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Suvi Mahonen
I Told You! Jake wanted his dad to be proud of him. He knew his dad was interested in wars. 'Why?' Jake wanted to know. 'Wars shape the world,' his dad said. 'If you have a knowledge of past wars, you can better understand current politics.' Jake didn't really know what his dad meant. 'I get it,' he said. 'Clever boy.' His dad smiled and ruffled his hair. Jake felt six feet tall. Jake couldn't wait to tell his dad about his new school project. 'Guess what,' he said, as soon as his dad got in the door. His dad looked at Jake. 'What?' 'We have to do a big project at school,' Jake said. 'We have to choose a topic and then write about its history, make a story, write a poem, and do a poster. Then we have to present it all to the class.' 'Oh?' His dad was taking off his shoes in the foyer. Jake knew he should have waited till his dad was fully in the house before telling him about the project; that way he would've listened properly. 'I've already chosen my topic.' 'Oh?' His dad kept taking off his shoes. 'Guess what I chose.' 'What?' 'World War I.' It worked. Jake's dad was looking at him properly now. 'That's a big topic,' he said. Jake could tell from the way his dad was smiling and ruffling his hair that he was impressed. 'Clever boy.' Next day Jake was walking home from school. It was a sunny autumn day. He'd usually stamp on the piles of leaves on the footpath to hear them crunch under his shoes. But today he ignored them. He was busy planning his project. 2 He was nearly at his driveway when he heard the Miller sisters next door, laughing at him as he went past. They always laughed, or poked their heads over the fence to call him names. 'Retard.' 'Hee hee hee.' 'Boof-head.' Jake ignored them. 'If they don't like you, that's their problem, not yours,' his mum would always say. Jake stopped at his gate and bumped it open with his bag. The latch was broken. His dad was going to fix it; he said he would, but he'd been busy. The letterbox was stuffed with junk mail. The house's windows were dark. Jake was going to be home alone, again. He was used to being home alone. He'd been doing it since he was nine. That was because, three years ago, his dad had decided to go back to university. That meant his mum had had to go back to working full-time. She did a lot of evening shifts because the money was better. Jake's dad was away a lot in the evenings, too, because he had to go to lectures. It was worst in winter, when it got dark by five o'clock. Jake wasn't scared of the dark, only of the bogyman who lived in the dark. Jake's friend Rodney told him about the bogyman. Rodney was always telling him stories like that. Jake said he didn't really believe in the bogyman, but he was always really careful to lock the doorsójust in case. Now he walked up the stairs onto the veranda and stuck his hand in his pocket for the key. It wasn't there! He checked all his other pockets and then checked them again. He shook out his school bag but he couldn't find it anywhere. He'd lost it! He checked his pockets again. And then his bag. It was definitely gone. Disaster! 3 Frantically, he tried the front door, knowing it would be locked, then turned around and hurried back up the footpath to see if he could find his key. He walked up the road for two blocks, scanning the pavement. It was no use; he could've dropped it anywhere. He turned around and went home. What if his parents had accidentally left the back door unlocked? He raced around the side of the house and up the steps but the back door was locked, too. He tried to slide the bathroom window open, but it was shut tight. He thought about throwing a rock through the window, but he didn't. He knew his parents couldn't afford to get it replaced. He checked his watch. It was four o'clock; his dad'd said he'd be back by seven. Jake wondered what he going to do with himself all afternoon. He supposed he could always read his book. He'd borrowed a book on World War I from the school library for his project. He had to. He'd already looked in his parents' 1911 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. He loved sticking his nose into the pages of the old books; they smelled dry and musty, like his granddad's attic. He'd found a heap of information about the American Civil War and the Napoleonic Wars, but nothing on World War I. It didn't make sense. The First World War had been much bigger. They must have left it out by accident. He went and found his dad and told him about the mistake. His dad laughed. 'When did the First World War begin, Jake?' Jake knew the answer. '1914.' 'And when were these books printed?' Jake looked at the spine of the book he was holding. He felt a flush creeping up his neck. '1911,' he said. His dad laughed again.
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