No wonder Dad and Gran loved Beth more than they loved me.
Shut up! I yelled at the nasty voice in my head, wishing I could turn the clock back and start all over again. Maybe this time I’d be nice to Jamie. I’d leave his science entry alone and let him represent our school, and the fairy-tale figures I’d spent years painting wouldn’t be lying in pieces on my bedroom floor. I tried hard not to think about Athena. Losing my little painted horse hurt almost as much as seeing Beth at Gran’s house.
I gulped back another sob and shoved my bleeding hand in my pocket, hiding in the shadows of a fir tree by the front garden, staring at the silhouette of my fairy-tale castle outlined against the night sky.
The lights were on in the living room. The people who’d stolen my old home were in. I’d have to be careful not to be seen. I took a deep breath and unfastened the latch on the side gate, trying not to make any noise. Then I tiptoed down the path, ducking along the fence so I wouldn’t be spotted from the kitchen window. One last dash across the grass in the dark and finally I was at the shed that sat at the bottom of the back garden. This was my hideout, the only safe place in the world left for me to go.
It was only when I’d lifted off the rusty padlock and crept inside that I realised this last refuge had changed just as much as the rest of my life. The shed hadn’t been cluttered like this when we were living here. I sat down on a big tin of paint and rested my chin on my knees, my head aching as all the memories of my past life flooded back.
Running away was the worst idea I’d ever had.
It was freezing, and the lawnmower and bike handles were poking into my back so hard I had to keep shifting around to try to get comfy. I was going to get absolutely filthy, and that worried me almost as much as the thought of Mum panicking when she found I was gone.
Dad had stored everything neatly in shelves and racks, and he painted it every summer with wood sealer so the rain wouldn’t get in. Now the shed smelt damp and musty, and there was rust on the blades of the hedge shears that were piled in a box by the door. It used to be my favourite hiding place in all the world, and now a few more bad winters and it would be ready to fall down.
Yet another special thing had been destroyed by Mum and Dad’s divorce. My happy ending was so far out of reach I couldn’t even imagine it any more. We were never going to get our home back now.
This isn’t your home any more.
The unwelcome voice in my head was getting louder. Or maybe now I’d stopped believing in my fairy story I was just paying more attention to it.
You have to go back to your real home before someone finds you here.
I looked out of the small window to the house at the other end of the garden. Lights were on in the kitchen now but the curtains were drawn, so I couldn’t see more than a shadowy shape moving around inside. It was long past dinner time. Someone must be doing the dishes.
My stomach growled painfully and I put a hand over it to keep it quiet. I was starving. After what I did to Jamie’s science fair display I hadn’t felt like eating my packed lunch. I’d told the lunch monitor I felt sick, and she let me go straight out to the playground.
Everyone believed me when I told lies, but no one believed Jamie when he told the truth.
Maybe that’s why I was too ashamed to go home. I’d have to admit all the lies I’d told since Jamie turned up on our doorstep, and I didn’t think I could face Mum and Paul’s disappointment, or the hurt on Jamie’s puppy-dog face.
Suddenly the light from the kitchen was blotted out as a shadow passed by the shed window.
My breath caught in my throat, and I grabbed a small trowel from the garden toolbox. I had no idea what I was going to do with it, but my heart was pounding so loudly in my chest I couldn’t think straight. Had someone seen me go into the shed? Had they called the police? Was I going to be in even more trouble?
The footsteps stopped outside, and for a long moment there was silence.
Then the door gave a painful creak and swung slowly open.
A figure stood in the doorway, framed in the dim glow from the kitchen light. I bit my lip to keep from crying out, backing as far as I could into the tangle of bikes and garden equipment.
The shadow stepped forward, and flicked on a torch. Its rays panned the inside of the shed, coming to rest on my feet sticking out from behind the lawnmower.
I’d been found.
38
Jamie
“There you are, Elin!” I grin, switching off my Transformers torch and closing the shed door so the people in the house won’t see us. “Everyone’s looking for you. Are you coming back now? Your mum’s dead worried. Dad’s calling the police and your gran’s probably phoning the Prime Minister by now.”
Elin looks so scared I think she’s going to cry. Instead she lets out a shaky breath and disentangles herself from the pile of rusty garden stuff she’s wrapped up in.
“How did you know I was here?” she asks.
“The werewolves told me which way you’d gone. Well, it turns out they weren’t werewolves after all, just a bunch of high-school kids who were hanging about by the bus stop,” I told her breathlessly. “I thought they were going to eat me, but they were actually dead nice. They said they’d seen you in the wood and didn’t mean to scare you, and you’d run off and hurt yourself. They felt bad about it and—”
“No, I meant, how did you know I was here?” Elin interrupts. She’s got her robot laser eyes back on but they don’t light up any more, like the batteries inside have died or something. It’s kind of sad to see.
“You have pictures of this house all over your room. Not that I’ve been in your room or anything… Well, apart from that one time…” I trail off, embarrassed to remind us both of the destruction I caused. “Anyway, you always look sad when you talk about your old life here. Going past my old house in Southampton used to make me sad too. I know how it feels to—”
“You don’t know what it’s like to have your perfect family ruined!” Elin snaps. I’m not sure if she’s angry because I scared her, or because I wrecked her nice ornaments, or because her little sister’s staying at her gran’s house. It doesn’t really matter why she’s mad, cos all that anger’s being thrown my way anyhow.
“Your dad hasn’t gone and had more kids to replace you, so don’t tell me you know how it feels!” She sits down again on her paint tin and buries her head on her arms like she’s trying to shut the world out.
“I don’t know how it feels,” I say sitting down beside her. “I don’t know how you’re feeling about any of this. I just know how I feel. Will I tell you?”
She doesn’t tell me to shut up, so I keep talking.
I tell her about all the times I lay awake at night crying because Mum and Dad were shouting at each other downstairs and I was sure it was all my fault.
I tell her about the day Dad left and how it felt like I was losing my best friend in the whole world.
I tell her how I felt about Chris moving in and treating me like I was something nasty he’d got stuck to the bottom of his shoe.
I tell her how I felt when Mum said we were moving to America and I thought I’d never see Dad again.
I tell her how I felt when Mum said I wasn’t moving to America and I thought I’d never see her again.
I tell her how scary it was moving to Scotland to a new home with a new stepmum and a stepsister who hated me.
I tell her how hard it’s been to make friends in school, and how much the science fair meant to me.
I tell her how finding out she was the one who messed with my medication and wrecked my crystal display made me feel.
Then I tell her what it’s like to be different from everyone else, how hard it is to concentrate and control my temper, and how badly I want to be normal.
By the time I finish Elin’s crying, but I don’t think she’s feeling sorry for herself any more. My skin’s all sensitive like super-thin tissue paper and I hate being touched, but I hold her hand anyway, and she squeezes
it back like it’s the only thing holding her together. That’s when I realise her other hand is bleeding, and I grab a big piece of tissue I keep in my pocket and set to work wrapping it up.
“It’s alright, it’s clean,” I tell her as she winces in pain. “I always forget to use it and end up wiping my nose on my sleeve anyway.”
Elin doesn’t look very reassured by that, but she lets me wrap up her hand and tie the ends of the tissue in a little bow. There’s a question I want to ask her, but I’m not sure I want to hear the answer. I’m not very good at stopping myself from saying something as soon as it pops into my head though, so it comes rushing out anyway.
“Would you hate me so much if I was normal?” I ask. “Is it because I’m loud and messy and you’re quiet and tidy? Is it because—”
“I don’t hate you, Jamie,” Elin sniffs. “I thought I did. I thought this was all your fault. But you didn’t break my family. My mum and dad did.”
“My mum and dad broke my family too,” I say. “Parents suck.”
“Yeah,” she nods. It’s the first time Elin’s ever agreed with anything I’ve said. It’s all the encouragement I need.
“Maybe we should run away together,” I suggest. “We could have our own secret runaway club, and live in the park eating Mad Jamie Specials and drinking water from the fountain.”
“That’s a terrible idea,” Elin snorts.
“Why? We’d be free! Wouldn’t that be better than fighting all the time?”
“Not if I had to eat your weird sandwiches every day. I’d starve in five minutes. They’re horrible!”
“How do you know? You’ve never tried them. Wait!”
I switch my Transformers torch back on and rummage about in my backpack for the plastic bag I prepared before Dad and Liz hustled me into the car earlier. I take it out and open it up, offering her one of the sticky pieces of bread inside. She pulls a face, but I can tell she’s starving cos she picks it up anyway and shoves it in her mouth like she hasn’t eaten in a week. In a few seconds flat the big frown on her face turns into a smile.
“Hey! This isn’t bad. I could get used to eating these.”
“You should’ve tried them ages ago!” I grin.
“I know,” Elin says so quietly I almost don’t hear. “It’s me that’s horrible, not your sandwiches.” Her cheeks turn a funny red colour in the torchlight, making her look like an overripe tomato. I’m not an expert, but I think that means she’s ashamed.
“If you like them I could make a whole load of them, and we could go on a picnic with your mum and my dad when we get back,” I suggest, trying to cheer her up. “Then they’d know we weren’t fighting any more and they’d stop arguing and make up and we could all live happily ever after. What do you say?”
Elin thinks for a long minute, and then she says, “Maybe you’re like your sandwiches, Jamie – weird and messy and different from anything I’m used to, but not so bad on the inside. Maybe I could get used to you too.”
“You think we could start again?” I ask hopefully. “You think we could be a family – you and me and Dad and your mum?”
Elin frowns again and looks at her feet. Forgiveness is hard for her. It’s hard for me too, but I throw all the thoughts of her messing with my medication and ruining my science project into a big bin in my head and shut the lid tight.
“I’m sick of fighting, Elin. Can we try to make our family work? Please?”
Elin looks up and gives me a tired nod. She doesn’t look happy, but she doesn’t look mad any more either. “OK,” she says, “I’m sick of this war too.”
I smile in the dark, remembering the World War Two project I’d done at my old school. It was like we’d just signed a peace treaty, and we were finally on the same side.
We might not be good friends yet, but for the first time ever, we were allies.
39
Elin
“I thought when Jamie and me came home together we could all try again,” I told Doctor Murray sadly. “But it’s too late to fix the mess we made. Everything’s broken.”
“There are very few things that can’t be fixed,” she said, leaning forward in her seat and giving me an encouraging smile. “Tell me what it is you think has gone wrong.”
I took a deep breath and fiddled with the bandage on my hand. Mum was sending me to see a therapist twice a week now, to deal with my ‘anger issues’. It was only my second visit, but Doctor Murray was making me feel better already. It was nice being able to tell someone how I felt without worrying about them being upset or disappointed by what I said.
“Well,” I began, “Mum and Paul split up the night I ran away, and now Paul’s living in a hotel with Jamie, and Mum cries into her pillow every night when she goes to bed. It’s all my fault.”
“Why do you think that, Elin?” Doctor Murray asked.
“I thought getting rid of Paul and Jamie was what I wanted. I thought Mum and Dad would get back together and we’d all live happily ever after.”
“And that isn’t what you want any more?”
She let the question hang in the air for a bit while I thought about it.
The house was so quiet now without Jamie. It used to annoy me coming home from school to find Paul humming away as he cooked in the kitchen. Now I came home to silence. By the time Mum got home from work, stressed, tired and desperate for a hug, we couldn’t seem to find anything to talk about.
I was so lonely I wanted to scream.
“No,” I finally shook my head. “It isn’t.”
Doctor Murray gave me a big smile and scribbled some more notes on her pad.
“Well done Elin, we’ll leave it there for today. Will you remember the calming exercises I showed you when you get upset or frustrated by something?”
I nodded and fiddled with my bandage some more while Mum came back in and talked in a hushed voice with Doctor Murray for a bit. My hand was still sore, but the ache I felt when I saw how sad Mum was these days hurt far worse.
When we left the therapist’s office and went back to the car Mum gave me a hug and tried to smile.
“Doctor Murray says you’re doing really well,” she told me. “I’m really proud of you pet, you’re trying so hard.”
That made me want to cry. I’d been so mean and nasty and ruined everything for her, and she was still acting like I was the best daughter in the whole world. Instead I took deep breaths and imagined a picture of a nice peaceful beach in my head, just like Doctor Murray had told me.
I wonder if this is what Jamie does when he gets upset by something? I thought as we drove home in silence. Maybe I’ll ask him when we—
Oh.
I couldn’t ask him.
He didn’t live with us any more.
I helped Mum unpack the shopping and make dinner, and we ate it on the sofa while we watched a film together. Mum used to say that eating dinner off your lap in front of the TV was ‘uncivilised’, but since Paul and Jamie left we’d been doing it all the time. It was too hard sitting in the kitchen together trying to come up with things to say that didn’t upset us both.
Mum went to finish a work report while I did the washing-up. As I wiped down the surfaces, I noticed there was a little package tucked between the bread bin and the fridge. When I pulled it out, I saw it was one of Jamie’s jam sandwiches, going mouldy inside its cling film wrapping. He must’ve left it there the morning I ran away. He’d probably made it specially for me, and I’d paid him back by smashing all his hard work up and stopping him showing everyone how clever he really was.
I couldn’t believe I’d been so cruel.
I threw the mouldy sandwich in the bin and headed for my room, finally making up my mind to do something I should’ve done a whole week ago.
I sat down on my bed, grabbed the cheap phone Dad and Sue bought me at Christmas, and messaged Jamie.
Elin: It’s Elin. U OK? When U coming back 2 school?
I waited for a bit, but there was no reply. I sighed and put t
he phone down, flicking impatiently through a book. Waiting was hard when I couldn’t think of anything to do to pass the time. After Jamie’s room-wrecking meltdown, I’d had to bin all my broken ornaments, but I didn’t feel like painting any replacements. Doctor Murray was right – maybe I was better off without all the reminders of the past cluttering up my room.
My phone pinged and I snatched it up, scrolling through Jamie’s message and grinning at how good it made me feel to hear from him again.
Jamie: SO BORED!!! Dad won’t let me unpack my science kit & this rubbish hotel’s a dump. What U doing?
Elin: Nothing. Bored too.
After a long pause, the phone pinged again.
Jamie: Awesome butterfly prog on Discovery in 5 mins. U want 2 watch it with me?
Elin: OK
I typed with one hand as I headed into the living room to turn on the TV. I wasn’t that into insects in real life, but when Jamie and Paige had been friends they’d spent most of their time in the playground hunting for bugs, and it had looked like fun. And maybe my science project would’ve been a bigger success if I’d bothered to learn something about butterflies instead of just painting them.
Elin: When U coming back 2 school?
Jamie: Maybe tmrw. Dad says got to get used to meds again 1st.
There was a big long pause while I thought what to type. When I’d told Mum and Paul what I’d done with Jamie’s medication, Paul wasn’t mad at me. He was mad at Mum for letting me anywhere near Jamie’s capsules, and that was even worse. There was only one thing I could say about what I’d done.
Elin: Sorry. I’m so sorry.
This time the pause was so long the butterfly programme had started by the time the next message came through.
Jamie: It’s OK. I feel better now. See U in school tmrw OK? I’ll bring U Mad Jamie Specials 4 lunch.
I stared at the message, swallowing hard to get rid of the lump that was forming in my throat. Jamie forgave me. Jamie always forgave me. I’d been wrong about the war. Jamie had been on my side right from the start.
The Boy with the Butterfly Mind Page 15