Free How the Trouble Started by Robert Williams

home to spend a silent Saturday night with Mum and our books. But sat down with my book I didn’t do much reading. I was thinking about Jake’s mum. Trying to work her out. What kind of woman sends a little lad out and tells him not to come back before five? All I’d got from Jake was that she was twenty-six, they lived alone, and she went out at night and left him. I didn’t like the thought of her much, but I knew it was wrong to jump to conclusions. It’s important to give people a chance. You shouldn’t judge without all the evidence. I couldn’t concentrate on my reading any more, so I asked Mum if she wanted a game of dominoes but she waved me quiet and carried on with her book. I left her to it and went up to bed early.
    The next Saturday I got chance to see Jake’s mum for myself. I was at the library and Jake came in and returned some books. He came over to say hello but couldn’t hang around; his mum was waiting outside and he was helping her with the shopping. I left it a couple of minutes before I walked out after Jake and followed them further into town. It was obvious where Jake got the skin and bones from – she was made up of nothing else – she could have passed for one of those skinny foreign girl gymnasts. She didn’t look much older than some of the sixth-form girls and I wondered for a moment if there was an older sister Jake had forgotten to mention. Her hair fell straight and thin and she was wearing a grey tracksuit which had the word ‘Juicy’ written across her backside. It didn’t look juicy at all. I hung back so there was no chance that Jake would see me and call out, but I didn’t need to follow too closely because he’d told me that they always go to the precinct behind the town hall, where they have all the cheap shops.
    Even before they made it to the precinct it was easy to see what was going on. Jake was free to run ahead, to cross busy roads without being properly supervised, to walk too close to the road with cars and trucks shooting past. His mum spent most of her time talking into her phone and ignoring him. She snapped at him a few times when he disappeared off in the wrong direction, but he was mainly left alone until it came to bag carrying. As they trudged back in the direction of Fox Street, Jake swung one of the bags a little too high and half of the contents fell out onto the pavement, spilling into the gutter. His mum turned to see what the commotion was. She saw what had happened, shook her head and carried on walking, leaving him there to pick up everything by himself. Jake made sure he had it all and set off after his mum, who was halfway up the road by then. I went back to the library, but I was too angry and couldn’t concentrate on anything so I went back home. Later on that night, after I’d thought about it more, I realised I shouldn’t be surprised at how she’d treated him – the fact that he walked home alone from school, was always alone in the library, and by himself every Saturday afternoon, gave a clear indication of her idea of parenting. It was clear that she’d had him too young and didn’t know what she was doing. It had been ugly to see, but I was glad that I had. At least I knew what I was up against.

12
    My favourite-ever vanishing, other than the early one to Neptune, was a vanishing to Iowa. In Iowa I was Roland Harry and I ran a hardware store. The idea came from a film the English teacher, Mrs Lyon Dean, made us watch at the end of one term. I can’t remember what it was called, and I didn’t get to follow the story too closely because of all the nattering and mucking about, but I could see it was about a massively fat lady and her family who lived in an old wooden house on the outskirts of a small town in America. One of her sons wasn’t quite right and he liked to climb up to the top of a water tower, and his older brother always had to go and rescue him, always had to look out for him. Even when he was angry and annoyed with