Fifteen Days Without a Head by Dave Cousins

Author:Dave Cousins
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: For the Benefit of Mr. Kite
Published: 2010-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Duesday

“Eat your breakfast, Jay.”

A crust of toast smeared with strawberry jam – it’s all we have.

“My tummy hurts!” Jay looks at me through creased eyes, clutching his belly.

“Do you need a poo?”

He shakes his head and sniffs. It’s the noise he makes when he’s getting himself charged up ready to cry. I look across at him and his face is such a cartoon of misery, I laugh.

Jay scowls. “It’s not funny!”

“I know – I’m not laughing at you.” But I can’t help it. I mean, he couldn’t look any more fed up if he tried.

And then he bursts into tears.

I kneel down and try to cuddle him, but he punches me.

“Go away, I hate you!”

“Jay, I’m sorry, I wasn’t laughing at you,” I say, trying to keep my face straight.

I put my arms round him and after a few minutes he stops struggling. He feels hot and sweaty and his hair smells like wet dog.

“I want Mum,” he mumbles into my neck. “When’s Mum coming home?”

“I don’t know.”

“I want her to come home now!”

“I know.” I hesitate. “She can’t…at the moment. She needs to be somewhere else, so she can earn some more money.” I’m thinking on my feet – my knees actually – making this up as I go along.

How do I tell him that I don’t think she’s ever coming home?

♦

I think it will be safer if Jay doesn’t go to school. In this sort of mood I don’t know what he might say. I can see him now, getting all upset and telling Miss Shaw that he’s missing Mum – how he hasn’t seen her for days, that it’s just me and him on our own at home. How long then before the Do-Good Squad arrive with their clipboards and their insincere smiles?

If Jay doesn’t go, it means I can’t either. But what does it matter if Mr Buchan does put me on report? Going to school suddenly seems a lot less important than working out where our next meal is coming from.

The cremated pizza is still lying on the table. Looking at it makes my stomach churn. Three floors directly below me the shelves of SavaShoppa are stacked with food. Fat bags of crisps and slabs of chocolate; piles of frozen pizza glistening with frost; boxes of crunchy cereal and row upon row of soft white bread. My mouth starts to water.

It’s wrong. All that food down there, while up here we’re slowly starving to death.

I make a decision.

“Jay, I’m just going down to the shop, I’ll be back in a minute. OK? Don’t leave the flat.”

♦

SavaShoppa is quiet, just me and an old lady with her basket balanced on top of one of those tartan shopping bags on wheels. She looks like she’d fall over if she didn’t have the basket to lean on. I can only see two members of staff – a woman on the till and a bloke in a green SavaShoppa jacket putting milk into one of the fridges; he looks bored, half-asleep.

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