Chapter 49 Charlie

49 CHARLIE

THREE MONTHS AGO

“Come on, Charlie!” he heard his mum call. “Time to go.”

He had packed all his clothes, his underwear, his spare shoes, but he couldn’t find his anxiety teddy, Sherlock. He was panicking—if he asked his mum she’d probably tell him not to bring Sherlock, he didn’t need him. He got down on his hands and knees and looked again under his bed. There was Sherlock, a ball of black fuzz behind the wooden bedpost.

And then he was waving goodbye to Marsha, sitting in the front seat of his mum’s car as they headed off to the hotel in Manchester. A whole weekend away to help him prepare for his role in the school production of The BFG . It was a big deal, since he was playing the titular character, the giant. He wouldn’t be onstage but would be voicing the giant behind the scenes through a voice-altering microphone designed to make him sound grumbly and giantlike. His drama teacher, Ms. Ellis, had assured him that this was still acting. In fact, she’d told him it could be even harder than acting on the stage because he had to perform his character entirely through his voice, while a big puppet got jerked about to look like the BFG.

They went to see Frozen: The Musical at the Opera House, then The Lion King at the Lowry, then Wicked , which was kind of scary. After each show they got food and talked about the performance, and then they came back to the hotel when it was dark and went to bed. His mum fell asleep quickly, but Charlie lay there, frustrated.

The next day of his weekend trip with Mum was Sunday, and they went to see Life of Pi , which he didn’t really understand, and then they went to a fancy place to eat when he just wanted McDonald’s. He was tired and sick of sitting in dark theaters now.

The waiter at the fancy restaurant came to take their order.

“I’ll have the salmon,” his mum said. “Charlie, what do you fancy?”

He kept his eyes on the table. “McDonald’s.”

“We serve burgers,” the waiter said. “Plain, or we can add cheese?”

Charlie shook his head. “I want McDonald’s.”

“You can’t have McDonald’s,” his mum said testily. She glanced up at the waiter. “He’ll have a plain burger.”

“I bet Oscar’s mum would have taken him to McDonald’s,” Charlie said, loud enough for the waiter to hear. He saw his mum’s face redden. Good , he thought.

They didn’t speak for the rest of the meal.

He walked back to the hotel in silence, feeling a little remorseful about how he had embarrassed his mother. In the room, his mum passed him his swimming kit. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go to the pool.”

Charlie was a poor swimmer, but he felt bad after being so disrespectful in the restaurant. They went down to the large pool in the basement of the hotel, the water warm and smooth. No one else around.

His mum stepped into the water, and he plucked up a pool noodle to help him float.

“Come on, Charlie,” she called, swimming to the deep end. “Let’s practice your swimming.”

He took the pool noodle with him, eager to please her, and although he didn’t want to tell her he was sorry, he wanted to make her proud. In the pool he felt the bottom slip away from his toes, too far for him to stand, the pool noodle helping him stay afloat.

It happened so quickly. His mother had a look in her eye that he had seen only a few times before, a look that made him uneasy. And then, with a quick tug, the pool noodle was gone, and a sudden panic flooded through him as he realized he was sinking. He arched his neck, trying desperately to breathe. From the corner of his eye he could see his mother treading water a few feet away, smiling at him.

Why wasn’t she helping?

It seemed to last hours, the sinking. He felt himself slip beneath the surface, his lungs burning. Everything was dark, his vision strangely clouded by fear, his arms thrashing.

Just as he was beginning to pass out, he felt a hand in his, and with a sharp tug he was out of the pool, his head banging against the tiles.

“Charlie!” his mum exclaimed. “Charlie, are you all right?”

He vomited water, and he saw several other guests were rushing through the doors toward him.

“Is he OK?” someone asked, and he heard his mum say he’d attempted a handstand underwater and it had gone wrong.

She had lied.