The Funny Thing about Norman Foreman Julietta Henderson (short books for teens .TXT) 📖

trip was just the kind of thing to rile the little bugger up. I had prepared for every eventuality. Or so I thought.

I laid all the creams and lotions out on the faux-timber hotel desk so Norman could see them. It looked like a pharmaceutical police line-up, and we both knew the drill: identify your perp of choice, son. As he always did, I could see Norman considering his options carefully before making his selection. His eyes travelled from one bottle and tube to another and another, as the edges of his nostrils turned white from the effort of resisting a scratch.

I knew exactly what he was thinking. If he chose that one, it might offer some quick relief but then it would seep into his eyes and sting like hell and the smell would stay for days. If he chose that other one, it would take longer to work but the relief would also last longer, even if sometimes it had the effect of creating a lump on top of an existing scale.

A few of the many doctors we’ve been to over the years said there was a possibility he might grow out of it, but there had never even been so much as a hint of that happening. In fact, there’ve been plenty of times I’ve been scared it might actually grow out of him. That one day I’d wake up and my son would be gone, replaced by a giant, faceless, victorious scale sitting up in bed demanding its cheese on toast.

Norman often said he didn’t mind his psoriasis, because he knew that after a bad bout of pain and itching he always had the next bit to look forward to, when the itch subsided and the tiny bits of pink baby skin started to peek through. At first it looks like just a tiny tear in the scale, but then over a couple of days the vivid fuchsia pales to a soft dusty pink and the new skin takes over. Jax used to say that every piece of Norman’s skin that peeled off was getting closer to the real him inside. Jax. Out there breaking hearts since 2007. Still breaking mine.

When Leonard knocked on the door of our room to help Norman run through his lines I could see he was visibly shaken when he took in the situation. It was hard to believe he could endure the front-line action of war yet be so shocked at the state of one small boy’s scaly body. After a few minutes of pacing and wringing his hands he pulled a chair up to the bed and resorted to patting the folded-back blanket rather than risk touching Norman’s skin and inflicting any more pain on him.

The housekeeper who brought us the half a dozen towels I’d rung through to request took one look at my bare-chested boy and turned pale, stumbling over her words in her haste to leave.

‘Extra towels are a pound each and . . . um, no going . . . no taking them off the premises.’

If she’d had any suspicions as to what I was actually going to do with them, which was not take them down to the beach and fill them full of sand but pack them around Norman’s body, infusing not only the towels but also the mattress, pillows and probably the walls with the scent of the foulest-smelling ointment of the lot (which he’d finally settled on), she might well have rethought the cost. Because, for me, it was a bargain and the best value we’d had so far at Premier Inn. I considered going on TripAdvisor and giving them a rating. Psoriasis friendly! Five stars!

I knelt down beside the bed and laid my head on the pillow next to Norman’s. He was scrunched over on his side in the only position that didn’t cause pressure on his left hip, where a huge lump had come up the day before Jax’s funeral. Over the weeks it had waxed and waned, but this latest development had seen it develop into an open-cut crusty crack the size of the Grand Canyon. I desperately wanted to distract him.

‘Hey, Norman, do you know what I think?’

He twisted slightly in the bed, and the shift in position made him wince but I saw the hint of a smile pass over his face and a quiet little voice came back on cue.

‘I dunno, Mum. What do you think?’

It was a game we’d played a million times before and, just like those other million times, Norman probably knew exactly what I was going to say. But it never stopped him asking anyway. Just for fun. I sat back on my heels and tipped my head slightly to one side so he’d know it was coming. Twelve years evaporated in an instant as I sat on the edge of another bed and marvelled at the brand-new bundle in my arms that would grow into the best person I ever knew. I’ve got you.

‘I think, right now, you could be the worst thing I’ve ever smelled in my entire life.’

And suddenly there it was, my favourite view in the world. That big smile. That beautiful face. My boy. My father.

‘Good one, Mum.’ He closed his eyes, but that smile stayed.

Leonard had wandered over to the desk and was working his way along my little mugs’ line-up of creams and potions, picking each one up and turning it to the light to read its ingredients. I had no idea if he knew what any of it meant, but with his wispy grey hair and his glasses tilted up on the end of his nose he looked like the perfect mad scientist. He opened some to take a whiff, or squeeze a bit out and rub between his thumb and forefinger, and every now and again he’d turn to consult Norman.

‘What’s this? Where do you put this one? How long do you use this for?’ When he held up the packet of huge suppositories we’d been