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‘First we tell her the good news,’ Auntie said firmly. ‘We tell her you’re coming. And then she will be so happy, surely, she won’t be too upset about your height.’

‘OK,’ I said. But I was dubious.

‘Why don’t we explain?’ Uncle said. ‘Tell her about Bernardo Carpio? About what everyone in San Andres says?’

Of course, we didn’t encourage the gifts and the thank-yous. But we didn’t discourage them either.

I didn’t feel like Bernardo Carpio. I didn’t feel like a saviour. A saviour wouldn’t have stiff joints and lower back pain and aching knees because of his ungainly size.

But I looked at Auntie and Uncle and Old Tibo and all the people of San Andres and I wanted to be who they thought I was.

Uncle opened a thesaurus to look for synonyms for the words ‘tall’ and ‘grow’. ‘How about “mature”?’ he said. ‘Let’s just casually say that Bernardo’s really become … mature.’

‘She’s not stupid, Victor.’ Auntie frowned. ‘Besides, the moment Bernardo steps off that plane, the game will be up. We must tell her the truth.’

So Auntie made the call.

It went very well at first as Auntie relayed the Home Office’s miraculous change of mind. She beamed as Ma squawked with joy from the other side of the world.

And then she told her.

The phone stopped squawking.

‘Hello? Mary Ann?’ Auntie shook the telephone receiver.

‘What is it?’ Uncle reached for the phone but she brushed his hand away, listening intently and tapping the receiver with a long fingernail.

‘What is she saying?’ I asked. ‘Let me speak to Ma.’

Auntie shook her head.

‘Oh, I’ve had enough of this.’ Uncle stood up and snatched the phone away.

Auntie immediately pressed the button and the distant drone of a dial tone sounded. ‘I think we’ve lost the line,’ she said.

Uncle glared at her and put the phone down.

‘How did she take it?’ I said anxiously.

Auntie’s smile was as hard as plastic. ‘I think she took it very well.’

12

Andi

Since the Phone Call, Mum’s turned into a character from this book I read in English who one moment is nice-but-needy Dr Jekyll, the next is monstrous Mr Hyde.

So one moment Mum is walking on air because truly this was the dream she’d been working towards for years and years. Bernardo was coming to England. Hallelujah!

The next moment she’s hunkered like someone waiting for the apocalypse. Unpacking the boxes, putting things away, cleaning the house like a demon. Grim.

Suddenly everything was Bernardo, Bernardo, Bernardo.

Bernardo coming to England eclipsed all Mum’s plans. Sorting out the new house. Putting me in a new school. Settling me in. Everything.

The morning of my first day at Saint Sim’s, I came downstairs to find her washing the tops of the doors.

‘Honestly, Mum. Bernardo isn’t going to inspect the tops of the doors.’

Mum looked down at me like I was the crazy one. ‘Bernardo is tall.’

OK.

I tried to ask her how tall is Bernardo – six foot? Six foot two inches? She just clicked her tongue and complained that Auntie Sofia never took her seriously. That they should have said something.

But who cares if Bernardo is six foot tall? Loads of boys my age are beginning to shoot up. George McGregor at my old school was six foot tall, and boy was I glad to see the back of him, the jackass.

‘I’ll be off, Mum,’ I said.

‘I’ll be down in a minute,’ she said, totally forgetting to nag me to eat some breakfast. ‘I’d better walk you to school since it’s your first day.’

‘Don’t worry about me,’ I said, moving quickly to the door. She didn’t even pretend to try to get down from the stepladder. ‘I’ll just report to the school office. I can manage.’

Mrs Green said it before I could stop her.

‘Class,’ she said, ‘this is Amandolina Jones.’

The class laughed like a pack of hyenas.

Right.

‘It’s Andi, actually,’ I said. ‘Andi with an i.’

But they were laughing too hard to hear me.

Mum said she chose the name Amandolina because one of her best friends was named Amandolina, and besides, Amandolina sounded musical. Musical? It sounded more