فصل 36

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Nicky

A week went by. They caught the bus to see Norman every day. The vet had sewn up his eye socket so there wasnt an actual hole, but it still looked pretty grim. The first time Tanzie saw his face she burst into tears. They said he might bump into things for a while once he was up and about. They said he would spend a lot of time sleeping. Nicky didnt tell them he wasnt sure anyone would be able to tell the difference. Jess stroked Normans head and told him he was a wonderful brave boy, and when his tail thumped gently on the tiled floor of his pen, she blinked a lot and turned away.

On Friday, Jess asked Nicky to wait in Reception with Tanzie, and she walked over to the front desk to speak to the woman about the bill. He guessed it was about the bill. They printed out a sheet of paper, then a second sheet, then, incredibly, a third, and she ran her finger the whole way down each page and made a little choking sound when it reached the bottom. They walked home that day, even though Jess was still limping.

The town started to get busier as the sea turned from mucky gray to glinting blue. It felt weird at first, the Fishers being gone. It was as if no one could actually believe it. Nobodys tires got slashed. Mrs. Worboys started to walk to bingo in the evenings again. Nicky got used to being able to walk to the shop and back and realized that the butterflies he still felt in his stomach didnt have to be there. He told them this repeatedly, but they refused to get the message. Tanzie didnt go outside at all unless Jess was with her.

Nicky didnt look at his blog for almost ten days. He had written his “my family of losers post when Norman was hurt and he was so full of anger that he had had to get it out somewhere. He had never felt rage, real rage, where he had wanted to break stuff and hit people before, but for days after the Fishers had done what they did, Nicky felt it. It boiled in his blood like poison. It made him want to scream. For those awful few days, at least, writing it down and putting it out there had actually helped. It had felt like he was telling someone, even if that someone didnt really know who he was and probably didnt care. He just hoped that someone would hear what had happened, would see the injustice of it.

And then, after his blood had cooled, and they heard that the Fishers were going to have to pay, Nicky felt kind of like an idiot. It felt like that thing when you tell someone a bit too much and you feel exposed and spend the following weeks praying theyll forget what you told them, afraid they might use it against you. And what was the point of putting it out there, anyway? The only people whod want to look at all that emotional crap were the kind of people who slowed down to look at car crashes.

He opened the post up at first because he was going to delete it. And then he thought, No, people will have seen it. Ill look even more stupid if I take it down. So he decided to write a short thing about the Fishers being evicted and that would be the end of it. He wasnt going to name them, but he wanted to post something good so that if anyone ever did come across what he had written, they wouldnt think his whole family was completely tragic. He read through what hed written the previous week—the emotion and the rawness of it—and his toes actually curled with shame. He wondered who out there in cyberspace had read it. He wondered how many people in the world now thought he was a total fool as well as a freak.

And then he reached the bottom. And he saw the comments.

Hang on in there, Gothboy. People like that make me sick.

Your blog got sent to me by a friend and it made me cry. I hope your dog is okay. Please post and let us know when you get a chance.

Hey Nicky. Im Viktor from Portugal. I dont know you but my friend linked to your blog on Facebook and I just wanted to say that I felt like you a year back and things did get better. Dont worry. Peace!

He scrolled down some more. There was message after message. He typed his name into Google it had been copied and linked hundreds, then thousands of times. Nicky looked at the statistics, then sat back in his chair and stared in disbelief 2,876 people had read it. In a single week. Almost 3,000 people had read his words. More than 400 of them had taken the trouble to send him a note about it. And only 2 had called him a wanker.

But that wasnt all. People had sent money. Actual money. Someone had opened an online donation account to help with the vets fees and left a message telling him how he could access it using a PayPal account.

Hey Gothboy is that your real name?? have you thought of a rescue dog? That way something good might come out of it. I enclose a contribution! Rescue centers always need donations -

A little something to help with the vets bills. Give your sister a hug from me. Im so mad at what happened to you all.

My dog got hit by a car and was saved by the PDSA. Im guessing you dont have one near you. I thought it would be nice, as someone helped me, to help you a little. Please accept my £10 toward his recuperation.

From a fellow girl maths geek. Please tell your little sister to keep on. Dont let them win.

There were 459 shares. Nicky counted 130 names on the donations page, £2 being the smallest donation, and £250 the highest. A total stranger had sent £250. The final tally sat at £932.50, the last having come in an hour previously. He kept refreshing the page and staring at the figure, wondering if they had put a period in the wrong place.

His heart was doing something strange. He placed his palm against his chest, wondering if this was what it felt like to have a heart attack. He wondered if he was going to die. What he wanted to do, though, he discovered, was laugh. He wanted to laugh at the magnificence of total strangers. At their kindness and their goodness and the fact that there were actual people out there being good and nice and giving money to people they had never met and never would. And because, most crazy of all, all that kindness, all that magnificence, was sitting there just because of his words.

—

Jess was standing by the cupboard holding a parcel of pink paper when he scooted into the living room. “Here, he said. “Look. He pulled at her arm, dragging her over to the sofa.

“What?

“Put that down.

Nicky opened the laptop and placed it on her lap. She almost flinched, as if it were actually painful for her to be so close to something that belonged to Mr. Nicholls.

“Look. He pointed at the donations page. “Look at this. People have sent money. For Norman.

“What do you mean?

“Just look, Jess.

She squinted at the screen, moving the page up and down as she read, then reread it. “But . . . we cant take that.

“Its not for us. Its for Tanzie. And Norman.

“I dont understand. Why would people we dont know send us money?

“Because theyre upset about what happened. Because they can see it wasnt fair. Because they want to help. I dont know.

“But how did they know?

“I wrote a blog about it.

“You did what?

“Something Mr. Nicholls told me. I just . . . put it out there. What was happening to us.

“Show me.

Nicky switched pages then and showed her the blog. She read it slowly, her brow furrowed in concentration, and he felt suddenly awkward, like he was showing her part of himself that he didnt show anyone. Somehow it was harder to show all that emotional stuff to someone you knew.

“So, how much is the vet? he said when he could see that shed finished.

She spoke like someone in a daze. “Eight hundred and seventy-eight pounds. And forty-two pence. So far.

Nicky lifted his hands in the air. “So were okay, yes? Look at the total. Were okay!

She looked at him and he could see on her face the exact expression he must have worn half an hour previously.

“Its good news, Jess! Be pleased! And for a minute her eyes brimmed with tears. And then she looked so confused that he leaned forward and hugged her. This was his third voluntary hug in three years.

“Mascara, she said when she pulled back.

“Oh. He wiped under his eyes. She wiped hers.

“Good?

“Fine. Me?

She leaned forward and ran a thumb under the outer edge of his eye.

Then she let out a breath and suddenly she was a bit like the old Jess again. She stood up and brushed down her jeans. “Well have to pay them all back, of course.

“Most of them are, like, three pounds. Good luck with working that out.

“Tanzie will sort it out. Jess picked up the pink tissue parcel, and then, almost as an afterthought, she shoved it into a cupboard. She pushed her hair from her face. “And you have to show her the messages about maths. Its really important she sees those.

Nicky looked upstairs toward Tanzies bedroom. “I will, he said, and just for a minute his mood dipped. “But Im not sure its going to make any difference.