‘I won’t have a long beard,’ said Barney. ‘I won’t even have a short one.’
‘Hey, my dad’s got a beard. There is nada wrong with beards, I’ll have you know. Think of all the great, important people in history: Jesus, Emperor Hadrian … erm … Father Christmas – they all had beards.’
‘I don’t think I’d suit hairy,’ said Barney. Then he saw the cat looking up at him. ‘No offence.’
Rissa walked away. ‘See you tomorrow morning. Same time, same place.’
‘Yeah. See you, Rissa, and, thanks – I liked the card.’
‘Good. You made me one, so it was the least I could do. And, er, good luck with your mum.’
Barney watched her walk down the street with her mad hair and her long coat and her black boots with the daisies on them. Instead of going back inside, Barney stayed still for a moment.
Same time, same place.
There was something scary about that, Barney thought. About how life was destined to stay the same. Especially when life came with such added ingredients as Gavin Needle and Miss Whipmire.
The cat carried on looking at him, and Barney felt a little bit uneasy so he went inside and read the letter.
Dear Mrs Willow,
I am writing to inform you that your son, Barney, is a disgrace. His behaviour has become increasingly bad over the last few months, his teachers tell me, and now it has reached such terribly despicable levels that I am obliged to write you another letter. And, one way or another, this will be his last.
Today, when he was meant to be in French class, Barney set off the school fire alarm. I saw him do this with my own eyes, and I am sure I don’t need to tell you about the obvious and intended disruption this caused.
So it is my duty to tell you that if Barney commits a similar offence again he will be EXPELLED from Blandford High.
Now, as his mother it is your job to make sure you discipline him very firmly to prevent this happening. I would recommend stopping all pocket money, switching off the TV, making sure he reads the right kind of books (very long and boring ones – such as dictionaries) and forcing him to spend lengthy periods in his room thinking about what a terrible boy he has become.
Yours disappointedly,
Miss P. Whipmire
Head Teacher
The Wish
BARNEY PUT DOWN the letter and saw his reflection in the old mirror in the hallway.
‘I hate being you,’ he told it in a whisper.
Then he had a thought, which made him feel happy. He didn’t have to give his mum the letter. If Miss Whipmire ever did phone to check, it was more than likely his mum would be out. So all he had to do was get rid of the letter.
No letter, no trouble.
Simple.
He’d just throw it in the bin. Yeah, that was what he’d do. But which bin? The one in the kitchen was too risky, and even the one in the garden wasn’t fool proof, especially with the amount of things his mum lost in a day and had to go hunting all over for. So he went back outside with his rucksack.
The cat wasn’t there now. Barney just kept walking – down the street and round the corner to the bin outside the newsagent’s.
He held the letter over the bin. He read it again. Barney knew it was bad to destroy the evidence, but the evidence was wrong.
So he ripped up the letter until it was little pieces of confetti.
On his way back home, tiny white pieces of the letter escaped in the wind, falling around Barney’s feet like snow that couldn’t melt.
He picked out certain words on the scraps of paper:
disgrace
behaviour
Barney
EXPELLED
Barney was particularly pleased to see that last piece of paper – the one with EXPELLED on it – end up in a muddy brown puddle.
But, just as he was nearing the corner of Dullard Street, he heard a quiet tinkling sound behind him. Turning, he saw the black and white cat again. It stared up at Barney.
‘What do you want, cat?’
The cat, being a cat, didn’t tell him – or not in any language Barney could have understood – so he kept on walking. So did the cat.
Then, when Barney reached his street, he saw something that caused his heart to sink and anchor in his stomach. It was his mum’s little red car, driving down the road then parking outside the house. Barney looked at his watch.
4.25.
She wasn’t due back from the library for over two and a half hours.
He stood still, literally frozen with dread.
She knows.
That’s the only explanation.
He imagined Miss Whipmire ringing her at the library and saying, ‘Your son has a letter for you. Make sure you get it!’
Then Barney felt something rub against his ankle. He looked down at the cat and remembered what Miss Whipmire had said.
That would be the life, wouldn’t it? To be a cat, lying out in the sun, without all those human worries …
Barney crouched down behind a hedge. He had no idea why he did this. To avoid his mum, yes. But he knew he’d have to go home some time.
Now, before I go on and tell you what happens next I should point out that Barney really wasn’t scared of his mum shouting at him. I mean, she would have shouted at him, and that wouldn’t have been nice, but the thing Barney dreaded was the bit after.
The bit where his mum would cry. Which was also the bit where Barney would feel so bad he’d want to turn into a piece of dust.
Or a cat.
Barney stayed crouching, the cat came close again, and now Barney found himself reaching out a hand to stroke it.
Miss Whipmire’s words kept replaying in his head. To be a cat … To be a cat …
‘Fancy swapping places?’ he asked. He was joking, of course, but a part of the joke was serious. Especially when he said the most important words he had ever spoken in his life:
‘I wish I was you.’
The cat stayed looking at him with its green eyes, and Barney suddenly felt a little strange.
Dizzy. As though the street had turned into a merry-go-round. That wasn’t the strangest thing, though. The strangest thing was the cat itself.
There was something odd about the patch of white fur around its eye. And Barney realized why – a second ago it had been around the cat’s left eye. Now it had switched.
‘Don’t be stupid,’ Barney told himself. ‘That’s impossible.’
Meanwhile – and Barney couldn’t be absolutely sure of this – it seemed as though things in the street were changing.
Everything seemed more vivid, brighter, bursting with life. The leaves on the trees became greener, the flowers in the front gardens grew taller and stood prouder, and a plant – a flowerpot on an outside windowsill containing a herb Barney didn’t recognize – seemed to visibly shake and tremble as it grew, eventually causing it to fall off and smash on the ground.
‘This is not happening,’ Barney said. ‘This is a dream.’
Barney stood up, or tried to. The street was spinning so fast he toppled back a few steps, knocking himself against a postbox.
‘Ow!’
He closed his eyes.
The world became still again.
When he opened his eyes once more, Barney could see the cat trotting quickly away.
‘Weird.’
Then he turned to look up his street and saw his mum stepping out of her car to head inside the house.
Behind him, a door opened.
‘What’s happening out here?’
Barney turned to see an old man staring at him, his face creased with anger as much as age. Barney realized it had been this guy’s plant pot that had fallen and smashed on the ground.