Free My Name Is Leon by Kit de Waal Page A

spills out and he kicks it with his foot so that the papers get jumbled up. He stands over the mess and dribbles the soggy biscuit from his mouth onto the papers, a brown sticky mess with crumbs in it. Then he gathers them up and puts them back in Salma’s bag.

13
    When Leon wakes the next morning the house is very quiet. Outside, there is a car running its motor in the avenue and far, far off, he can hear a train on a track. Leon’s never been on a train but he knows they can take you all over the country faster than a car. He saw an ad about it. One day, he’s going to get on a train and find his mom.
    He can hear the trilling of a bird in the tree next door. There are birds that trill and birds that coo and sometimes Leon would make bird noises for Jake and Jake would pull Leon’s lips like he was trying to grab the sound before it came out. Jake was always touching something—if it wasn’t Leon himself it was his cars and his toys, and when Jake was going to sleep, he would hold on to Leon’s fingers. Sometimes, thinking about Jake makes Leon feel sick.
    Even before he opens his eyes, he can tell that Maureen is still asleep because his room is above the kitchen and the first thing she does in the morning is make a cup of coffee. She callsit “witch’s brew” and once she let Leon taste it and he agrees with her. She has to put three sugars in to make it taste nice.
    But the reason Maureen is still in bed is that there is nothing to get up for. Jake used to wake them up every morning and, without Jake, Maureen has been staying in bed later and later. She says it’s because of her chest but Leon knows what it really is. The empty sound in the house is louder than Jake crying for his bottle. It’s louder than his laugh. Louder than his baby drums. And if Leon turns round and looks at Jake’s cot in the corner of the room, he knows that he will get angry with Maureen, so he picks at a scratch in the wallpaper and puts the pieces in his mouth. They taste of fish sticks.
    Leon goes downstairs and still Maureen is in her room. He makes some Weetabix and eats it in front of the TV with the sound down low. He has the room to himself and he can watch what he wants, he doesn’t have to have the baby programs on and Jake isn’t screaming or trying to pull his hair. He makes some more Weetabix and sprinkles it with masses of sugar. Then he eats three of Jake’s special yogurts without bits in. Maureen comes down and tells him to clear up his mess but when he goes into the kitchen she grabs him and snuggles him until he wants to cry.
    â€œRight, mister,” she says as she tidies up, “what’s me and you doing on a miserable Saturday?”
    Leon shrugs.
    â€œWe got that Dumbo video for later,” she says, “and I’ve got some shopping to do but that won’t take long. Shame it’s raining.”
    Maureen stands in the doorway with her special pink hearts mug of coffee.
    â€œTell you what, we’ll go for a little bus ride,” she says. “We’ll go and see Sylvia. Haven’t seen her for ages.”
    Maureen’s sister lives very far away and they have to take two buses. The first one stops on a busy road where there are lots of shops and too many people. Maureen holds his hand tight andpeople will think that Maureen is his mom. She’s fat and her hair is too orange and he doesn’t want anyone to think that his mom isn’t beautiful, so he tries to get his hand back and put it in his pocket.
    Maureen keeps stopping to look in shopwindows and saying how expensive everything is. The only good shop has lots of toys in the window— Clash of the Titans figures with Charon and Calibos—but Maureen won’t wait, because they have to find the second bus and that takes forever. They pass factories and shops and enormous houses that are broken down and boarded up. Eventually, they get off the bus and stand at