Max Kowalski Didn't Mean It Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  About the Author

  By the Same Author

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Acknowledgements

  A note on locations

  Read More

  Copyright

  About the Author

  Susie Day grew up by the seaside in Penarth, Wales, with a lisp and a really unfortunate choice of first name. Between books, she works as a copywriter in Birmingham, crochets ridiculous jumpers and inhales tea. Susie now lives in Coventry, England with her partner and a black cat named Pantalaimon.

  Books by Susie Day

  Pea’s Book of Best Friends

  Pea’s Book of Big Dreams

  Pea’s Book of Birthdays

  Pea’s Book of Holidays

  The Secrets of Sam and Sam

  The Secrets of Billie Bright

  The Secrets of the Superglue Sisters

  Follow Susie Day on Twitter,

  Facebook and Instagram

  @mssusieday

  To Jenny, who has the best ideas

  There are times in life when everything stands still, like God pressed pause.

  As if you know you’ll remember it forever.

  As if you can go back.

  Max would never forget standing on the mountain, holding the knife. A bitter wind blowing through his coat. Snow on the rocks. Jagged grey spikes of stone poking up out of the ground like a long spine, like wings, like a vicious tail …

  Except they were just rocks. And Max said to himself: Max, you muppet, there’s no such thing as dragons.

  Then he heard the roaring, and the rocks began to move.

  1

  ‘It’s not my fault, Mr Brew,’ said Max.

  ‘It never is,’ sighed Mr Brew. ‘Go on. What is it this time? Did it sprout wings and fly away? Or perhaps you got amnesia, and forgot you had any homework?’

  That wasn’t fair. As if he’d pretend to have amnesia more than once, to the same teacher.

  And it really wasn’t his fault, this time.

  Monday mornings were never Max’s best. This one had started with Ripley waking him up by sitting on his chest, pressing her face close to his, and whispering with hot breath, ‘There’s something gone wrong with my earthworm,’ before opening her sticky hand right under his nose.

  There was something gone wrong with her earthworm. It was dead. Stiff and curled, like a salt-and-vinegar French Fry. Which was what happened when you put an earthworm in your hoodie pocket for a week and forgot about it.

  He’d told her it was no use as a pet.

  Loads of times.

  But Ripley was six, and people who are six never listen to anyone, apparently.

  ‘Geroff,’ said Max, pushing her off his bunk on to the floor. Like anyone would.

  Ripley hit the floor with a thud and yelled like she was being murderized.

  That woke up Thelma and Louise, the twins, who were nine and never listened to him either.

  ‘What? What’s going on? Help! Fire! Aaaargh!’ yelled Thelma from the other top bunk, scrabbling for her glasses.

  ‘That’s not very helpful,’ said Louise quietly from her bottom bunk.

  ‘Look what Max did!’ wailed Ripley, thrusting the stiff, curled and now snapped-in-half earthworm at Thelma.

  ‘Max! You killed it!’

  ‘I did not!’

  ‘It’s pretty bloody dead!’

  ‘Well, I didn’t kill it!’

  ‘Oi!’ came a deep yell from the front room. ‘Somebody’s trying to sleep in here, remember?’

  They all hushed at once. Their dad, Big Pete Kowalski, did shifts driving a forklift in a warehouse. Four nights a week, he was a bouncer on the doors at Voodoo nightclub. If he wasn’t on a job, his mornings were for sleeping.

  ‘But my worm …’ mumbled Ripley.

  Thelma glared at Max from her top bunk from behind her pink-rimmed glasses.

  He was never going to get any peace now.

  ‘Come on,’ he said.

  They all tiptoed to the kitchen, Max and Ripley and the twins. Ripley laid the two curled ends forlornly on the table.

  ‘Worms can regrow themselves,’ said Louise, tucking her long pale hair behind one ear before leaning in for a closer look. ‘If you chop one in half, it grows itself a new bottom.’

  ‘That’s disgusting,’ said Thelma.

  ‘It’s not! Annelids are amazing. Did you know –?’

  ‘Didn’t know, don’t care,’ said Thelma.

  ‘Can it grow a new bottom even after it’s dead?’ asked Ripley.

  They all looked at the crispy worm-halves.

  Louise looked at Max, a concerned crinkle in the centre of her forehead.

  ‘I reckon not,’ said Max, in a soft voice.

  So instead of going back to bed, Max had to hold an earthworm funeral – which meant sneaking out of the flat to Mrs Gupta’s three doors down in the freezing cold to bury it in the hard earth of her yucca plant, and everyone having to say a little something about how much the earthworm had meant to them, what a shining light it had been in their lives, how it had gone to a better place, and so on.

  ‘You will always be remembered as … a worm that lived in my pocket,’ said Ripley solemnly.

  Thelma laughed.

  Max kicked her.

  Thelma kicked him back.

  Then Ripley burst into tears, and Max had to carry her indoors and shove her under a duvet to muffle all the sobbing.

  Dad always said that was the trouble with girls: they kept all their feelings on their outsides. Being a boy was a lot less drama.

  Mondays were always a bit of a scramble to get everyone out of the house. Max had to find his Sunbrook Academy uniform that he’d put somewhere on Friday, and that was ages ago. He had to get all the knots out of Ripley’s blonde curls, and tie them up in bunches, and make sure she’d done a wee. He had to drag Thelma out of the bathroom, where she would be fussing with her hair (short and choppy, as unlike Louise’s bum-length ponytail as possible). He had to distract Louise from whatever book her nose was pressed into. And all that in time to walk the three of them to Pilton Road Primary and then get to Sunbrook only ten minutes late. With all the worm business on top, there was definitely no time for breakfast.

  And that meant he didn’t see the nearly empty box of Krispies, which meant he forgot to turn it into a 3D model of Southend Pier for his Design and Technology Structures from Around the World homework. In fact, he didn’t even know he’d forgotten until he walked into Miss Clay’s classroom.

  Judah had made the Sydney Opera House out of paper plates.

  Ismael had built a Lego Disneyland, with a rollercoaster and a pirate ship.

  Elis Evans had made the Golden Gate Bridge out of clay, straws and thread, and mounted it on a long plank of wood.

  Elis Evans was Max’s best friend.

/>   He looked at Max’s empty hands.

  ‘You could say we did it together,’ Elis Evans said quietly. ‘I wouldn’t mind.’

  Max looked at the Golden Gate Bridge. It was really good. It was solidly built, with two strong clay towers, a fretwork of straw struts underneath, and impossibly delicate threads sewn into loops to show the engineering. It was painted a deep reddish brown, and dotted with tiny clay cars painted silver, blue and yellow. There was even a real river flowing underneath at the front: a foil tray on the wooden plank, filled up from a water bottle. It must have taken Elis Evans ages, even with his mum’s help. It must have taken him all weekend.

  No one would believe Max had anything to do with it.

  ‘S’fine,’ said Max.

  Which was why he’d only been at school for fifteen minutes and was now standing in front of Mr Brew, Deputy Head, in trouble, again.

  Mr Brew tapped his pen on his desk, waiting.

  ‘So, sir, what happened was, I had to hold an earthworm funeral,’ said Max.

  It turned out that telling the truth wasn’t any different from telling Mr Brew you’d been kidnapped, or abducted by aliens.

  Max spent morning break and half of lunch sitting in the Reflection Room.

  ‘Oh dear, Max, I was hoping I might not see you quite so soon this week,’ said Mrs Carty, who supervised most days. ‘No packed lunch? I can bring you in a tray from the hall, lovey.’

  Max shook his head. Mrs Carty would bring him slippery pasta twirls in slippery pasta sauce, and stand over him until he’d eaten it all. Hungry was better.

  Mr Brew decided he’d done enough Reflecting with ten minutes of lunch break left.

  Elis Evans was having a music lesson, so Max went to play football on the field with the lads.

  It was boring. No one would kick to him. It was the end of November and he didn’t have a coat, and it was freezing if you weren’t running around. Max went back inside, to the Design and Technology block, and stared at all the Structures from Around the World projects lined up on the side in Miss Clay’s class.

  Amber had made the Eiffel Tower out of a million lolly sticks.

  Olivia Button had done the London Eye with a bike wheel that really turned.

  Max thought maybe it wasn’t so bad that he’d forgotten to make Southend Pier out of an empty Krispies box.

  He leaned over Ismael’s Lego Disneyland.

  Elis Evans had all the pirate Lego at his house. Max’s mum used to take him round there to play with it after school. Elis Evans’s mum and Max’s mum would drink a hundred cups of tea and say, ‘Oh, I shouldn’t,’ every time they ate a biscuit. Elis Evans would build a treasure island, and move all the pirates into houses. And Max would get cannons and explode everything into bits.

  It seemed like a long time ago now.

  Max poked the pirate ship, to see if it swung.

  A bit of the Lego came off, where it wasn’t quite stuck down.

  Max tried to put it back, but his hand knocked over one of the palm trees.

  ‘What are you doing, Max Kowalski?’

  It was Amber, her face pinched and pink.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Max, straightening up.

  Judah and Ismael were close behind, sweaty from football.

  ‘What’s he doing?’ asked Ismael.

  ‘He’s messing with your Disneyland, Ismael,’ said Amber.

  ‘No I’m not,’ said Max, reaching out one finger and tipping over another palm tree. Just because.

  ‘Don’t you dare,’ said Ismael, stepping forward and rolling up his sleeves.

  ‘Or what?’ said Max, knocking the car off the top of the rollercoaster.

  Judah pushed forward and grabbed Max’s shirt in his fist. ‘Knock it off,’ Judah said.

  Max hated being held on to if he hadn’t said he wanted to be held on to. He pulled away – and Judah held on tighter – and Max raised his fist – and Judah raised his as well and began to swing, too slow and lumbering and obvious for Max to let him anywhere near a target.

  Max ducked. Then he pulled his arm right back, ready to thump Judah really hard in his big meaty mouth … except, instead, his elbow connected sharply with something behind him.

  There was an almighty clattering crash.

  When Max turned round, Elis Evans’s Golden Gate Bridge was in many, many fractured red-brown pieces on the floor.

  2

  Max was sent back to the Reflection Room for the rest of the day.

  Mrs Carty gave him a worksheet about the pyramids.

  Max tipped back in his chair the way she didn’t like, and Reflected that the weird stain on the ceiling where a pipe was leaking looked like a dog; and that if he could order a pizza right now, he would get one with extra cheese and pepperoni and sweetcorn and NO MUSHROOMS and not have to share it with anyone; and that he wanted to go round Elis Evans’s house and build him a massive island with his pirate Lego, really, really carefully, to show he was sorry.

  At home time, Mr Brew came to sit with him while they waited for Dad to come in for A Talk. Mr Brew looked as if it was his Golden Gate Bridge that Max had smashed to bits all over the floor: all sighs and sloping shoulders.

  ‘You know we all care about you here, Max, don’t you? Everyone at this school. We know you’ve had a rough run of it. We’re all sympathetic to your … situation.’

  The ‘situation’ was Max’s mum, who had been knocked down by a car and killed, instantly they said, two years ago. No one ever said her name, though. No one ever said ‘mum’.

  He missed hearing it.

  Mr Brew lifted his arm, as if he wanted to put his arm round Max, then awkwardly tapped his shoulder instead.

  Max shut his eyes. It was his mum that wasn’t here any more, not Mr Brew’s. His being sad about it didn’t make Max feel better.

  Mr Brew sighed. ‘I know there’s a good kid in there, Max. He might be buried deep down out of sight, but he’s there. A good, kind, bright young man. I see glimpses of him every day, I really do.’

  Max thought there might not be a good kid in there, to be honest. Max thought he was a bit like an earthworm. He’d been chopped in half one day, and what grew back was all bad.

  ‘But – we can’t keep on like this, can we, hmm? Something has to change.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Max, like always.

  Then Dad arrived, and at once everything was all right.

  Max could see him coming down the corridor, sweeping a path through the end-of-day hustle like a tidal wave, with a wink for Mrs Carty and a fist bump for a passing Year Ten. Big Pete Kowalski was six foot three and earned his name all over. Not fat exactly, just broad: great thick arms, a round belly, and a back that could carry the world. Max was skinny, but Dad said that was normal for the men in their family at his age. Max was going to shoot up one of these days. Max was going to grow up to be six foot three too. Every day his dad wore biker boots and blue jeans, a plain white T-shirt and a leather jacket. Max wasn’t dead set on the leather jacket, because Elis Evans said it was cruelty to animals. But he’d have the rest, when he was big. He’d have it all.

  Big Pete Kowalski shook Mr Brew’s hand, and sat in a too-low, too-small chair, his face open and smiling.

  ‘Boys will be boys, eh?’ he said. ‘Bit of fisticuffs, bit of messing about. I was just the same, Mr Brew. He’s like looking in a mirror, this one. My chip off the old block.’

  Dad gave Max a gentle cuff round the back of his head, and Max felt warm and right and whole again.

  Mr Brew straightened his shoulders.

  ‘Mr Kowalski. Everyone here at Sunbrook respects the challenges you’ve faced. We all appreciate how difficult it can be … How much you care about your family.’

  That was true. Everyone said so. He’s a good dad, Big Pete, they said. He’d do anything for those kids. Four of them, and him all by himself, and he never asks for help.

  Dad said it too. Ripley was his princess; the twins were his angels; Max was his big man.
He said so all the time.

  Mr Brew wasn’t finished.

  ‘But we can’t ignore it when things go wrong, Mr Kowalski. Max’s violent behaviour led to the complete destruction of another student’s project.’

  Dad looked at Max, waiting.

  ‘I’m really sorry,’ said Max quietly, because he was; his insides were all coiled up with it.

  Dad lifted an eyebrow. Then he smiled.

  ‘There you go, Mr Brew,’ said Dad, slapping his knees firmly. ‘The boy’s sorry. No harm done. No bones broken. Come on, Max, let’s go pick up those girls.’

  When they all got home, the front room was full of boxes.

  Cardboard boxes. Big ones, in stacks.

  ‘Just looking after a few things for Nice Jackie,’ said Dad. ‘Won’t be for long.’

  Nice Jackie was Dad’s boss at the club. She ran the funfair too, and she wore perfume that smelled like sweets. She had pretty yellow hair, and she always looked dressed up, like her life was a party. Once, Max had been with Dad when he dropped into her office at the club, and she’d ordered Max a Coke with ice and lemon and a straw. Everyone called her Nice Jackie, and that was why.

  ‘I hope they put the heaviest boxes at the bottom,’ said Louise, pulling her ponytail tighter. ‘Though to be honest, a pyramid would’ve been much more structurally sound.’

  ‘Who cares! What’s inside?’ asked Thelma, standing on tiptoes.

  ‘Rabbits,’ said Dad, flipping open the top of the nearest box.

  Ripley’s blue eyes went wide with hope. ‘Real rabbits?’

  But the one he pulled out was fluffy pink and yellow, the kind you win at the fair, with blue glass eyes and plastic whiskers.

  Ripley’s face fell.

  Max wouldn’t have minded a real rabbit either. It had to be better than an earthworm.

  The next day, Max took a tube of superglue to school.

  ‘For the Golden Gate Bridge. To stick it back together,’ he said, sitting down beside Elis Evans as usual.

  Elis Evans shook his head. ‘Me and Miss Clay thought about it, but there were just too many pieces. So it all got swept up and put in the big bins round the back.’