Max Kowalski Didn't Mean It Read online

  Max held the superglue tightly, squeezing it with his thumb so all the glue bulged at one end.

  ‘Ripley wants a rabbit,’ he said.

  Elis Evans nodded. ‘Nice. You should get one, then. They can be a bit mardy, though, rabbits. Especially the girl ones.’

  ‘It’ll fit in just fine at my house, then.’

  Elis Evans snorted.

  That was the good thing about having a best friend, Max thought. You could make a mistake, and the next day everything would be back to normal.

  The superglue tube burst open at the seams and splattered all over the table.

  Max put his hand in it, just to see what would happen.

  They had to carry the table with him into the Reflection Room, and Mrs Carty spent all of morning break soaking it with stinky nail polish remover and warm water. Max’s hand came away pink and stiff-skinned, as if it belonged to someone else.

  When Max got home there were more boxes, built round the kitchen cupboards like a fence.

  The next day there were even more, piled in the only empty space in the bedroom, between the two sets of bunk beds.

  ‘Not cool, Papa,’ said Thelma, squeezing herself awkwardly through the gap on their side.

  ‘I think they might be a fire hazard,’ said Louise.

  ‘You’re a fire hazard,’ said Thelma.

  ‘Rabbits,’ sighed Ripley.

  Max didn’t mind. He quite liked having a wall between the bunk beds. It was almost like having his own room all to himself. He’d had one once, before the girls, before everything. There’d been just three of them then; there were photos to prove it. A house with a green garden, and little Max smiling on top of Dad’s shoulders. His mum, her dark hair spilling forward as she bent to light two birthday candles on a football cake. But when he tried to remember, he could only see what was in the photos. The rest was lost.

  ‘It’s just for a couple more days,’ Dad promised.

  It was true. On Friday, Max was woken up in the middle of the night by Nice Jackie’s boys, big lads in black, carrying the boxes out of the bedroom. He stayed stiff and still in bed till he could hear their boots thudding down the corridor outside, then he slid down from his bunk to peer out of the window. There was a van parked up on the pavement down below; Max could see his dad standing beside it in his leather jacket, under a street light.

  Everyone else was asleep.

  Max hesitated, just for a moment. Then he climbed up his bunk-bed ladder and flipped open the nearest cardboard box to get Ripley a rabbit. Nice Jackie wouldn’t mind just one.

  There weren’t rabbits in this box, though. There were lots of big bottles of Smurnov vodka. In the next box there were Marylebone cigarettes.

  Nice Jackie’s boys came back while he still had his nose in a box.

  ‘Back to bed, Max,’ said one, quiet but firm.

  So Nice Jackie’s boys knew his name. It was a strangely nervous feeling. But he climbed back into bed anyway, rabbit-less, and made such convincing snoozing noises that he fell right back to sleep.

  Usually Saturday mornings in the Kowalski house were no good. Dad, who didn’t get home before four a.m., would be asleep in the front room, where the kitchen was and the big TV and the one comfy armchair they all fought over. Max, the twins and Ripley would have to stay in their room, where the little TV couldn’t go above volume number six and there was always a fight over what to watch. Thelma was a hair-puller, and had learned a pretty savage arm-twist. But Max was bigger, and stronger, and all he had to do was sit on her till her breath ran out to win. Then he’d say, ‘Who’s the oldest?’ and Ripley would squeak, ‘You’re the oldest!’ Then Thelma would hand over the remote, and Max would put on whatever she didn’t want to watch most, and Louise would look up from her book in her bunk-bed cave and frown.

  It wasn’t his fault he was the oldest.

  But this Saturday, Dad was up and about and frying up bacon butties with loads of brown sauce on four of them, and no sauce for Max. He had to wake Max to eat his.

  ‘Is it your birthday?’ asked Ripley, licking his fingers.

  ‘Nope,’ said Dad. ‘But we are celebrating, princess.’

  Dad was all smiles as he slurped his tea on the sofa where he slept, his duvet and pillows already tidied away. He thumped a thick roll of notes on the coffee table, wrapped up in an elastic band. All twenties.

  ‘Hell-o, Papa,’ said Thelma, joining him on the sofa and wrapping her arms round his middle. ‘You know I love you best, right?’

  ‘Nice Jackie paid you all that money, just for rabbits?’ asked Louise.

  ‘Yep. Rabbits – very in demand these days, it turns out.’

  Dad looked at Max as he said it and gave him a wink. He knew Max had seen what was in the other boxes, and he didn’t mind. It was as if they had a secret to share, just between them.

  Max grinned back. It was good being the oldest, sometimes.

  Dad peeled twenties off the roll and gave them one each.

  Ripley held hers close to her face, then rubbed it on her cheek.

  ‘I’m going to buy a rabbit hutch,’ she whispered.

  ‘Bubblegum. And pens,’ said Thelma. ‘Pens with llamas on.’

  Max rolled his eyes. Of course they’d have llamas on. All the girls at school had llama pencil cases and llama water-bottles and llama keyrings.

  ‘Books,’ said Louise. ‘The new Dragonslayer Chronicles came out last week.’

  Max rolled his eyes again. Louise didn’t care about llamas; she loved a series about a girl called Kriss who wore armour and swords and fought dragons. She already had a stack of the books under her bed, the pages gone soft with rereading.

  ‘I’m going to save mine up,’ said Max, pressing his into the table so it would go flat.

  There were trainers in the window of Denny’s Sporting Goods: white Nikes, knocked down to fifty-five pounds. He wanted them. He needed them. He stopped to look at them every time they passed, to make sure they were still there, and now he was twenty quid closer to having them.

  Ripley squashed her lips together.

  ‘I’m going to save mine up too,’ she said, with a sigh, and pressed hers against the table as well.

  Dad raised his eyebrows. ‘Oh-ho. Well then, I guess the treats are on me today, eh? Day at the beach … what do you say?’

  They all grinned then, because Southend beach was the best and so was their dad when he took them.

  It wasn’t like going in summer, Max thought: gritty sand between his toes, sticky sun-cream on his skin; bodies and noises, in a tight press all around. It was the second of December now. There were star-shaped lights on every lamp post, and the beach was cold and quiet and mostly empty: one chippy, one cafe, one hopeful stallholder selling buckets and spades, tied down with tape to stop the wind stealing them away across the sand.

  That was how Max liked it. Like it was theirs.

  They had hot chips, and candyfloss, and a go on the train down Southend Pier (even though they’d all been on it a hundred times) just to be in the warm. Then they went round all the games in the funfair: Bash the Rat and Flip the Frog. Max had to lift Ripley up so she could reach. Every other time she’d ended up in tears of frustration, but this time Dad spent eighteen quid so she could keep going till that rubber frog finally landed on a lily pad.

  ‘You’ve won a prize, darling!’ said the man behind the counter. ‘What do you want?’

  There were lollies and a magic set and a fluffy tiger that was obviously the best thing there. But Ripley wasn’t having any advice off Max.

  ‘That one,’ she said firmly, pointing a finger.

  The man tugged a pink and yellow rabbit with blue glass eyes off the rack and pressed it into her arms.

  ‘They’re very in demand these days,’ said Ripley darkly, and she skipped away hugging it.

  Max went on Shoot the Tins, three shots for a pound.

  His first shot missed by a mile.

  Max felt stiff all over. He
wanted to be good at this. He was meant to be good at this. When he watched movies with his dad, the heroes were always picking up guns and hitting the target dead on. If he was in a movie, Max would definitely be the hero. So shooting stuff? Yeah, Max Kowalski can do that.

  Dad took the gun from him with a grunt and leaned down to take the second shot, lining up the sights.

  That missed by a mile too.

  The girl behind the counter twisted her lips into a sour smile.

  ‘Harder than it looks, eh, big man?’

  Max bunched a fist, because no one talked to Big Pete Kowalski like that.

  But then his dad leaned in close behind him, his warm leather-jacket smell enveloping Max, his broad shoulders strong behind Max’s back, and he slipped the gun back into Max’s hands.

  ‘It’s rigged, kiddo. Do it just like you did before – but don’t aim at the tin. Aim to the left. Just to the left.’

  Max listened. Max fired.

  Ping! went the tin.

  ‘Well done,’ said the sour girl, not warmly. ‘Choose your prize, love.’

  There were lollies and a magic set and a fluffy tiger here too. But Dad shook his head, throwing the gun down on the counter with a clatter.

  ‘You can keep your prize.’

  ‘Keep your prize,’ echoed Max, feeling proud as Dad stalked away.

  He didn’t want that tiger anyway.

  They left the fair after that.

  They went to Fallowfield shops, for bubblegum and llama pens and the new Dragonslayer Chronicles.

  ‘I’m going to name my rabbit after my favourite most loved best thing,’ Ripley announced as they walked home.

  ‘Hey!’ said Dad. ‘You can’t call it Daddy, princess. It’ll get confused.’

  Ripley stuck out her tongue. ‘Duh!’ she said, poking his elbow. ‘This rabbit is called … Potatoes.’

  ‘You can’t call a rabbit Potatoes either,’ said Louise, not looking up, her nose already in her book. ‘There’s only one of it.’

  ‘Potato, then. And I can, too. Because I love my rabbit, and I love potatoes. Chips and crisps and mashed potato …’

  ‘Potato waffles,’ said Thelma. ‘And curly fries.’

  ‘Roasties,’ murmured Louise.

  ‘Potato salad,’ said Dad.

  ‘Just potatoes,’ said Max. ‘You know. Boiled. With butter on.’

  It turned out potatoes were one thing they could all agree on.

  When Max climbed into bed, Ripley was still half awake, hugging Potato with both arms and both legs like she was trying to climb a rope.

  ‘Max?’ she said sleepily. ‘If you had a rabbit to name, and you named it after your favourite most loved best thing, what would it be called?’

  Max thought about the Nike trainers in the window – but he didn’t have them yet. He thought about the week when Sunbrook Academy flooded and he got three days off, not going to school at all. Then he thought about the twenty-pound note, and the fair, and Dad giving him a wink, just between them.

  ‘Today,’ he said. That’s what he’d call it, because not every day was as good as this one.

  3

  On Sunday, Max went round to Elis Evans’s house.

  Number 17 Carmody Avenue was at the top of town, with views across the sea. You could see Southend Pier when you were having a wee at Elis Evans’s house. You had to take your shoes off in the porch, and they had the sort of fridge that poured ice-cold water out of a tap in the door, and a biscuit tin that was always full.

  ‘Max,’ said Elis Evans’s mum when she opened the door. ‘I’ll say it now: you aren’t going to break anything today. Not a question, more of a statement. All right? Agreed? Good.’

  Elis Evans’s mum had been best friends with Max’s mum before she died, which was why Max had been coming round to play with Elis Evans’s pirate Lego for years.

  She was soft-bodied, and she smelled of rose petals and cups of tea, all things Mum-like. Max missed his mum, missed her always, but he kept it apart from himself, like a balloon tied on a string. It bobbed above his head but it did not touch him, and he did not touch it. Except sometimes, when Mrs Evans made him dinner and remembered to make sure none of the beans on his plate touched his toast.

  She was a puzzle. But he did like the biscuit tin.

  ‘I’ll be good, Mrs Evans,’ said Max, toeing off his not-white, not-Nike, not-fifty-five-pound trainers and putting them carefully by the door. ‘Promise.’

  ‘Good,’ said Elis Evans’s mum. Then her face went soft and sad. ‘So like her, you are. She never told the truth neither.’ She reached out to ruffle his hair fondly. Max leaned ever so slightly backwards.

  Elis Evans’s mum sighed. ‘Go on up, then. He’s in his room.’

  Max escaped as quickly as he could.

  Elis Evans had a huge room all to himself on the first floor of the house. It was usually a cheerful mess of whatever he was into at the time: lemons generating enough electricity to power a light bulb; remote-control cars; volcanoes. But today the carpet had been rolled back to show bare paint-speckled floorboards, and all his games and books were piled on the landing.

  Elis Evans was sitting up one of two ladders in the middle of the room, looking at the ceiling.

  ‘Mum says she’s going to redecorate my bedroom in time for the Christmas holidays,’ he said. ‘She says it can be any colour I want except black, because if we ever sold the house we’d have to redecorate or they’d think we were Satanists. I thought kingfisher blue, because I’m going to take up birdwatching. I’m getting binoculars for Christmas. The only trouble is: what if after Christmas I get into space travel, or archaeology, instead? I suppose it would be hard to paint it the colour of archaeology, though. And kingfisher blue is just blue, really. Not that we are selling the house. My nain’s selling hers, though – you know, my granny. In north Wales your granny is called your nain. We go and stay with her on holiday every summer and go up Snowdon mountain. Her house is called Tŷ Gwyn, which means “White House” in Welsh. If we painted this house all blue, we could call it Tŷ Glas, although I don’t know the word for kingfisher; that’s just ordinary blue. And we’re not in Wales, so people would get confused. Anyway, my nain says she’s too old to go up mountains now, so she lives in a home and she’s trying to sell her house and we’ll have to go somewhere else on holiday next summer. I want to go to Mexico. Or Iceland to see puffins. Or to the jazz festivals in New Orleans.’

  ‘Sweet,’ said Max.

  Elis Evans was the quiet one at school, but at home he talked and talked. Max found it peaceful.

  Max climbed up the other ladder to look at the ceiling too. Then Elis Evans fetched some string and a small yellow plastic bucket, the kind for sandcastles. He rigged up a pulley system between the ladders, and they spent all afternoon transporting secret spy messages and wounded Lego people and egg sandwiches between them, until Max decided, just out of curiosity, to see if it would transport him too.

  It wouldn’t.

  The string snapped. Max ended up on the floor with a crash – followed by one of the ladders.

  ‘I didn’t mean it,’ said Max, as he limped into the porch.

  ‘I know, Max,’ said Elis Evans’s mum in a tired voice. ‘You never do.’

  When Max got home, there were boxes in the front room again.

  ‘More rabbits,’ whispered Ripley, her arm wrapped tightly round Potato’s neck.

  ‘More twenty-pound notes,’ said Thelma, meaningfully.

  No one complained this time, when all week more boxes arrived to fill up the front room and the gap between the bunk beds.

  Max didn’t look inside this time, either.

  Nice Jackie’s boys came round late on Friday night to take them away. Max kept his eyes shut tight, like in the deepest sleep, till they were gone.

  He dreamed of glowing white trainers in Elis Evans’s mum’s porch.

  But this Saturday morning, there were no bacon butties.

  There were n
o twenty-pound notes.

  There was no Dad sleeping on the sofa, either. His duvet and pillows were all folded away.

  ‘He must have gone out to buy bacon,’ suggested Louise, looking at the empty hook where he always hung his leather jacket.

  ‘Or brown sauce,’ said Thelma. ‘Because someone finished the bottle last time.’

  ‘I did not!’

  ‘Did too.’

  ‘Shut uuup!’

  ‘See? It’s like he’s here anyway,’ said Max, tugging Ripley’s hand. ‘Come on. You can choose the channel if you like.’

  They sat on the sofa and turned the TV up extra loud, as if it was a treat that Dad wasn’t home. Max got the armchair all to himself. Thelma had three bowls of Krispies for breakfast, with two spoons of sugar on each.

  But there was a fluttering feeling in Max’s chest that wouldn’t let him enjoy it.

  Half an hour went past; then an hour; and Dad wasn’t back.

  Louise sat curled on the sofa reading her book, but every now and then she looked at the clock and stole a glance at Max, and he knew she was thinking it too.

  Then Thelma pinched the remote and changed the channel to something about cooking chicken in wine, and Ripley screamed and pulled her hair, which made Thelma kick out and knock Louise’s book from her hand hard enough to rip a page, so Max had a lot of yelling to do.

  But it just covered up the fluttery feeling. It didn’t make it go away.

  Max went to the bedroom. Dad had given them mobile phones: one to Max, a big blocky one with buttons and no touchscreen like his own, which Max broke three days later; one to Thelma, which she lost even more quickly and entirely on purpose due to ‘the shame’; and one to Louise, who hoarded its pre-paid calls ‘for emergencies’, like she was supposed to.

  Max pulled it from under her pillow and called Dad’s mobile.

  There was a buzzing from the front room, and the tinkly notes of a ringtone.

  ‘Max!’ yelled Thelma.

  When he arrived, Louise was holding Dad’s mobile, still ringing.

  ‘It was down the side of the sofa,’ she said, her face pale.

  ‘He’s just forgotten it,’ said Max, as if saying that would make it feel true. He snatched the phone out of her hand and put it on the table.