An Undead Boy

It's early on a Saturday morning. Despite the year being well into March now, the ground still sparkles with Winter frost. I didn't think to put on any extra layers of clothing when I left the house today, knowing that the majority of people in my neighbourhood would still be asleep at the crack of dawn and those who were awake - if they couldn't get a good look at who I am - would have just acted mildly surprised at a teenage boy wandering the streets in nothing but a light, long sleeved shirt and a pair of jeans.

I have just arrived back home from meeting Danielle in the park. The frustration that exploded between us in the library yesterday has fizzled back down to mutual kindhearted feelings again. When I returned to the library after seeing James, she was still there in her spot on the floor, waiting expectantly for me. She knew I was going to come back but I thought I saw a shadow of relief pass over her face when I had walked towards her. I haven't told her what happened with James yet, I just need this one thing for myself.

I lumber to my front door, staring wistfully at the frozen grass. I breathe out in a vain attempt to see the familiar cloud that occurs when hot breath hits cold air but nothing. You think I would be used to this by now.

I sigh, or at least try to. The sound gets stuck in my throat and all I manage is a guttural groan. I clamp my mouth shut, ignoring the stabbing fear that spikes through my insides. My heart doesn't pound anymore but I feel the emotions that come with the realisation of something terrible. The realisation that I just sounded like a zombie - a real one.

The front door creaks open as I forcibly convince myself that what just happened was a fluke and I come face to face, for the first time in months, with my mother.

"Charlie." she says, her voice tight.

I very nearly turn around, to see if she is addressing some other tormented boy on her doorstep. But I don't, and there isn't. There is only me.

When I don't reply, she tries again, this time louder and more urgently.

"Charlie. Grandma Thelma is here." she says, her brown eyes latching onto my blue ones. For a second, we are united by a sense of dread and everything feels normal again, like I haven't died.

"Grandma Thelma..." I repeat flatly, giving my mother a knowing look, wanting this moment to last forever. Out of everything that could have brought us back together again, Grandma Thelma is the last thing I would have thought of.

My Grandma Thelma is my father's mother. Despite my dad walking out on us, or more importantly my mother, Grandma Thelma has always kept in contact with us, albeit very random contact. She usually turns up uninvited, unannounced and only ever gives my mum hell when she does decide to drop by.

When I was younger, I asked my mum why Grandma Thelma still visited us when we weren't blood relatives and she had no need to. My mother, in as calm a voice as she could manage when talking about her ex-Mother In Law, told me it was because when my father abandoned us, he also severed ties to Grandma Thelma. My mum reckoned that the reason why Grandma Thelma occasionally popped around for a cup of tea and a good moan was because although she would never admit it, she was lonely and we were the only existing links left to her lost son.

My mother looks on the verge of saying something to me, maybe to joke about our unwelcome visitor, but she catches herself and presses a hand over her mouth. She quietly steals herself into the living room, leaving me to shuffle into the house on my own.

It's like losing my mother all over again.

"CHARLIE?!" a voice shrieks from the living room and I know it's her, my Grandma Thelma.

I don't have time to wonder how she will react to me, or how my mother is going to deal with this situation, sandwiched between the two things in the world she hates the most. I can't prepare for what may be about to happen but as I step unwillingly into the living room, I'm grateful for the familiar scene that unfolds whenever Grandma Thelma visits us and my mother is left alone with her.

They are sat on opposite sides of the room. My mother is perched nervously on the windowsill, beside the television and my Grandma has overtaken the entire settee for herself. She has about ten bags of shopping with her, as well as her beloved dog, Elvis, a particularly spirited Jack Russell Terrier. I can't help but glance at my mother to see how she is coping with Elvis jumping all over her immaculate settee. She is working hard to contain it but she is fuming.

Grandma Thelma fixes her steely gaze on me from behind her too-large glasses. I can see how my grandmother may be thought of as intimidating. At the age of eighty-nine, she is as weathered and worn as the cliffs at the seaside and for as long as I can remember, has dutifully slapped on her favourite bright red lipstick and garish blue eyeshadow. Her make up always has the appearance of being too smudged, like a watercolour painting left in the rain, and although she has authority in her presence, a first impression of her may grossly misinform the poor soul who thinks she's simply a barmy old lady.

Still watching me, she makes no attempt to control Elvis, who is currently chewing on one of my mum's best cushions, and shows no sign of caring or even noticing.

"So." she says bluntly. "You're dead now, eh?"

Over by the windowsill, my mother is clutching her chest in apparent shock. Elvis, and his mission to destroy our settee, is momentarily forgotten.

"Y-yes." I stammer. Even though it is my Grandma Thelma, this response is something I didn't see coming.

"Yes, what?" she barks, her eyes narrowing.

"Yes, Ma'am." Given the circumstances, I think I can be forgiven for forgetting my manners. It's not everyday that a boy discusses his fairly recent demise with his grandmother.

Grandma Thelma is in inspection mode, her eyes piercing into me. After what feels like the longest minute of my life, and death, she relaxes back into her seat and pats Elvis on the head.

"You look underfed, boy. Then again, you didn't look much better in life."

I'm flabbergasted. I can't tell if I like this new approach to my undead state or if I prefer the way everyone at school treats me.

"Louise!" she snaps, shifting her attention from me to my mother. "Look at you over there, like a pot in a colander. Go make us some tea!"

My mother jumps and hurries from the room into the kitchen. I can hear her bustling around, pans and mugs clattering together until I can't tell the sounds apart. I'm still stood in the doorway, something that doesn't escape my grandmother's notice.

"Sit down, boy. You're making the place look untidy." she clicks her fingers at me, pointing to the only other empty seat in the room. My mother's chair. If I had to choose which of them I'd rather have screaming at me, I'd readily brace myself for my mother's fury over Grandma Thelma.

Always compliable when my grandmother gives me an order, I sink into my mother's chair, ready to spring to my feet as soon as she comes back into the room with the tea tray.

Despite being alone with the living dead, Grandma Thelma looks unreasonably calm. Elvis is yapping around on the settee beside her, knocking oranges out from one of the shopping bags. I watch as they roll across our floor and as I move to pick up one that has ground to a halt at my feet, my grandmother stops me.

"Leave 'em. Don't know why I have so many oranges anyway - I have about fifty at home. You and Louise can keep 'em."

I bite my lip, looking away awkwardly.

"Spit it out. What're you hiding?" Grandma Thelma demands, squinting at me.

I pick up the orange and stare at it solemnly. "I can't eat anymore."

She doesn't react, her owlish eyes fixed on me. There are a thousand and one questions she could be asking me but she remains resolutely silent on this front. Instead, she rifles through the closest shopping bag and yanks out a large bar of chocolate.

"Don't suppose you mind me eating this now then, eh? I was gonna save it for when I got back home but seeing as I don't have to worry about you wanting a piece..." she says, tearing off the wrapper and biting a chunk out of it.

I can't help but grin, even when my mother walks back into the room balancing two teacups and a plate of biscuits on a tray. She looks over at me, sitting in her seat, and opens her mouth to say something but Grandma Thelma cuts across her sharply.

"I told the boy to sit down so don't bite his head off."

Once Grandma Thelma has spoken, that's it. No questions asked, you have to just buckle down and go along with it. Mum collects herself and hands over a teacup to my grandmother, admitting defeat.

"Besides - " Grandma Thelma stops to gulp down the hot tea. "Haven't you heard of respecting the dead."

My mother, who has chosen the moment to sip at her own drink, starts spluttering into her hand. Only my grandmother can say something so crass and get away with it.

Though I'm undoubtedly amused, I can see my mother is keen for a change of subject so I pointedly look at the number of shopping bags on our settee.

"Did you walk here with those bags?"

Grandma Thelma slurps some more of her tea and nods, giving me a look that she reserves only for the people she considers truly moronic.

"Of course I did, boy. How else could I have gotten here?"

I decide not to press the issue that the closest supermarket is about two miles from here, or the fact she could have called a cab instead of marching through the streets with ten shopping bags and a hyperactive Elvis, or that she could have jumped on the bus that stops right by our house on its route from the supermarket.

"So are you walking back then, Thelma?" my mother interjects, eyeing the pile of bags and the wayward oranges on our floor.

"Walk back? Don't be saft. You can give me a lift back home, surely. You're not going to let an old woman walk home by herself, are you?"

Mum looks a little pale at the thought of ferrying ten bags, an excitable Jack Russell and the force of nature that is my grandmother around. Grandma Thelma turns back to my mum, staring at her like she is seeing her for the first time.

"I hope you're looking after your boy, Louise. Don't run out on him like my good-for-nothing son, he was always as useful as a chocolate teapot, that one. A coward. Are you a coward, Louise?"

The teacup in my mother's hand is trembling but she manages to keep her voice steady.

"No, Ma'am. I'm not a coward."

Grandma Thelma lowers her teacup so Elvis can finish it off, oblivious to the look of disgust on my mother's face.

"Prove me wrong then, Louise. Prove me wrong."

If somebody told me several months ago that I was going to make a powerful ally in the form of my Grandma Thelma after coming back from the dead, I'd have told them that they were crazy.