The Boy Who Could Do What He Liked Read online

  Unexpectedly, he heard a voice from the small toilet beneath the stairs.

  “Don’t worry! It’ll be fine! I’ll make sure everything’s all right here, you’ll see!” Mrs Stokes opened the door a little and peeked out at Stephen and Jenny. “You go! You need to go! You definitely need to go!”

  And she shut the door again.

  Jenny and Stephen exchanged glances. Stephen crouched down and put his hand on Alfie’s shoulder. “To be honest, Alfie, I’m not entirely sure. But here’s the thing: if you just stick to your routines, everything will be fine.”

  Alfie looked into his dad’s eyes, to see if he was telling the truth. Which was quite hard as they kept on looking off to the side, towards the painting, again.

  “What do you think, Jenny?” said Alfie.

  Jenny opened her mouth to answer – possibly even to disagree with Stephen a little, from the expression on her face – but Alfie’s dad said: “Alfie. Let’s not discuss it now. We really have to get going. And besides – especially if you’re going to be asleep by 9.35pm! – you need to be getting on with your having-tea routine. You’re already …” he checked his watch, “seven minutes and forty-three seconds late laying the table.”

  Alfie checked his watches. His dad was right. He nodded and turned back slowly towards the kitchen.

  “Seven minutes and forty-five seconds!” said his dad from behind him.

  “Oh, come on, Stephen,” said Jenny. “We’re already late ourselves now!!”

  “Oh no!” said Stephen, running out of the door.

  Alfie decided to make the best of it. He went and sat at the table, with his plate and knife and fork and glass of water all ready.

  The trouble was that Mrs Stokes – who, according to the having-tea routine, was meant to get Alfie’s meal out of the oven for him – wasn’t with him. She was still in the toilet. She’d been there, Alfie realised, for quite an alarming length of time. He would have been more concerned were it not for the number of strange groaning noises she was making. He’d rather not have heard those sounds, but at least they convinced him that she wasn’t – well – dead.

  Finally, he heard a flush, followed about two minutes later by the sight of his babysitter humping her Zimmer frame down the hall.

  “Mrs Stokes!” said Alfie. “It’s Broccoli Bake for tea today! Jenny will have left it in the oven, so maybe, if I help you with your walking frame, you can—”

  But Mrs Stokes just carried on towards the living room. Alfie sat there for a bit, not knowing what to do. He was shaken out of his reverie by the sight of a boy on a bike flashing past the kitchen window: a very familiar boy on a very familiar bike.

  Oh no, thought Alfie.

  “HEY!” shouted Freddie Barnes (for it was he), turning round and cycling back in front of the window. “IT’S ALFIE! BORING, BORING ALFIE!!”

  Yes, Freddie Barnes did sometimes shout that at Alfie, just as Jenny had feared.

  After a little while saying the words “Boring, Boring Alfie” over and over again whilst laughing and pointing – which must have got dull fairly quickly, seeing as he was on his own with no other bullies to share this with – Freddie cycled off.

  Alfie shook his head, got down from the table and went through into the living room where Mrs Stokes was sitting in an armchair, watching Strictly Come Dancing on TV. She looked completely engrossed.

  “Er … Mrs Stokes?” said Alfie. “It’s time for my tea. Well, actually …” he added, checking his watches, “… we’re already a bit over. We should have been plated up eleven minutes ago. But anyway … you’re meant to … bring me my tea.”

  “Yes, dear,” said Mrs Stokes, without moving her eyes from the TV. “Just do what you like.”

  Alfie frowned. “Pardon?”

  “I said, just do what you like.”

  Alfie wasn’t sure how to take this. “But … you’re meant to bring me my tea. Then, in the next fifteen minutes, I’m supposed to eat it. Then I clear up, bring my plate and cutlery and glass over to the sink and help you load the dishwasher. That’s scheduled to take between six and nine minutes, depending on the size of the meal. Broccoli Bake should be at the lower end of that, I think, which is good because we’re already running late.”

  “Yes, dear,” said Mrs Stokes. “Absolutely. Just do what you like.” And she turned the volume up on the TV.

  Alfie didn’t know what to do. So he ran round the house – back into the kitchen, upstairs to his bedroom, stopping on the landing to go into the bathroom, and then back down into the living room. He collected all the bits of paper from all the various walls and then handed them in a neat pile to Mrs Stokes.

  “Mrs Stokes!” he said. “These are my evening routines. My having-tea routine, my clearing-up-after-tea routine, my homework routine, my limited-amount-of-TV routine, my bath routine, my cleaning-my-teeth-in-the-evening routine—”

  “Is that very different from your cleaning-your-teeth-in-the-morning routine?” said Mrs Stokes.

  “Er … no, they are pretty similar” said Alfie, slightly surprised that she’d heard what he’d been saying. “Anyway, there’s also my getting-undressed-and-putting-pyjamas-on routine and my going-to-bed routine!”

  “That’s nice, love,” said Mrs Stokes.

  “No, but you don’t understand,” said Alfie desperately. “We’re already …” he looked at both wrists, “… fourteen minutes late with having-tea. That means all the other routines will be fourteen minutes behind schedule. Unless we can make up some time, maybe on homework … or I guess I could have a shorter bath … But we need to get started!”

  “All right, dear,” said Mrs Stokes, handing all the pieces of paper back to Alfie. “You get on with it. Just do what you like!”

  Alfie remembered what his dad had said: just stick to your routines. It was clearly no good trying to get Mrs Stokes involved, so Alfie decided to get on with it on his own. He took all the paper routines and laid them out in front of him at the kitchen table. He didn’t, after all, need a grown-up to help him through them, did he?

  Well, unfortunately, yes. The first one, for example. The one that he was already fourteen – no, sixteen now – minutes behind for. Theoretically, he could do having-tea himself. But that meant going very off limits in the way the routines were meant to work. He was supposed to be in place, having laid the table, by 6.30pm. His stepmum, or Stasia, would then bring him tea. For him to bring himself tea confused everything. Not least because his tea was in the oven, on quite a hot plate, and he knew he wasn’t supposed to get hot stuff out of the oven. That was definitely a grown-up’s job.

  There was one upside to all this: even though he’d accepted that it was always what he had for tea on a Saturday night, secretly Alfie didn’t really like Broccoli Bake. He thought about getting something else, but when he looked in the cupboard most of the tins and packages in there contained stuff that needed cooking. Which he also couldn’t do on his own.

  And time was ticking by. He really needed to get on to his next routine, clearing-up-after-tea. But this presented both a practical problem and a philosophical one. Could he clear up after tea when he hadn’t actually had any (that was the philosophical one)? He could clear the table, and bring his plate, glass and cutlery to the sink, but he hadn’t used them, so did they need to be cleaned? And anyway he didn’t know how to switch the dishwasher on; a grown-up had to do that (this was the practical problem).

  Then, after that, there was homework. It was science – a whole essay he was meant to write, about the difference between mammals and marine animals … tonight. He needed a grown-up to help him with that too. Next on the list was a limited-amount-of-TV and he couldn’t do that either because Mrs Stokes was sitting in front of the telly.

  Alfie didn’t want to go any further down the schedule because, if he couldn’t get the next four tasks done, there was just no point. He simply wouldn’t be sticking to his routines. Which was what his dad had told him he had to do.

 
Alfie felt a rising panic in his throat. He knew, at some level, that his world was falling apart. He’d started to sweat and quite a large part of him wanted to cry, which he hadn’t done for ages, not since his mum died. The feeling in his throat got worse and a shout came out that was half a scream. It might have been wordless, but it wasn’t. It was two words.

  “MRS STOKES!!!!!”

  It was a last attempt to get the old lady to come and do her bit to make the routines happen.

  “YES, DEAR!!” Her voice came through, crackly as ever, from the living room.

  “I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO!” shouted Alfie.

  This, undoubtedly, was playing into Mrs Stokes’s hands. “OH WELL!” she shouted, “JUST DO WHAT YOU LIKE!!”

  Just do what you like? thought Alfie. Are you going to say that over and over again? Just do what you like just do what you like just do what you like just do what you like!!!!

  “ALL RIGHT THEN!” Alfie shouted, thinking of time ticking away and his routines slipping past. He held his hands up in exasperation.

  And suddenly he noticed – because his hands were up in the air – that both his watches had stopped.

  “As I’m sure you know, there’s a lot of talk in our business about doing things differently – what people call out of the box ideas. But really, with management consultancy, it’s all about sticking to what you know. Frankly, there is a box, and we’ve got to put the right things into it before we start thinking about everything outside of the box that might be … that might be …”

  “Also put into the box?”

  “Yes. Thank you, Juliana. We have to know what’s meant to be in the box before we put stuff from outside the box into the box that’s not supposed to be in there.”

  Stephen’s boss, Trevor McNade – we could just call him Trevor, but he was one of those people who always seemed to demand a surname too – had been talking like this, about boxes and ideas, while emphasising certain words seemingly at random, for a while. Stephen and Jenny were in a circle of people standing round him, in his very grand living room, under his very grand chandelier. Everyone was holding champagne glasses and nodding. Really nodding.

  Suddenly, though, Jenny stopped nodding.

  “Sorry, Trevor …” – she wanted to say Trevor McNade, but she managed, just, to keep it to Trevor – “… but surely the whole point of thinking outside the box is that the stuff you think of – that’s outside the box – well, it never goes in the box.”

  There was a short silence, during which Trevor McNade adjusted his tie, fiddled with his glasses and his suit buttons, and frowned at Jenny. The elegant woman next to him – Juliana – whispered, “Stephen Moore’s wife, sir,” into his ear.

  Stephen glared at Jenny. Jenny mouthed, What?

  “What do you mean …” said Trevor McNade, “… never goes in the box?”

  “Well, outside the box means … y’know … outside the box. So the expression refers to ideas and thoughts that are so unusual that we basically have to throw the box away.”

  Jenny laughed nervously as she said this. No one else joined in. Trevor McNade stared at her, like she was mad, for about a minute – but it felt much longer – and then started talking about something else. At which point Stephen made a furious head gesture to Jenny to meet him in Trevor McNade’s very grand hallway.

  “What?” said Jenny, out loud this time.

  “Come on, darling. You know why we’re here,” said Stephen, looking over her shoulder at the dining room, where guests were starting to sit down for dinner.

  “To agree with everything Trevor McNade says?”

  “Yes. Basically.”

  Jenny sighed. “OK. I’m sorry. Let’s get it over with. Do you want to call the babysitter and check everything’s all right before we begin dinner?”

  Stephen nodded and took out his phone. Then suddenly, down Trevor McNade’s long and (obviously) very grand staircase, came a young boy wearing a suit and tie and glasses – a suit and tie and glasses very similar to, but a little smaller than, Trevor McNade’s.

  “Would you please get out of my way?” said the boy.

  “Sorry,” said Stephen, moving aside.

  “Ridiculous, you people cluttering up the hallway. My father specifically asked me to join his guests in the dining room at 6.49pm as we sit down to eat.”

  “Sorry,” said Stephen again.

  “Well, just remember that my starter isn’t getting any warmer.”

  “Sorry,” said Jenny.

  The boy sniffed, as if to say, Don’t do it again, and moved through to the main room to join the dinner party. Jenny and Stephen heard the words: “Ah! Cyril!” and “How good of you to join us!” and “One minute late though, aren’t you?” from inside.

  “Cyril seems nice,” said Jenny.

  “No, he doesn’t,” said Stephen.

  “I was being sarcastic.”

  “Oh.”

  “What he really seems like …” said Jenny after a short pause, looking meaningfully at Stephen “… is a boy whose father has taught him that there is only one way to think: his way.”

  Stephen stared at her, then he turned his attention to the dining room where the guests were all seated. Cyril and Trevor McNade were sitting together, smiling smugly as everyone told them how marvellous they both were.

  Stephen put his phone away. “Shall we get out of here?” he said to his wife.

  That’s odd, thought Alfie, looking at his watches both showing the time as 6.49pm. It should have frightened him, but actually it calmed him down. Alfie was so convinced that his watches worked, and couldn’t possibly both fail at the same time, that the more likely explanation was that time had stopped. In some way. Which was good news just at the moment, as it meant that he was no longer getting further and further out of step with his routines.

  It occurred to him, in fact – as he had frozen in place with his arms still raised – that if time had stopped he might be stuck, unable to move, which could get very uncomfortable. But, actually, he unfroze his arms and got down from the kitchen table easily.

  He wasn’t quite sure how best to handle the current situation. But he knew that whatever weirdness was going on was something to do with him saying that he would do exactly what he liked. Not just saying it: shouting it.

  And he knew that when he’d said it he’d meant it. In a different way to the way in which Mrs Stokes had been saying it. She had meant: Yes, dear, you just do whatever. I want to watch TV. But Alfie, in his anger and frustration, had meant: OK, I will do what I like – EXACTLY what I like – just watch me!

  But, when he had shouted it, what he had liked the idea of – what, in other words, he had wanted to happen – was indeed for time to stop.

  And that’s what had happened.

  So maybe … maybe …

  Alfie sat at the kitchen table again, picked up his knife and fork and said again, loudly: “I’ll JUST DO WHAT I LIKE!!”

  Since they had just stopped time, he assumed these were magic words. So he expected, on saying them, something magical to happen. But perhaps disappointingly – even though a minute before this was exactly what he had wanted – Mrs Stokes appeared in front of him.

  “Oh,” he said. “Hello.”

  “So …” she said. “What would that be?”

  “I beg your pardon?” said Alfie.

  “What would that be? In this particular case.”

  “Eh?”

  “Oh, come on, Alfie, don’t be dense. What – seated as you are at the kitchen table, with your knife, fork and plate at the ready – would you like to do?”

  Alfie frowned. Not just because he was thinking about answering the question – although he was – but also because he had noticed something about Mrs Stokes. She had come into the room very quickly and was standing up straighter than she had before.

  She was speaking to him in a loud, uncrackly voice, without seeming to hear any of his words wrong and without her hearing aids feeding back. A
nd her Zimmer frame – if Alfie wasn’t mistaken – was lighting up. In colour! It was like it had been secretly put together from a batch of different coloured lightsabers – red and blue and yellow and green – and she’d only now switched them on.

  “Um …” he said, “I’d like to eat some candyfloss.”

  “OK. Just usual candyfloss or …?”

  “I’d like it in the shape of a rocket!”

  “Excellent! Now you’re getting into the spirit of things! Anything to go with that?”

  “Er … chips?”

  “Rocket candyfloss and chips!”

  Mrs Stokes seemed to concentrate. The colours of her Zimmer frame started flashing. And suddenly there it was, in front of him on the table: a tube of the pinkest, fluffiest candyfloss, shaped exactly like Apollo 13, the rocket ship that Alfie most liked from when they had done the history of the moon landings at school.

  The chips were built up next to it, a huge side ladder of them, criss-crossing all the way to the top. It was incredible. Although one weird thing was that beneath the candyfloss rocket there was some mash.

  “Er …” said Alfie, prodding at it with his fork, “aren’t the chips enough potato?”

  “That’s smoke!” said Mrs Stokes. “From the lift-off!”

  “Brilliant!” said Alfie.

  “Anything to drink?” she added. “Perhaps something that could help power the rocket …?”

  “I don’t really want to drink oil …”

  “No, but it could look a bit like oil …”

  Alfie had a thought. “Well, I’ve always wondered why no one makes a fizzy chocolate drink.”

  Mrs Stokes clicked her fingers and a glass appeared next to his plate full of something brown, creamy and sparkling.

  “Enjoy,” she said.

  The strange thing about that tea – which might seem, in dietary terms, a little sugary and heavy – is that actually it wasn’t. Every bit of the candyfloss rocket that entered Alfie’s mouth seemed to change its level of sweetness so that it never became overpowering, the fizzy chocolate went down like a smooth treat and the chips were really light, fluffy and not too greasy.