Heaven

There it was again. Craaack! Like wood splitting. It reminded Henry of the sound of a cricket ball makes when you hit it just right. No, that’s not it, similar, but different.

He sat up in bed and pulled back the curtain, felt the cold air on his nose. The garden was swamped in darkness, the distant lights of the tower blocks making orange and yellow arrows towards heaven. Henry thought a lot about heaven. At first they’d told him that Maggie would be in heaven (one woman, who smelled like the boys changing rooms at school, said “she’s gone to a better place”, and for a second Henry thought she meant somewhere like Hampstead). Later, he found out that you could only get in if you’d been good, and then worried that Maggie would have to wait outside, sitting on a cloud or something.

She hadn’t always been good. She pulled the curtains down once and then drew on them in pink felt tip pen. Later, Dad explained that the heaven thing was a bit like Christmas – Santa gives you presents if you’re good, but you’ll probably get them anyway, even if you don’t like kissing your Nan or you get vinegar all over the bloody tablecloth.
“Like going down the Lion?” asked Henry. “Mum says you can go down the Lion after you’ve made your sandwiches for work tomorrow, but you go anyway?”
Dad said no, it wasn’t like that at all.

Craaaaack!! – again! That was from our garden, definite.

He thought about waking Mum, but she would just wash his face and make him go back to bed. Henry stared up at Thierry Henry, the super hero permanently frozen in cool celebration, blutack beginning to soak through the poster.

Kicking the duvet away with his preferred left foot (the right one is just for standing on, hahaha) his feet hit the floorboards with a thud. It sounds like elephants when you’re downstairs. Henry could hear his father snoring as he padded along the landing, using the banister for guidance. Down the stairs, fourteen steps, miss the third, jump the last two. Always the same.

The sight of his school bag in the hall gave him the shivers, and, fighting an urge to swing his trusty left peg at it, he danced past and into the kitchen, like arriving late at the far post.

Pwooaar. His Dad’s jacket, lying limp on top of the washing machine. He wasn’t allowed to bring it into the house after going down the Lion. He wasn’t allowed to bring any people from the Lion into the house either, presumably because of their stinky clothes.

The arrows into the night sky were less clear from the kitchen, but still arrows all the same. A blue light blinked on the cooker. Henry remembered a cartoon where a golden light bulb appeared above a dog’s head. This meant that the dog had an idea, it was something to do with a bone or something about………….
Craaaaack!! That came from the shed didn’t it? Didn’t it? Wasn’t it?

The backdoor opened without its usual groan. Ignoring the path, Henry crept along the border, bloody hell the flowers! Those pink ones they’d all cooed over! Extinguishing life as he went, and with the black earth between his toes, the skinny ten year old arrived at the shed sooner than he’d hoped (probably offside, hahahahaa). Even though he didn’t like the rubbery smooth stickyness of his wellies on his bare legs, he now wished he’d put them on. He’d come home from school one day and his wellies stood alone by the backdoor. Maggies had gone. He remembered when Dad had painted “MM” on her wellies in liquid paper. Emenem, M and M’s, Maggie May.

The next craaaaack was so loud that Henry leapt high into the air, his head probably going right through a small cloud, nowhere near the gates of heaven, but high enough to get his head on an over hit cross.