Chapter 4
4
ISAAC
There must be something magic in this sea air—Lenny sleeps right through to lunchtime, lulled maybe by the shush of waves below this cliff and the occasional rumble of passing camper vans carrying surfboards. I should have spent that quiet time thinking of how to wow a headmaster. Instead, I’ve watched seagulls soar and surfers catch wild waves, all while I replay a second unexpected meeting with Joe. Eventually, I have to wake my brother, then I get fuck all headspace.
Not because he’s chatty.
I wish.
He’s silent through a picnic lunch and still quiet when I head for Glynn Harber, so I nudge a bag along the bench seat, thankful that he isn’t prone to travel sickness. “I grabbed some new books from the back of the van. Take a look.”
Those books aren’t truly new. They’re old library stock that I usually deliver to playgroups and community centres, but they might buy me the thinking time I still need, and I believe they have until I glance sideways.
Lenny’s lips move, sounding out words from an old favourite instead of from one of the new titles I selected. I can guess what he’s reciting—can almost recite each word over the noisy rattle of the engine, I’ve read them myself so often.
Some scars show up on elbows or knees.
Other scars hide where no one can see.
Lenny flips more pages, still in silence.
I break it. “Nearly there now.” I glance sideways again to see his face is still puffy with sleep, and he yawns hugely, his mouth only snapping shut when I say, “Wow, don’t let the tors see you yawn that wide.”
His eyes widen to ask why , but he perks up and scans the horizon for more of the crags I point out.
“Cornish people say that these tors are really sleeping giants who are always hungry. You just opened your mouth so wide I could almost see your lunch.” I lower my voice. “If they woke up and saw the same, they might want some for themselves.”
This squint from Len asks, “Really?” with narrow-eyed suspicion that is pure Wintergreen. Thank fuck the version of Lenny I promised Mum I’d take care of is still under that suspicious surface. He wants to believe so badly that he can’t help his eyebrows rising to wonder, “Do they?” and this is even better—he rummages in another bag I filled with service station snacks and cans of Red Bull, and he speaks up.
His voice is so, so rusty.
“There’s one Kit Kat left.”
He digs deeper, and I hear Mum in this offer.
“I’d share with giants if they’re hungry.”
Joe must have knotted my tie too tightly. I have to swallow past a constriction. “Yeah, I know you would. But do you know what happens if a giant shares with you?” I answer for him, like I’ve had to increasingly often since cops slapped cuffs on our mother as if she was some career criminal instead of a care worker who spent all her time reading to old-age pensioners and my brother. “A giant sharing means they’ve decided to be your BFF. Your best friend forever.”
Best friend? I’d settle for Lenny having one special person after having to move him from school to school so often.
No wonder he got quieter.
I reach across to tickle a belly full of what Lenny’s first welfare officer would no doubt deem a piss-poor choice of childhood nutrition, only my brother is all smiles now, so Joe and his opinions can suck it. “Cover your mouth next time, Len. Unless you want those giants to chase us all the way to Glynn Harber.”
These widened eyes shout, “Chase us?”
Shit.
Lenny shrinks in his seat while something the exact opposite of fear swells inside me. I’m full to the fucking brim with fury.
He shouldn’t have seen that machete.
He’ll never see another if I can convince Luke Lawson to hire me.
I need to hurry to do that, but first I nip Lenny’s fear in the bud. “Them chasing us would be a good thing. All the giants here are friendly. I should know. I told a story for one of them at my first interview.” That teacher had been tall enough to pass for one. “His name was Hayden, and he was as big as one of those granite tors. He shared his lunch with me, and you know what a giant sharing means, yeah?”
I glance across to see Lenny mouth, “Best friends forever.”
“That’s right. He’s my BFF, and I bet he’d share his lunch with you too. Hope you like rock sandwiches. And gravel soup. All washed down with a pint of lava.”
Lenny huffs, but he smiles, and that’s one worry gone, which eases an ache in my chest I’ve had a year to live with. It still doesn’t help with a worry all of my own.
What the fuck am I gonna do with him when I get there?
Lenny huffs again like only a seven-year-old can at a big brother before he gets back to flipping the pages of his favourite story.
I’d huff too if I wasn’t keyed up, nerves strung tight and jangling at the thought of facing Luke Lawson again.
That isn’t all that has me rattled.
And what the fuck is Joe doing here in Cornwall?
Seeing him after so long has got me feeling all kinds of things I don’t have time for. Like rage at Joe assuming I haven’t spent the last twelve months looking out for Lenny every minute. And fear, which is irrational. I know Joe can’t have my brother taken from me for missing one day of school. All he has to do is google to see that it really is a blood-splashed crime scene.
I’ve got to get Len away from there.
I try to keep that in mind instead of the warm brush of Joe’s knuckles against my throat.
Why did I let him help me?
Now I don’t only have a neat knot in my tie. I have a whole new stock of visuals for my angry wank bank. I thought that hopeless phase was over. Believed I’d finally stopped wanting to bang him like a drum and had moved on to wanting to carve his heart out. That all works fine in fiction. In reality, I’d remember his smile whenever he saw me, his gentleness with my brother, his way of making me believe everything would be okay.
Stop.
I need to focus on my second story, one all about kids who have strikes against them, like Joe warned me Lenny already had against him. I can’t do anything about the first strike of our mother being an absent parent like both our fathers, and I wouldn’t ever want to lighten Lenny’s skin tone. That shouldn’t even be a cloud over his future, but Joe was right: All the stats do paint a much darker picture about his life chances.
Before Joe dropped us with zero warning, he also promised I could stop a third strike from happening, only I’d have to step up. That’s what he told me the first day Mum didn’t turn up at school to collect my brother, a promise he repeated when he took me back to a home I didn’t recognise in the months since I’d left for uni.
The kitchen Mum kept spick-and-span was a war zone, and as dusty with fingerprint powder as my brother’s bedroom, where Joe showed me scars of his own as a warning of what could be in Lenny’s future if we didn’t work together.
He also made one more promise—that she’d be released on bail and I’d get back to uni in a few days, only she wasn’t, and I didn’t.
Now I park next to a tall willow tree and glance sideways again to see my little brother’s face slashed by shadows and light. Gashed, like the poor fuck who got a sharp reminder that dealers don’t ever forgive or forget drug debts. Hundreds of miles and a long drive through the night later, I know these flashes are sunlight, not curved steel. Panic still prickles at how close Lenny came to?—
No.
Focus.
“Put your book away. And Silver Man, Len.”
Silver Man.
That’s what he calls this action figure substitute for his hero, which is ironic. It’s also ironic that my brother spots another candidate for hero worship the minute I turn off the engine.
He ignores the green and leafy setting of this school that could be a second chance for both of us. Lenny only has eyes for someone limping in our direction.
“Look,” he breathes.
Now would be a good time for him to be voiceless. “Don’t point, Len.” That’s the quickest way to attract the wrong kind of attention where we come from. I follow it with a second warning. “And don’t stare.”
Too late.
Lenny already has his seat belt unfastened, and scrambles out of his booster seat. He almost knees me in the nuts in the process of leaning out of my open window to get a better look at different scars than Joe’s. He usually kept his covered. This man doesn’t have that option, which Lenny homes in on. For a kid whose quietness has had me worried, he finally speaks up loud enough that his voice carries.
Carries?
It fucking soars, unlike my hopes of scoring a job here, which sinks like a stone the moment Lenny asks a worried question.
“Did you forget to pay your dealer?”
What a time for my brother to get chatty, even if this guy’s scar does look like a warning. Something flayed his face wide open and must have sliced through nerves in the process. Half of his face is still. He touches that side with the tip of a finger, and maybe all isn’t lost here.
The other half of his mouth smiles when he reaches my open window. “A dealer didn’t do this. This is actually what happens if you get in the way of a rocket launcher.”
Lenny is back to shy in an instant, all wide eyes and silence until hero worship gets the better of him. His bony knees put my nuts in danger again to lean out of the window even further, scanning this car park as if expecting to see soldiers or tanks with cannons. My brother pulls back just as swiftly, and yeah, he’s quiet, but I think both this man and I see the worry on his surface.
“Not here.” He touches his scarred cheek. “This happened to me far away in another country. Cornwall is much, much safer.”
It is, but my brother is still worried enough to find his voice, even if this is almost subvocal. “What about the giants?”
“Did you say giants?” This guy is good at reading kids. He offers an ear for Lenny to whisper into, as if kids keeping their voices this low is normal, and Lenny repeats the story I told him on the way here, adding way too much detail about me downing Red Bull after Red Bull after a long night’s drive and him ending his picnic lunch with chocolate.
At least this man doesn’t judge me like Joe no doubt would have. “You had two whole Kit Kats? That sounds much tastier than gravel.”He rubs his belly, and I notice the black and white of a dog collar peek above his sweatshirt collar. “Hugo Heppel-Eavis. Head of pastoral care,” he tells me.“You’re here for a final-stage interview?”
I nod, my mouth dry at what kind of impression I must be making.
“Wonderful.” He extends a hand. “Welcome back. I missed the first interviews. It’s good to meet you?—”
“Isaac. Isaac Webber, Reverend. And this is Lenny.”
“The children call me Padre.”
His grip is firm, his gaze much softer when it lands on Lenny, who is busy dragging a finger from the corner of his own eye to the edge of his mouth, tugging like this man’s scar does his eyelid. The padre half smiles again and meets my eyes.
“I have to admit, I wasn’t expecting any of the teaching candidates to bring a student of their own. This is your…” His gaze drifts to Lenny again, and I assume he’s noting differences that are only skin-deep. If he saw us at the same age, he’d know that Lenny could be my photocopy, only with more of his dad’s ink in the printer.That’s another example of irony right there considering that dickhead turned invisible the moment Mum got pregnant.
I snap what really matters. “He’s my brother.” So much for making a good impression. I can’t help snaking an arm around flesh and blood I promised to keep safe. “I’m his legal guardian. I’m not late, am I?”
I will be if I sit in the van for much longer, but my chance was probably already blown by snapping and by my brother revealing that he knows more about the drug business than any kid should. Plus, this car park is close to bursting, which only makes me worry that more candidates must already be inside, wowing this school’s headmaster.
I bet none of them brought a surprise sibling with them.
“Late?” The padre shakes his head. “You have plenty of time. The teaching interviews aren’t until later this afternoon.”
“No. I’m here for the librarian spot. In the library.”
If my brother wasn’t on my lap, I’d bang my head against the steering wheel at stating the obvious like that. I bet my skull would sound completely hollow—of course librarians work in libraries. I could fit all the books in my mobile version onto the shelves of this school’s beautiful brand-new one a hundred times over and then some. More than that, I could stop losing sleep about Lenny becoming the statistic Joe promised the same day he issued his challenge.
Help him to beat those odds.
Joe didn’t stick around to help with that, like he also promised, so I start over by naming the man who has the power to help me stop those odds from stacking. “Luke Lawson wanted me to tell a second story?—”
Lenny interrupts, bony knees threatening my nuts all over again as he leans out to point at fluttering triangles of colourful fabric strung between school buildings, then he grabs for my phone on the dashboard holder.
“You want to take a picture for Mum? Go ahead.”
Lenny finds his voice for another poorly timed question. “Will her new prison let her see it?”
I don’t want to see this school padre’s reaction. I’ve seen plenty of other people come to an instant judgement, especially when they hear our mother didn’t make bail, like she’s some kind of danger to the public. I also can’t let my brother worry. “We can print it out. Take it with us on our next visit. The wardens will decide, Len. Mum won’t mind waiting.”
I make myself face the padre, expecting more judgement.
I don’t know how to name what I actually witness.
All I know is that I’m so tired of sailing my family’s sinking ship when I never expected to be its captain, and perhaps he sees so. He’s gruff, but kindly.“I find that mothers can be extraordinarily patient. Just ask our boarding students.”
He waits a beat as if giving me time to add why our mum is absent, or our fathers, but he’ll have to wait until hell freezes over. Yes, I do need to impress, but I’m not about to ruin any remaining chance by hanging out the rest of my family’s dirty laundry. I reach instead for the storybook I’ll need for my interview just as Lenny wriggles again.
The padre moves fast to stop my brother from falling headfirst and helps him out of the van window. He swings him around, then sets him safely on his feet and tells him, “The school is decorated because we’ve been celebrating.”
He tells Lenny why as I grab the book, and I get out of the van in time to hear him say, “For a time capsule.” Lenny hasn’t let go of this padre’s hand, that scar-induced hero worship of his trumping quietness.
“A time what?”
“A time capsule. It’s a box that our students are filling, and that we’ll bury for future students to dig up. Some have added stories or pictures.” He whispers like Lenny. “I’m pretty sure there are some confessions inside it too, things the children here want to leave in the past. That’s what we do here at Glynn Harber. We take care of old hurts so our students can move on without them.”
That thumps me straight in the chest, punching where I’m already bruised and battered.
The padre can’t notice that he just summed up what I want most. He pulls an envelope from a pocket. “Everyone here has one of these to fill up, like students did here more than fifty years ago. That’s why we’re burying new ones, because we found messages from part of our school family that had been all but forgotten.”
Something creaks to life behind my ribs at Lenny hanging on every word this padre tells him, his eyes wide mirrors of Mum’s. He finds his voice again to sound just like her. “Families don’t forget each other. Even if they can’t live together.”
“No,” the padre says oh so gently. “Family is always with you, right here.” He crosses his heart with his free hand, which Lenny copies, so fucking solemn. He’s a reminder of Joe on the beach last night, and I have to focus on the book I’ll read out rather than wonder why he did that.Only now that I run a thumb over this book’s raised and bumpy title, I second-guess my choice of story.
The padre sees it.
“ Every Scar Tells a Story ?”
At least he doesn’t take it personally. He touches his own and lets out a low chuckle. “Today really is a day for reminders.” He makes a quick offer. “Why not come and see the big hole our Forest School teacher has dug to bury our latest time capsule?”
Lenny looks up to me, and it’s been a while since I saw him hope for something. That’s what prison does for kids this little—stops them from hoping. From wishing. All it does is prove that their prayers don’t get answered. This gaze asks, “Can I?”
“Give me… Give me a minute to think, Len.”
The padre doesn’t seem to mind that my brother still hasn’t let go of his hand or that he twists and turns it. I can guess Lenny’s reason—the scars worn by the inspiration for his favourite action figure start on the back of his hands. This stand-in for Joe doesn’t pull his hand free. He only aims a quiet question at me. “What were you planning on doing with your brother while you interviewed?”
Here’s the thing: I didn’t have a plan.
I still don’t.
My one and only aim was to drive away as fast as I could from flashing metal.
He must see that I’ve come to the end of my forward thinking. The padre already holds my brother’s hand. Now he grasps my shoulder and steers me to the front door of the school. “How about Lenny and I sit here on these steps to take a look at his book while you sign in at the office. Then maybe take a moment to...” He touches his unscarred cheek, and I see why after following his suggestions.
A mirror in a staff bathroom shows that Lenny’s scramble across my lap has gifted me with a smudge of chocolate. It also shows that the only thing interview-ready about me is the tie Joe knotted.
I can’t do this.
Something like exhaustion swamps me. So does a wave of panic.
I have to for Len.
I wipe that smudge away with shaking fingers and tug damp hands through sea-breeze tangles. Neither stops my heart from racing. “C-Christ. I-I still look?—”
The bathroom door swings open.
The one person I’d never want to see me fail my brother lets the door close behind him, and it’s the worst time in the world to see more of the care I once mistook as personal instead of professional. Joe is creased with it the same way now as back when my family first imploded, and his rough concern still sounds authentic.
“You okay, mate?” He answers his own question, which is just as well—right now, I can’t catch enough breath to speak. “No,” he tells both of us. “You aren’t, are you?”
At least he doesn’t ask me about my brother. He saves that inquisition, too busy going off on what feels like a random conversational tangent, which is another blast from the past. Back then, Joe would cut through my fear of losing Lenny before meetings with social workers by telling me stories. I’ve always been a sucker for those. Today’s is brand-new to me.
“Right after I got burned, it took a while for the medics to figure out the pain meds. Tricky balance, I guess. Giving me enough to take the pain away completely risked stopping my breathing. Too little, and life didn’t feel worth living.” He chuffs out a soft laugh about something that sounds far from funny. “I guess a librarian saved me.”
I wheeze a single word when I should be in a hurry to leave this bathroom instead of listening to someone I can’t trust. “How?”
“How did he save me? By spotting that I was struggling. Not sure if librarian is the right title for a volunteer pushing a trolley of books, but he pulled up a chair and read to me. No idea what. All I really remember is that he’d say, ‘Breathe,’ between sentences, and I would. On rough days when I couldn’t make myself want to, he’d pull that chair even closer and help me do it.”
He lifts a hand to show me an unscarred palm that he places on the centre of my chest. Only for a moment. It startles me into dragging in a breath, and there’s the smile I told myself I must have imagined. It’s so warm. So real. “There you go, superstar. I’d breathe just like that whenever his chest rose. Wanna try it?”
I don’t mean to raise a hand of my own. All I know is that my vision has narrowed to Joe.
I lean on him like I used to when his visits were all that got me through each day of holding it together for Len.
He’s just as solid. Just as steady.
“Breathe,” he says, his chest rising under my palm.
I can’t, and this bathroom narrows even further.
“It’s okay, mate. I got you.” His murmurs are so low-pitched they rumble under my fingers. “Guessing you’re here for an interview. Didn’t know teaching was your thing.”
If I could catch my breath, I’d tell him it isn’t. Joe doesn’t need a contribution from me. He keeps chatting. Keeps joking, like I remember.
“I would say we gotta stop meeting like this. Breathe, Isaac. But if I had to see you one last time before I head home for good, better here in Cornwall than in Wintergreen, yeah? Breathe again for me. Look at you still putting Lenny first. You picked a great school to keep taking such good care of him. He’ll love Glynn Harber. You go for it, mate. Get the job for him.”
I can breathe then without prompting. Can drag in enough air that this bathroom expands back to its normal proportions.
Joe remains my sole focus.
“There you go.” He smiles so widely that his eyes crinkle, and it’s too much. Too real, like all his solid bulk under my hand. I drop it quickly and head for the door, where I pause.
“T-thanks. That was...”
A lot. Everything I remember and every single thing I wanted for so much longer.
“No problem. Always wanted to repay that librarian’s favour. But maybe give yourself another few minutes to?—”
I can’t.
I have to hurry to the front door where I’m just in time to hear the end of another story.
The padre reads out the last page of my brother’s favourite book, then stands. He studies me again then, and I’m not sure if what he sees is any better than that smudge of chocolate or windswept hair.
For a second time in only minutes, someone is gentle with me. Is kind, like the very last person I expected to take care of me here. I can’t help looking back for a glimpse of Joe.
It felt so real, like right before he left us.
The padre guides me away from the front door. “Now let’s see if we can find something to keep little Lenny occupied while you’re busy. The courtyard could be the perfect place for that. It’s right outside the library, and we might find… Ah! Ruth?”
He leads us into a grassy area filled with children who look to be about the same age as my brother and who all work at picnic benches covered with craft supplies and stacks of envelopes. “Could you fit a special guest at one of your tables? Maybe one close to the library window so that Lenny here can see his brother while he’s interviewing?”
Considering Lenny almost hurled himself out of my van window only minutes ago, he chooses right now to get clingy. He hides behind my legs when this new teacher approaches. “Hi.” She crouches. “Want to see what we’re doing?”
Lenny crowds closer behind me, and if anyone had told me my heart could still beat while broken, I wouldn’t have believed them until I had to watch my brother crayon thick, black crosses on a calendar with no end date. I’m all he’s got until someone sets Mum free. That means I do my best not to spook him with panic of my own. “We’ll go look together, Len. Come on.”
He’s my shadow at tables where kids draw what they value now and what they hope for in their futures. I spy crayoned footballs and drum kits, a pair of fairy wings thick with glue and glitter, and a craggy island with a?—
My brother forgets his nerves, his whisper breathless. “Sick castle, bruv.”
He means sick in a good way. Next to scars, castles are his second favourite, and I understand why. I’d have dug a moat around my family and pulled up the drawbridge if I’d had early warning that our home would be invaded as soon as I left for uni.
Now Lenny has Cornish stars in his eyes, and just like that, he’s made a blond-haired friend who tells him, “This castle is on the island my dad is learning to guard. He used to be a soldier.” He straightens up to salute, and Lenny salutes straight back. They share the same gap in their smiles. So does a curly-haired little girl across the table, her grin widening as soon as Lenny’s new friend says, “I’m gonna guard the castle one day when I marry Maisie.” He passes Lenny a sheet of paper. “You can draw what you want to be when you grow up.”
I know what Lenny will sketch.
That teacher, Ruth, joins me, watching as a pencilled cape covers Lenny’s paper. He selects a silver marker, and she murmurs, “Hugo’s gone to the library to let Luke know you’ll be with him when your brother is settled. See?”
She points at a window where I see Luke Lawson in profile, only minus the soft smile that once gave me hope. He frowns, and I look away in a hurry, while Ruth rubs the swell of a belly it takes me way too long to realise means she’s pregnant, and I’m staring.
“You can relax,” she insists, although she guesses wrongly about the cause of my nerves. “I’m not about to pop at any moment. I’ll take good care of your baby, I promise.”
Lenny isn’t an infant, but like Joe did in that bathroom, this teacher hits the nail on the head about me being the one and only person left to rock his cradle.
“Honestly, I won’t take my eyes off him,” she says gently.
I want to believe that. Call me slow to trust, but walking away is hard.
I don’t get far.
“Isaac!”
Lenny rarely speaks this loudly around strangers. Hardly ever raises his voice unless he sees someone has scars. He shows off one of his own by crawling under the table, desperate to reach me.
I get down on his level and open my arms, because if there’s a single promise I’ll never break, it’s this one.
“I won’t leave you.”
I nod towards the library window. “I’ll just be on the other side of that glass.” I hold up his storybook. “And I’ll bring this back as soon as I finish reading it to the headmaster.”
“No!” Lenny grabs for one of his most treasured possessions, tugging at it so fiercely that I worry the pages will tear between us.
I’m torn too at Luke Lawson watching what must look like a fight between a full-grown adult and a barely seven-year-old shrimp, a tug-of-war between a towering Goliath and a puny Daniel.
What kind of storyteller tries to wrestle a book from a kid who sees it as a last link to someone he once looked up to?
And sure, I could have told Len that his real-life Silver Man walked away without looking back once. I never have, and I won’t now.
This is the worst place in the world to replay Joe helping me breathe through the kind of panic I’ve only felt a few times. It first rose the day Mum was taken from us. Did again just minutes ago. Needing this job so badly means it prickles again. “It’s cool, Len,” I rush to tell him. “It’s all good. I’ll get another book from the van to read out. And I promise that I’ll only be on the other side of that glass, yeah?”
He hugs his book to his narrow chest, silent again, but at least he gives me a slow nod.
“Good, good.” I blow out a long breath. “You’ll be fine out here with Ruth and …”
“Tor,” that blond boy offers, patting the seat beside him. “Want to use my crayons?”
I springboard straight into a story. “Tor? Like a sleeping giant, Len! Wow. And he wants to share with you? You know what that means, yeah?”
Lenny mouths, “Best friends forever,” hero-worship mode engaged again, thank fuck.
“See. You’ll be fine with Tor. And if you need me, all you have to do is this, and I’ll hear you.” I rap hard on the window.
The headmaster turns.
So does someone else.
Luke Lawson is as stern now as when he told me to come back with a story showing I understood childhood trauma. Now he gets a good look at me recognising a real expert.
Joe sits inside the library I need to make mine.
The way I feel right now, failure is more likely, and it doesn’t matter that I’ve spent the last year telling myself he didn’t matter.
It still sucks that Joe will get to watch that failure happen.