Little Big Man Read online

  Laura stops chopping the chicken and looks away, knife poised.

  ‘Well, you know who else was the fat kid, don’t you?’ she says after a way too long pause and I shake my head blankly.

  ‘Me! Don’t you remember?’ Laura and I were at school together in the same group (the one that actually wanted to get out of Grimsby and make something of our lives. There have been many lunchtimes at the sandwich shop devoted to working out how four of that six-strong group are now working in London in flashy PR jobs while we’re wearing hairnets and buttering baps …).

  ‘Well, I was, wasn’t I?’ she says. ‘Even though you wouldn’t know it now, obviously.’ She puts her hands on her hips to accentuate her thin waist. Laura’s skinny, probably a size ten. Whereas I’ve got wider since school, she’s got narrower. I didn’t see her for a year or two when Zac was between the ages of about four and six – some stupid falling-out that’s not even worth going into – during which she dropped about five stone and I put on three. It was funny in a way, how we both stood in the street chatting, and nobody mentioned the other person’s complete body transformation.

  ‘I was a right old porker,’ continues Laura. ‘A total heifer. I had a forty-two-inch back at fourteen! Don’t you remember? The boys were merciless. I messed up my GCSEs over my weight …’

  ‘You did not. You’re totally exaggerating,’ I say, but there’s a feeling, a sense of dread I can’t rationalize, something ominous on the horizon like an incoming typhoon.

  It’s what Laura and I call a see-saw shift: up one minute and down the other. We have a last-minute buffet to do in the morning for a business meeting down at the fish market, Gino breathing down our necks like his life depends on it, and then after that, nothing. The afternoon drags, the sky darkening by 3 p.m. Gino is out at a supplier’s and so Laura and I pass the time by creating and sampling new potential sandwich fillings – vital for business progression, if Gino ever sees sense – and her reminiscing darkly about her days as a fat child. For some reason, I keep pushing her for details. And how was it then, being morbidly obese as a child? Shit, she tells me, utterly humiliating – and, as her best friend, I hadn’t even given it a second thought.

  Zac knows to come straight here after school on a Monday so he’s always here by 3.45 p.m. By four, however, there’s no sign of him. I check my phone but it’s dead. It would kind of be typical, wouldn’t it, that the day my son needs me the most is the day my phone has run out of battery at precisely the time he’s probably entering his own version of a living hell? So the first I know of it is when he eventually walks through the door at 4.15 p.m., with brown stuff smeared all over him, and I start shaking. I stand behind the counter, up to my eyes in coronation chicken, shaking like a leaf because I think it’s shit he’s got pasted all over his school shirt, in his lovely gold hair, all over his face, and I think, I swear to God, whoever’s done this to him, I am going to kill them.

  Then he drops his Man U rucksack and, dragging his feet, comes around to my side of the counter and I realize it’s not shit because it doesn’t smell like shit. A quick sniff confirms this. He has chocolate cake or muffin all over him. Crumby clumps of it in his hair like grains of coffee.

  Laura starts to shout. ‘WHO DID THIS, ZAC?’

  But I can’t do or say anything except, ‘Oh God, oh God …’

  ‘Mum, I need some trousers,’ says Zac.

  I’ve got my hand to my mouth. I’m still wearing my plastic food-handling glove, and it stinks of coronation chicken but it’s so I don’t scream. ‘What do you mean you need some trousers?’

  Then he turns around and I see that the whole seat of his school trousers has been ripped out, so all you can see are his bright red Angry Bird boxers.

  Well, I’m an angry bird now. Oh yeah, I’m a bloody livid bird, I am.

  ‘Who did this to you?’

  ‘Dunno, some kids. Mum …’ His eyes dart to the door. ‘Have you got any trousers here? Some spares?’ He has his hands over his bum. ‘Have you got a coat I can wear? Everyone can see my pants.’

  ‘I can see that, but I don’t care about your pants right now, Zac. I want to know who did this to you.’

  ‘I don’t know!’ He says it like he’s annoyed with me. ‘Some kids on the bus.’

  ‘What, and the bus driver did NOTHING?’

  ‘Mum, don’t shout. He didn’t see.’

  ‘YOU’RE TELLING ME SOME KIDS THROW CHOCOLATE CAKE ALL OVER YOU, THEN TEAR YOUR TROUSERS TO SHREDS AND THE DRIVER DOESN’T EVEN SEE?’

  ‘They were giving me a wedgie, it started as a joke.’

  ‘Joke? Zac, sweetheart …’ Honestly, my boy, he sees the best in people. It’s the thing I love most about him but it is also his downfall.

  ‘Was it Aidan Turner?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It was, wasn’t it?’ I don’t know why I’m even asking because I can tell by his face. Zac may be able to see the best in people but he can’t lie to save his life. ‘Zac, tell me the truth.’

  ‘Look, it started off as a joke; he was giving me a wedgie. He’s my friend normally, honestly, he’s …’ His voice fades. ‘It all went too far. He didn’t mean to.’

  ‘I’ll kill him,’ says Laura from where she’s standing.

  ‘Laura, leave it,’ I say. ‘I’ll deal with this.’

  I can feel the anger building in me now, fizzing like a firework, but Zac’s big blue eyes are welling up and I feel bad for shouting, so I give him a hug, curry-covered gloves and all – well, it doesn’t matter now, does it? We’re in a right sodding mess. Then Gino comes out from round the back of the shop, arms in the air, all Mediterranean and dramatic, which is all we need. Gino’s all right when you’re on the right side of him but he can also be a real twat sometimes – like a lot of men, in my experience.

  ‘Juliet, Jesus, what’s the fucking racket?’ He’s leaning against the doorframe in his kitchen whites like Gordon bloody Ramsay. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Someone’s attacked my son, Gino, that’s what’s going on.’

  I’m holding Zac’s head next to my chest, like I’ll never let him go. Gino steps forward, almost like he doesn’t dare, peers at Zac, swears under his breath and walks off, hands on his head. I shout after him, ‘Calm down, it’s CHOCOLATE!’

  Just then the bell goes and a customer walks in. You can see Gino’s whole body tense and he comes over and speaks in Zac’s ear. ‘I’m sorry, my friend. I’m sorry, this is horrible, but can you go in the back, get yourself cleaned up?’

  Zac does as he’s told – my good boy – but I’m already taking my apron off. I am a woman on a mission.

  ‘I’m going down to the school.’

  The way Gino looks at me, it’s like I’m abandoning him at the foot of Everest.

  ‘You’ve seen the state of him, haven’t you? I’m his mother,’ I say. Gino’s not quite grasped yet that Zac comes first but he will.

  ‘And we have customers. You clock off at five, can’t you wait till then?’

  ‘No, I can’t.’ I’m careful to keep my voice down. I don’t want to scare off customers, but Gino isn’t making this easy for me. ‘The headmistress will be gone by then and I need to know why this has been allowed to happen NOW.’ And damn it, I’m crying now. ‘Make Zac a sandwich,’ I say to Laura. ‘He doesn’t like crusts and he likes the chicken and sweetcorn.’ Then I pick up my bag and coat and walk out the door, telling Gino I’ll make up the time tomorrow.

  It’s freezing out; the trees are angry stick men. The sun is just setting and the sky is on fire. I walk quickly to the bus stop, my arms wrapped tight around me. There’s a siren wailing, getting louder and louder. I think about that feeling I had in my chest when I thought it was shit he had all over him, that feeling like an earthquake was building, about to create havoc. Murderous – that was the word. In that moment, I would have murdered whoever did that to him. The moment passed but it scared me to death, because what would happen if I actually did kill someone?
We’d be in an even bigger mess than we were now, that’s for sure.

  An ambulance careens around the corner, its wail deafening, and I cover my ears. It feels like it’s coming for me. Like the emergency is coming from inside me. And it hits me, then, that feeling I had when Laura was talking, that feeling like the incoming tornado. He’s The Fat Kid. My son, he’s the Fat Kid, the one everyone will remember as such, like they remember Laura, and I have to do something. I have to help him.

  Chapter Six

  Zac

  Fact: Inside the womb, touch is the first of the five senses to form.

  Miss Kendall’s real name is the same as my mum’s except for one letter. It’s Julie whereas my mum’s is Juliet. I really like Miss Kendall. She can be strict but she’s really kind too. Since what happened on the bus last week, she says I can go and talk to her any time I want, and every day, just before home time, we have our special thing where she goes, ‘Zac, out of five?’, and I have to put up the number of fingers I think the day has been worth. If it’s below three, then we can have a chat, but if I don’t want to, she doesn’t make me. It’s just our code so she can keep an eye on me.

  It was Monday – one of my worst days usually because we have PE in the afternoon – and we were about to start guided reading, but Miss Kendall was standing at the front, clapping to get our attention. We have to clap back to show we’re listening.

  ‘So, children,’ she said, ‘before we start with our reading today, I’ve got a little announcement. A bit of good news.’

  Connor, who sits next to me, was singing. I nudged him to be quiet, so we could hear the good news.

  ‘Some of you may have noticed that I’ve been getting a bit bigger, especially around the tummy area. And in case you thought I’d just eaten a lot of cakes, I wanted to tell you my news, which is that if everything goes well, around the end of May, I’ll become a mum!’

  There were some gasps – mostly from the girls. I was smiling. I felt dead happy. The baby could even have the same birthday as me!

  ‘What you smiling for?’ said Connor.

  ‘It’s ’cause he’s pregnant too,’ said Luke Shallcross behind us – Luke is one of Aidan’s sheep. ‘That’s why his belly’s massive, ’cause he can’t stop eating cakes either.’

  All the people on Luke’s table laughed but I just ignored them like Brenda says I should, then Jack went, ‘So are you actually pregnant, miss?’

  ‘I am,’ said Miss Kendall. She had a smile as wide as a character from a cartoon. I’d never seen anyone look so happy.

  ‘And do you know if it’s a boy or a girl?’

  ‘I do know. Would you like to guess?’

  It was mad then, because nearly all the boys guessed it would be a boy and all the girls guessed it would be a girl. When she said it was a girl (I was right!) a couple of boys moaned and Connor pretended to be sick. Miss Kendall was just laughing, though; she said we were all crackers.

  Some people wanted to know if Miss Kendall had thought of a name for it yet. She said she hadn’t but was open to ideas and Connor suggested Mango. Everyone started laughing, including me. It was really, really funny. Connor has ADHD and Tourette’s but only mild. Sometimes he gets angry and tells you to fuck off but also he likes the word ‘mango’ – nobody knows why. Sometimes he calls me a fat mango, but he’s still my really good friend.

  Courtney put her hand up. ‘But miss, you’re not married. I thought you had to be married to have a baby?’

  ‘Uh, no. That’s not actually true, Courtney. Some people are, some people aren’t.’

  Certain kids started calling out then, saying their parents weren’t married and yet they’d still been born. I wondered how many of those didn’t even know who their dads were. I did a scan of everyone in the class and decided I was the only one.

  Miss Kendall started clapping again then, to get us to pay attention.

  ‘So, children, I think Courtney has raised a very important question. There isn’t one right way to have a baby and there isn’t one type of family, is there? As we touched on when we did our family trees, families come with married parents, non-married parents and sometimes only one parent. Yes, Lauren?’

  ‘I’ve got two dads, miss. My real one lives in Hull but my stepdad acts like my real dad and lives in our house.’

  ‘Well, there we are. All sorts of family shapes.’

  ‘They used to be best friends, but now because Alan’s with my mum, my dad’s not allowed to come anymore.’

  ‘Oh.’ Miss Kendall frowned. ‘Well, that is sad. I think the most important thing in a family, though, is love. Love is all you need.’

  Then Joe Hilditch went, ‘Do you have to love someone then to have a baby, miss?’

  ‘Yes, I think so,’ she said, after considering this for a bit. ‘I think it certainly helps.’

  ‘So are you in love?’ Joe said and suddenly everyone was killing themselves laughing again.

  ‘Yes,’ Miss Kendall said. (She was going red and everything!) ‘Yes, Joe, I am in love.’

  It was definitely more proof that what my mum said was true – she must have been in love with my dad, because you have to be in love with the other person to even have a baby, Miss Kendall said so. I decided I’d put it in my Find Dad mission folder as soon as I got home.

  Normally I tell Teagan absolutely everything – well, not about the bad stuff at school, but everything else. I haven’t told her my idea about finding my dad yet, though, and that I want to give him a chance. I don’t want to hurt her feelings since her own dad left not that long ago, and also, if I was going to ask her to help me (which I am), I wanted to have a few ideas before I did. I wanted to have done some groundwork, like a proper detective. It’s my mission after all, and before you start any mission, you’ve got to have an MO. That stands for modus operandi. It’s Latin – I looked it up on Wikipedia, but in English it means ‘method of operation’. Serial killers have MOs, like how Jack the Ripper slashed his victims’ throats and took out all their hearts and stomachs – that’s how you knew he’d done it.

  MOs can also be used for investigations, though, which is what I’m doing.

  In my folder so far, my MO says:

  • I WILL NOT: tell Mum, Nan, Grandad or anyone except Teagan what I’m doing. I want it to be a surprise. I know my mum will be dead happy when it actually happens. Whereas if I tell her beforehand, I think she’ll just go mad.

  • I WILL find out which Liam Jones is my dad because there are loads. When I put it in Google ages ago there was a famous jockey and a photographer called Liam Jones. What if my dad is actually famous?!

  • I WILL find out his address so I can actually send him my letter inviting him to my eleventh birthday, even though I wrote the letter before the Find Dad mission officially existed. (What if he doesn’t even live in Grimsby anymore, though? He might have emigrated to Australia like Ellie Moran did in Year 3. I hope not. I’d have to abort my mission then, because it would take probably seventy years to save up to fly to Australia, by which point he’d be dead.)

  • I WILL have to do my research and ask Mum, Dad and Grandad lots of questions about my dad, but without making them suspicious. If you’re trying to find a person – like when they were trying to find Jack the Ripper – you have to find out as much as possible about them.

  • I WILL write down all my progress in my mission folder. It’s what you have to do to keep track.

  I met up with Teagan in the dinner queue as I normally do. She gets free dinners like me so we always go together. It was pork patties and mashed potato, and Dean, who is one of the dinner ladies, except he’s a dinner man, was working in the canteen. It’s brilliant when Dean’s working because he always gives us extra. He’s got a tattoo of a Smurf on one arm and the birth dates of his children next to his heart. He must really love his kids to have gone through that pain. When me and Teagan found out, he went up in rank on the Top Trumps for Dads chart from fifth to second, just under Jacob Wilmore’
s dad.

  ‘Hey, it’s ma homies!’ said Dean when he saw us. Dean has to wear an orange beard net when he’s serving us food; it’s very, very funny. ‘How’s my favourite twosome?’

  He went to give us a massive extra dollop of mash as usual, but as he was putting it on Teagan’s plate, she stopped him. ‘No thanks, Dean, we don’t want extra mash today.’ His spoon was hovering; you could tell he was surprised. ‘Or Zac,’ she said. ‘He doesn’t want any either.’

  ‘Why d’you do that?’ I said, when we were sitting down.

  ‘I’m just not into mash that much anymore.’

  ‘But I am,’ I said. ‘What about me?’

  ‘Shh,’ she said, ‘let’s not talk about mash anymore. Let’s talk about something good.’

  That was when I told her what Mum had said when she was drunk about loving my dad.

  Teagan was staring at me and frowning at the same time.

  ‘But I thought you said he was an idiot,’ she said, and I felt bad then for all the times I’d said that. I used to think my dad would look like a messed-up person, like Sam Bale’s dad, with some teeth missing and scars from fighting, but now I knew he wouldn’t. I knew he’d look like a proper dad.

  ‘I thought he was. But now I think, how can he be? If she really loved him and he loved her?’

  ‘But hang on,’ said Teagan. ‘Why, if he loved her, did he even do a runner then?’

  ‘That’s what I want to find out!’ I said, thinking it was awesome that we thought the same thing. ‘I want to give him a chance to explain and tell the truth and maybe then he’ll be my dad and maybe even get together with my mum again. But I can only find out if I find him, can’t I? I need to speak to him face to face.’

  That was when I asked Teagan if she’d help me and she said yes. That’s when she officially became my deputy on the Find Dad mission.