The Boy from France

by Hilary Freeman

  School isn’t as scary as I feared, with Rosie holding my hand all day (not literally, obviously, or that really would start some rumours). Even Manon is quite sweet to me; I figure Rosie must have told her to be nice because I’m having a hard time.

  We don’t get an opportunity to speak to Lucy Reed until morning break. Rosie spots her in the canteen, queuing up to buy a drink. She’s on her own, which is unusual, and it’s too good an opportunity to miss.

  ‘Leave the talking to me,’ says Rosie, taking charge. ‘I don’t want you getting upset again.’

  ‘OK . . .’

  Rosie strides up to Lucy, purposefully. I tag along, like a spare part. ‘Hey, Lucy,’ she says. ‘We want to talk to you about something.’

  ‘Ah, it’s Rosie Buttery and the notorious Vix Fisher,’ Lucy says, smug as ever. ‘Well, well, well,’ she continues, with a sneer, and I can’t help cringing. ‘I am surprised to hear what you’ve been up to, Vix. I guess it’s true what they say: it’s always the quiet ones that you have to watch.’

  ‘Not always,’ says Rosie. ‘That’s what we want to talk to you about.’ She waits for Lucy to pay for her drink, then beckons her over to an empty table. ‘We know you’ve been spreading nasty lies about Vix.’

  Lucy laughs, which isn’t the reaction I was expecting. ‘Hey, don’t shoot the messenger,’ she says, holding up her hands in mock surrender. ‘Sure, I heard about Vix, like everyone did, and I might have talked about it with a couple of mates, but I didn’t start the rumours and I haven’t been going around spreading them. Why would I?’

  ‘Because you’re jealous?’ says Rosie. ‘We know you wanted a boy exchange student and you were pretty pissed off that Vix got one and you didn’t.’

  ‘God, that’s like so last year’s news. It wasn’t ever a big deal and I’m so totally over it now. Seriously, guys, I have no problem with Vix and no reason to diss her all over school.’ She smiles at me.

  Rosie looks puzzled. She glances at me to see my reaction. I think Lucy might be telling the truth, so I nod and shrug my left shoulder.

  ‘OK, so let’s say we believe you and you didn’t start the lies. Who did?’

  ‘I don’t know. All I can tell you is where I heard the story from first.’

  ‘Which is where?’ I ask quietly.

  ‘If you really want to know, one of the French girls told me.’

  ‘You’re kidding!’ exclaims Rosie. ‘Who? Your exchange?’

  ‘God, no. She’s scared of her own shadow. One of the others. I don’t know her name. Cecile, or something like that. No, Camille. You know, the one with the bob and the beaky nose. Seemed really keen to let me know, actually.’

  Rosie nods, a grave expression beginning to form on her face. Of course she knows Camille. Camille is one of Manon’s closest friends on the trip. She’s hung out with her several times. Camille has even been round to Rosie’s house. ‘Thanks, Lucy,’ she says. ‘You’ve been really helpful. Sorry we jumped to conclusions. No hard feelings, eh?’

  ‘Nah,’ says Lucy. ‘I guess you owe me one.’

  ‘Yeah. Sure.’

  We get up from the table and Rosie takes my arm. She’s deep in thought and uncharacteristically quiet. But although she doesn’t say anything, I know that she’s thinking what I’m thinking. If Camille has been spreading the rumours about me, then there’s only one place where they could have started.

  Manon.

  osie doesn’t want to believe that Manon could have started the rumours, even though all the evidence points to her and she has such a strong motive. She says she’ll refuse to accept it’s true until she has direct proof – and not just the word of Lucy Reed, who can’t entirely be trusted. So, at lunchtime, she goes off to find Camille, while I wait for her in the library, the only place I feel safe from suspicious glances and nasty gossip.

  She comes back about ten minutes later, with a serious look on her face. ‘It’s true,’ she whispers. ‘Camille said that Manon told all her friends nasty stuff about you and Xavier a few days ago. What a cow.’

  I nod. Knowing where the rumours started doesn’t help me all that much. I only want to stop them. How do you put the genie back in the bottle once it’s out?

  ‘I think we need a meeting to decide how to deal with Manon,’ says Rosie. ‘You, me and Sky, after school. I’ll get rid of Manon somehow. I don’t even want to see her, let alone talk to her.’

  ‘OK. I’ll text Sky. Maybe we can go to hers.’

  ‘Shhhh,’ says the librarian. She walks over to our table. ‘If you ladies are going to chat, could you please do it somewhere else?’

  ‘Sorry,’ I say, getting up. ‘We’ll leave now. Come on, Rosie.’

  Rosie follows me out, still talking as we leave. It’s clear she isn’t just upset for me, she’s upset for herself too. She thought Manon was a proper friend. Now she feels used. ‘Do you know what really gets me? The fact that she was so sympathetic last night, when I told her what was going on at school and how upset you are. She really is so two-faced it’s not true. God, she knows we’re best mates and she still did it. Maybe she’s jealous of us too. God!’

  ‘She does sound like a nasty piece of work.’ I hope I don’t sound smug. Obviously I won’t tell Rosie, but part of me is pleased that I was right all along about Manon. If only I hadn’t had to have my suspicions confirmed like this.

  Rosie does manage to avoid going home with Manon somehow – I don’t ask how – and when school is over we go straight to Sky’s flat for ‘Crisis Talks’ (Rosie always does like to be dramatic). After making small talk with her hippy mum for a few minutes, and declining a cup of wheatgrass tea and a spelt flapjack, we shut ourselves away in her bedroom. It feels so good to have the old gang back together. I know it’s only been a few weeks, but it seems like far, far longer. So much has happened since the exchange students arrived. Sky seems super pleased to have us round; I guess she’s been feeling very left out lately with Rosie and I wrapped up in our exchanges.

  We fill her in on what’s been happening. She’s open-mouthed.

  ‘God, how awful,’ she says, looking at me with sympathetic eyes. ‘Poor Vix. Manon sounds like a class-A bitch. I have to say I never liked her. She gave me bad vibes from the first time I met her.’

  I stifle a laugh at her complete change of tune, but decide not to pick her up on it, even though she once told me she thought Manon was ‘all right’. I do say, ‘You sound just like your mum now,’ which I know will annoy her.

  ‘No, I don’t. Anyway, what the hell are you going to do? Or, rather, what are we going to do about her? Manon’s got to pay for what she’s done.’

  ‘I tell you what I’d like to do,’ says Rosie, who is still very wound up. ‘I’d like to throttle her with one of her stupid, perfect scarves.’

  ‘Calm down,’ I tell her. ‘She is so not worth going to prison over. Even though Holloway Women’s Prison is only up the road, so we could visit you a lot.’

  ‘Nah, they’d send her to some juvenile detention centre place in the country, or something,’ says Sky. ‘She’d hate that.’

  ‘I am here,’ says Rosie. ‘But good point. Killing her might not be such a great plan.’

  Sky concentrates hard. ‘OK, then how about we do something a bit more subtle, like persuading her to get a henna tattoo at the market and hoping she has an allergic reaction, like that girl we read about once. Then she’ll never, ever be able to dye her hair in the future and one day she’ll get really grey, which she’d hate.’

  ‘Yeah!’ Rosie says. ‘She was really surprised my mum had grey hairs. Apparently nobody in France lets their hair go grey. Ever.’

  I shake my head. ‘Hmm. Not sure about that. It’s a bit complicated. She might not have an allergic reaction, so then she’d just have a cool tattoo and no punishment. And even if she did, we’d have to wait about twenty years for her to get her first grey hairs. Plus, if I’m honest, she doesn’t strike me as the tattoo type.’

  Rosi
e nods. ‘You’re right. We need to be cleverer than that. I know: we could set her up with someone, make her think he really likes her, then get him to laugh at her in front of everyone, so she feels really stupid.’

  ‘Nah,’ I say. ‘There’s only a week till she leaves. We haven’t got time. And she’s so hung up on Xavier, it probably wouldn’t work.’

  ‘True.’ Rosie giggles. She’s had a silly idea. ‘I know. How about asking someone in the art collective to paint an ugly caricature of her on a wall in the street?’

  ‘Nice idea. But why would they do that for us? We can’t even get in there.’

  ‘I did,’ Rosie reminds us. ‘With Rufus Justice, remember? I had a tour and everything.’

  ‘How could we forget?’ says Sky, dismissively. That’s a story we’ve heard a few times, and we don’t want to hear it again. ‘Seriously, though, if we’re thinking of getting creative, why not just write some graffiti about her at school?’

  I shake my head again. ‘She probably wouldn’t understand it, if it’s in English, and it’s too mean. And we might get caught. Bad idea.’

  ‘All right,’ says Rosie. ‘This is simple. What if you just told Xavier what she’s been saying, and got him to say something to her instead? If he told her off and made her feel like she’s a horrible person, she’d really hate it. We’d get what we want and wouldn’t look bad.’

  I really don’t like this idea. ‘I don’t think he’d go for it. It’s not really a guy thing. And it’s not fair to ask him to fight our battles for us, or to turn against his French friends for us.’ The truth is, I still don’t feel comfortable with Xavier knowing what’s been going on.

  The three of us sit silently for a minute or two.

  ‘I can’t think of anything else,’ says Sky, exasperated. ‘Can either of you?’

  I sigh. ‘No. Rosie?’

  ‘What about the end of exchange party, next Friday night, before they all leave? Your sister is DJing, isn’t she, Sky? So she can bring you as her plus one, even though you’re not at our school. Maybe we could do something to humiliate Manon there. In public. Make her look stupid or whatever. We’ve got a week to plot something.’

  ‘Nothing too horrible,’ I say. I don’t feel comfortable doing anything really mean to Manon. The whole point is to show her we’re better than her. ‘But, Rosie, you’ve got to live with her till then. Surely you’re not just going to pretend everything is normal?’

  ‘Course not. I’m going to tell her what I think of what she’s done and I’ll be really frosty too. No more coffees after school or clothes swaps, or late night chats. She can sleep and eat at my house but that’s it. In fact, I might just blank her from now on. Not say a word to her. We’ll see. And in the meantime we’ll come up with a revenge plan for the party.’

  I smile. ‘OK. Thanks, guys.’

  My friends both hug me and I relax, certain that everything is going to work out now.

  If only. Before we can even begin to do anything about Manon, something terrible happens.

  ow did a mundane morning turn into such a nightmare? How, in the time it took me to go to the high street, did my life turn upside down?

  Xavier is gabbling at me in French, so fast that I can’t make out a single word. Now more than ever I really wish my French was better. ‘What is it, Xavier? What’s happened? Please tell me.’

  I try to make him slow down, to tell me in English, but I don’t think he can. He’s gripping my wrists, hard, tight. He seems really panicked, white with shock and fear and adrenaline.

  ‘Where ’ave you been?’ he manages to say, eventually. ‘I called for you, but you did not come.’

  I start to apologise, to explain that I was out on the high street, doing some early morning shopping for Mum and I didn’t mean to take so long, but stop myself. At this moment, it’s really not important. I am much more concerned with what’s going on in my street right now, with what might have caused him to be so upset. I am horribly anxious about the fact that there’s an ambulance, its lights flashing ‘emergency’, parked outside my house. There’s really only one thing it can mean and I absolutely, definitely don’t want it to mean that. I am scared. ‘Is it my mother, Xavier? Has something happened to her?’

  Xavier nods. He seems haunted by whatever it is that he’s just witnessed. ‘Zair was an accidont, Veecks. She fell.’

  ‘Oh God.’ I wrestle my arms from his grip. ‘Did you see what happened? Where is she? Is she in the house? In the ambulance?’ Before he can reply, I start running towards the ambulance. I sense that Xavier is running behind me but I don’t turn around to check. Desperately, I pull at the ambulance doors to find that they’re locked. Everyone must be in my house. Perhaps they’re working on Mum now. How long have they been there? Is she . . .? Could she be . . . dead? Shut up, Vix. I swing around sharply, twisting my ankle on the kerb, and fling myself against my front door, practically falling into the hall. ‘Mum!’ I shout. ‘Where are you? Mum!’

  Somehow Xavier is by my side. ‘She eez upstairs, in ’er bedroom,’ he says, grabbing me again. ‘Slow down. The firemen are zair wiz her.’

  ‘Firemen? Is there a fire?’ I stop at the bottom of the stairs, confused, only now aware of the sharp pain in my ankle. I can’t see or smell smoke and there were no fire engines on the street.

  ‘No, no fire. They try to ’elp her.’

  ‘OK, right, that’s good.’ I think I understand. I half remember a conversation with Xavier about how in France you call the fire service in an emergency, not an ambulance. The firemen there don’t just put out fires, they’re paramedics too. Grimacing against the pain, I start to take the stairs two at a time. Xavier rushes behind. ‘Hello! Mum! Are you OK? Can anyone hear me?’

  A tall, young-looking paramedic greets me on the landing. ‘It’s OK,’ he says. ‘Your mum is safe. We’re just treating her now and soon we’ll take her to hospital.’

  Relief courses through my body. She’s not dead. I take a deep breath. It feels like the first breath I’ve taken for minutes, hours. ‘I want to see her. Can I come in and see her? Please?’

  ‘It’s better if you wait outside for a few minutes with your friend while we make her comfortable. I promise you she’s in good hands.’ He nods at Xavier. ‘Are you the person who called the ambulance and put her in the recovery position?’

  ‘Oui,’ says Xavier. He is shaking a little. I put my arm around his shoulder to comfort him. I’d like him to comfort me back, but he doesn’t.

  ‘Well done, lad.’

  Xavier smiles awkwardly and, for a second, I can see a glimmer of pride shine through his shock. I wonder how he knew what to do. Maybe he learned first aid at school. Thank God he did.

  ‘Yeah, thank you, Xavier.’

  ‘Right, well I’ll let you know when we’re ready to take her in,’ says the paramedic. ‘You can come with her in the ambulance. Why don’t you both go and wait downstairs?’

  Much as I want to see Mum I know he’s not going to let me, so I just say, ‘OK, thank you.’

  He turns away and is about to go back into the bedroom when I’m struck by a thought. ‘Hold on a second . . . You do know she has MS, right? It’s probably why she fell.’

  ‘No . . . We weren’t aware of that.’ He beckons me over and asks me to tell him everything I can about her condition. ‘Thank you,’ he says, when I’ve finished. ‘It would have been helpful if we’d known this before. It explains why she might have fallen. Your French friend didn’t tell us.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I say, guiltily. ‘He doesn’t know. He’s just staying here for a few weeks.’

  Xavier is still waiting for me at the top of the stairs. We go down to the living room together and perch on the end of the sofas, tensely, ready to spring up as soon as the paramedics bring Mum downstairs.

  ‘Veecks, what eez MS?’

  He must have overheard me talking to the paramedic. ‘It’s an illness,’ I say matter of factly. I’m not going to lie any more. ‘My mum ha
s it. It’s why she fell. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before.’

  He looks shocked. ‘So eet was not an accidont? You tell me she ’urt ’er legs and zat eez why you ’elp ’er at ’ome. She falls before?’

  ‘Yes, she has fallen before. The illness has made her legs not work properly, and now they’re very weak too.’

  ‘Why did you not tell me, Veecks?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m sorry. I was . . . embarrassed.’

  He can’t look at me. ‘But why? You left me alone wiz ’er. I was afraid.’

  I can’t explain my shame about Mum, or put into words how important it is to me to seem normal, like everyone else; I’m aware it doesn’t make sense. Now I feel stupid. ‘I really, really am sorry.’

  I ask him to tell me exactly what happened and, in stumbling English, he does. He says he was still in his bedroom, getting ready, when he heard Mum calling for me. He didn’t know I was out, and so didn’t do anything at first. Then he heard a tremendous crash from Mum’s room. He waited a minute, but nobody else went to her aid. It was then that he realised he was alone in the house, the only one that could help. He pushed open Mum’s bedroom door and found her lying next to her bed, unconscious. She had hit her head on something on the way down. Terrified she was dead, he felt for her pulse and put her in the recovery position – something he’d learned through football training. Then he tried to call the emergency services from the phone in her bedroom, but he couldn’t remember the number. (They don’t call 999 in France.) He went running out into the street, shouting for help. ‘Call the firemen! Call the firemen!’ A neighbour came out, panicking that the house was burning, and he managed to explain what had happened. She helped him call the ambulance.

  I feel dreadful. ‘That must have been awful for you, Xavier. I really didn’t mean to put you through that. I only went to the shops to get some stuff for Mum. I wasn’t out for long. Longer than I should have been but not long.’

  He shrugs. ‘You should ’ave told me,’ he repeats. ‘At least I would ’ave been prepared.’