The Space We're In Read online

  Margaret Ferguson Books

  Copyright © Katya Balen

  All rights reserved

  HOLIDAY HOUSE is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

  www.holidayhouse.com

  The Space We’re In was first published in Great Britain by Bloomsbury, 2019, in a somewhat different form.

  First Edition, 2019

  Photo of Mona Lisa from illustrated Encyclopedia “Treasures of art”,

  Partnership «Prosvesheniye», St. Petersburg, Russia, 1906 / Shutterstock

  Photo of spiral galaxy ESA-Hubble / Shutterstock

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Balen, Katya, author.

  Title: The space we’re in / Katya Balen.

  Other titles: Space we are in

  Description: New York : Margaret Ferguson Books, Holiday House, [2019] | Summary: Ten-year-old Frank’s life revolves around his autistic brother, five-year-old Max, but after many changes over the course of a year, he discovers that he loves Max and is proud of him.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018057418 | ISBN 9780823442898 (hardcover)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Brothers—Fiction. | Autism—Fiction. | Family life—England—Fiction. | Schools—Fiction. | Friendship—Fiction. | England—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.B3573 Sp 2019 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018057418

  Ebook ISBN 9780823443154

  v5.4

  a

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  13 5 12 20 4 15 23 14

  3 18 15 19 48

  7 12 21 5

  18 1 13 19 8 30 3 11 12 5

  6 9 7 8 20

  8 5 12 16

  20 18 5 1 19 21 47 34

  19 15 18 47 25

  13 15 14 11 5 25 2 44 54

  10 15 2 5

  19 20 1 18 48

  6 21 18 25

  13 1 7 9 3

  23 9 12 4

  14 15 20 29 6 1 9 18

  20 15 44 29 2 18 9 7 8 49

  6 1 12 4 1 9 14 7

  2 12 15 44 4

  2 18 15 11 5 14

  2 15 14 5 19

  23 15 18 47 25

  19 23 5 34 20 48

  7 15 12 4 5 14 29 18 1 20 9 44

  3 18 1 32 11 19

  5 13 16 20 25

  2 18 15 20 8 5 47

  21 14 9 22 5 18 19 34

  6 1 13 9 12 25

  2 5 6 15 18 34

  19 20 1 18 29 4 21 48 49

  6 12 25 9 14 7

  6 9 24 5 4

  4 15 7

  19 16 12 9 20 29 48 5 3 15 14 4

  19 3 18 5 1 13 9 14 7

  1 6 18 30 9 4

  4 1 18 11 14 5 19 48

  8 9 19 20 15 18 25

  3 8 1 15 19

  7 15 14 5

  5 3 8 15

  2 18 15 11 5 14

  4 21 19 20

  12 15 19 20

  1 12 15 14 5

  19 9 12 5 14 20

  19 15 18 47 44 23

  6 1 18 29 30 16 59 47 20

  18 15 1 13 9 14 7 29 23 38 12 4

  13 5 12 20 4 15 23 14

  19 16 1 18 11 48

  6 15 18 5 19 20 48

  23 9 12 4 2 15 25 19

  19 20 15 18 9 5 48

  1 18 20

  21 14 9 22 5 18 19 34 29 48 11 25 58 77 16 1 3 63 87 32 15 106 13 44 135 116 7 30 12 59 24 54 145 164 20 88 47 193

  5 12 34 22 63 14

  23 9 12 4

  23 9 12 4 29 20 8 38 14 7

  2 5 19 20 29 15 6 58 1 12 41

  16 18 15 21 4

  20 15 7 5 49 8 34 18

  12 15 22 5

  Epigraph

  For my parents, and for Patrick

  In the spiral cipher code, the first time you use a letter in your message it starts as one number but changes each time you use it. So A=1, B=2 the first time; the second time, A=30, B=31, and so forth. This diagram ends at 58 but the spiral keeps going, depending on the number of repeated letters you use in your message.

  13 5 12 20 4 15 23 14

  I AM TEN and Max is five. There are twenty-six days until Max starts school and we’re going to buy new shoes for the new school. We’ve looked at his special hard plastic book with its little Velcro-y laminated pictures of all his favorite things and the ones that show him what’s happening now and next. It has a blue silky-smooth strap so he can wear it around his neck when we’re not at home and he needs to know what’s going to happen. He doesn’t like the weight and the click-clack of the plastic pages though so Mum carries it for him instead. Mum showed him the picture for shoe store and we whirled around the world on Google Street View trying to find the store to show him so he’s prepared but it’s not there so she’s worried worried worried. I went to Egypt on Google Street View and I showed Max but he was jumping up and down so he didn’t get to look at the pyramids. Now we are in the car. New shoes new school Mum says to Max. Max doesn’t say anything because he never says anything and he doesn’t stop humming even though I ask him to stop humming.

  I’m not going to a new school but I’m getting new shoes. I think that might be confusing Max, so I tell him that I’m not going to a new school. You are I say. You’re going to a new school. Max keeps humming. I tell him to shut up and Mum doesn’t say don’t tell your brother to shut up, Frank because she’s worried about the new shoes new school.

  We get to the shoe store and Mum parks the car too close to a wall so I have to wait in my seat while she gets Max out. She puts his reins on and I say giddyup but she doesn’t laugh. Max flaps his hands and Mum shows him his special book and I say new shoes! but Max doesn’t like that. Mum tells him words using her hands, she says new and she says first shoes, then cookie but Max isn’t looking so he can’t listen.

  We go into the store and Max is still humming so people look at him. I used to tell people he was talking but I don’t say that anymore. The store is big, too big for Max. I don’t see anyone I know and that makes me happy but it’s not the sort of happy that makes me smile. I go and look at cool shoes with high tops and long laces and I hold a pair up and Mum doesn’t say no because she’s telling the shoe lady that she can’t touch Max’s feet but that Mum thinks they’re a size two. The lady says she’d like to measure Max’s feet because they don’t like to sell shoes that don’t fit and wouldn’t it be easier not to have to bring them back? Mum smiles but she’s not smiling really, and says that she just wants the same shoes Max is wearing but bigger and if we have to come back we will just come back.

  Max is humming louder and louder and his hands are flapping down by his sides and not up in the air like he does when he’s happy so I think we might have to go. Mum talks to Max with her hands and gives him a ball to squish with his hands because that might stop them flapping.

  The shoe lady isn’t happy and says to Max to come here so she can have a little look-see at his feet. I want to tell her to shut up but I don’t want to say anything at all so I just keep looking at the shoes with high tops and I choose ones with blue laces. I pick them up and check the size and it’s perfect for me. The shoe store lady says lots of little boys don’t like having their feet measured and she’s sure he’ll be fine and that he’s a brave boy and there are stickers for brave boys and does he like soccer because she has soccer stickers and does he play soccer or support a soccer team or perhaps he likes Match Attax cards because little boys like those a lot, don’t they? And then it’s too many words and Max is having his meltdown.

  I don’t know why they call it that because when something like ice melts it pours itself into a puddle and it isn’t hard anymore. When Max melts he’s the hardest thing in the world and you think he’s going to explode his bones from his body. He bites and bites and bites at his fists and his humming is a scream from his chest and nose and mouth. He is fury and he’s lost himself and everyone and everything and everywhere.

  All the people in the store are looking at the furious biting boy even though they’re grown-ups and it’s rude to stare and the store lady doesn’t say anything anymore. Mum is using her hands again to say finished finished finished and she says it with her mouth too. She picks Max up because he is stiff and small and not a puddle but he kicks and lashes and twists himself hisssss like a snake. His fingers are in his ears because I don’t think he likes the sound he’s making and then the two of them push out through the door and Mum holds his reins as he gallops.

  I put back the high-tops with blue laces.

  Finished finished finished.

  3 18 15 19 48

  MUM IS VERY cross with the shoe lady but she doesn’t say that to me. I am very cross with the shoe lady because she talked to Max when he was tightrope balancing and she pushed him off and down down down. We’ll try again Mum says. We’ll try again another day. I know that she means Dad will go and get everything and Max will stay at home and spin himself around and around until he’s too dizzy to do that and then he’ll watch something else spin around.

  Mum takes out the sticky shoe-store Velcro-y picture from Max’s special book and she puts it away in a plas
tic folder that’s fat with pictures he does and doesn’t like and then she gives him his special toy bug that buzzes gently when you touch its nose.

  Max has lots and lots of special things.

  He has

  his special book with plastic pages and laminated sticky Velcro pictures to show him what’s now and next

  his special plastic pictures that Angelique is teaching him to exchange for things he wants

  his special box full of things that light up and spin and glow like

  his special squashy balls and glitter tubes and buzzy bugs to help him be a calm boy.

  I have

  my soccer trophies

  my bright red bike with 21 gears

  my books on detectives and codes and space

  a lock on my bedroom door.

  When Dad gets home from work he goes on his own and gets the shoes. I stay at home in my room because he wants to be quick about it and Max stays at home and spins. Mum pushes her fingers into her temples like she always does when her head is bursting.

  Max gets the same shoes as always and forever and mine are black sneakers with black laces that give my fingers rope burn and I wish they were different.

  7 12 21 5

  THERE ARE TWENTY-ONE DAYS before school starts. Max hasn’t been to school before. When Max was three he went to a nursery school but he melted and melted and melted day after day after day. His face was always puffy from crying and from hitting himself until the skin around his eyes was painted with blue bruises. Then Max bit another child and the nursery school asked Mum to come and pick him up. She cried afterward and Granny M came around and was calm and put the kettle on.

  Granny M is Mum’s mum and sometimes I think it’s funny that Mum still has her mum who comes around and makes her tea. Granny M is like a little bird with twiggy arms in soft sweaters and legs draped in gray pants but she’s like steel underneath, like when people stare at Max or when I haven’t done my homework. Mum told her what had happened at the nursery school and I listened even though I was pretending to be working on codes in my notebook. Ahmed and Jamie and I had a whole new alphabet made of spiky symbols and dots and lines and I was trying to push all of the new letters into my head so I could write them secret notes in class. I put my face very close to the paper so I wasn’t really looking at Mum and Granny M but I could hear everything they were saying.

  Mum was hiccup-crying in little bursts and she said that Kelsey from the nursery school wanted extra training before she could be Max’s helper again. Mum kept saying he’s never bitten another child before, not even Frank. And I thought about the little pink and purple thumbprints on my arms from when Max is too excited or too hot or too cross and I didn’t really think it mattered about the not-biting. Mum was trying to swallow tea but she couldn’t make it go down right and Granny M gave her a thump on the back and Mum cried again and said she was too upset to even swallow a sip of tea and if you can’t have a cup of tea in a crisis then what’s the point of being British. And then she did a laugh that still sounded like a sob.

  Then we saw doctors about Max and he didn’t go back to that nursery school and he and Mum were stuck together like glue.

  18 1 13 19 8 30 3 11 12 5

  THERE ARE TWENTY DAYS before Max starts school and I am in my room listening to him shout and whirl and melt. The sound is bouncing and echoing up through the floorboards so I climb up and up the winding attic stairs until I can’t hear his howls. The stairs creak and whine because we live in a ramshackle house. That’s what Dad calls it and he rolls the r around in his mouth and lets it fly out with a flick of his tongue. Max laughs when Dad says it so he says it a lot. My wife and my boys in our ramshackle house. Dad made it sound beautiful, so when I looked up ramshackle on Google and it said in a state of severe disrepair I thought I must have found the wrong word.

  The house has got strange crumbly bits and the walls lean in toward us and the floorboards groan when Max spins. The top room all the way up the attic stairs has a musty damp smell when it rains but no one but me goes up there now anyway so it doesn’t matter. The front door is bright red because Mum and Dad let me choose when I was five and I loved red, and all the leaning-in walls are covered in framed pictures that I did at nursery school and some pencil scribbles by Max when he was a toddler that Dad says are definitely modern art. There are paintings that Mum did too, before she had us and lost the time she used to have all to herself.

  She was an artist before she had Max and this damp-smelling room was her studio because she said the light from the slanted windows in the roof was perfect. She painted the universe. Stars and skies and great galaxies that change and shift every time you look at them until sometimes they look like something very far away and sometimes they look like something you’ve known all your life.

  She used to have exhibitions in galleries and people would pay lots of money for her paintings and every time she sold one Dad would open a bottle of champagne and they would dance around the kitchen and drink from tall thin glasses. Once, she dipped her finger into the glass and put it into my mouth so I could taste it and it popped and burned and they both laughed when I stuck my tongue out and cried that I didn’t like it. Then Mum put her arms around me and lifted me high up toward the ceiling and the three of us danced in a circle on the cold kitchen tiles.

  When I was small, even smaller than Max, Mum still climbed these stairs in the morning while I played spaceships with Granny M or Dad or the nanny whose name I can’t remember. Mum started the day in a clean blue shirt, always a soft blue shirt, and every time she came back down the stairs there were all the colors of a new painting decorating her clothes and her skin. The paint smelled sharp and sweet and even after she’d taken off her painting clothes it clung to her skin and hair.

  Dad always wore a suit made from something scratchy and dark, with a shirt that stayed clean all day and sometimes a tie with pointed ends like a snake’s tongue that he could flick into an impossible knot.

  Before Max, he’d always be home to tuck me into bed and he would read me stories about an adventuring astronaut floating through the Milky Way in a crow-black sky, and about the boy detective Tintin who solved puzzles and codes to solve crimes. I loved them because all the clues fit together at the end and then everything was okay. Dad told me when I was old enough he’d teach me a special type of code for computers because that’s what he does all day at work but I’m old enough now and I’m still waiting.

  Then Mum’s blue shirt started stretching out farther and farther away from her as her belly grew a new person and Mum stopped going upstairs quite as much. Instead she would help me paint paper planets to hang from my ceiling and together we mapped out the stars on my walls. When Max was born she stopped going upstairs and she didn’t sell any more paintings. Dad started wearing his suit so much it was like it had become stitched to his skin and there were no more bedtime stories because Dad wouldn’t be back from work in time and Mum would be with Max.

  And now I sit on the floor in Mum’s studio surrounded by dried-out tubes of paint that have lost their smell and paintings that she never sold and I scribble my codes onto a huge blank snowy-white canvas. My favorite code is the number-letters-spiral cipher which is just about the easiest code in the universe but it’s my favorite anyway. Cipher is just another word for code really but I love the way it sounds. I don’t know what the hardest code in the universe is but I want to be the one to invent it. I don’t want anyone to be able to crack it, and I’ll use it to write everything that burns inside me on days like this.

  6 9 7 8 20

  THERE ARE NINETEEN DAYS before Max starts school. Dad has just got home from work and he promised he’d be in time for dinner but dinner is finished. Mum and Dad are having a whispery-hissed fight about Max and about what is best. Their fight is the loudest since Max gave Mum a black eye without meaning to hit but still hitting, watery swelling puffing along her cheek and inkblue teardrop bruises spilling in a starry galaxy around her temple.

  I peep through the banister while Max sits in his room and peacefully rolls a marble around and around a plastic peanut butter jar lid. Dad stands stiff like a soldier but his hands are stuffed deep in his pockets so that the stitches make little crackles. Mum throws her arms wide like she’s about to give him a hug so big it would wrap around and around him but instead she just starts to cry. She howls that all she wants is to take us away somewhere beautiful. Dad makes these odd little chirrupy shushing noises that sound more like a bird than a man but Mum doesn’t notice the birdman standing in her living room. You need to help me. She says it over and over. Her eyes are swimmy and full and she gulps air like she’s drowning.