Page 146 of The One Plus One
Jess didn’t know what to do. She didn’t want to go downstairs because she couldn’t bear him to look at her the way he did before. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t go down and she couldn’t move.
‘Mum told us why you don’t come round any more.’
‘She did?’
‘It was because she took your money.’
A painfully long silence.
‘She said she made a big mistake and she didn’t want us to do the same thing.’ Another silence. ‘Have you come to get it back?’
‘No. That’s not why I’ve come at all.’ He looked behind him. ‘Is she here?’
There was no avoiding it. Jess took one step down. And then another, her hand on the banister. She stood on the stairs with her rubber gloves on and waited as his eyes lifted to hers. And what he said next was the last thing she had expected him to say. ‘We need to get Tanzie to Basingstoke.’
‘What?’
‘The Olympiad. There was a mistake with the paper last time. And they’re resitting it. Today.’
Tanzie turned and looked up the stairs at her, frowning, as confused as Jess was. And then she looked as if a light-bulb had just gone on in her head. ‘Was it question one?’ she said.
He nodded.
‘I knew it!’ And she smiled, an abrupt, brilliant smile. ‘I knew there was something wrong with it!’
‘They want her to resit the whole paper?’
‘This afternoon.’
‘But that’s impossible.’
‘Not in Scotland. Basingstoke. It’s doable.’
She didn’t know what to say. She thought of all the ways in which she had destroyed her daughter’s confidence by pushing her to the Olympiad the previous time. She thought of her mad schemes, of how much hurt and damage their single trip had caused. ‘I don’t know…’
He was still balanced on his haunches. He reached out a hand and touched Tanzie’s arm. ‘You want to give it a go?’
Jess could see her uncertainty. Tanzie’s grip on Norman’s collar tightened. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. ‘You don’t have to, Tanze,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t matter one bit if you’d rather not.’
‘But you need to know that nobody got it right.’ Ed’s voice was calm and certain. ‘The man told me it was impossible. Not a single person in that examination room got question one correct.’
Nicky had appeared behind him, holding a plastic bag full of stationery from his shopping trip. It was hard to tell how long he’d been there.
‘So, yes, your mum is quite right, and you absolutely don’t have to go,’ Ed said. ‘But I have to admit that, personally, I would quite like to see you whup those boys at maths. And I know you can do it.’
‘Go on, Titch,’ Nicky said. ‘Go and show them what you’re really made of.’
She looked round at Jess. And then she turned back and pushed her glasses up her nose.
It’s possible that all four people held their breath.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘But only if we can bring Norman.’
Jess’s hand went to her mouth. ‘You really want to do this?’
‘Yes. I could do all the other questions, Mum. I just panicked when I couldn’t get the first one to work. And then it all went a bit wrong from there.’
Jess took two more steps down the stairs, her heart racing. Her hands had started to sweat in her rubber gloves. ‘But how will we get there in time?’
