Chicken on Your Head
Two months ago, Romeo heard that the hospital was stopping his dad’s treatment because he’s going to die. ‘That kind of thing doesn’t happen to us’ is his initial reaction, so he doesn’t mention it to anyone. If it’s not going to happen, why talk about it? But now Romeo’s struggling to cope with the thought of losing his dad.
Romeo’s dad spends all day on the sofa, watching DVDs and coughing. He seems to have accepted his fate, but the same can’t be said for Romeo’s mum. She spends her time arguing with everyone and making disgusting vegetable concoctions for his dad, in the hope of making him better.
Romeo feels alone until he finds a friend in the form of a chicken who lands on his balcony one night. He calls her Cluck, and he tells her everything that’s going on inside his head. Cluck belongs to the girl who’s just moved in next door. Tobi is Romeo’s complete opposite: she’s a chatterbox and a livewire. But she has a dead mum, too. In an urn. On her first day at Romeo’s school, Tobi talks about her mum’s death, even passing the urn containing her mum’s ashes around the class. Romeo realises that she understands what it’s like to have a dead parent, and they become friends.
Romeo and his dad often watch a TV show about making terminally ill people’s last wishes come true. His dad doesn’t have any big wishes, but he does have fond memories of a long-ago trip to the Mojave Desert, where the vast space gave him a sense of freedom. Freedom, for him, is being able to ‘see a long way’. Romeo and Tobi decide to do whatever they can to give him that feeling one last time.
Jowi Schmitz’s sentences and dialogues often have a deeper layer. With cinematic subtlety and also humour, she presents the inevitable course of events, as a hospital bed suddenly appears in the living room and the untouched glasses of water pile up by the bedside. She skilfully depicts the impact on Romeo, making it easy for the reader to identify with him and his emotions.
Age: 10+
Sentences that you want to write down and keep
The humorous, down-to earth style ensures the theme doesn’t become too heavy
“Not just an emotionally moving book about a parent’s death but above all a tribute to the ingenuity and determination of children, which remains intact even in the most difficult of times.”
“Jowi Schmitz has written a buoyant story about living and death that leaves you hopeful.”
