It started off like a game. Lucy passed me her piece of cake under the table on Mum’s birthday. It felt funny singing happy birthday when half an hour ago Mum was crying, and Dad wasn’t living with us anymore. But I got two slices of cake and that made me smile.
Then she started putting all her lunch in my lunchbox. I didn’t know what to do with it.
It wasn’t only the food. She shouted all the time and she was always in her room. Mum said it was just teenage behaviour, but I didn’t think so.
She got really thin, wearing baggy clothes that swallowed her up. I could hear her jumping around in her bedroom. If I knocked, she’d come out all wild-eyed and red-faced, screaming at me.
I tried to talk to Mum but she said, “I’ve got enough on my plate, Michael!” Which was weird because I wasn’t worried about the food on Mum’s plate.
Then I worked it out. I don’t know how it took me so long to realise, when I’ve read every Harry Potter book and watched all the films. Of course, it was Dementors. They feed on a person’s good feelings, until they’re an empty shell. They make the whole atmosphere gloomy.
What if they came for me next? Or Mum? Who would look after us then?
At school, when Leo Harris fouled me in football, I felt this big ball of fire in my chest and ran at him and punched him in the face. Mum had to come in for a meeting, and I was grounded for a week.
Then one night, Lucy threw her dinner on the floor. That was when I yelled, “Do something, Mum!”
“Michael, who in the family is the most worried about your sister?” asked the therapist. He squinted when he asked a question, like he was in pain from concentrating so hard. Then he started nodding before you answered.
We were all sitting in this little pastel blue room with lilac curtains and lemon cushions on the seats. I think it was supposed to make us feel relaxed, but it didn’t.
“That’s easy,” I said. “Me.”
We started seeing more of Dad after that. The therapist agreed with me about the Dementors. Mum and Dad had to stop arguing and work together to help Lucy eat and “stand up to” the Dementors.
We worked out what our family Patronus would look like. That’s the thing that protects against Dementors. We decided it would be a fox because we’re all red-headed and quick-witted. Even though Mum and Dad aren’t together, they’re both still our family.
The Dementors have gone now. To keep them away, we hung a huge painting of a fox above the fire place in Mum’s house, and another one in Dad’s house.
Last week it was Mum’s birthday again. This time, Lucy ate her piece of cake and I only got one slice. And that made me smile.
