Tao (3 page)

“Women,” he said. “Where would they be without us men?” He was carrying a half-asleep Roger up the stairs.

“Some help you are!” she called back, as she began to root around in the recycling bin.

“Bet you left them in the car,” Dad called back in his jaded voice.

He was right, of course.

“The annoying thing is that he is always right!” Jo laughed, as we finally got going. I don’t like it when she laughs. It’s annoying. But then she took a wrong turn, stalled when the lights turned green and hit the tyres on the kerb. By the time we got there in the end, I was beginning to think that Dad might be right about women drivers.

“See you, Tao. Enjoy the film,” she called as I hopped out of the car.

I nearly forgot and smiled and said thanks but Kate had opened the front door so I just said, “Bye”.

The Eleventh Thing:
This thing is the
Big Thing
and it’s the first thing that I told you about so you don’t have to bother reading about it again … unless you’ve forgotten or you skipped that bit – then you’ll have to go back to page 9.

The Twelfth Thing:
The cinema is only down the road in Stepdon village and so we were there in no time. David was first, of course. He’s the fastest and it’s always a race. We call him “the Cheetah”.

“The Cheetah wins again,” he whooped.

“Cheater, more like,” said Kalem, who was last, as usual.

“Bad loser, more like,” said David, while I paid for the tickets. Kalem and David are my best friends, but they don’t always get along so well with each other.

“Kate showed us the rodent,” said Kalem while we waited for the film to start.

“Mousey?” I said. “Great, isn’t he? Dad gave him to me for my birthday. Best present ever.”

“Mousey!” jeered David. “That’s a rubbish name. Call him ‘the Rodent’ like Kate does. She wouldn’t even go into the same room as him. She just pointed.”

“Mousey is just what I call him until I think of a good name,” I told David.

“How about Mousey Tongue,” suggested Kalem and laughed out loud at some joke that only he got. “He was a Chinese guy – like you, Tao.”

I might be Chinese, but I never heard of a name like that. David raised his eyes to heaven and twirled his finger on the side of his head to show how mad Kalem was.

“Call him the Rodent,” he said. “That’s a proper name for a mouse. The Rodent Strikes Back!” he added dramatically.

“The Attack of the Raging Rodent!” I added.

Then the film started and the talk stopped, but the name Rodent stuck.

The Thirteenth Thing:
The film was brilliant. There was some really awesome martial arts fighting in it and all the way home David was practising his chops and kicks.

“Hi …YAA!” he yelled and leapt into the air, his foot outstretched and his hands rigid.

“Hi …YAAAHOOO!” I yelled and kicked a lamp post.

“That’s rubbish, Tao,” said David.

David is a bit of an expert at martial arts. He’s tried a few different classes, but he hasn’t found the right one yet. So far he has a white belt in karate, a white belt in judo and a white belt in kick-boxing.

“And that’s got to add up to at least one black belt,” he claims.

“It adds up to a whole lot of nothing,” says Kalem. David gave him a karate chop on the arm for that, but Kalem didn’t even seem to notice.

Back in the house, Kate lit the candles on a big lumpy cake she had made herself. This time I got to blow them out by myself and the boys cheered and David wanted to give me the birthday bumps, but Kalem said they would need more than two to lift me, so I escaped. When we’d eaten about half the cake (it was delicious – the worse Kate’s cakes look, the better they taste) and I’d opened my presents (a football – because I needed to practise, said David, and an underwater torch – for the bath, said Kalem) and I’d shown them Rodent, David’s dad collected them both and suddenly the house was quiet again.

“Give me a hug and off to bed,” said Kate. “By the way, I rang your father when you were at the cinema and he is coming over tomorrow and we’re all going to have a chat… But Tao, there’s nothing for you to worry about. Good night. Love you.”

Nothing to worry about? Easy for her to say. I was tired after my birthday and now I was fed up. I hate it when adults say that there is nothing to worry about because it always means that there is. The last time Dad and Kate had a “chat” with me was to tell me that they were splitting up.

“A chat about what?” I asked, but I didn’t really want to know. So when Kate said it could wait until the morning, after I had had a good night’s sleep, I didn’t argue, I just said good night and went up to bed.

“Night, night,” I said to Rodent and lifted his cage onto the floor.

Rodent was obviously not sleepy because he was galloping around his little wheel thing. I watched him for a bit – he looked really intense, like he was practising for the Olympics.

Thirteen things in one day. That was a lot. No wonder I don’t even remember nodding off.

I didn’t sleep very well. I kept wondering what was so important that Dad had to come over to “chat” about it. With Kate. They’d probably end up fighting with each other like they always do.

Why is everything always much worse at night? When I woke up in the morning, it all seemed a bit silly. Suddenly I realized what the “chat” was going to be about. They were going to tell me all about sex and babies and stuff. Kalem’s parents told him all about it when he turned ten and he told me, but it was hard to follow.

It was probably Kate’s idea to have Dad there for “a man-to-man talk”. I bet he wasn’t that bothered. He’d just think that Kate was being a drama queen again. I heard Dad’s car already pull up and the door open while I was still in bed. He probably wanted to get it over early so he wouldn’t be late for his Sunday golf.

“This is going to be so gross,” I told Rodent. I wasn’t looking forward to it. All that yucky stuff.

I went down to the kitchen. Dad and Kate were already both there, sitting at the kitchen table.

“Sit down, Tao,” said Dad. “Your mother and I have something to tell you.”

He sounded serious but kind too. He was probably a bit embarrassed – I know I was. Kate was smiling in a lopsided way. I sat down. My face felt red.

“It’s OK,” I muttered, “you don’t have to tell me. I know all about it already.”

“You do?” said Dad, turning to Kate, an astonished look on his face.

“Yeah. Kalem told me.”

“Told you what?” asked Kate, looking very puzzled.

I really went red then. My face was burning up. Surely she didn’t expect me to explain it back to her.

“You know,” I mumbled, “where babies come from … and how they get inside the mummy and all that stuff.”

Kate looked at Dad and he looked at her … and suddenly they both burst out laughing. That was not what I had expected. They never did that. Even before Jo took Dad away from us.

“Oh, Tao,” said Kate, still half laughing and ruffling my hair, “we don’t want to talk to you about the birds and the bees!”

I jerked my head away.

“Who said anything about birds and bees?” I was cross now.

“You got the wrong end of the stick there, Tao,” said Dad, smiling. “That talk is for another day. Now let’s get to the matter at hand,” he continued, glancing at his watch.

“Can’t you miss your damn golf for once?” said Kate and suddenly it seemed like they were about to start one of their rows.

“Then what DO you want to talk to me about?” I put in quickly to distract them. I was really confused by now.

“You got a phone call last night from a girl named Mimi,” said Dad, looking straight at me.

“It was a wrong number,” I said.

“No, it wasn’t,” said Dad. “Mimi is your sister.”

Kate jumped up.

“You can’t just blurt out something like that,” she shouted at Dad, “without explaining a thing.”

“Well, you explain it then!” Dad shouted back, his eyes blazing.

“What do you mean – ‘my sister’?” I asked quietly. I suddenly felt dizzy.

Kate and Dad stopped arguing and looked at me. Kate sat down and put her hand over mine. Dad pulled up his chair and repeated, “You have a sister, Tao. She’s Chinese like you and her name is Mimi. She lives in Ireland.”

“I know this is a bit of a shock, Tao,” said Kate softly.

It was more than a bit of a shock. I felt like being sick.

“She was adopted before you were adopted. By an Irish family. Then they were contacted by the orphanage again—”

“How old is she?” I asked before Kate finished. I didn’t understand anything of what she was saying anyway.

“Well…” began Kate, and she looked across at Dad.

But I had another question before they could explain.

“How long have you known about this?” My voice was getting louder now. “When were you going to tell me? You should have told me about this!” I shouted at them and stood up so fast that my chair fell backwards onto the floor with a bang. Then I ran out of the room. Dad tried to stop me, but I yanked my arm out of his hand and ran up the stairs and threw myself on my bed. I wasn’t crying, but I was very cross. Very, very cross. My face was in my pillow and my eyes felt so hot that it wouldn’t have surprised me if they had burnt two holes in it.

Rodent looked at me through the bars, but I was too angry to explain.

“Well done!” I could hear Kate saying in a sarcastic tone.

And then Dad’s sharp, angry answer.

“Well, you handle it then if you’re so bloody clever!” The front door slammed and a minute later Dad’s car pulled away sharply with a screech of tyres.

Then the phone rang.

The phone rang five times before Kate, with a loud sigh, picked it up.

“Yes?” I heard her say.

Then, “Oh.”

Then, “Mimi?”

I sat up and listened very carefully.

“I don’t think this is the best moment,” Kate said slowly. “If you give me your number, he’ll ring you back. Is your father there?”

I jumped up and ran to the top of the stairs. “Don’t hang up!” I shouted down to Kate. “I want to talk to her.” I charged down the stairs two steps at a time.

“This is Tao now,” Kate managed to say before I grabbed the phone out of her hand.

“Tao?” said a voice very shyly on the other end. Before I answered, I stared hard at Kate and she understood me well enough because she held up her hands and backed into the kitchen, closing the door behind her.

“Hello, Mimi,” I said and suddenly I went all shy too. I didn’t know what else to say. Mimi didn’t talk either and there was a long silence. Then I could hear some loud whispering.

“Say something, Mimi! Don’t just stand there like an eejit with your mouth hanging open.” It was a girl’s voice. “Ask him who he is and why our dad has his number,” she continued.

“OK, Sally!” Mimi whispered back sharply. “Tao, my sister Sally wants to know, and I want to know too, who you are and why my dad has your phone number and why does he say in a letter that’s all crumpled up in the waste-paper basket that he thinks it’s high time that Mimi and Tao were told the truth?”

She was talking very fast now, all the words tumbling out. If Mimi had a sister, was she my sister, too? I was getting very confused.

“My dad says that you are my sister,” I interrupted.

There was another long silence then.

“What did he say?” whispered Mimi’s sister in the background.

“He says he is my sister,” giggled Mimi.

“That’s not what I said – I said that my dad says that you are my sister, and that I am your brother,” I tried to explain but it was hopeless.

“Well, whatever,” said Mimi. “I think your dad is joking because I already have a brother called Conor. You can ask Sally.”

“He isn’t joking, Mimi,” I said. “I am your brother too.”

Kate had come back quietly out of the kitchen and was mouthing that I should put her on the phone. My head was in a spin. I handed her the phone and she asked Mimi if she could speak to her father. But it seemed that Mimi didn’t want to get her father. So Kate had to insist. There was a long wait then, with Kate just holding the phone.

Eventually Mimi’s father must have come, and Kate and he talked for a very long time. I went out in the garden and kicked the football back and forth against the wall of the house until Kate finally called me in.

I sat down at the table with a long face. I didn’t really feel that cross anymore, just fed up and sulky.

“I gave Mimi’s dad your mobile number to give to her,” said Kate, putting a glass of water on the table in front of me. “I hope you don’t mind?”

I just shrugged. I was surprised that Kate even knew my number.

“It’ll make it easier for you to chat in private,” she said.

“S’pose so,” I mumbled, but right now I didn’t really care.

“It’s true then – what Dad said – this Mimi is my sister?” I asked her, a bit grumpily. “When exactly were you going to tell me?”

Kate sighed. “Your father and I only found out about Mimi after we had adopted you. Mimi is Chinese, like you. When Rose and Paul, that’s Mimi’s parents, adopted her from the orphanage in China, they were told that she was an only child. When we adopted you a few weeks later we were told the same thing, but it was a mix-up. Later on, somebody in the orphanage found the papers saying that you were really twins…”

“Twins!” I spluttered. This day was getting stranger and stranger.

“Well, yes,” said Kate, “apparently. So they wrote both families a letter, but it was too late then. We weren’t going to give you to Rose and Paul, and they weren’t going to give Mimi to us.”

“When were you going to mention this little thing?” I said in a sarcastic voice. “I think I had a right to know about this!”

I could feel my eyes welling up.

“We were going to tell you both when you were seven.”

“But you didn’t!”

“Well, no, we didn’t,” said Kate softly, “because that’s when your father and I broke up and it was all upsetting enough without this on top of everything. So we told Rose and Paul to wait for another year or two.”