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By Root 549 0

she had painted the rest of the room. He stared at his walls. He was sure that Paddy did not have a pink room, nor Jock, the friend he had almost made and who would have been his blood brother had his mother not intervened. They lived in normal rooms, with model cars and footballs and objects of that sort. They did not have mothers like his, who called his room his space. Suddenly, the door opened, and Irene stood in the doorway. Bertie wished that she would knock before she came into his room, and had once asked her to do this, but she had just laughed. “Now, now Bertie! Do you seriously want me to knock before I come into your space? Why would you want that?”

“Because it’s polite,” said Bertie. “That’s what you should do before you go into another person’s space. You should knock.”

“But remember: I’m Mummy,” said Irene. “And you’re Bertissimo. You have no secrets from Mummy, do you, Bertie?”

Bertie had looked down at the floor and thought about his secrets. Yes, he did have secrets, and he would like to have more. His mother did not know about his secret thoughts, his thoughts of freedom. She did not know about his plan, which was now getting so close to fruition. And it was good that she did not know any of this. She thought that she knew everything about him, but she did not know as much as she imagined. That gave him great satisfaction. Ignorant Mummy, he thought, with relish. Mummy in the Dark!

Now, standing in the doorway, Irene looked down at Bertie and smiled. “It’s time for yoga,” she said brightly. “If we hurry, we might be able to have a latte on the way down there.”

Bertie took a deep breath. He did not want to go to yoga. He did not like to lie with his stomach on the ground and his back arched and pretend to greet the morning sun. Nor did he want to take a deep breath and hold it while the yoga 136 Bertie Escapes!

teacher counted up to twenty-five. He did not see the point of that at all.

“I don’t really like yoga,” he said quietly. “Couldn’t I give it up and stay at home?”

Irene looked at him sharply. “Of course you like yoga, Bertie. Of course you like it.”

“I don’t,” he said. “I hate it.”

“Nonsense,” she said. “You can’t hate yoga. One doesn’t hate yoga. And you had better hurry up. At this rate we’re never going to get there.”

Bertie sighed, and pulled himself up off his bed.

“Are you sending me somewhere, Mummy?” he asked. Irene raised an eyebrow. “Why do you ask, Bertie?”

“Because I want to know,” said Bertie. “I want to know what’s going to happen to me.”

“Well, I do have a little plan for you, Bertie,” said Irene. “But this is not the time to discuss it.”

Bertie looked at her. And I have my own little plan, he said to himself. You don’t know about it, you horrible old . . . He stopped. He did not want to think that way about his mother. He wanted to love her; he really wanted to. But it was proving difficult.

42. Bertie Escapes!

Bertie carried the Watson’s blazer to school folded up and stuffed into the bottom of his rucksack. He was ready with an explanation for his mother, if she asked him why his bag looked so bulky, but Irene seemed preoccupied with something else that morning and paid little attention to Bertie as they boarded the bus together.

“Is something making you feel sad, Mummy?” he asked, as the bus toiled up the Mound.

Irene, who had been looking out of the window, turned to Bertie and smiled. “No, Bertie, Mummy’s not sad. Mummy’s thinking.”

Bertie Escapes!

137

“Thinking of what?” asked Bertie. “Of Dr Fairbairn?”

Irene caught her breath. “Why on earth should I be thinking of Dr Fairbairn?” she snapped. She had been thinking of him, of course, of his blue linen jacket to be exact, but she had not expected Bertie to guess this. Perhaps this was that extraordinary familial telepathy that she had read about somewhere. Could Bertie be psychic? she wondered. Not that such matters were anything more than a lot of weak-minded mumbo-jumbo. He had just guessed – that was all. He had been thinking of Dr Fairbairn himself – by sheer coincidence – and that had led him to attribute