The Funny Thing about Norman Foreman by Julietta Henderson (e book reader online txt) 📕

could be walking down the street after school one day and some guy comes belting around the corner and runs right into me, and after he stops to say sorry and help me pick up my books, like in a movie, we say goodbye and never even know we’re related. Which I actually think is about halfway between cool and weird.

Jax loves making up stuff about who my dad could be. Like, sometimes when we’re over in Truro with Mum he’ll see some guy coming towards us and without saying anything all of a sudden he’ll give me the elbow and do this funny sideways look with his eyes and I know exactly what he’s thinking. Or other times he’ll do that thing with his hands like he’s taking a photo of someone and whisper something like, just sayin’, Norman. Then we crack up, because usually the guy he’s pointing his hand camera at is totally no way no how ever going to be my dad. He even did it once to Mr Tilley when we were in the bakery getting sausage rolls, and that was one of the best ones ever. And if Mum ever says, what are you boys laughing about, Jax goes, we just breathed in some funny air, Sadie, you should try some.

Mum says you can look at most babies and it’s hard to imagine their little faces growing up to be a teenager or a big hairy man, which she reckons is probably a good thing. But she says my face looked like me right from the start and I haven’t changed at all. Except for getting lots of psoriasis. Which she didn’t actually say, but it’s true. I feel a bit bad that Mum doesn’t know me and Jax sometimes talk about my dad, but I wouldn’t want to hurt her feelings and make her think she wasn’t doing a good enough job or anything. Because she is. She’s totally the best at being a mum, it’s just that sometimes I do wonder if there’s a big hairy man walking around with a face like me.

Even when I’m not with Jax, every now and again I’ll have a sneaky look around the chippie or the shop or the bus or wherever I am and play the game myself. But I always figured that unless I came across the perfect guy with wavy brown hair eating cheese on toast, watching a Dave Allen DVD and scratching his psoriasis I’d probably never even come close to knowing.

But isn’t it funny about one never knows, because now there’s a good chance maybe I will.

17Sadie

Of course, Dennis refused to let Leonard take any time off. Anyone could see that coming, but especially me, because I had a ringside seat. I might even have seen Dennis’s head twitch a little as Leonard walked up to my desk and asked for a leave form. I handed him one from the file and he filled it out in his lovely shaky cursive there and then. Two weeks, starting in three weeks. Then, without looking back, he walked over and knocked on the glass wall that separated my desk from Dennis’s office. I’d long ago arranged a little bookshelf of catalogues and lever-arch files that was mercifully able to obscure at least two thirds of Dennis from my view, although, to be honest, nothing short of the Great Wall would be able to hide that hair. But I had to take what I could get.

Dennis took the form with no more than a fleeting glance, so whether he noticed it matched the dates of my already approved two weeks coinciding with Norman’s school holidays that I’d had booked for a couple of months I don’t know. I pulled out a couple of thick catalogues to create a little viewing tunnel and saw him lean back slowly in his chair and put both hands behind his immovable head of hair.

‘Holidays, eh? Well, you know, Lenny, you can’t just front up and expect to get holidays any time you feel like going back into retirement. I don’t know how it worked back in the Dark Ages, but I’m running a business here. We can’t allow you to drop everything and leave the loo walls to get splattered in shit just because you want a bit of a lie-in, can we?’

I didn’t dare dismantle any more of my barrier, so Leonard was just a smudge at the edge of my vision. But his voice was clear as a bell.

‘No, Dennis, of course not. I certainly understand the challenges of running a business, but it’s three weeks until I require my leave and I have it on good authority that it’s a simple task to get a temporary cleaner from an agency. And regarding your other point, I’m happy to say that, in all my months of employment at Pearl’s, I’ve not yet once encountered any excrement on the walls. Your employees are to be commended for their aim.’

I had to duck my head swiftly to disguise my snort, but even without a direct eye-line I could sense Dennis bristling and his bouffant swung in my direction. I dropped my head lower and banged my forehead on the desk. I knew he could really only be bothered bullying Leonard if he thought he had an audience, and presumably he gave up on me because the dead air that was oozing out of the office would have taken a chainsaw to get through.

In fact, it was so quiet I got a little worried and risked sneaking another look. Dennis was just sitting there, not moving, and from what I could see of Leonard, which was really only a few inches of side profile, he was just standing there. He was staring so intently in Dennis’s direction that for a second or two I wondered if he might have had a mini-stroke or something. It was clearly off-putting for Dennis as well,