Before I could stop her, she’d taken the book from me again, thumbing through it with her greasy fingers. Just as well it was a library book, or I’d have to disinfect it before putting it back on my bookshelf at home.
“Oh! There’s a princess in it. I like princess stories. Can I borrow it?”
“Fine.” I rolled my eyes. “Give it back to me at home time though, and don’t lick your fingers when you turn the pages or anything manky like that, OK?” Anything to get her to leave me alone.
I left her sitting there and walked away towards the group of playground supervisors who were chatting by the bins, putting as much distance as I could between me and Paige. I didn’t want anyone thinking we were friends. Paige’s clothes weren’t washed more than once a week, and she never had enough money for snacks or school trips. She was the only person in the class more unpopular than me, and if I started hanging around with her then I might get picked last in PE instead.
I wasn’t desperate enough for friends to be seen dead talking to the Slug.
“Look at the state of this place,” one of the playground supervisors was saying. “You’d think they’d held a music festival here at the weekend.”
Despite the sunshine, September had blown in like a tornado, and empty juice bottles and crisp packets from the overturned bins were strewn all around the playground. I couldn’t do anything about my dirty sock until I got home, but this was one mess that the Perfect Princess could sort out. I rolled up my sleeves and got to work, borrowing a litter picker from one of the supervisors to collect bottles and wrappers and put them back in the bins. By the time the bell rang I’d cleared half the playground, and the supervisors were smiling and saying nice things about me that I pretended not to hear.
“Well done Elin, you’re such a good girl.”
“We could do with a few more like you at this school.”
I grinned secretly to myself, but the happy feeling faded as soon as I lined up with the rest of my class to go back inside. I could hear them whispering about me, and even though I tried to shut their mean words out, Lauren’s voice was just too loud.
“Yeah. She’s always sucking up to the teachers. No wonder she doesn’t have any friends.”
She was right. I didn’t have any friends.
It was lonely being so perfect all the time.
4
Jamie
“Why do you always have to be so STUPID all the time?”
“It’s not my fault!” I yell back. “You’re changing the rules! It’s always a throw-in when the ball goes over the line. You can’t just make it a free kick whenever you want!”
There’s a loud buzzing noise building up inside my head, and my fists are clenching and unclenching in frustration. Why won’t they just listen to me?
“How are we meant to have a throw-in, genius?” Ryan sniffs, blowing his nose again. Him and his runny nose are driving me insane. “There’s a puddle the size of the Atlantic over there.”
If I could take a deep breath and step back for one second, I’d see that he was right. But of course I can’t do that. I can’t do anything except fight the waves of anger that are crashing over me.
“You can’t just change the rules!” I yell again. I’m close to tears. I hate it when they change things halfway through a game. I get all confused and it’s hard for me to concentrate on what I’m meant to be doing.
“Look, does anyone else apart from Freak-Boy have a problem with it being a free kick instead of a throw-in?” Ryan asks.
“Nah,” Luke says, “let’s just get on with it.”
The storm in my head is threatening to burst, and I can feel my face going bright red as all the blood rushes up to my hyperactive brain. I’m breathing so hard I feel faint, but I stand my ground. It’s like I’m stuck in a robot body that’s out of control, and I can’t find the off button.
“Jamie man, calm down, huh? It’s just a game.” Luke makes the mistake of putting his hand on my shoulder, and all hell breaks loose.
I HATE being touched. It’s like someone scratching their nails down a blackboard while force-feeding me lemons and farting in my face as they walk over my grave.
“GET YOUR HANDS OFF ME!”
“Hey! What’s your problem? Just—”
“THERE’S YOUR FREE KICK!”
My body’s in motion, and before I can find the brakes, my foot lashes out so hard at the ball that it goes flying ten feet into the air and sails clean over the wire link fence surrounding the football pitch. There’s total silence for a long moment as everyone stands and watches the ball bounce across the main road, then there’s a horrible shrieking of car brakes and blaring of horns as it weaves in and out of the traffic. The other kids all turn on me.
“What the hell, Jamie?”
“You crazy FREAK!”
“How are we meant to finish our game now, you psycho?”
“I DON’T CARE!”
Before my overheated brain can cool down, my legs have already taken over again and I’m running across the pitch, splashing straight through puddles and racing round the side of the school. I don’t slow down till I’m well out of sight of the senior playground. We’re not meant to be anywhere near the staff car park, but it’s the only quiet place on the school grounds. Sometimes I just need to get away from everyone else. If they would just back off and let me THINK then maybe I’d be able to control my temper.
The rage drains as quickly as it appeared, leaving a big empty hole in the pit of my stomach. I feel cold and shivery, but I’m not going to waste any time thinking about the angry shouts of the other kids or the ball bouncing away across the road. My butterfly mind’s already moved on.
I take a deep breath and bend down to tuck in the shoelace that nearly sent me falling on my face. Mum’s tried to get me to tie them more times than she can count, but I always forget, and anyway it’s quicker just tucking them under my socks.
There’s a big stone next to my scuffed shoes, and I pick it up, throwing it up in the air and catching it a few times. It would be cool if I had one of those catapults that can send stones halfway into space, or near enough. Maybe if I ask Dad he might get me one for Christmas. He usually gets me what I want. I think he feels guilty for moving away to Scotland when he and Mum divorced, but he shouldn’t. It wasn’t his fault everything got so bad. It was mine.
I could ask Mum’s boyfriend Chris for a catapult, but I don’t think he’d buy me one. I don’t think he likes me much. Maybe I can get a catapult when we move to America in a few weeks.
I wonder if Mum’s told the school I’m leaving yet? I don’t think she’s got my passport sorted, and I need a visa to go to the States, so she’d better hurry up.
I chuck the stone away, and it bounces off the lamppost by the row of teachers’ cars with a loud zinging noise. I pick up another stone, hitting the lamppost further up and making a slightly different sound. Huh. That’s cool. I wonder if I can get a job as a concert lamppost player?
I pick up a whole handful of stones and chuck them one by one at the metal post, trying to play a tune. Maybe if I added a drumbeat and bass I could make a dance track, or with a bit of hammering I could make the lamppost into one of those Caribbean steel drums.
Hey! I wonder if I can play more than one note at the same time?
I pick up another handful of stones and chuck the whole lot at the lamppost as hard as I can. Some of them bounce off the metal, but some of them don’t. There’s a slow-motion moment as I watch the stones that miss it fly on towards the row of cars behind, and a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach builds as I realise what’s going to happen.
Why-oh-why do I never see these things coming?
I close my eyes. I don’t want to watch.
There’s a loud rattling of stones off a car door, and a smashing of glass. When I finally open my eyes I see big dents in the door of the red car at the end of the row, and long spiderweb cracks in both side windows. My mouth is dry with dread and my brain�
�s whirring round and round, but it’s not sending any instructions to my feet to get them to move.
Do something! Get out of here before someone sees you!
I try to override my brain’s controls, but the pilot’s not listening and I’m frozen in horror, staring at the wreck and waiting for all hell to break loose.
It doesn’t take long. The car park’s right across from the staffroom, and the teachers are all staring out of the windows. Mr Patel and the head teacher are already marching towards me.
“Jamie Lee!” the head teacher bellows. “Come here right now!”
Uh-oh. My feet are itching. I know that feeling well, and I try to ignore it, but it won’t go away. It just keeps building and building till it feels like my legs are burning.
“Why do you never stop and THINK before you do something stupid?” Mr Patel yells when he gets close enough to see the mess I’ve made of his car.
Now is not the time to run away. Now’s the time to stand and face what I’ve done. But before I can tell that to my feet, they’re off again and I’m running back through the playground, ignoring the ringing bell and the jeers of the other kids who can tell I’ve got myself into trouble again. We’re not allowed out of the school gates during class hours, so of course the gates are exactly where I’m headed.
I have to get away from everyone. I have to be on my own so I can try to make sense of all the white noise fogging up my head and making it hard to think straight. I have to hide away from the whole world so I can try to keep out of trouble for just five minutes.
It’s lonely being so bad all the time.
5
Elin
“Hi Elin, did you have a good day at school?”
Mum’s boyfriend Paul was in the kitchen making Chinese dumplings for dinner when I got home. I took off my shoes and put them on the rack in the cupboard by the door, hanging my jacket up neatly on a hook and putting my dirty sock straight in the laundry basket.
“It was great,” I lied. “I got full marks in my maths test.” That wasn’t a lie, at least.
I was pretty sure one lie and one truth cancelled each other out, just like a positive and a negative sign. That was the maths of sweet-talking adults, and I was every bit as good at that as I was at arithmetic.
“That’s brilliant, pet.” Paul gave me a big smile as he filled the small circles of dough with stuffing and began pinching the ends together to form dumplings. “How about we have ice cream for dessert and watch a film tonight to celebrate?”
I smiled back weakly, making sure I wasn’t too friendly. He wasn’t my dad, he was just an imposter. I definitely didn’t want him getting too comfy here. It would make it even harder to get rid of him when I managed to find a way to get my real dad back.
“If Mum’s not too tired,” I shrugged, so he’d know I wasn’t really interested. “Aren’t you working tonight?”
“I’m not due in until nine. There’s plenty of time to have some family fun.”
This isn’t your family! I felt like yelling at him so he’d finally get it through his thick, grinning head. He’d been extra-specially nice to me for the last few days, and I was starting to get suspicious about what he and Mum were cooking up together.
I bit my tongue and picked up a sponge instead, filling the basin to do the dishes. Paul was a nurse at the local hospital, and despite his changing shifts he always managed to make sure he was home for me getting back from school, which really annoyed me. I’d rather have the house to myself while I waited for Mum to get back from her office.
“Oh, don’t worry about that!” Paul took the sponge off me. “You go and watch TV or play with your friends. Dinner will be ready for your mum coming back at six, OK?”
Watch TV or play with my friends?
Wow. Paul really didn’t know me at all.
I heaved a sigh like he was making my whole life a huge effort and carried my schoolbag to my room, closing the door firmly to shut out his cheerful humming. Paul had been living with us for over a year now, and he still hadn’t got his head round the fact that I didn’t like computer games, preferred reading to watching TV, and had no friends who weren’t imaginary.
Dad understood me, I thought sadly. He’d take me to the library if he was here tonight instead of force-feeding me sugar and making me watch rubbish films.
Except my dad wasn’t here in Bishopbriggs, or anywhere near Glasgow. He was in Edinburgh with his fake family. There’d be no trip to the library with him, and no curling up on the sofa to read to each other.
Don’t think about that! I told myself, taking out my paint box and a little plaster of Paris butterfly that I hadn’t finished decorating. It didn’t help distract me though. It just reminded me of the summer gala we went to before Dad left. He’d sat up late with me the night before, helping me paint a giant pair of butterfly wings in beautiful colours. I’d won first prize for the best costume at that fair, and the whole afternoon I felt like I could fly. Three days later Dad packed his bags and left, and I felt like he’d taken my wings and the blue summer sky with him. Without him I wasn’t a butterfly any more. I was just a caterpillar, holding on to a leaf as tight as I could and trying not to fall.
The colours on the plaster butterfly smudged, and I realised my hands were shaking so badly I couldn’t hold the paintbrush straight. I put it down, looking round my spotless room for something I could tidy to help me calm down. Every surface was filled with the pottery figures I’d painted since Dad left. There were fairies and elves on my bookshelf, mermaids and unicorns on my dressing table, turreted castles on the shelf along one wall, and a whole collection of kings and queens and armoured knights on my desk. I needed all the inspiration I could get to keep holding on to my fairy-tale future.
I might not have any real friends, but at least I had a pretend one at home. I picked up the little pottery horse that was sitting on my bedside table, smiling as the crystals I’d glued across her back sparkled in the light.
“You’re always right here when I need you, aren’t you, Athena?” I whispered.
Dad had bought the pottery horse for my birthday two years ago, and she was the most precious thing I owned. I’d spent hours painting her eyes with a tiny brush so they looked real, and curving the corner of her mouth just right so it seemed like she was smiling back at me.
“One day when Dad comes back and Mum’s not struggling for money any more, we’ll move back home and I’ll get to ride a horse like you for real,” I told her. Mum had said I could start the riding lessons I’d always dreamed of when I turned ten, but the divorce spoiled everything. I’d be twelve in a few months, and money was so tight I’d be lucky just to get the birthday party I’d been planning in my head all year, never mind any decent presents.
I put Athena down and gazed at the photos pinned round my bed. There was one of me with Lindsay and Olivia from my old school, back when I’d actually had friends. The rest were all of me and Mum and Dad at our old house in Whitburn. That was the life I wanted, not this pretend one where Paul the Imposter was here instead of Dad, and we lived in a rubbish house miles away from my real home.
I could feel the anger starting to bubble up inside me again, and I swallowed it down quickly, afraid of what would happen if I let it out. The pain in my chest was hard to ignore, so I sat down at my desk and started up my computer, trying to distract myself with homework. But before I could open my project folder, I saw a new message waiting for me in my email inbox.
It was from Dad.
I dropped my homework book and clicked on it eagerly. When he first moved out three years ago he used to call me every night. Then after a while it was every weekend. Ever since the Wicked Witch’s mutant baby came along I’d been lucky to get an email once a week. I tried not to think about what that meant for my chances of getting him to come home.
Dad had to come back. There was no other way my story could end.
I leaned forward and gobbled up the words on the screen.
Hi Pr
incess,
Sorry I haven’t written in a while. Sue’s work’s been manic, and your wee sister’s had a bout of chickenpox that’s kept me up every night for a week. Beth’s two-and-a-half now, and looks just like you did at her age. I’ve attached a couple of pictures of our camping trip last month. Sorry you didn’t want to come with us, I know these changes have been tough for you. Maybe when Sue gets a day off she can look after Beth and I can drive over to Glasgow and take you out for the day. I’m sorry I had to cancel the last few times when I couldn’t get a childminder for Beth. This time I won’t let you down, pet.
I’ve got to go, your wee sister’s just woken up from her nap.
See you at your Gran’s next week
Lots of love from me and Sue and Beth,
Dad x
I let out the breath I hadn’t realised I’d been holding, and saved his picture files without opening them. Later I’d crop all the photos so only Dad was in them, before adding them to my special family album. His fake wife Sue and her little brat didn’t belong in there.
But it wasn’t just the photos that needed to be fixed. The story Dad was telling me was all wrong too. I grabbed a pen and a sheet of paper, and started writing a better story.
The King was lonely in the Tower where he’d been trapped by the Wicked Witch. All day long he was locked inside with her mutant child, scrubbing the floors of his prison and washing her foul-smelling clothes, while she gathered herbs in the forest for her evil spells. The Mutant was always hungry and sick, and never gave the King a moment’s rest.
The Wicked Witch guarded the King jealously, trying to make him forget his real home and family. But one day when she was out and the Mutant was asleep, he tiptoed to the window and whistled for a raven to come and carry a message to his real daughter.
He smiled to himself as he watched the bird fly far away. He knew his Perfect Princess would come to save him and take him home. It wouldn’t be long now before he was rescued…
The Boy with the Butterfly Mind Page 2