Not As We Know It by Tom Avery

Author:Tom Avery
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2016-08-23T04:00:00+00:00

Dad likes big events. Like trips to London. He’s not really there in the everyday. He goes to work early and when he gets home, filthy, he has a bath, we eat dinner, he sets us some maths to do, then he usually falls asleep in front of the TV, like Ned.

Sometimes, at the weekends, Dad has an event planned. After he’s watched his fill of Grandstand he’ll say, “Right, boys, we’re going out.” And we go to the cinema or swimming pool or into town.

“What about the quarry today?” he said this weekend.

Mum coughed. “Ned’s been quite tired this week, Charlie. I think that’s too much for him.”

“He can’t stay in forever. We’ll take it easy.”

“You can take it easy doing something else. Not the quarry.”

Dad pulled a face. The kind of face Ned pulled when he didn’t get his way. “Fine,” he said. “Any bright ideas, boys?”

We were sitting together in the front room. I’d been reading. Dad and Ned were watching Grandstand. Mum was humming and flicking through a magazine.

Bright ideas; I had none. Ned did, though.

“I was thinking about E.T., Dad.”

“Right…”

“The Extra-Terrestrial,” Ned continued. “You know in the film when Elliott is escaping with E.T. and he’s got that box on the front of his bike?”

Mum looked up from her magazine. “And they fly to the moon?” she said.

Ned laughed.

I grinned. “They don’t fly to the moon, Mum.”

“I did think it was a bit far-fetched.”

“What about the box?” Dad asked.

Here it was. Ned’s plan. Maybe this was what he and Leonard spent those afternoons whispering about. “Can we make one to put on my bike?”

Dad smiled. “That’s a great idea. Easy. We can definitely do that.”

“Percussion first, though,” Mum said.

“Right. We’ll go in half an hour. All right, boys?” Dad flicked the TV back on. Des Lynam, the Grandstand presenter with the thick moustache was interviewing Allan Wells, one of Dad’s favorite athletes. Des was asking Allan whether he thought the Russians would come to the Olympics in Los Angeles in a year’s time.

“Good question, Des,” Dad said at the TV.

“Lie down, Ned,” Mum said. “I’ll get some tissue.”

Ned mouthed at me as I left. He seemed to be saying, “Feet Lemon.”

I frowned at him.

My brother widened his eyes, bared his teeth and mimed eating.

“Oh. Feed Leonard,” I mouthed in reply.

“Half an hour,” Dad shouted as I snuck into the basement.

—

Usually, when Leonard saw Ned he smiled, all sharp teeth and glinting eyes. He never smiled at me, though, and I didn’t smile at him. He stared. I stared.

“I’ve brought fish,” I said, and waved the small pollack from the door.

Leonard didn’t move. I threw the fish into the tub from where I stood. Leonard clicked and gurgled.

“Why are you here, Leonard?” I asked.

Leonard clicked and snatched up the fish.

“Are you just lost like E.T.?”

The merman took a bite, watching me.

“Do you have powers like him too? Are you here for Ned? Are you gonna do it? Make him better?”

Leonard gurgled again before slipping into the water where he sat below the surface and stared at me.

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