The snap, the crackle, and the pop

Snap. Crackle. Pop. I can hear all of them. Daniel Smith says that you can only hear the crackle but I can definitely hear the snap, the crackle and the pop. Anyway what does Daniel Smith know; I’m six now and he’s still only five and a half.

I bet my mam can hear them all. ‘Mam, can you hear the snap, crackle and pop? Or just the crackle?’ she doesn’t hear me because she’s rushing about like a mad woman. ‘MAM, can you hear the snap, crackle and pop? Or just the crackle?’ she comes into the kitchen now.

‘What are you on about Martin? Mummy’s got a lot to do this morning, shouldn’t you have finished your cereal by now?’

‘Can you hear the snap, crackle and pop? Daniel Smith says that you can only hear the crackle but I think that you can hear all of them.’

She picks up my bowl and holds it up to her ear. ‘Yep, I can definitely hear all three. Now come on, get that down you and get your uniform on or you’ll be late for school.’

See, Daniel Smith is stupid. My mam can hear the snap, crackle and pop and she’s a grown up so it must be right.

I eat the rest of my cereal and drink the milk out of the bowl. My mam doesn’t like me drinking the milk out of the bowl, she calls me a filthy animal when I do that but I’ve seen granddad doing it and she never tells him off. I told her this once and she didn’t like it. She didn’t tell me off though, she just said ‘Yeah, well, granddad does a lot of things now that he never used to’, then she turned her back to me and it sounded like she was crying. I think that she was thinking about nana then, she cried a lot when nana died.

That’s why my granddad lives with us now. He needs my mam to look after him because nana can’t anymore. I like granddad living with us because he is funny and he talks to me, instead of just bossing me about all the time like my mam does.

My granddad likes spacemen, that’s one of his favourite things to talk about. He likes to tell me about Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin going up to the moon. He says that people who think it didn’t happen are knobheads. That’s a naughty word, I know that because I called Daniel Smith a knobhead at school and he told the teacher on me and I got told off. The teacher told my mam and she asked me where I learnt that word but I didn’t tell her from granddad because I didn’t want to get him in trouble. Daniel Smith said that it was Buzz Lightyear who went to the moon not Buzz Aldrin, that’s why I called him a knobhead.

I can’t wait to finish this box of rice krispies. On the back it tells you how to build your own spaceship out of the box. My granddad has promised to build it with me and then we can try and send it to the moon like the Apollo spaceship. That would be brilliant.

When I get older I’m going to be a spaceman. My granddad says that you have to be very clever but that’s alright because I am. I know all my times tables up to twelve and I can add up and take away really big numbers. I can also do some division but the really big ones are a bit hard. And anyway you might not have to do division in space it might just be adding up and taking away that you need up there.

I check the box of rice krispies before my mam puts it away in the cupboard and there are about three more days left. My mam grabs the box out of my hands and puts it up in the cupboard where I can’t reach. ‘Come on then slowcoach, get upstairs and put your uniform on. I can’t be late again today Martin, I just can’t okay.’

‘Okay, Mam.’

I walk past granddad in the front room. I want to tell him that we can nearly build our spaceship but he’s asleep in his chair, with all dribble coming down from his mouth, so I just leave him and start to run up the stairs. I stop after a few steps and walk up the rest so that my mam won’t shout at me. She doesn’t like me running up the stairs.

In the playground at school I go up to Daniel Smith. He is with his friends Gary Rodgers, David Dunne and Jack Turnbull. They think that they are all really big and they like to pick on the other people in the class. Some people are scared of them but I’m not.

My granddad says that they are just bullies. He says that bullies are knobheads as well and that they’re more scared of me than I am of them, that’s why they hang out in a gang. He says that when we grow up I’ll be a famous spaceman working for NASA and they’ll be working for McDonalds. I quite like McDonalds but I think it would be better to be a spaceman.

‘My mam can hear the snap, the crackle and the pop, see so that proves it: you were wrong.’ I say to Daniel Smith.

‘Yeah, well your mam’s thick.’

‘No, you’re thick. You think Buzz Lightyear went to the moon but he’s just a toy for babies like you. My granddad told me and he knows all about space and stuff.’

‘Yeah, well your granddad’s thick as well then.’

I can feel my face starting to get hot and I bet that I look really red. ‘He is not thick, take that back.’

Daniel Smith and the other boys are all laughing at me now. Daniel Smith says, ‘Yeah he is thick. My mam says that your granddad went doolally years ago. She says that’s why your dad ran away because you lot did his head in.’

My face is starting to get really hot now and my eyes feel like they are going to start crying. ‘What did you say about my Dad?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Yeah you did, I dare you to talk about my Dad again.’

‘I can’t because you haven’t got a Dad anymore, you loser.’

I bite my tongue really hard and it hurts and I feel my eyes crying. Daniel Smith says something else but I can’t hear him, I can just see his mouth moving up and down. Now more boys and girls from my class are starting to crowd around us and everyone is laughing and pointing at me.

I jump on Daniel and he falls onto the floor. I start punching and punching him loads in the face. I scream at him not tell lies about my dad, that he doesn’t know anything, that my dad will be back and that’ll show him. I scream and punch and scream and punch but I’m scared that this time Daniel Smith is right.

I remember when dad left because I was sitting at the top of the stairs. My mam and dad thought that I was asleep in bed but I wasn’t. I could hear them shouting at each other and I listened to everything they said.

My mam called my dad a bastard and told him to fuck off with that bitch if he wanted to but that he would never see me again. I’ve only ever heard people use those words when they are really angry. I started to cry but I did it quietly so that they wouldn’t hear me.

My dad said that my mam was a bitch and that she couldn’t stop him from seeing his own son, then he stormed out and slammed the door. But I guess she could stop him because I haven’t seen him since. That was just after I started school and I’m nearly finished the reception class now.

I hear whistles and shouts and then someone grabs my arm and pulls me off Daniel. My fists are still trying to punch him but the person grabbing my arm shakes me and turns me round. I look up and see my teacher Mr Kelvin.

He looks really angry and he is shouting something, but I can’t hear him because all the other boys and girls are shouting things as well. Their faces all spin round and round in front of me. They all look really weird and scary and I don’t understand anything they’re saying. Mr Kelvin pulls me away from the crowd and we head off towards the school. I turn round and see another teacher pick Daniel Smith up off the floor and he has blood all over his face.

I spend the rest of the day by myself in the library because Mr Kelvin doesn’t want me in his classroom with Daniel Smith there. He says that I need time to think about what I have done. So I think and I think and it just makes me want to punch Daniel Smith again so I stop thinking about that and think about my spaceship instead. I think that I will make it when I get home because there are only three days of rice krispies left anyway and they can just stay in the bag, they don’t need to be in the box, and then if I make my spaceship I can fly up to the moon and see Neil Armstrong and I won’t have to see Daniel Smith and get in any more fights with him.

When my mam comes to pick me up from school Mr Kelvin is waiting for her and asks if he can have a word. She tells me to wait in the car and she goes into the classroom with him. When she comes out she says sorry to Mr Kelvin and says that she will get to the bottom of it. She gets in the car and I try not to look at her because I don’t want her to tell me off. She looks at me for a little bit, then shakes her head and starts driving.

We don’t talk all the way home which is weird because usually my mam likes telling me off. She’s always doing it, but this time she just stays quiet. When we get home I don’t even go in the front room to see granddad I just want to go straight up the stairs to my room.

‘Wait a minute Martin. Don’t you want to talk about what happened today?’

I stop on the stairs but don’t look down at my mam standing at the bottom.

‘Mr Kelvin says that he thinks you might have been getting bullied by Daniel and those other boys, and that’s why you acted the way you did. Is there anything you want to tell me, son?’

I don’t want to talk about it. I used to talk about dad to my mam all the time when he first left, but she would get really upset and start shouting or crying or both, so now I don’t talk about him anymore. ‘I’m sorry mam I won’t do it again.’

‘But those boys, Martin. What were they saying to you to make you so angry?’

I turn round and look at my mam. I try and think of something to say that won’t make her cry. ‘Daniel Smith said that you were thick because you said that you could hear the snap, crackle and pop, he says that clever people can only hear the crackle.’

Just then the downstairs toilet flushes and my granddad comes out of the door with his newspaper under his arm. He stands at the bottom of the stairs next to my mam.

‘Them lads been giving you gip again son, eh?’

My mam looks at the wall then at my granddad. ‘Dad, can you give us a minute?’

My granddad nods slowly to my mam and puts his hand on her shoulder, then he looks up to me and pulls a funny face where his mouth goes really wide and his eyes look like they are going to pop out.

My mam waits for him to go in the front room then says, ‘So you punched him because he said I was thick?’

‘Yes, mam. Sorry, I won’t do it again.’

My mam starts rubbing her face. She pulls her cheeks down really far so that you can see all the red bits under her eyes. She breathes out for a really long time then shakes her head. ‘Okay. Go on, get yourself upstairs. I’ll give you a shout when tea’s ready.’

‘Thanks mam.’ I walk up the stairs but stop just before I get to the top. ‘Mam?’ I say, turning back round to look at her.

‘Yes, Martin?’

‘Can I have the rice krispies box so me and granddad can make the spaceship on the back?’

‘But they’re not finished yet, Martin. I told you before, you need to wait until the box is finished before you start cutting it up and making spaceships out of it.’

‘Oh but please mam, there’s only three days of krispies left and they’ll be alright in the bag. Please, mam, pleeeeeeease.’

I can tell she’s thinking about it because she’s doing that thing where she chews her bottom lip. ‘Okay, alright then. But not until after your tea, I’m not having you making a mess of the kitchen when I’m cooking in there. And you’ve got to tidy your room first. Okay?’

‘Okay, mam. thankyou.’

‘You’re welcome.’ She smiles at me then walks off to the kitchen. I run up the rest of the stairs and into my room. Brilliant, I’m going to get to build my spaceship tonight. I throw my school bag on the floor and start jumping up and down on my bed. I hear my mam shouting something downstairs through the floor, so I stop jumping up and down and just sit on the end of my bed.

I make my hands into fists again but this time it’s not to punch anyone but to punch the air because I’m happy. ‘Yes!’ I say out loud, though not to anyone really.