The Boy with the Butterfly Mind

by Victoria Williamson

  I felt a sudden stab of guilt. I’d been so focused on Jamie I’d forgotten all about Paige sitting quietly on the wall by herself. I got the feeling she was used to that happening.

  “It’s OK,” she said. “I can get the bus back.”

  She glanced over at me then looked away quickly, fiddling with the sleeves of her baggy jumper. It took me a minute to realise she wasn’t just embarrassed that her mum had to work today and she had no one else to come and cheer her on at the science fair. She was disappointed too. She thought now the science fair was over she didn’t matter to me any more and I was going to go back to ignoring her again.

  “Why don’t you come with us to Whitburn?” I asked. “We’re going to have a picnic tea in my gran’s garden. We can call your mum and ask if it’s OK, but I’m sure she won’t mind.”

  Paige didn’t say anything, but she nodded so hard her glasses nearly fell off.

  I wasn’t sure if we’d ever be best friends, just like I wasn’t sure if I’d ever be totally happy about Mum and Dad being with different people. But I’d got used to having Jamie as a brother and I was starting to like having Beth as a little sister, so I was willing to give Paige a try too.

  Everyone piled into the cars, but Dad gave me a hug before I got in beside Jamie and Paige.

  “You did so well today, pet,” he smiled. “I’m so proud of you.”

  Dad wasn’t talking about the science fair. He was talking about me giving Sue and Beth a chance. Ever since he left I’d been tying myself up in knots trying to prove to him how perfect I was so he’d come back and be my dad again. It had taken Jamie turning my family inside out before I realised Dad had never left me, and all I had to do to get him back in my life was to stop making the people he cared about into fairy-tale monsters.

  I’d got it wrong for so long. I thought being perfect meant sucking up to teachers and sticking to the rules no matter who I hurt along the way. I was so busy trying to look good on the outside I didn’t realise how ugly I was on the inside. I didn’t need to be perfect.

  All I had to be was kind, just like Paige.

  “I’m starving!” Jamie announced. “If we don’t get to Whitburn for our food right now I’m going to start eating our science experiment.”

  “We’d better get going then,” Dad laughed, waving to Mum and Paul and heading off to Sue’s car.

  “I wish we didn’t have to drive there, I wish we could just teleport. If I had a time machine and a teleporter I could… Hey! Elin! Paige! I’ve got a BRILLIANT idea for our next science experiment!”

  “Not another one!” I rolled my eyes, but I jumped into the back seat beside him, eager to find out what he was going to come up with this time.

  Life with Jamie was never going to be easy, but it was turning into an adventure story better than any I’d written before.

  46

  Jamie

  “I told you we should’ve used my Mad Jamie Specials for the final part of the experiment instead of flowers!” I tell my science team. “Look! They totally love them.”

  “They’re not eating them,” Elin says, “they’re flying away from them. Look at that one – he’s trying to drown himself in your cola puddle just to escape your yukky food.”

  Elin picks the butterfly up on her finger and puts it on a dry patch of grass, but she can only do it with one hand cos she’s holding one of my sandwiches in the other.

  “You totally love them,” I laugh.

  “Do not,” Elin says, taking another big bite.

  Paige gives me a sideways grin, and I snort more cola over my T-shirt trying to swallow my giggles. She goes to show Beth the video she’s taken on my phone of me releasing the butterflies, and I stretch out on the grass, staring up at the blue sky and smiling to myself. I’m going to send that video to Mum when we get home. I want to prove to her that I can look after tanks full of caterpillars for weeks and not have them end up living in my bedroom carpet. That’ll make her even more proud than my science fair certificate.

  “You shouldn’t call them that,” Elin says. I’m not a mind reader, so I’ve got no idea what she’s talking about.

  “What?” I roll over to look at her, trying not to squash any of the butterflies that are fluttering about her gran’s back garden.

  “Mad Jamie Specials. It’s not a nice name. You’re not mad, you’re just… different.”

  “Yeah,” I sigh, “I’m a total fruit loop.” I tap my finger on the side of my head and cross my eyes. My funny face doesn’t make her smile though, she just frowns harder.

  “But you’re not, Jamie, I know that now! I thought I was so perfect, but that’s just because I was hiding all my anger inside instead of letting it out like you. Doctor Murray’s made me see that. Everyone finds life a bit hard to deal with sometimes. If everyone who struggled with difficult things was mad, then that’d mean the whole world was insane. It’s OK to be different, and not do things the same way as everyone else.”

  “Does this mean I get a free pass next time I throw a wobbly at the dinner table?” I grin at her.

  “As long as we don’t have to eat your favourite food for five nights in a row you can do what you like.” Elin’s frown turns into a grimace.

  “So what do you think my sandwiches should be called then?” I ask.

  “What about ‘Sandwich Man Specials’? That’s what your dad calls them.”

  “Sandwich Man Specials…” I think for a bit. “Yeah, I like that!”

  Elin finally smiles back at me and pops the last of her sandwich in her mouth.

  “Ten more minutes guys, then we’re going home,” Dad calls from the kitchen, where the grown-ups have been sitting round the table drinking coffee. “Make sure all of the butterflies are out of those tanks before you take them back to the car.”

  I throw him a salute, and he grins back. I know he’s prouder of me today than he’s ever been in my whole life, and that makes me so happy I feel like dancing.

  “Jamie, do you want to help me with something?” Elin asks before I start tap dancing across the grass. “There’s something I need to get rid of.”

  She takes a big folder out of her backpack and carries it over to the barbecue that’s still smoking on the patio. The flames have gone out after our dinner, but the coals are still glowing red-hot.

  “Here. Scrunch these up and burn them. Don’t read them, OK? And be careful this time!” Elin says, pulling some pages from the folder and making them into a little paper ball that she dumps on the coals. They shrivel up and disappear in a cloud of ash, and it looks like so much fun I’m already making my own balls to burn before it even occurs to me to ask what we’re doing.

  Suddenly I catch sight of the words ‘Princess’ and ‘Monster’ as some of the paper turns black, and I finally figure out what we’re burning. “Are these all of your stories?” I gasp. “Elin! Why are you destroying them?”

  “I should’ve done it a long time ago,” Elin says, dumping more pages on the growing pile of hot ash. “They were making me sad.” She doesn’t look sad now though, just sort of strong and determined. It’s a much better look than the laser-eyed robot or the creepy china-doll face she used to wear.

  I’m pretty sure I can work out who ‘the Princess’ and ‘the Monster’ are, but there’s one name I can’t stop myself from asking about. “Who’s ‘the Slug’?”

  “Hey! I told you not to read them!”

  “I couldn’t help it! I just saw it for a moment before it burned. Is that what you called Rachel from school?”

  Elin shakes her head. “It was… someone I was wrong about. Someone I should’ve called ‘the Caterpillar’.”

  “Why? Did they like eating leaves?” I ask.

  “No, because at the end of the story they turned out to be a beautiful butterfly.”

  Elin won’t say any more than that, but her eyes dart to where Paige is sitting with Beth on her knee, showing her the videos on my phone. They’re both giggling so hard it makes me smil
e too.

  “You’re not still sad we didn’t win, are you?” she asks, tidying up the picnic blanket and putting the empty folder back in her bag. “Coming second was a really big achievement.”

  “Yeah, we’ve done well,” I nod, but I’m not really thinking about the science fair. Elin and me have come so far these last few months it’s like we’ve been running the world’s hardest marathon and we’re almost at the finish line.

  The best thing is we’re all friends now, and we’re running this last bit together. Not everything’s about being perfect and winning first place.

  “Come on guys, time to go home,” Dad calls again. “Jamie, don’t forget the tanks.”

  Beth jumps off Paige’s knee and runs to take Elin’s hand, and Elin feeds her the last of the sandwiches when she thinks I’m not looking.

  “That was an amazing day,” Paige sighs. “I wish we could do a science fair every weekend.”

  “I bet there’re more competitions we can enter,” Elin agrees, “let’s look online when we get back. Do you want to come over to ours for a bit? It’s not late yet. Your mum won’t mind, will she? Maybe she’d let you sleep over. We could watch films and eat ice cream and popcorn.”

  “And more of your sandwiches?” Paige asks me hopefully.

  I grin at them. “Sounds like the best plan ever. Race you back to the car. Last one there has to clean up the mess I make!”

  We all start running down the garden, but I’m carrying the biggest tank so I can’t catch them. I don’t mind though. Everyone looks happy tonight, and that’s all I care about. I’ve got a family that accepts me for who I am, and that makes me smile even when I lose.

  Life with me is never going to be perfect, but I’m doing my best. I know now I’m not broken, and I don’t need fixed. I might be different, and seem a bit weird at first, like jam and cream and peanut butter all mixed up together. But everyone loves my Sandwich Man Specials when they’re willing to give them a try.

  And maybe, if people give me a chance, they’ll find they like me just as much too.

  Acknowledgements

  My exciting writing journey would not have been possible without the amazing support of my mother and brother Martin, who have not only joined me over the years on my literary adventures, but have provided a safe haven and support when the seas turned stormy and the going got rough. I’ve been very lucky to have also had the support of friends and family who, I hope, all know how much I appreciate their encouragement.

  My agent Ben Illis deserves a medal for the time, patience and care he devotes to each and every one of his authors, and I can’t thank him enough for all of his hard work on my behalf.

  Thanks also to my two very talented editors, Sally Polson and Jennie Skinner, who have helped shape Elin and Jamie’s story with all of their insightful suggestions and ideas. Under their guidance, The Boy with the Butterfly Mind has evolved into a more nuanced and well-rounded novel.

  Finally, I’d like to thank Scottish charity Children 1st for collaborating on the book launch and for reviewing the novel before publication to ensure Jamie and Elin’s characters were portrayed sensitively. In order to support their work helping children in Scotland live in safe, loving families, building strong communities and protecting children’s rights:

  20% of the author royalties for this novel will be donated to Children 1st.

  CAYLIN

  I sit up in bed with a start. A loud cry in the night shook me awake, and I hold my breath, listening. I don’t think it came from Mum’s room. I think it came from outside.

  I scramble over to the window and peer out into the night. In the moonlight the Drumhill estate is silent, the quiet only disturbed every few minutes by the planes that roar overhead to Glasgow airport. I look down at the wee strip of ground behind our flats. The Council calls it a garden, but it’s just a muddy dumping ground full of weeds and scrawny bushes that has a path leading up to the bin shed by the back wall.

  I hear the cry again, and I peer into the dark alley that runs between the back wall and the gardens of the flats opposite. It’s not coming from there though, the noise is closer than that.

  It’s coming from our bin shed.

  I don’t know what it is that makes me grab my jacket and go down to take a look.

  Maybe there’s a dog out there that’s been hurt, or maybe it’s a little kid who’s gone missing like the one I saw on the news tonight, and I can be a hero by finding him first.

  I hurry down the stairs, my slippers silent on the concrete steps.

  It’s all quiet for a minute, and then another plane passes so low on its way to the airport I’m half-scared it’ll take our roof off. When the engine roar finally fades away in the distance I hear something else.

  Shuffling.

  Snuffling.

  A funny kind of whining.

  It’s coming from the bin shed, but when I go to look there’s nothing there but smelly black bags. I check behind them. Nothing.

  The noises have gone quiet, like something’s heard me and is holding its breath.

  That’s when I think to look behind the shed.

  I nearly jump out of my skin when I see yellow eyes staring back at me.

  It’s a fox, and she growls at me so fierce and low that I want to run straight back up to my room. I’m about to leave her be, when I see there’s something wrong with her. She has a red coat and a dirty white belly with a big dark patch that’s heaving up and down. It looks like she’s struggling for breath, but when I take another step towards her I can see the dark patch is actually a huddle of tiny cubs all sucking hard for milk. The fox looks too skinny to be able to feed them.

  I stare at them, a warm feeling of wonder filling up the dark places in my stomach that are usually big holes of worry and hunger and guilt. The fox is trying to get up and move away, but her front leg is bleeding and won’t hold her weight. She looks like she’s been hit by a car. The blind cubs are all shaken loose when she moves and start whimpering for milk. It makes me feel so sad I want to cry.

  Feeling brave, I pull off my jacket and tuck it round them, trying to avoid the snapping jaws of the fox. She looks as hungry as I do at the end of the week when the benefits money runs out. I didn’t buy anything at the shops today that I can give them, but tomorrow’s Friday, when Mum’ll have her money for the next week paid straight into her account. I know her number, so I’ll nip down to the cash machine and get out enough to buy food for the foxes and pay the electricity bill.

  If Mum wants to make a fuss about it she can drag herself out of bed for once and stop me.

  Huh, like that’s ever going to happen.

  I’ll have food for the foxes tomorrow. Tonight they’ll have to make do with my old jacket. The fox is too tired to do more than snarl at me feebly, but when she sees I haven’t taken her cubs, and feels the warmth from my jacket, she stops growling and just stares back at me with those big yellow eyes.

  “I’m Caylin,” I tell her, “and I’m going to look after you.”

  The warm feeling spreads when I say this until my whole body’s tingling with happiness. “I’ll keep you safe, you and your cubs. I’ll keep you warm and fed, I’ll keep you hidden. I’ll keep you secret – I’m good at secrets.”

  This fox is my responsibility. A secret that doesn’t make me sick to my stomach for once.

  My best secret.

  Mine.

  REEMA

  The loud cry in the night gives me such a fright I nearly drop my glass of water in the sink.

  What was that?

  I shiver in the dark kitchen, gritting my teeth until the roar of another passenger jet flying overhead dies away. I wait, but I do not hear the strange cry again.

  I tiptoe back through the living room, silently cursing the people who put us in an apartment so close to an airport, when every memory we have is haunted by screaming aircraft engines and the fear of falling bombs.

  Before I can reach my room though, a long howl wails thr
ough the corridor outside. I hurry up the narrow hall and press my ear to the front door, listening carefully. I think I hear footsteps dying away on the stairs.

  I heard footsteps in the streets of Aleppo at night too. When the war began soldiers came banging on doors in the dark. I was so scared they would take Baba and Jamal away, there were some nights I would pray non-stop until the sun came up.

  I should go back to bed…

  Instead I take my coat from the rack on the wall and pull it over my nightdress. Then I open the door carefully, and peer into the dark corridor beyond.

  I tiptoe out into the corridor, following the cold breeze to the back entrance that leads to a little wilderness beyond.

  A soft growling whine is coming from the shelter full of trash cans at the bottom of the garden. I step onto the path and tiptoe closer.

  I tilt my head and listen again, hearing snuffling and whining and soft, low whimpers. I pick up a heavy stick and peer into the space between the back of the shelter and the garden’s stone wall. What I see there makes me drop the stick in surprise.

  It is a family of foxes, all wrapped up in a smelly old coat. The mother blinks at me in the moonlight, wary and warning, but I can see she is injured and in no state to care for the cubs that are sucking desperately for milk.

  She is hungry. They all are.

  I turn and run back up the path, leaving the front door of our apartment wide open in my haste to get to the kitchen.

  What do foxes eat? I wonder, rummaging around in the fridge. I wish Jamal was here. He would know.

  I remember the time he rescued a bag full of puppies from the Queiq River. Baba would not have them in the house. But for months Jamal paid his lunch money to the man who ran the bicycle repair shop near our apartment, to let him keep them in the back room. Baba didn’t tell Jamal off, because the Quran teaches that we must be kind to animals.

  I do not think Baba would like me feeding foxes like pet dogs though.