The computer leads are a tangled mess, and Felix can't help but see dead worms and rabbit entrails as he tries to pull an ethernet cable out from the middle of the pile. He has washed his hands at least six times, but still the memory of blood on his fingers makes him feel quite sick. It took him forever to scrub the gate clean, and as expected Lucy was no help. How anyone so squeamish ever had children is beyond him.
He tips the contents of the box onto the bed, and begins to unravel the ball of plastic spaghetti into separate leads and wires, all the while questioning what is the actual point of doing so. Without a land-line in the cottage there will be no internet, no gaming, and no voice-chat with friends. He throws a weary glance at his ageing mobile phone that is plugged into the wall on a seemingly never-ending charge, and swears under his breath. The text message cap on that antique, combined with the lack of signal, is going to drive him crazy for certain.
On turning to walk over to the old dressing table that is rapidly becoming his make-shift desk, he stubs his toe on the leg of the bed, and almost trips over the stack of flattened cardboard boxes in the middle of the floor.
"Owww! Stuuupid bloody flippin bed!"
Ever since he could first walk, talk, and fall over, Felix has assigned the blame for his own clumsiness onto inanimate objects that clearly play no part in controlling his body.
He bends and scoops up the cardboard, holding it under his arm, and hobbles over to the door. The celing hatch outside the bedroom is still open from Lucy's unpacking marathon earlier in the day, with a wooden step-ladder still propped against the wall. It is a struggle to fit the boxes through the small opening, but with a bit of bending and a lot of shoving they eventually squeeze through. He reaches around the edge of the hatch until he finds a light-switch.
The loft is filled with random and un-loved items from his grandparents' lives, dating back half a century or more. A wooden spinning wheel, a moth-eaten hobby horse, various prints and a painting of a fox hunt in an ornate frame, a ribbed leather trunk, and a set of 1950s suitcases with stickers on them from holiday destinations all over Europe. A metallic object poking out of a wooden wine crate catches his interest. He reaches for the rope handle and pulls it towards the hatch to get a closer look. It is heavy, and the grey metal appears to be the head of an old microphone.
Wow, interesting find!
He carefully navigates the seven steps back to the floor with the box balanced on his head, and plonks it on the dressing table. It is definitely some kind of microphone, and there are even more cables in there too on top of something wrapped in newspaper.
The sound of a car distracts him as it approaches and pulls into the drive. He checks his watch. It is gone 10pm. He hears the sound of feet on gravel, followed by the front door closing and muffled conversation from downstairs. It is his dad.
Alan is tired and hungry, and Lucy is heating up the leftovers. Felix carefully moves the ladder aside and sits at the top of the stairs, listening to them talking.
"Thanks love. "
"Would you like any bread with it?"
"Yes please."
He hears the sound of wooden chairs scraping on the floor tiles and then silence, except for the occasional sound of a fork scraping against a plate.
"So... how are you? ...Are you ok? We've missed you..."
His mum is fishing for an update.
"Yes.. I'm tired, but I'm ok. It's just been a bit crazy this past week.... that's all. Did the move go ok? Did Cookie get upset?"
YOU ARE READING
The Brightlings
AdventureFelix Swift is a teenager with a big problem; He just can't stay awake. And falling asleep at the wrong moment has already caused him more trouble in the past year than most people will ever experience. Relocating to the countryside with his family...
