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Usually, I don't remember my dreams and the next morning was no different. I woke up at nine o'clock, exhausted, with the sun in my eyes. I'd forgotten to pull down the blinds, or to turn on my alarm!
I lunged out of bed and started to throw on my school uniform. It wasn't until I was pulling on my itchy school-jumper that I remembered it was Saturday! I smacked my forehead with the heel of my palm, then sat down on my bed, wincing. I'd also forgotten the lump on my head, where the falling tapestry had thwacked me.
Saturday! A whole weekend ahead. No chores. No homework. Two days of completely free time, watching TV and playing computer games. The best kind of weekend - at least for someone living in Sub Rosa.
Aunt Bea wouldn't allow TV or computer games in Sub Rosa, much less the Internet. She said they rotted your brain and that boys my age should be out climbing trees, fishing Lake Ebb, playing cops and robbers in the backyard, or shooting marbles on the pavement, and all the other 'adventures' boys did back in her day. In my first six months in Quakehaven, I dabbled with the whole country lad thing, and had the scars to prove it. But like most of the other kids in my class - country or not - I preferred DVDs and computer games any day.
Despite the temptation to smuggle in contraband games, I obeyed Aunt Bea's house rules. Sub Rosa was hers, after all, and I was already risking enough with Dad's horror novels under my bed. It didn't matter too much: my best friend, Mark, had all the latest stuff at his house; more games than you could play in a lifetime. And, when he wasn't in the mood to have me over, Mum was happy to slip me a few dollars to play the old games at Arcadia, down near Lake Ebb.
Excited, I brushed valiantly at the most obnoxious kinks in my hair, imagining alien explosions and dying stars played out on Mark's giant flat screen TV with 6-way surround sound. It wasn't until I accidentally brushed the lump on my head for the third time that I remembered my appointment with Doctor Vassel.
Ugh! Vassel was OK. But I'm not a fan of any doctor, and I've seen enough of them to have good reason! When I was born, there were 'complications'. The way Dad told it, I got stuck and tried to come out of Mum, bum first. It sounded funny, but Mum and I almost didn't make it. It's why I don't have any brothers or sisters. It was also why they thought that sometimes I daydream too much and sleepwalk. Not enough oxygen to the brain at birth. Like I was brain damaged!
I shook myself out of my daydream about daydreams, pulled on some jeans, a T-shirt and my favourite jersey, and set off for the kitchen for breakfast. Aunt Bea would be at her Council meeting, probably lecturing some poor newcomers on what colours they were allowed to paint their house to keep in line with the town's heritage. Mum usually slept late on Saturdays, which meant I had the house to myself for a while.
I bounded down the staircase, taking the steps two at a time, enjoying the outraged squeaks of the wooden planks. I stomped into the hall and blew a kiss at Katy.
Katy stared back at me disapprovingly from behind the bars of her black lacquered cage, but didn't squawk. She was finally getting used to me.
Katy was my Aunt's budgerigar, a kind of tiny parrot, covered in green and yellow feathers. Over the years, Aunt Bea had several budgies, all called Katy. Aunt Bea liked to think of each Katy as her guard-budgie - an early warning system for intruders. The current Katy, however, was old and slept most of the time, except when she was gnawing on cuttlefish, her favourite snack.
I danced down the hall, belting out a prehistoric Bruce Springsteen song Dad had made me listen to in his car 100 times. Just outside the dining room, however, my voice faltered. Doc Vassel and Aunt Bea were whispering to each other in the doorway, ignoring my stupid racket. The doctor had his back to me, but, as I approached them, I saw the worry lines etched onto Aunt Bea's face.
My stomach convulsed like a school of anxious eels. "What's going on?" I yelped, terrified. "Is Mum OK?"
"Of course, boy," said Aunt Bea, turning to me and smiling indulgently. I'd seen that smile before: far too many teeth glinting between dry, stretched lips turned up at the corners, her eyes just a little wide and earnest. Tell tale signs she was fibbing.
"Where's Mum?"
"She's sl-sl-sleeping, Patrick," said Doc Vassel, turning around and waggling his long fleshy fingers at me like pink, headless toothbrushes. "I've gi-gi-given her something to help her s-sleep. She's exhausted."
"Not surprising, either," said Aunt Bea. "Paddy had her up all night with midnight sleep-snacking." My face flushed with a red-hot lava flow of embarrassment.
"I do-do-don't think Patrick's sl-sleepwalking had anything to do with it at all, Mrs Logs-st-ston," disagreed the doctor, stooping down to check the lump on my head. He straightened his back slowly, like an over-polite doorman completing a bow. I scanned his face for news, but he was hard to read, perhaps because his face was so far away. At six foot five, Doc Vassel loomed over us like a redwood. "Patrick: she's n-not tired. Or n-not j-just tired. It's more like her nerves. Nervous exhaustion. Do you-you know what I mean by that?"
I nodded. Six months after Dad's funeral, Mum started getting sick like that. She stopped eating and spent most nights watching the home shopping channel in bed. At first, she missed one or two days of work a week. She was a popular teacher, so the school cut her some slack. But, after a month, she stopped going to work altogether and the school found a replacement.
I didn't tell anyone about her condition. It was my fault for not taking better care of her and I was too ashamed. News got out, though, when we fell behind on our bills and the Bank tried to take our apartment away.
My old teacher, Mrs Jax, was a friend of Mum's from university and was married to a teller at the Bank. She knew that Mum had been sacked and noticed my crinkled shirts. I hate ironing! She also heard the kids teasing me for having no Dad and a crazy Mum. It's hard to keep secrets in the playground for long.
Mrs Jax rang my aunt. Aunt Bea flew into town like a level five hurricane. The way Mum told it, my aunt stormed into the Bank and shouted at the manager until he started to cry. Then she went up to the school and gave the principal a serve. She hired two men with a truck to pack up a few personal items in our apartment the day we were scheduled to be evicted and, before we even knew what was happening, she swept us all back to Quakehaven in her wake.
That was all a bit over a year ago. Sometimes, I forgot how much we owed Aunt Bea.
There was a loud bang in the kitchen. Aunt Bea, Doc Vassel and I walked down the hall to investigate. When we got to the kitchen, Mr Fisk, the local handyman, looked down on us like zoo exhibits. He had reframed Aunt Bea's tapestry and nailed it back onto the wall.
Mr Fisk's presence wasn't all that surprising: he popped by every week or so to use Aunt Bea's Council computer to print receipts and bills for his odd jobs around town. In return, he helped repair things in Sub Rosa. Mr Fisk was Quakehaven's prime gossip. As always, he was using his job to eavesdrop.
"Sounds like your Mum needs some rest, Paddy," said Mr Fisk, jumping down from a rusted steel stepladder. He had the tonsured scalp of a monk and layers of love handles slopped over his thin belt, giving him the appearance of a beige beanbag stuffed into a dustbin. His watery-blue eyes captured the cheeky excitement of a disoriented piglet. "Don't you have to get ready for the party, anyway?"
Mark's party! In the confusion, I had forgotten my best friend's birthday!
"I'll drop you over to Mark's, if you want," Mr Fisk said. "I'm on my way there, anyway."
Aunt Bea flashed her fake smile again: "An excellent idea, Balder. Thank you. A good place for the boy to indulge that sweet tooth of his during waking hours. And I need to get to my meeting. You won't believe what the Dixons want to do to their bathroom," she said, with disgust. "Such lovely original features and they want to destroy the tiles to install hot water!"
The idea of showering without hot water during a Quakehaven winter was enough to make my knees knock in sympathy with the Dixons. No wonder Mrs Dixon, my teacher, alw
ays looked so miserable!
I looked my aunt in the eye. "I want to stay and look after Mum."
"Don't w-worry, P-P-P-lad," said the doctor. "Your mother will be sleeping soundly for hours now, and I'm going to stay and watch her to make sure she sleeps. You've got an impressive bump on your head, but no serious damage. Go to the party and have fun."
Reluctantly, I followed Mr Fisk out to his van, which was parked across the driveway. "Aren't you a bit underdressed for the party?" he asked, stashing the ladder into the back of the van and closing the hatch.
"Nope," I answered. "These clothes are fine."
"But it's fancy dress, isn't it?" asked Mr Fisk, opening the driver's door.
"Only for the total nerds," I chuckled. "Mark told almost all the kids to dress normal. The fancy dress idea was a prank for the -"
The passenger door slid open. I gasped. A grinning pumpkin sat on the far left passenger seat reading an old book emblazoned with hieroglyphs.
"Hi Paddy. Long time, no see," squeaked the pumpkin, his voice raised in singsong. "Great day for a celebration!"
I winced and piled into the van, slamming the door shut beside me. "Hi Joke."
2. PUMPKIN GUTTED
"Did you know, Paddy," shrilled the pumpkin, "that the Pyramid of Cheops in Egypt is one of the seven wonders of the ancient world?"
"No," I replied, strapping myself in and looking straight ahead. "I didn't."
After two attempts and some colourful words, Mr Fisk got the van going. We backed out of Sub Rosa's driveway and drove northwest, towards Mark's house and the eastern shore of Lake Ebb.
Joke wasn't his real name of course. Nor was he usually garbed as a pumpkin. Jokkum Fisk was named after his Norwegian grandfather. 'Jokkum' wasn't so strange a name in Scandinavia.
I sneaked a glance at the orange sphere. Even when dressed normally, Joke was an unusual sight: short, like his father, but with straight, almost wispy, blonde hair and a serious pinched face with a button nose that was always burnt, even in winter. Not that people had much of an opportunity to examine his nose: it was usually buried deep in a history book or pressed against his father's old TV, watching science documentaries.
"Did you know," continued Joke, "Cheops' pyramid was built over 4,000 years ago and still stands? Imagine that. It's like our classroom lasting until the year 6,012AD!"
"Almost enough time for Tim Kroker to graduate," I said.
Joke giggled, emitting a high-pitched whistle through his teeth like a hammer grinding safety glass into a pestle. Tim was the biggest guy in our class, which wasn't surprising: he'd repeated twice. He was a bit of a bully, and a touch slow, especially when on his medication for attention deficit disorder. I got along with him well enough, mainly because we were both Mark's mates.
At the crossroads, near the cemetery, Mr Fisk turned left. As we approached Mark's street, I shifted uneasily in my seat. "Hey Joke," I said. "You know Mark's party? Well, you should know that -"
"I love parties," interrupted Joke, still immersed in his book. "I don't get invited to many. It's great you're going. I don't really know anyone else that well." My guilt worsened: apart from me, Joke had shared a class with almost everyone going to the party since preschool.
"Yeah," I said, taking an inventory of the elm trees lining the road as they flashed by my window. "Well, Joke, the truth is, um, the party isn't really fancy dress. That was just something Mark told some people as a -."
"Oh," said Joke, lowering his book for a moment and inspecting the grinning jack o' lantern face embossed in black thread across his abdomen. "I wondered why you weren't in costume. I thought maybe your aunt disapproved of dressing up." He shrugged, and went back to his book, his suit rustling with the sound of scrunched up newspaper. He must have stuffed balls of paper down his front and back to fill out the globular, satin suit. He said: "Why did Mark tell me to come in fancy dress?"
"I guess he thought it would be funny."
"Kids!" growled Mr Fisk, shaking his bald head. As usual, he'd been listening in. "Makes me wonder why some people think children are angels. Monsters, the whole lot of you. Jokkum, you want to go home and change?"
"No need," said Joke, thumbing the index. "We're running late as it is and you've got to help Mr Barker set up. Anyway, I like this costume. It won't fit me much longer."
"I think you should listen to your father and change," I said, suddenly angry at Joke's stubbornness. "Everyone's going to laugh at you when you turn up looking like a prize-winning vegetable."
"Pumpkins are fruits, actually," sniffed Joke, studying a two-page diagram depicting stone slabs being hauled across sand dunes on rolling logs. "From the ancient Greek, pepon, meaning 'large melon'."
"What's that got to do with anything?" snapped Mr Fisk. "You're going to embarrass yourself."
"I don't care about my clothes," said Joke. "It's not my fault I dressed up for the party. I only did what the host asked me to do. Mother gave me this costume. Said I looked great in it."
Mr Fisk slammed on his brakes. The van skidded sideways and my seatbelt whipped tightly across my chest, pushing the air out of my lungs as I shot forward. As I crashed back into my seat, Joke's book flew out of his hands, smashed against his father's headrest and thumped onto the floor mat between Joke's feet, face down.
"Fine," hissed Mr Fisk, his fat hands throttling the steering wheel. "Go to the party looking like a twit, if that's what you want."
Without a word, Joke unfastened his seat belt and retrieved his book from the floor mat, stroking the crumpled pages smooth. He sat down again, clicked on his seat belt and resumed reading, his face a mask of concentration.
Mr Fisk drove on. I knew what was wrong. Three years ago, Joke's mum ran away from home with another man. Aunt Bea warned me never to mention Mrs Fisk to Joke - especially not in front of his father.
No one uttered a word until we drew up at the Barkers' estate. When Mr Fisk killed the engine, I clamoured out of the van, relieved to breathe fresh air again, away from the oppressive silence.
For a moment, the three of us stood on the footpath and gazed up at Mark's house with awe. The Barkers lived in a palatial mansion, right on the shores of Lake Ebb. Even by City standards, it was more than a house. It was a gleaming temple, a marvel of modern architecture. Its three stories of glass and steel dominated the street, pristine white plumes of canvass arcing out of the zinc-coated roof towards the Lake like the sails of a tall ship.
I was shabby and underdressed. I could only imagine how Joke felt in his tatty costume. The three of us walked down a red-gravel path towards the wrought iron gates, Mr Fisk slinging his tool belt over his shoulder like a stole. As we approached, the gates clanked open. Green neon arrows ignited on the side of the path, signaling the way.
Joke's pumpkin suit was overstuffed and he struggled to walk. Mr Fisk and I strode forward, leaving Joke trailing behind. I was too excited to see Mark and, to be honest, a bit embarrassed to be seen with Joke.
We walked about fifteen metres down the path and stopped at the side of the main house. "Fisk!" shouted a booming voice from above us. "You're late. Move quickly. The lights in the marquee aren't working properly. Get to it, man!"
Mr Fisk and I looked up. Like a carved figurehead lashed to the prow of a warship, Mr Barker leaned out over the balcony that jutted off his den. He was texting furiously on his smartphone, while checking his email on a flat screen that hung from the eaves. He wore his trademark gold earpiece.
"Sorry sir," said Mr Fisk in a groveling tone that set my teeth on edge. "I'll have the lights up in a jiffy."
"See that you do, Fisk," said Mr Barker, and then dismissed the bald man with a flick of his wrist. "Good to see you, again, Patrick," he said. "I hope your aunt and mother are well. Do send them my best regards."
Before I could answer, another of Mr Barker's phones sounded with the ring tone of a chiming cash register. Smoothly, Mr Barker plucked the third device from the breast po
cket of his jacket and tapped his earpiece. "Ni Hao," he said, presumably to someone far from Quakehaven, then retreated inside the house to take the call.
As soon as Mr Barker was out of earshot, Mr Fisk sneered: "See that you do," a weak imitation of Mr Barker's commanding voice. "I'd best get to work, Paddy." I nodded then watched him walk down to a big white tent at the bottom of the garden on the Lake's shore.