Read Online When I Was Joe by Keren David - Free Book Online

phoned and said you were ill.’
    â€˜Oh.’
    We sit and watch
Balamory
, just like when I was four, except then it’d have been
Thomas the Tank Engine
and we’d have snuggled up together. Today we’re as far apart as one small sofa will allow. Archie is being helped across the road by PC Plum, two grown men hand in hand. It’s possibly the silliest piece of television I’ve ever seen, but there’s something about it that makes me want to cry. I’m definitely cracking up. Then she says, ‘Ty, I called your gran last night. I know it was stupid.’
    â€˜You
were
stupid. How was she?’
    â€˜I didn’t even get to speak to her. I just left a message.’
    â€˜Oh, great. You put us at risk so you can worry Gran by telling her what a crap time you’re having.’ And how it’s all my fault – but I don’t say that bit.
    â€˜Do you think we should tell Doug?’
    I’d only spent all night thinking about this. ‘No point. He gave us the phones didn’t he? So he gets the itemised bills. He’ll know all about it.
    â€˜Oh. I’m so sorry.’
    â€˜Don’t do it again.’
    Then I go into the kitchen and I make us scrambled eggs for lunch and we sit and eat it without talking to each other. Afterwards I stand up, but her hand shootsout and grabs my wrist. ‘Ow! Get off.’
    Now we’re both glaring. She says, ‘You’ve got to stop sulking and listen to me, Tyler, or I swear I’ll go crazy.’
    â€˜I don’t have to do anything you tell me.’
    She’s shouting, ‘You bloody well do. Sit down and listen to me. If it wasn’t for you running after Arron when he didn’t want you, we wouldn’t be here in the first place.’
    He did want me, I think. I don’t say so though. I sit. I listen. But I don’t look at her.
    â€˜This is really hard for both of us, Ty, but the main thing we’ve got going for us is that we’ve got each other. We can support each other through this. If we’re fighting all the time, we’ve got nothing.’
    Not true, I think. I am Joe, potential athlete. I have special training and an access card. I have a fan club of wannabe girlfriends and loads of boys on my team. It’s you who’s got nothing. Loser.
    â€˜This is really hard for me, Ty. I’m only thirty-one. I’ve got my own dreams – getting my law degree, qualifying as a solicitor, meeting someone special, maybe even getting married, maybe even having a brother or sister for you. How am I going to do that if we’re getting a new identity every six months or so? What kind of life are we going to have? You’ve got school to go to every day, but I just sit here wonderingif you’re safe until you come home. If I go out, I spend the whole time looking behind me to see if anyone is following me.’ Her voice is wavering, but she’s managing not to cry.
    â€˜I don’t know what’s happened to you. You’ve got so tall and you look so different. It’s not just the dark hair and eyes, it’s everything about you. You used to tell me everything, Ty, and now we don’t talk at all.’
    Did she expect I’d be ickle baby boy Ty forever? Does she really believe I’ve been telling her everything for the last few years? I’m too angry to feel sorry for her, but there’s a little bit of me that doesn’t want this fight to dig any deeper.
    â€˜Get rid of your cigarettes,’ I say. She looks shocked. ‘I’ll cut down, I promise, but I don’t think I can get rid of them just like that.’
    â€˜Get rid of them, because if you don’t I’ll be thinking all day at school that you’re going to burn the house down like you nearly did yesterday. ‘
    She gets her bag and takes out the pack and throws it into the kitchen bin. Then, two seconds later, she plunges her hand into the bin