The Funny Thing about Norman Foreman by Julietta Henderson (sci fi books to read .TXT) 📗

kept on trying to make me to look at it for the whole week after Jax died. But I held out because if I didn’t look that meant I wouldn’t have to think about taking it down. And if I took it down, Jax would be gone and not just for five years. For ever. Only then I did look at it when it got sneaky one morning after my alarm went off because I had to go back to school and I opened my eyes and forgot I wasn’t looking over at that side of the room any more. I hit the snooze button, but then my eyes opened by themselves and straight away there I was staring at Jax and me and Grandad and all those other guys.

I lay there looking at the poster all lopsided out of one eye for ages and ages, thinking about how now me and Jaxy were never going to get to Edinburgh and how all those jokes we had on Post-it notes would just stay in the shoebox in the second to bottom drawer in my wardrobe.

I stared at the Five Year Plan for so long Grandad started turning into Jack Dee, words started swimming around and one of the Jaxes with a pork pie hat on started doing a dance off the cardboard and on to the wall. Then the Jax head got bigger and bigger until it was like a massive lollipop on a stick body and he started jumping up and down in a huge inflatable pool of blue plastic balls and waving a sign around with his stick arms.

I yelled out to him stand still Jax, and he did. Which was really weird because Jax never ever stands still and especially not if someone tells him to. But he stood still so I could read the sign and it said One Never Knows in big red writing. And then I saw that the pool wasn’t really filled with blue balls, it was actually full of about a billion asthma inhalers. Then the Jax head jumped back on to the poster and started crossing stuff out and writing new stuff and in between he kept turning around and laughing and winking at me. I swear that’s how it happened, and maybe it did and maybe it didn’t. But I must have gone back to sleep for a few minutes because the next thing I knew the nine minutes of snooze time were over and the alarm went off again and I had to get up for school.

After that I went back to not looking at the poster on the wall, because then I would have had to read what Jax had written about going to the Fringe without him and finding my dad and I was pretty sure I didn’t want to think about that. Like I didn’t want to think about getting up and going back to school on my own without Jax. Like I didn’t want to think about what I was going to do every day for the rest of my life until the end of school and then even further. Like I didn’t want to think about how twelve was probably going to be a Helluva Year for all the wrong reasons.

I was doing a pretty good job of not looking over at the wall the second time around too, even though I did have a permanently cricked neck. But then Mum saw the poster with the new plan and the piggin’ jig, like Jax would say, was up.

9Sadie

Finding out Norman wanted to find his father was almost as much of a shock to me as finding out I was pregnant had been. In fact, it managed to evoke pretty much the same feelings, from what I can remember. Same order, even. Bewilderment, denial, terror, followed by how the hell did this happen, and how am I going to do this without losing my mind or getting arrested. Throw in the news that it appeared Norman was aiming to get a solo gig at one of the world’s most famous comedy events, and there was every possibility that both of those things would happen. And probably more.

It’s not that I was scared of how the revelation would affect Norman. He’s always known I honestly couldn’t tell him who his father is, even if I’d ever felt inclined. Which, for the record, I definitely never have. He knows the basic concept of how he came to be, but I’m just not sure if he’d ever considered the moral aspect of how his mother could actually not know the identity of the father of her own child. I’m pretty sure Promiscuity for Dummies was not on the curriculum of Alverton Primary for Sex Ed in Year 6. Although, judging by the number of teen mothers that prammed their way down our street to show off their handiwork, they might want to consider it.

So there was that to worry about, although I have to admit that coming across as a bit loose to my son was considerably less worrying than how exactly I was supposed to track down the men-most-likely from a hazy month or two in Edinburgh thirteen years ago. Because from the moment that thin blue line appeared and changed the shape of my family for the third time, it never even crossed my mind that I was going to do it any other way than alone. Ready or not.

But the worst thing by far for me was point number one on Norman’s list. Which I’d been trying very hard not to think about since I’d seen it. The one about looking after his mum. Wouldn’t that break your heart if you were me? And even though you’re not me (but for the grace of a probably non-existent god), doesn’t it break your heart anyhow?

I probably shouldn’t be surprised, though, because I get that a fair bit. At work, I’m