There's something wrong with Phoebe

6 - Thomas

I felt elated as we drove back from the hospital. We ran into the corner shop to pick up a few things to act as if we’d actually meant to go there, and went back home, me sneaking in the back door so nobody would notice I’d gone with them. I went upstairs and into my room, lifting up the rug in the middle of my floor, raising the loose floorboard and taking out my secret diary. I flicked it open and wrote about what had just happened. I was relieved. My sister was going to be fine. Everybody thought I couldn’t remember her, as I’d only been six when she went missing, but the images of her remained clear in my mind after all this time.

Nobody really knew why I was so connected to my sister. She’d gone missing, and most people assumed I didn’t understand, as I smiled at them and continued to play with my train set. It had been the day before she went missing, and in the playground, I’d been talking to some of the girls in my year. Some boys had come over and pushed me to the ground and told me I was weird to hang around with girls and maybe I was one myself. I started crying, and they all jeered at me, pushing me down as I tried to get up. All the girls ran away, as they were scared of the boys, and I pulled my socks up higher and tucked my hands in my pockets when Mum came to pick me up that day to hide all of the cuts and scrapes and bruises. I was terrified to go into school the next day, and when Phoebe came to get me to go down to dinner, she found me curled up in my wardrobe.

“What are you doing in there?” she said, curiously.

“I’m going to Narnia,” I said defiantly. Mum had read me the book the week before and I was now obsessed with going there to meet Mr Tumnus.

“What’s wrong with staying here?” she said, kneeling down to get to my eye level.

“Boys are mean to me,” I whispered.

“Oh, so that’s what this is about,” she’d said, crawling into the wardrobe. “You know, Thomas, you’re different. You don’t want to get all dirty and mucky, and I think that’s pretty cool. One day, when you want a girlfriend…” I’d quivered then and she’d laughed. “They’ll like you, ‘cause you care about the way you look. And when they pick on you, or you’re sad, just smile Then, the people who were mean will know that they can’t hurt you, and will stop. Understand?” I’d nodded. “Now about Narnia…” I’d looked at her, pleading that she’d say we could go.

“Tomorrow, we’re going to phone up Mr Tumnus and see when we can arrange a visit. I picked up his number when I went there as a kid, you know.”

“Really?” I’d said, exasperated.

“Sure,” she’d replied. “But I’m only going to call him if you get out of this wardrobe and go to dinner. And it only works in my wardrobe, OK? ‘Cause my wardrobe is magic.” The next day, I’d raced home from school and sat outside Phoebe’s room, grinning as I waited for her to arrive home. Phoebe hadn’t come home, and people started to get anxious. Mum looked worried, and she burnt the dinner as she forgot to take it out. We ate burnt chips and fish fingers in silence whilst Mum was on the phone.

I was tucked up in bed and told to go to sleep, but I’d complained that I was supposed to go to Narnia. I’d been told to just be quiet. The next morning, I’d smiled at everyone that came to visit us. I wasn’t allowed to go out of the house, so I just kept smiling. Phoebe had told me that meant nobody could hurt me, and I hoped that applied to her too, and then she could come home and go to Narnia with me.

Every day for a month, I’d sat outside Phoebe’s door, just waiting. One day, Kayla walked past and gave me a weird look. “What are you doing?” she said.

“Waiting for Phoebe. She’s gonna take me to Narnia. I can only get in through her wardrobe.”

“Thomas, Phoebe isn’t going to take you to Narnia,” she’d scowled, and she’d kept walking. Defiantly then, I’d gone into Phoebe’s room and flung open the doors, only to stare at a wardrobe full of clothes. I’d rummaged through them all, parting them, to see Narnia on the other side, but all I saw was solid wood. I’d sat down in the wardrobe then and cried, because it was then that everything seemed to fit together in my tiny brain. Phoebe had been taken, she wasn’t coming back, and she wasn’t going to take me to Narnia.

Still, everyday I’d gone into Phoebe’s room secretly, as Mum told us it was off limits, and I’d sat in her wardrobe and smelt her on her clothes. I’d held the soft fabrics to my nose and sniffed the air. I'd waited and waited for Phoebe to come back and take me to Narnia. One night, when Mum was crying, I’d gone out in the dark with my satchel and walked along the road to find her. I’d only gone a few streets when I bumped into Dad on his way home from work. He was sat against a lamp post, eyes closed.

“Dad?” I’d said. He did not respond. That was when the rain started to come down. “Dad, what are you doing?”

“Phoebe?” he’d whispered, and then his eyes had burst open and he saw me. “Son, what are you doing?”

“Finding Phoebe,” I’d said.

“You and me both, Thomas,” he’d said, standing up. He’d walked me back home and tucked me up in bed and I’d smiled at him. Mum hadn’t even noticed I’d left home. That was when I realised, at the age of seven, that my family were falling apart. I kept smiling, and smiling, but nothing ever turned out right. I kept getting hurt by those around me as I was ignored, and if anybody noticed me, it was the kids in the playground who called me names. I became even more desperate to visit Narnia with Phoebe that I banged my head against the back of her wardrobe, as if I could burst through and see a snowy white wood and a glowing lamp post waiting for me.

I didn’t know how long my fascination with Narnia went on for. I’d attached the idea of finding Narnia to finding Phoebe, and though I’d never spoken to Phoebe that much, that one conversation with her had cemented the base for a great relationship between us, and in my mind, I’d elaborated how well we’d gotten on. I’d laughed at myself when I’d been told Phoebe had been found alive, as the first thing that popped into my mind had been Narnia. No, I did not still believe Phoebe’s wardrobe was a portal to another magical land, but it had become an immediate response.

When I’d finished my diary entry, I put it back under the floorboard and went into Phoebe’s room and into her wardrobe, smelling her clothes. I frowned when I realised they no longer smelt of anything but musky air. I lay back against the back of the wardrobe and smiled to myself. Another world, conveniently located in my wardrobe, would be great to get away from this life, but who needed that when the life you were living seemed to slowly be fixing itself anyway.