Over Christmas, I went into Cath-Anna’s bedroom to tell her that dinner was ready, and I found all of her old exercise books from school spread out across the floor. She’d pulled them out from the cupboard. A long time ago, Cath-Anna and I covered our school books in wallpaper that we got from a shop, so that they would look more interesting. When we were in the shop, we had to pretend that we were decorating the living room and needed wallpaper samples. Mum called this a white lie. (Why do lies have colours?) But when I went into Cath-Anna’s room, all of her books were on the floor and she’d crossed out ‘Cath’ on every single one. It was as if she didn’t want to exist any more. That did something funny to my stomach, too.
My sister has been acting differently for quite a long time now, but Mum says we’re not supposed to talk about it. I said this to Cath-Anna and she rolled her eyes and said that not talking about things is bad. She said that silence is suffocating, like being in a box. Then she told me about a cat in a box who can exist and not exist at the same time. She went on about this for a long time, then asked me if I understood. There are two things I don’t understand about this, Miss Winter: 1. Why is a cat in a box in the first place? This is a very cruel thing to do. 2. Where is the cat going? If he is in a box, is his owner moving house or something, and how long will it take to drive there (because there is only so much air in one box)? But when I said these things to Cath-Anna, she giggled and rolled her eyes, even though my answers were questions and that’s what she said all answers should be. Sometimes I think it is better to just let her talk about the cat in the box, even when I don’t understand, because she seems happier that way. Perhaps that’s fair.
Cath-Anna likes balance and justice and fairness. But she says that things don’t always work out like that, and that’s why we have to work hard to change things. She says making the world a better place is part of our job. But my main job is to go to school, and your job is to predict the weather, and Mum’s job is in an office, though she had to stop that for a bit to do jury service. I thought Cath-Anna would be excited about Mum doing jury service because a courthouse is a place where they sort out balance and fairness. Mum said her case was a hung jury, though, which doesn’t mean that they tried to kill themselves but that they couldn’t think of an answer to whether the person was guilty or not. Mum said it was a shame, but that it was understandable because grown-ups don’t know what they are doing most of the time. Is this true, Miss Winter? That sounds a bit scary.
As well as being worried about my sister, I am also worried about my mum. Cath-Anna and I have noticed that Mum buys flowers when she is stressed. She stands at the kitchen table and arranges them and then rearranges them so, if you come downstairs at nine o’clock at night and ask her where Dad is, you know that the answer will be one pink lily to the left, or one to the right, or a stalk snapped in two.
We have a lot of flowers in our house these days, Miss Winter. Our kitchen looks like a garden. I decided to use these to draw pictures for my art homework. Taylor said I was gay for doing that and then he ripped up my picture and Miss Hudson got mad and gave him detention after school. Miss Hudson’s our art teacher, and she has big red hair, which looks funny when she gets angry because it matches her red cheeks. Sometimes she gets really cross and goes through a door in the corner of the art room and doesn’t come back for a while. We always thought it was a door to a staffroom, but one day a girl in our class opened it when Miss Hudson wasn’t there and it turned out to be a cupboard. That means that Miss Hudson had been sitting in a cupboard all those times she’d been cross. Like that cat in a box. I understand why she did it, though. Sometimes having walls around you makes you feel safe. That’s why I like the garden shed and our next-door neighbour’s garage and hiding under my bed. Most people laughed when we found the cupboard but not Jewish Anna. She stamped her patent leather shoes and told Taylor to shut the hell up. Perhaps she likes small spaces, too.
Do you like small spaces, Miss Winter?
A few weeks ago, I had to think of something to do for my end of year art project. Miss Hudson said we had to draw or paint a picture based on the work of an artist we like. When she said this, I did what Cath-Anna told me to do, and replied with a question. I asked her why. She raised an eyebrow and said, ‘Don’t be silly, Jacob.’ But I wasn’t being silly.
We went to the art museum on a school trip to see some paintings and find inspiration. We had to go on the tube, which seemed to cause the teachers a lot of stress. Taylor was annoying because he kept trying to stop the doors closing at every station along the way. Taylor is an arsehole.
Some of the paintings at the museum are larger than the walls in our house. They had some sculptures, too. One was very rude. It was called Humpty Fucking Dumpty. Miss Hudson made us hurry past when she saw that and looked nervous. I think it was because there weren’t any cupboards nearby.
We walked around the museum and looked at all the different art. There were a lot of naked people (in the paintings, not in the museum), and lots of portraits of kings and queens. My favourite picture was called The Deluge, which is the biggest painting I’ve ever seen. It was in a room called ‘The Sublime in Crisis’. Cath-Anna says that the word Sublime means ‘amazing’ but that it can also mean other things, too. She says that it can be that feeling in the pit of your stomach when you stand on a high place and look around you, and you realise how big the universe is and how small you are in comparison to it. Perhaps you have this feeling, too, Miss Winter, when you fly in a helicopter to check on the weather in the sky.
The painting made me feel very small. Have you seen it? It’s all waves and darkness. It shows the floods after Noah got away in the ark. I stood looking at the painting for ages, and then Jewish Anna came over and held my hand and looked at it with me, which made my stomach squirm. We didn’t look at each other. We just stood there in silence, thinking about how big the world is. Then Taylor knocked over one of the sculptures and there was a big argument between Miss Hudson and one of the museum workers.