Clownfish Read online

  “You made me jump,” I said. How long has she been there? I wondered anxiously. Had she heard me talking – laughing?

  “You really like that Nemo fish, don’t you?” Her tone wasn’t exactly friendly but she couldn’t have discovered my secret. If she had, she’d have let me know. Violet always spoke her mind.

  “It’s called a clownfish,” I reminded her. “And, yes, I do. It’s my favourite fish.”

  We stood next to each other peering into the tank.

  “No, I can’t see the appeal,” Violet said at last. “Give me the piranhas any day.”

  We didn’t talk about what had happened earlier – we went back to the office and finished the letter to the MP, then we showed it to Stephan. We discussed whether he should sign it, but we decided in the end (well, Violet decided and Stephan and I agreed) that it would be better coming from us as the campaign organizers.

  In the afternoon we turned our attention to the press. Stephan had a list of contacts at local radio stations, newspapers and magazines.

  “You could make a few changes to your letter and send it out as a press release,” he suggested. “I’m sure you’ll get some interest.”

  “I could do that!” I said enthusiastically. “We had to write a press release in English as part of our persuasive writing.”

  But Violet was against it. “Press people must get loads of stuff every day,” she argued. “They haven’t got time to read it all. We need to talk to them directly. On the phone.”

  My heart sank at this. I really didn’t fancy phoning up radio stations and newspapers. But I needn’t have worried, because Violet did. Of course she did. I remembered how much she’d loved talking to Mr Hoskins, how convincing she could be… This was a task made for her. And she couldn’t wait to get started.

  I looked online for press contacts that weren’t on Stephan’s list and checked phone details for those that were. But it was Violet who did the real work. She was amazing. You’d never have known she was a twelve-year-old girl, I thought, as I listened to her on the phone. She made the closing of the aquarium seem like the most important story ever – and she wouldn’t take no for an answer. If she couldn’t get the person she wanted she’d ask to speak to someone else – and if that didn’t work she’d leave her number and demand that they called her back.

  It was tiring just watching and listening to her, but exciting too. I loved the way she’d talk really seriously with someone over the phone one instant and turn to me with a huge grin the next. By the end of the afternoon she’d made about thirty calls. She’d had some interest, but looked a little disappointed.

  “You were awesome,” I told her.

  “I know,” she agreed.

  “Why are you looking like that, then?”

  Violet wrinkled her nose. “I suppose I was hoping for something more … major. A story or a feature or something.”

  “Maybe they just need time to think about it,” I suggested.

  “Maybe.” Violet nodded, but she didn’t sound hopeful.

  When I was almost home, I saw Mrs Baxter come out of the house and I ducked behind a car so that she wouldn’t see me. She’d only want to question me about the other evening when I’d avoided her. I hoped she hadn’t mentioned it to Mum, but I knew she would have done. She couldn’t help interfering.

  Before going into the house I stopped to straighten Becks’s boater, which had slipped forward over his eyes. It gave me an idea. What if I got a pair of Dad’s old glasses and put them on Becks? It was just the sort of thing that would make Dad laugh. I’d give it a try later.

  Mum was waiting for me in the hallway. She was dressed in a pair of black jeans and a yellow flowery top. Her light brown hair was tied back in a ponytail the way it always used to be and she was wearing the silver heart earrings that Dad had given her last Christmas (No, he’d said when she’d unwrapped the present, they didn’t come from the tip.). She looked more herself – less pale, though she still had dark semi-circles under her eyes.

  “Where’ve you been, Dak?” She sounded worried.

  “At the aquarium. I told you this morning before I left.”

  “What? You’ve been there all this time?”

  I shrugged. “We had a lot of work to do. We’re running a campaign to keep it open.”

  Mum smiled. “That sounds interesting. Come and tell me about it, while I make dinner.”

  In the past Mum had always known just what was going on in my life, but recently, since Dad had … changed, we’d hardly talked at all. I’d told her that I was helping out with looking after the fish, but I hadn’t talked about Violet, for example, or even Johnny really. There were lots of gaps to fill in. I wasn’t usually much of a talker but now the words spilled out of me.

  “Violet sounds like a handful,” Mum remarked, as she stirred a pan on the stove.

  “She’s got a temper,” I said. “But you should hear her on the phone. She’s incredible. We’re trying to get the newspapers and radio to support us. We can’t let the aquarium close – or be sold.” I shuddered at the idea.

  “No, that would be a shame,” Mum agreed. She turned to face me and her eyes had their old spark. “Your dad loved that place.”

  “I know. That’s why we’ve got to save it.”

  We sat at the kitchen table together and ate spaghetti with a creamy tomato sauce – my favourite meal. There was ice-cream too. It was great having Mum back like this, so normal.

  “You must miss Dad terribly, Dak,” she said suddenly. “I do.”

  “It’s OK, Mum,” I said, scared she might start crying. “I think about him a lot – things he said, things he did. It’s like he’s still here.”

  I looked up from my bowl to see Mum’s eyes fixed on me with sad concern.

  “It’s all right to cry, you know, Dak. It’s all right to mourn. You don’t have to keep it all inside. You don’t have to pretend everything’s fine, because you’re afraid you’ll upset me.”

  I shook my head. “No, I know, Mum. But honestly I’m fine.”

  Mum didn’t look convinced. “Mrs Baxter said she passed you in the street the other day and you looked terrible. She was really worried about you.”

  “I wasn’t feeling well, that’s all. It’s nothing to worry about.” I smiled. “Mrs Baxter exaggerates.”

  Was this the moment to tell her? I thought. Now that she seemed so much better? Now that she’d be able to take in the news? Was this the moment, at last, when I could share my secret? For an instant I was tempted and felt a rush of relief.

  But it quickly disappeared as I realised I couldn’t. Because now that she was herself again, so much stronger and more normal, I knew she wouldn’t believe what I’d tell her. She’d think I was making it up. She’d feel sorry for me.

  I should have told her about Dad before. Now, it was too late. It would have to go on being my secret.

  After dinner Mum insisted that I had a bath. She frowned when I took off my T-shirt. “You’re so thin, love,” she said. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “I’m fine, Mum.”

  She sighed. “I’ve neglected you badly, haven’t I?”

  I shook my head emphatically. “No, Mum. You weren’t well. You needed looking after.”

  She stared at me, up and down. “Well, now I’m looking after you. And you’d better give me those clothes for a start. They look grubby. How long have you been wearing them?”

  I glanced down at my black t-shirt and blue jeans. How long had I been wearing them? I couldn’t actually remember the last time I’d worn anything else.

  “I’ll get a wash on tomorrow.” She put her hand softly against my cheek. Then she said something that made my stomach lurch, “I’d better put your uniform in too. I think it’s time you went back to school.”

  I slept deeply that night, but woke up in a sweaty panic, my heart hammering in my chest, and reached for the sweatshirt under my pillow. I pulled it out and held it tight against my face. I kept thinki
ng about Dad all alone in a strange tank. About him without me, me without him…

  I breathed hard into the sweatshirt as if it were an oxygen bag. Gradually I started to calm down. “It’s all right, Dad,” I whispered. “It’s all right. I won’t let them take you.”

  Suddenly I had an idea. If the aquarium did have to close, well, Dad could come and live here with Mum and me, couldn’t he? I could set up a tank in the living room and we could sit together and talk and watch TV as a family like we used to. Dad could make us laugh like he always did, like he still made me laugh in the aquarium. I knew how to look after him – what food he needed, how to keep the right temperature and oxygen levels. If the aquarium shut then Stephan wouldn’t need the equipment any more, would he? Surely he’d let me have some of it. I wouldn’t need much. Then I could look after dad at home.

  Everything would be fine. There was no need to panic. Dad was safe, Mum was so much better at last and the campaign to save the aquarium was up and running. OK, it hadn’t achieved much yet, but at least we were doing something and even if it didn’t work I had a Plan B.

  I got up and looked for my clothes on the chair by the door where I always left them. But then I remembered Mum had taken them to wash. How dirty had I looked? I wondered. Had I smelt? No, I was sure that Violet would have told me if I had. I put on a pair of grey tracksuit trousers and a blue t-shirt that Dad had bought me. It had a picture of Bruce, the crazy shark from Finding Nemo. He was grinning toothily and blowing out a speech bubble saying, I am a nice shark, not a mindless eating machine. The T-shirt was a bit small for me now, but I liked it and I thought it might make Dad smile.

  I crept downstairs quickly and quietly, trying to avoid Mum. After what she’d said the night before, I was worried she’d insist on talking to me about school – and that was the last thing I wanted. There was a little pile of post by the front door and I picked it up and shuffled through it, just checking there was nothing from school. There wasn’t. Mostly it was junk mail – takeaway menus, estate agent flyers, charity leaflets. The headline on one of these caught my eye: Sponsor a Donkey!

  I wasn’t especially interested in donkeys, but it got me thinking. The leaflet explained that by paying a certain amount of money a year you could sponsor a particular donkey in a sanctuary. That interested me. What if we did something like that at the aquarium? We could ask people to sponsor a fish. They could even give the fish a name if they wanted. There were hundreds of fish in the aquarium. Supposing people sponsored a fish for £5 or £10, we could raise lots of money!

  I stuffed the leaflet in my pocket and raced out into the street.

  Violet had a money-making idea of her own and was talking to Stephan about it when I arrived. She wanted the aquarium to have a shop. All tourist attractions had shops, she said – and she was right, I thought. Whenever we went on a school trip there was always a shop to spend your money in.

  Violet couldn’t understand why the aquarium didn’t have one already. Stephan said the aquarium was small and he’d rather use all the space for the fish than have a shop full of gifts that no one really wanted to buy.

  “But you don’t need to have a large shop, Uncle Stephan, and you don’t have to sell tacky stuff,” Violet insisted. “You could sell nice things – educational things.”

  “But where would I put a shop?” Stephan said.

  “Right out there in the foyer. There’s plenty of space.” Violet was looking determined. “It’s the perfect place. Everyone would see it when they came in and out.”

  Stephan was still doubtful. “What do you think, Dak?”

  “I think Violet’s right. You’d definitely make money.”

  “And you need to make money,” Violet reminded her uncle.

  Stephan stroked the barbels of his droopy moustache. “You may have a point,” he conceded. “We’d have to sell the right products, though.”

  “Of course,” Violet said. “I’ll choose them for you if you like.” She sounded so grown-up and professional.

  Stephan sighed. “Go ahead, Violet. But it’s going to take time, isn’t it? And time is one thing we don’t have.”

  A heavy gloom fell on the room. It was the moment for me to reveal my idea…

  This time Stephan was much more enthusiastic. He loved the idea – it would be a great way of getting people more involved with the aquarium, he said, and teaching them about the fish (“And raising funds,” Violet pointed out) – plus, we could start almost straight away. Violet offered to put together a leaflet on the computer, if I helped her with the wording. In just a few minutes the mood in the office had lifted again.

  “Well done, Dak,” Stephan said.

  Just then the phone rang. Violet answered it. She listened for a moment, then, “Yes, this is Violet McGee speaking.”

  The conversation that followed was brief and Violet hardly spoke. She said “goodbye” then pressed the button to end the call and almost threw the phone down on the desk. When she turned to face Stephan and me, she had a huge smile on her face.

  “That was the local radio station. They want to do an interview this afternoon!”

  “Wow! That’s amazing!” I said.

  “Wonderful news!” Stephan agreed. He smiled thoughtfully. “We’d better think about what you’re going to say.”

  Violet shook her head and her blonde fringe flopped over her eyes. “I’m not going to say anything, Uncle Stephan.” She pushed back her hair and stared at me. “Dak is.”

  I protested of course. Violet would be much better at doing an interview than I would. It was just her sort of thing. I’d panic and stutter and not know what to say. I’d be hopeless, I said.

  She wasn’t having any of it. Usually, she told me, she’d be the best person to speak. But when it came to fish, it had to be me. “When you talk about them you come alive. You’ve even managed to win me over. Before I met you my only interest in fish was whether the batter was crispy enough.”

  I was flustered. “But what shall I say?”

  “Tell them about how amazing fish are and why you love them so much and what’s so great about the aquarium and how the council are going to close it down unless we can raise enough money to pay for the repairs. Tell them about our campaign and what people can do to help. And, most important of all, don’t forget to tell them about your brilliant idea for sponsoring fish.”

  It sounded easy enough when Violet said it, I thought. But then nothing threw her. I was just an ordinary, shyish twelve-year-old boy; she was a phenomenon, who’d phoned my headteacher and pretended to be Mum. My headteacher! The realisation struck me like a boulder.

  “I can’t do it, Violet!” I said. “I can’t do the interview!”

  “Of course you can, Dak. You’ll be fine,” she tried to reassure me.

  “No, I mean I really can’t do it. I’m supposed to be in the country, remember. You told Mr Hoskins on the phone.”

  “Ah,” Violet muttered. For once, it seemed, she was lost for words. But only briefly.

  “I didn’t say how long you were going to be away, did I?” she said triumphantly. “Anyway, your head’ll be in school, won’t he? So he won’t hear it.” She beamed at me as if what she’d said was impossible to contradict.

  “I suppose so,” I shrugged.

  I worried about the interview all morning. I rehearsed it with Violet, like we had the conversation with Mr Hoskins, but this was totally different, a lot more challenging – for me anyway, as I was the one who had to come up with the answers.

  I went down to see Dad to tell him about my radio interview (but not exactly what it was about – I didn’t want to worry him). I said I was going to talk about the aquarium and asked if he had any tips he could give me, but he was too preoccupied with practising for his race with the damselfish to stop and talk. All I got was a quickly bubbled “Dignity. Don’t forget your dignity.” He didn’t even stop to look at my T-shirt.

  Johnny was more helpful. “Tell ’em about the seahorses –
people love that sort of thing,” he advised. He gave me a grin that I supposed was meant to be encouraging. “You’ll be fine, mate,” he assured me. “You been learned by an expert, ain’t ya?”

  The radio station sent a car to pick me and Violet up. I was glad she was coming with me. She’d painted her nails purple – her “lucky colour” – to celebrate my interview.

  I wasn’t celebrating. I had a last try at persuading her to take my place, but she wouldn’t, of course. She wasn’t one to change her mind once it was made up – and I knew it. I was just so nervous. It was like that awful stomach-flipping moment waiting for the whistle to blow for the start of the hundred metre sprint on sports day – only ten times worse. I felt really sick and my legs were so weak and wobbly I could barely walk when I got out of the car.

  The driver led us into a reception area where we had to write our names in a book and were given visitor passes.

  Violet was amused. “It’s like being in school.”

  “Mmm,” I agreed, but I was too tense to return her smile.

  We sat on a sofa and waited to be collected. On the walls around the room were framed black and white photographs of famous people who, I guessed, had been interviewed at the radio station in the past.

  “Next week they’ll have a photo of you on the wall,” Violet joked. When I didn’t respond she rolled her eyes upwards, “Try to relax a bit, Dak. You’re not at the dentist’s.”

  I sighed heavily. “This is so much worse than the dentist’s.”

  “Nothing’s worse than the dentist’s.” Violet always had to have the last word.

  A door opened behind the reception desk and a young woman appeared. She came over to us. “Hi, I’m Theresa,” she said with a friendly smile. “You must be Dak.”

  I nodded.

  “And I’m Violet McGee,” Violet announced confidently, holding out her hand for the woman to shake. “We talked on the phone.”

  The woman looked really surprised. “I didn’t realise you were … so young. You sounded so grown-up on the phone. I thought you were an adult.”