Flour Babies - Anne Fine [28]
Instantly, Simon shook it off, and marched back along the tow path the way they had come.
‘What’s up with him?’ George Spalder asked, mystified.
‘Shut up, you great hiccup,’ whispered Robin. And he couldn’t help adding importantly: ‘Didn’t you know Sime’s dad only stuck six weeks of looking after him?’
‘No,’ George said. ‘I didn’t know that.’
He stared after Simon.
‘Not very long to have a dad, is it?’ he said.
Robin said portentously:
‘It is exactly one thousand and eight hours.’
Everyone looked at Robin with a new respect. Then, one by one, they turned to watch in sympathy as Simon drew further and further away from them along the tow path. It was perfectly clear that he didn’t want their company any longer.
Gwyn got back on his bike.
‘I’ll be off, then.’
George nudged Wayne. ‘Come on. Let’s go.’ He pulled Robin along with them. ‘You too, Robin. No point in hanging about here. He won’t turn round and come back till we’ve all gone.’
And he was right. A minute or so after they disappeared between the trees on the bend, Simon glanced round to check the path was clear, and only then did he turn back again. Simon felt terrible. Unfit for company. Best left alone.
Six weeks! Six whole weeks! Surely, he thought, as he kicked moodily at stones along the path, six weeks was long enough! What could have been wrong with him as a baby? What sort of little blot could he have been, that after six whole weeks his father hadn’t even thought him worth staying around for, worth bringing up? Simon had only had his flour baby eleven days, and already, just as he couldn’t imagine himself simply booting her into the canal out of temper, so he couldn’t think how his own father could just have walked out, whistling, one fine day. After all, Simon was real.
So what had been wrong with him? Simon had seen other babies. Only that morning, on the way to school, he’d practically bumped into one. It was stuffed into one of those backpacks, and its mother was standing at the kerb on the corner, waiting for the light to go green. Eleven days before, Simon could have strolled past whole swarms of babies, and not even noticed them. Now he saw every one.
It was wearing a bonnet studded with woolly knobs, with a ribbon bow under its chin. Both the baby and the bonnet looked very clean, Simon thought. Cheeks pink and gleaming. Wool as white as snow. He wondered how the parents managed it. For all his own studious efforts to protect her, his own flour baby seemed to be getting grubbier by the day.
As if sensing his rather envious stare, the baby turned in the backpack to look at Simon. Its ribbon chin strap slipped across its mouth, and Simon stretched out a finger, thinking to push it back.
The baby saw the finger coming. Instantly its bland pudding face was transfigured with a smile. To Simon it looked as if some mighty lightbulb had just been switched on in the baby’s head. The effect was magical. The little face shone.
Simon grinned at the baby. What a doddle! To judge by the way it was beaming, you’d think Simon had just performed some absolutely unbelievable trick, some astonishing feat like doing a treble somersault with sparklers sticking out of his ears, and not just stuck out a grubby finger.
He hooked the ribbon back under the baby’s chin. It didn’t flinch. Clearly it was so amazed and thrilled by the mere sight of the finger coming close that it didn’t even realize the point was to tug the bonnet straight.
Drunk with power, Simon waggled the finger.
Instantly the baby was reduced to paroxysms of mirth. It squirmed energetically in its backpack.
Its mother turned round.
‘Sorry’ said Simon, and the light turned green.
All the way over the road, Simon stayed a step behind the baby, waggling his finger just above its head. The baby kicked and crowed. Simon felt quite a pang when he had to peel away on the other side. He couldn’t remember ever delighting anyone so much, so easily. How old was that baby? He had no idea. He knew almost nothing about them. He did suppose that if one of