I ask.

  Sylvia gives a little snorting laugh. ‘Ah, so you noticed those, did you?’ she says. ‘Go and get them, then.’

  It takes me just a few seconds to pull off the pages of the old magazine that Sylvia has used as wrapping paper.

  There’s a new pair of gloves (my old ones have holes in them) and a small tin cup that’s red with a black rim and something else that’s covered in bubble wrap and is the size of a credit card.

  I rip it open to find what looks like two small mirrors.

  ‘They are heliographs,’ Sylvia tells me. ‘You can use them to direct a ray of sunlight in a certain direction. When it gets properly light, I’ll show you how to use them, okay?’

  * * *

  Throughout the morning, Sylvia keeps looking out of the window to check the man in the car has gone until finally deciding it’s fine for us to go out on the balcony. The sun is now shining brightly, but there’s a sharp coldness in the air and I’m grateful for my new gloves.

  Sylvia shows me how to hold the credit card-shaped mirror between my thumb and finger and make my beam of sunlight dart from place to place using only the smallest of movements. I watch as the sunlight dances on the tree trunks. Two spots of light, one of them directed by me, the other by Sylvia, jump from tree to tree.

  ‘That’s it,’ Sylvia says. ‘That’s perfect.’

  I feel a glow inside at this small amount of praise.

  ‘You can use a heliograph if you’re trying to signal to get someone’s attention. Like if you need rescuing and are trying to alert someone to where you are,’ Sylvia says.

  She points to the small hole that’s right in the centre of the mirror. ‘This hole is here to help you aim the beam directly towards a moving target – like a plane or a boat – because that can be tricky, but you can use it to direct the light towards any specific target. Like, if I wanted to get a person’s attention, I might try to aim the light right into their eyes so they would notice it straightaway. Understand?’

  I nod, but to make sure, Sylvia asks me to repeat back everything she just told me. She gets me to say the part about directing it into someone’s eyes twice over.

  Then she takes out How to Survive and shows me the page about heliographs.

  Fig. 2. – How to use a heliograph (Part I)

  She shows me how to look through the hole and extend one of my arms out straight in front of me, making a V-shape with my fingers.

  ‘That should help with directing it. The book says using a pencil on a string and holding it out straight helps too. That way might be better than your arm, but it’s good to know both ways because you don’t know what equipment you’ll have to use. We can try the pencil and string another day.’

  I nod but I continue to practise directing the heliograph to line up exactly with an imaginary person’s eyeline. I feel Sylvia watching me.

  ‘You’re getting good,’ she says and I feel her warmth beside me. I think that she is about to move away but instead she pulls me closer into a hug. She kisses me on the top of my head.

  ‘I love being your mum, do you know that, Billy? You mustn’t ever forget that. Whatever happens. Remember that – I love being your mum.’

  I pull away, embarrassed, not sure what to do or where to put the words that she is telling me.

  ‘It’s okay,’ she says. She dusts herself down and points her heliograph to the sky and I immediately miss her warmth and wish I’d leaned into her to keep the hug going for longer.

  * * *

  I wondered whether we might go on an adventure today but Sylvia says that there are too many people about, going on Christmas Day walks.

  I can’t stop thinking about the kind of Christmases other people will be having. I’ve heard my classmates talk about them, seen them in the films they show at school sometimes, even vaguely remember what they were like when I was really small. Tables heaving with food, stacks of presents beneath a glittering tree, long walks together as a family where you say ‘Happy Christmas’ to everyone you meet. I remember a ‘Christmas Day’ I spent with Steve a few years ago. It wasn’t on the actual day, I’d been with Sylvia, but it was just a few days afterwards. He’d made a big fuss over it; there was a proper dinner with crackers and we’d decorated a tree with gaudy baubles the night before and put so many lights on it that it lit up the whole room. I try to think of something else because I can feel a lump growing in my throat as I remember it. The lump gets bigger and bigger and it feels hard to swallow but at the same time, I feel empty, like I haven’t eaten for ages.

  I always get that feeling when I start thinking about Steve and what it used to be like, which is why I try not to do it. It’s hard today though, I can’t seem to bat away the thoughts like I usually can.

  We stay in the flat and Sylvia spends most of the day packing up the boxes in the living room. Her face is set in concentration as she examines papers and sorts tins and packs them tightly together as though they are a jigsaw puzzle. I watch her for a while and as I do, I start to think of Steve again. I’m not sure if it’s a real memory or something I’ve made up myself, but I have a hazy image of Steve packing his things into a bag when he left us. I try to shake the memory as the feeling of emptiness builds up inside me. I wish Sylvia would stop but I can tell from the way that her shoulders are hunched together, how her fingers flick through things deftly, that her mind is completely focused on the task and she has no thought of stopping.

  ‘Are we moving?’ I ask, in the end.

  ‘Not yet,’ she says quietly. ‘I just need to put some of this stuff in a safe place.’

  ‘A safe place?’ I repeat, but I don’t get an answer. Sylvia continues to pack.

  That night, after eating dinner – we have toast and baked beans with melted cheese on top, as a Christmas treat – she kisses me on the head and tells me that she is going out. She says that I am not to worry, that she’ll be back in the morning.

  Sylvia leaves me with a couple of instructions: ‘Stay away from the window and don’t open the door to anyone while I’m gone. I’ll do the knock when I get back so you know that it’s me that’s opening the door.’

  A few weeks ago, Sylvia insisted that we knock in a certain pattern when we come in so the other person knows for sure that it’s not a stranger. You knock once, leave a pause and then knock quickly twice – that’s our code.

  Then, without looking back, without me having time to ask anything, without me having a moment to protest that it’s Christmas and does she really have to go, she leaves, carrying two of the boxes that she packed up. The front door clicks closed and then the silence feels deafening as I’m left alone.

  I decide to go to bed, but I can’t relax, my ears straining at every moment to listen out for her coming back. I’m sure that I won’t sleep, but I must doze off because suddenly I’m awoken by the code – one knock, pause, then two in rapid succession – and, finally, the sound of the front door opening. Moments later, I hear Sylvia’s soft tread outside my door. I check my clock, it’s 4 a.m. She’s been gone for hours.

  The same thing happens t
he next night, and the next, and the night after that.

  But she won’t tell me where she is going.

  She won’t tell me what she’s doing.

  HOW TO HAVE AN ADVENTURE

  We used to call them adventures. I can’t remember when Sylvia stopped calling them that but I still call them adventures in my head.

  Whenever Sylvia said we were going on one, I always got excited because I knew that it meant special time, just Sylvia and I. We’d spend weekends together, somewhere I’d never been. Not like to the cinema or the library or a café like other people. It would always be somewhere outside, usually someplace where there wasn’t anyone else around.

  Sylvia would bring something for us to eat when we got there. A square of dark chocolate, perhaps, or a tangy, squashy clementine; a handful of walnuts or the corner of a Kendal Mint Cake. That’s how I knew we had arrived: because she’d hand me a snack to eat.

  Then she’d pull out How to Survive and let me pick what I wanted to do. I’d flick through the pages and it didn’t seem to matter which activity I suggested, somehow Sylvia would have everything that we needed to do it in her rucksack, all ready to go.

  Sometimes whatever we were trying wouldn’t work particularly well. But she never seemed to mind. She had more patience then and she wasn’t as good at the survival stuff either. We were learning together almost.

  Those days felt fun. Special. And I felt lucky to have a mum who wanted to spend time with me like this, rather than one who didn’t really care where I was or who I was with, who just ignored me while she chatted on the phone to friends.

  But somewhere along the way, our adventures changed.

  We started to go on more of them. And then it stopped being just at the weekends.

  The first day that I missed school Sylvia took me out of class in the middle of the morning saying that there was something more important that we needed to do. My teacher had looked a bit shocked but didn’t say anything. It was a one-off so it was okay.