I hit a button and sent him the one thing he’d wanted from me since he turned up on our doorstep all those months ago.
I sent him a smiley face.
Elin:
40
Jamie
“… And glasswing butterflies are the most amazing thing ever,” I explain, stuffing more jam sandwich in my face and forgetting Elin hates it when I talk with my mouth full. “Their wings are transparent, so you can see right through them!”
Elin doesn’t tell me off. She grins back and eats her Mad Jamie Specials like they’re the most amazing thing ever too. I wish she’d tried them the first night I came to stay at her house. Then maybe we could’ve been friends right from the start. I miss Paige so much it hurts, but sitting with Elin at lunch is almost as good.
“You two still not speaking?” Elin glances across to where Paige is sitting on her own at another table. Elin’s good at reading people. She knows what I’m thinking without me telling her. It’s kind of spooky, but it’s also kind of awesome. I don’t have her superpower though. I don’t know what Elin’s thinking, so I have to guess. Elin’s never liked Paige, so she probably wants to make sure I won’t hang about with her any more.
“No,” I shrug, pretending I don’t care. “I said some bad things when I was off my medication, and now I think she’s scared of me.”
“Oh,” Elin says.
I don’t know what that means either, so I say, “You want to come bug hunting with me at break? Dad got me a new tank at the weekend. I’m going to build my own caterpillar army and take over the world. You want to help and be Queen Elin of the butterfly people?”
Elin laughs at that, and I’m glad I can make her smile now. But then she looks serious again and says, “Are you allowed to keep bugs in your hotel room? Aren’t there rules against it?”
“We’re not staying much longer. Dad’s got a friend who’s going away to Spain on business for a couple of months. He’s going to let Dad rent his house till Dad decides if we’re staying here or moving back to Southampton in the summer holidays.”
“Oh,” Elin says again.
I wish she’d stop saying that. I’m about to ask her if she’d be sad if I moved away, but just then the lunch monitor comes sneaking up with a big mean grin on her face.
“Did you have another meltdown, Freak-Boy?” Rachel sneers at me. “What’s wrong, is the school milk not as good as the stuff they served at the loony bin you were locked up in last week?”
She’s pointing to the mess under the table a couple of seats down from me. Darren got up in a hurry to go and play football, and knocked over his carton of milkshake. There’s pink goo running off the end of the table and making a big messy puddle on the floor, and Rachel’s trying to pin the blame on me. Miss Morrison’s buying her own lunch at the canteen hatch just now. If I’m not careful she’ll come marching over and tell me to go to her lunchtime homework club. I can’t risk that today. Mr Jones the PE teacher’s only just let me back on the football team, and I need to go to the lunchtime practice or he’ll give my place to someone else.
“I wasn’t in a loony bin,” I say very slowly and carefully. “I was at home with Dad. I didn’t spill the milkshake, you know I didn’t. You saw Darren knock it over.”
I can feel the hairs on the back of my neck prickling and my face getting hot. Rachel knows exactly which buttons to press. She’s an expert at overloading my systems and making me blow up.
“I don’t care if you were in a loony bin or in prison for setting fire to your own farts,” Rachel says. “Get that mess cleaned up or I’m telling Miss Morrison you’re throwing milkshake bombs at the other kids.”
“That’s not fair!” I yell, my hands clenching into fists and my voice going all high-pitched and squeaky. “Elin, tell her it isn’t fair, that’s not my milk!”
Elin doesn’t say anything though. She’s sitting opposite me, but she might as well be on another planet for all the support I get from her. She doesn’t even look up, she just keeps right on eating and reading the back of her crisp packet like it’s the world’s most interesting gossip magazine.
That makes me almost as mad as Rachel’s non-stop meanness. At least Paige used to stand up for me, even if nobody listened to her.
“I know it’s not yours,” Rachel laughs nastily, “but I’m going to make sure you get the blame for it anyway. Who’s Miss Morrison going to believe – me, or a total mental case like you?”
“She’ll make me go to the homework club!” I’m almost crying now with the effort not to explode into a million pieces. “I’ll lose my place on the football team!”
“Good!” Rachel’s grin gets even wider, and I can’t take any more.
“I hate you!” I yell at the top of my voice, throwing a sandwich right in her face.
“Jamie Lee! Stop that right now!” Miss Morrison roars so loud across the canteen it sounds like she’s got a microphone sellotaped to her mouth. “What’s going on?”
Before I can get my breath back, Rachel’s already telling lies about me throwing milkshake and calling her nasty names and bullying her, and Miss Morrison’s got her hands on her hips and is saying the dreaded words: ‘homework club’.
“She’s LYING!” I yell, my whole head fizzing with rage. “Why doesn’t anyone ever believe me? She’s the one who’s bullying me!”
“Jamie, you’re the liar,” Mrs Morrison snaps, cutting me off. “Now go to the janitor and get a mop to clean your mess up before I make it two days at the homework club instead of one.”
“IT’S NOT FAIR!”
The last thing I see before the red mist of uncontrollable rage descends and I run away is Elin watching me with a big smile on her face.
She isn’t on my side like she said. She doesn’t want her mum and my dad to get back together so I can come and live with her again. She hasn’t ended the war and signed the peace treaty after all.
She was just pretending.
41
Elin
It was hard to admit it, but I owed Jamie big time. When he came to live with us I’d thought he was a monster who was keeping my family apart, but he turned out to be a knight in food-stained armour who had a Transformers torch instead of a sword. If I ever wrote my story again, then Jamie would be the Knight who rescued the Perfect Princess from the werewolves in the Tangled Wood and helped her escape from the Pit of Despair.
Jamie didn’t tell the teachers that I was the one who ruined his science display, and he wouldn’t let his dad talk to Miss Morrison about it either. He could’ve made the whole world see how bad I really was, and he chose not to.
He was a way better person than I’d ever be.
None of the teachers knew that though. They all thought I was perfect and Jamie was a monster. Miss Morrison even believed the nasty lies Rachel told about Jamie.
I was pretty sure Paul was so stressed that today’s drama might be the final straw that sent him packing to Southampton with Jamie, and I’d never see either of them again.
All I had to do was keep my mouth shut and I’d get the very thing I’d been desperate for six months ago.
But Doctor Murray had helped me see that wasn’t what I wanted.
What I wanted now was to try to make family life with Jamie and Paul work. It wouldn’t be easy – it would mean being braver in real life than the Perfect Princess had ever been in my story. But it was time for me to stop making up fairy tales and tell the truth to Mum and my teachers.
It was time to learn from Jamie and do something good for a change.
When the home-time bell rang I didn’t even say goodbye to Jamie, I just grabbed my schoolbag and ran out to the car park. Mum was meeting me after school so we could go shopping for a new computer to replace the one Jamie had beaten to death with my wardrobe door. She said we needed to do something nice together to try to ‘get things back to normal’.
“Are you ready to go shopping?” Mum asked when I opened the car door.
“Not yet
,” I told her. “There’s something we need to do first.”
I grabbed her arm and led her back into school, going so fast we nearly bumped right into Paul and Jamie outside the head teacher’s office.
“Liz! What are you doing here? Did the school call you too?” Paul looked even more confused than Mum did.
“No… I didn’t know you were here. Elin, what’s this about? You said you wanted to talk to the head teacher?”
They all turned to stare at me. It was now or never. I took a deep breath and opened Mr Conway’s door. Miss Morrison was sitting in there too, her frown making Jamie shrink down into his jacket when we walked in.
Before the adults could say a single word, I blurted out, “Miss Morrison, Jamie’s been telling the truth all this time – Rachel’s the one who’s been bullying him and trying to get him to lose his temper. She says mean things to him every day and winds him up in class when you’re not looking.”
I could hear a little gasp of surprise from somewhere inside the hood Jamie was hiding beneath.
“I’m well aware that Rachel Young isn’t perfect, Elin,” Miss Morrison said, “but Jamie certainly isn’t innocent. He—”
“But he IS innocent!” I insisted, interrupting our teacher and making her gasp in surprise too. “He’s never once started it – all those times you asked what happened and I said it was Jamie, I was lying. I’ve been helping get him into trouble too. I knew you’d believe me and not him, that’s why at the science fair competition…”
It was hard to get the words out, and I had to take another deep breath before I could finish.
“What I mean is, Jamie didn’t ruin his science fair entry. I did,” I finally managed to admit. “Jamie was telling the truth when he said it wasn’t him, and he’s been telling the truth about Rachel. Here, I can prove it.”
Before Mr Conway could open his mouth, I pulled my phone from my pocket and pressed play on a video. Rachel’s voice filled the room, and a moment later Jamie’s joined in.
“Did you have another meltdown, Freak-Boy? What’s wrong, is the school milk not as good as they stuff they served at the loony bin you were locked up in last week?”
Everyone watched wide-eyed as Rachel insulted Jamie, and Miss Morrison’s mouth was hanging open in amazement by the time we got to the end of the argument.
“She’ll make me go to the homework club! I’ll lose my place on the football team!”
“Good!”
I pressed pause on the video, and the whole screen filled with Rachel’s sneering face. Miss Morrison blinked hard. Mr Conway cleared his throat awkwardly. Mum and Paul exchanged glances and Jamie stood there grinning under his hood.
He’d finally realised I hadn’t been ignoring him and reading my crisp packet while Rachel was winding him up.
I’d been recording them.
The next few minutes passed in a blur. Miss Morrison and Mr Conway didn’t shout, but they did say a lot of stern words that made my eyes blur with tears and my fists clench to stop them falling. Mum took my hand and gave it a squeeze when they’d finished telling me off, and knowing she was proud of me for doing the right thing made me choke up even more. I was too upset to hear what Miss Morrison and Mr Conway said about punishing Rachel, but it made Jamie happy, as his grin got even wider.
After it was over, we walked back out to the car park in silence. No one knew what to say. Mum and Paul looked like a couple of teenagers on their first date, and Jamie was skipping round and round like a kangaroo who’d just won the Australian lottery. I was too dazed to feel awkward though. I had to go to the lunchtime homework club every day for a month and Miss Morrison had said the dreaded word: ‘disappointed’.
The thing that I’d been most afraid of ever since Dad left had finally happened. Everyone had found out I wasn’t the Perfect Princess and that I’d done terrible things.
And you know what the really strange thing was? The world hadn’t ended.
I did feel pretty awful, but I also felt lighter somehow, like I imagined the sky felt after a storm when the thunder rolled away and the clouds finally parted.
We stopped by Mum’s car, and she rummaged about in her handbag for ages pretending to look for her keys. We both knew they were in her pocket. She just wanted a chance to talk to Paul. He was clearly looking for an opportunity too. Instead of driving straight off with Jamie, he hung around pretending to examine the worn tyres on Mum’s car and telling her she should get them changed.
I knew I should do something to help them get back together. I was the one who broke this family, so it was my job to fix it again. I just wasn’t sure how.
“That was a brave thing you did in there, Elin, I’m proud of you,” Paul said when he’d run out of imaginary problems with Mum’s car. “Thanks for sticking up for Jamie and telling the truth.”
I shrugged and nodded, then I looked away. I wanted to tell him I was sorry for all the mean things I’d said to him since he came to live with me and Mum, and that I missed him. I missed the sound of him cooking in the kitchen and the nights we spent making popcorn and watching films I pretended to hate. I missed playing board games and having family time in the evenings, and I even missed him asking me lots of questions about school that I hardly ever answered. I couldn’t say any of that though. There was a lump in my throat the size of an apple and I couldn’t choke it down.
“Are you coming then, Elin? It’s time to go.” Mum finally ran out of places to hunt for her car keys and pulled them from her pocket.
“Wait!” I found my voice again just in time. I had to fix this. I just had to. “I can wait till the weekend to get a new computer.”
“But I left work early specially so we could go to shops and—”
“I know, but… what if Paul and Jamie came for dinner tonight instead?”
I held my breath. Mum and Paul exchanged hopeful glances.
“You’re more than welcome,” Mum said quickly. “I made a pot of chilli last night.”
“That sounds great, but I thought…” Paul looked back at me, and I could see the doubt in his eyes. “Are you sure, Elin? Are you sure you want me and Jamie there?”
My throat was too tight to give him the answer he was looking for, so instead I gave him something even better, something I’d never given him before.
I gave him a hug.
42
Jamie
Everyone’s hugging.
I don’t know if I’m supposed to join in, but I don’t like hugging, so I just drum my fingers on the bonnet of Liz’s car instead till everyone looks round to see what the weird noise is.
“So… does this mean you’re getting back together and I can move back into my bedroom again?” I ask Liz. I don’t know if she’s forgiven me yet for all the trouble I’ve caused, and the way she looks at the ground and shuffles her feet isn’t giving me any clues. Dad takes it as a good sign though, and he whispers something in her ear that makes her smile.
“Let’s take one day at a time, OK Sandwich Man?” he says to me.
I’m back to being Sandwich Man again.
This is very definitely a good sign.
They are so getting back together.
“Thanks for sticking up for me,” I tell Elin. “I’m sorry you have to go to the homework club.”
“I’m sorry I wrecked your science project,” Elin says. She still looks a bit sad, but I’m pretty sure I can cheer her up with a couple of Mad Jamie Specials when we get home – they can cure just about anything. I don’t need to say I’m sorry for breaking all the things in her room.
We’re even now.
My medication’s worn off and now I’m starving and I want my chilli. I don’t want to stand around in the school car park watching people hug. I’m just about to run to Dad’s car when he calls me back.
“Hey! Wait a minute, Jamie. I’ve just remembered something I meant to tell you. There was a notice on the library website the other week – they’re running a special science fair entry cont
est after the Easter holidays for groups. Maybe you and Elin should do a joint project and see if it wins a place. You’d be on the same team for once. What do you think?”
It feels like he’s just zapped me with a million volts of electricity. My whole spine’s tingling and my hands are shaking with excitement. There’s nothing I want more than another shot at that science fair! If I win, I can prove to everyone there’s something I’m actually good at. And after the brave thing Elin did for me today, I’m desperate to find a way to pay her back. I know riding lessons are something that would make her really happy.
Elin deserves to be happy. She’s been sad for too long.
I bite my lip and grin at her, willing her to say yes.
She frowns in that super-annoying way that’s impossible to read, then says, “Maybe. I’ll think about it.”
It’s not as good as a ‘yes’, but it’s close.
“Yes!” I yell for both of us. “Glasgow Science Centre here we come!”
“Not so fast!” Dad laughs. “You haven’t even entered yet!”
“Or thought up a project,” Liz adds.
“What about your crystals project?” Elin says. “Could we redo it?”
“Nah,” I shake my head. “The whole point of science is investigating something you don’t already know the answer to. I know everything there is to know about crystals now. Almost.”
“Then what could we investigate?”
I’ve already worked out the answer to that one. I put my hand in my schoolbag and pull out the book I’ve been carrying about with me ever since Paige gave it to me at Christmas. “We’ll study the most amazing thing on the whole planet!” I grin. “BUTTERFLIES!”
Elin can’t help smiling back.
I’m going to take that as a ‘yes’ too.
The Boy with the Butterfly Mind Page 16