Free Cosmic by Frank Cottrell Boyce Page A

like a country made of squirty cream. I remember watching the plane’s shadow moving across the white—like a little dog running over snow.
    Eddie Xanadu was sitting next to me. He said, “It’s a nice plane, yes?”
    “Best I’ve ever been in.”
    “My Hasan has an ambition to buy a plane like this. And he will do it. He is so good with money—even when he was very small, at his first school. In my country, things are always changing because of wars and so on. One time, the school uniform changed. First you wore a white shirt, now you must wear a blue shirt. Everyone goes to the shops to find the blue shirts. There are none. Next day Hasan comes to school and opens his bag—hundred blue shirts! He bought them all! Everyone bought a shirt from him. Just a little more expensive than the shop. So he makes money. By the time he is twelve, he had enough money to buy a house. He rents it out. Are you good with money, Mr. Digby?”
    I realized I didn’t actually have any money on me. I just said, “No. Not like that. Not at all.”
    “Hasan is a genius with money.”
    “Excuse me,” said Samson One, “I couldn’t help overhearing the conversation. Is your boy really a genius?”
    “More than a genius. A wizard with money.”
    “Oh. With money,” said Samson One, shaking his head with disappointment. “Samson Two is officially a genius. He did a project on irrigation, and it was so good the government bought it.”
    “How much did they pay?” asked Eddie.
    “Fifty thousand dollars.”
    “My Hasan would’ve got you twice as much.”
    Monsieur Martinet chimed in. “Money is a terrible distraction. My Max is too focused to care about money.”
    “What’s he focused on?” I asked, just to be polite.
    “Success.”
    “Oh. Right.”
    “Are you interested in success, Mr. Digby? I have written a bestselling book on the subject. I believe everyone can be a winner. It just takes a little discipline.”
    My World of Warcraft guild had once taken over an entire territory. We were even going to rename it. But then it was completely destroyed by a flight of dragons. I said, “Interested but not, you know, bothered.”
    “What about Florida? What is her speciality? Is she a financial wizard? A natural leader? A genius?”
    “You are joking.” I laughed.
    They all looked a bit baffled, and after a while Samson One said, “Why would that be funny?”
    “All she thinks about is shopping and celebrities. All she wants is to be famous.”
    “How strange,” said Monsieur Martinet.
    “Not really. All her friends are just as bad.”
    “I meant, how strange for a man to talk about his own daughter in that way.”
    “Oh,” I said. “Well…you know…”
     
    It turns out that being a dad is a competitive sport. You’re supposed to think your kid is the best kid. You’re even supposed to try and convince other people that your kid is the best kid. You’re supposed to be proud of your child.
    I sneaked my dad’s copy of Talk to Your Teen out of my waterproof backpack, but I thought the other dads might be suspicious if they caught me using the instruction manual so I took it to the loo. (Reading in the loo is definitely dadly.) It’s all about listening, apparently. If you don’t listen, your child becomes introverted and sulky. The more you listen, the more you’ll understand. The more youunderstand, the more you’ll find to be proud of them. And if you’re proud of them, they’ll be proud of themselves. Later I tried listening to Florida—she was down at the other end of the plane going on about Daytona or Paris or Britney or someone:
    “You see, her mother had chronic obesity. You know what that is?”
    “She was fat for a very long time?”
    “And that’s why she has got all these eating disorders, because she doesn’t want to be like her mother….” Et cetera.
     
    It didn’t seem to help. In fact, I thought it might be better if she did get a bit introverted and sulky.
     
    Then we landed.