I work faster, swipe harder, tearing down copy after copy but it isn’t enough. I’m tired of sitting back and letting other people dictate.
There’s something alive in my gut. I can feel it breathe, sense its steady eyes as it scours the crowd for Anna as I move toward the cafeteria. That’s where she’ll be so that’s where I need to go too. I’ve been taken over by the creature, this animal that’s determined to stalk its prey—fierce and controlled, savage and rational—a thousand contradictory things working brilliantly in unison.
I shove open the double doors and march into the cafeteria. People stare and snicker, but I no longer care. Henry was right. It’s meaningless. Nonsense.
“Here comes Balls!” Connor shouts as if a word can hurt me, like I’m still vulnerable. I take it in, transform it, pretend he means the ones you get in a ball pool, those multicolored orbs that fly into the air to make a rainbow whenever a kid zooms out of a slide. I turn my whole body into them, my cells bright disks of blue, red, and green so that I glow as I strut. I shine as I swagger. I glitter as I walk to the table in the middle of the room.
I’m small and big and quiet and loud and timid and almighty as I stand in front of Anna.
“What are you doing here, Man Skull?”
My name’s Tess, and it’s very nice to meet you, I say with eyes that hold her gaze. Blaise’s gaze. She takes in the papers clutched in my hands.
“Oh. You’ve come to confront me.” Isabel’s notepad is in her lap. She holds it primly, a look of polite interest on her face. “Go on, then.” I’m terrified and courageous, cowardly and brave. “Is little Tessie going to stand up to the big bad bully?” she says in a baby voice, in no way appropriate. I’ve changed. I am changing even now. “Go away, you stupid cow. You’re not going to do anything to me and we both know it.”
I tuck my hair behind my ears in a slow, measured movement that Anna copies, but beneath the bravado I see something else, a flicker of nerves that she tries to hide in a languid yawn.
Tara and Sarah have stopped eating, their forks hovering above their plates. The other girls are wary too. They’re scared of me and I almost laugh. I don’t need to do anything else. I snatch the notepad then turn to leave.
There’s no applause. No standing ovation. Most people in the cafeteria have no idea that something incredible has just happened, but one girl did witness the miracle. One girl saw it, and she’s standing at the edge of the room, always on the periphery, holding a ham and cheese baguette high in the air, sort of like a sword—The Great Blade of Turner.
“Stop!” Anna cries. “I mean it, Tess. Stop right now.”
I smash through the doors and race down the hallway in the direction of the art wing.
“Give me the notepad!” Anna’s behind me, but gaining. “Give that back, or I swear I’ll make your life a misery.”
I look back to see her charging toward me, her cheeks unusually red. This isn’t about the notepad. It’s about saving face because I embarrassed her in front of her friends and she can’t stand it. She isn’t big enough to take it. Henry was right about that, too. We’re all scared, deep down. We’re all vulnerable, even Anna, and she can’t bear to have it exposed.
I turn around and face her.
She almost runs into me, just about managing to skid to a stop. Lurching forward, she makes a swipe for the notepad but I shove it down the front of my trousers. It’s utterly bizarre and maybe even a little bit brilliant as well. She looks horrified anyway, and I enjoy that, the expression of disgust as I push the notepad deeper into my trousers then hold out my hands, palms skyward like I’m channeling the energy of the universe. I am part of it, or it is part of me, and I am no longer afraid.
She glances at my crotch—the part of me she’s scorned for weeks and attempted to expose in the bar. I point at it, daring her to go there, calling her bluff. She has no idea what to do. She’s smaller than I realized and there’s a zit I didn’t notice before, red with a yellowish tinge on her temple. She’s tried to cover it with foundation and I see a different girl now, one scrutinizing herself in the mirror, twisting her head this way and that, frowning at the pimple still visible beneath the makeup.
She becomes real to me and I don’t want that now, do I, so I fight to hold on to the image of the villain with the smooth black hair and flawless skin, cold and hard as marble. I don’t want to see her vulnerability, but it’s right here in front of me, in that heavy blob of foundation and that faint smudge of mascara beneath her left eye and that random tomato seed, a spot of orange on her bright white shirt.
“Do you think I care what you think?” she says, following my gaze, but her voice is quieter now, her eyes filling with tears as she slaps at the seed. “I liked him, you know. Henry. I really liked him,” she whispers, and then she’s gone.
44
I pull out the notepad, shaky and triumphant. The front is torn but easily fixed. I’m near the art wing, so I head into my homeroom to look for some tape. Isabel’s going to be so happy to have it back. I can’t wait to give it to her, patched up and pristine, to see the look of delight on her face as the warm feeling blossoms in her chest and also my chest because we are symbiotic creatures, reunited for all eternity.
I search the supply cupboard. We’re allowed in here so absolutely there will no problem if Miss Gilbert walks in to find my hands in this drawer. Or this drawer. Or this one, full of glue sticks and paper clips and one small roll of tape. I get to work on the notepad as someone enters the room, probably Miss Gilbert. I can’t shout out to alert her to my presence, so I move forward to pop my head around the door, retreating quickly when I realize she’s not alone.
“This is better than eating in the staff room,” Mr. Richardson says, and there’s a rustle like he’s getting out sandwiches. “Chicken. What’ve you got?”
“Tuna mayo for me. A bit stinky.”
“Good job. I won’t be getting too close.”
“Why do you think I chose it?”
They laugh because it’s a joke—just a joke, I tell myself firmly, but my pulse is galloping. I check the supply cupboard, but there’s no way out except through the classroom. I’m trapped in a prison of stationery.
“We should have invited our chaperone, too. To be on the safe side.”
“Shall I go and find her?”
“No,” Mr. Richardson says. “I think Tess realized yesterday that three’s a crowd.”
“She’s lovely though.”
“Yes, she is. Very lovely and very, very useful.”
My hand flies over my mouth.
“Stop it! That’s mean,” Miss Gilbert replies, but she giggles as I whimper into my fingers.
“You’re right. We have a lot to thank her for. We wouldn’t even be talking if it weren’t for Tess, I don’t suppose. When I saw her with my phone—well, I was pleased, to be honest with you. I had to hide how happy I was. Might have laid it on a bit thick.”
I remember his words, his cruel words, uttered quite clearly on purpose. Are you deaf as well as mute? I wish I was deaf right now, like I wish I could turn off my ears and not hear these things spewing out of his mouth. He’s my Jack, and I’m supposed to be under his wing. I shiver, feeling suddenly, horribly cold in my black sweater and odd socks that maybe don’t suit me after all.
“I made it seem as though I had no choice but to march down here and see you,” Mr. Richardson goes on.
“You’re very cunning.”
“What choice did I have when you sent me that message? I never want to see you again. Don’t come to my room. Don’t call because I won’t answer.”
“It’s how I felt at the time.” I can hear a shrug in Miss Gilbert’s voice. “I make no apology for it.”
I shove Isabel’s notepad in my bag then press my eye to a gap in the door to see a thin sliver of room, both my teachers crammed inside it. Mr. Richardson has his back against a desk and Miss Gilbert is directly opposite, her bum pressed against a cupboard. Their legs are jutt
ing out, their toes almost touching. The sandwiches lie forgotten at their sides.
They’re not friends.
Not at all.
Their body language is screaming out in big bold letters that they want each other. Right now. Probably on that table. Henry deserves more than this, and Julie, too—Julie with her chocolate cake and warm caramel eyes. I turn away, unwilling to see anymore, but I can’t block out their words.
“The text was a bit over-the-top,” Mr. Richardson says, his tone gently mocking.
“It was entirely appropriate, actually. I was hurt. You lied to me.”
“I never said I was single.”
“You never said you were married! You took off your wedding ring every time you spoke to me.”
“So you were right,” I tell Mr. Goldfish, going for my pocket, my fingers closing around nothing. “You were right all along.”
“I’m sorry,” Mr. Richardson says. “But it wasn’t a direct lie, was it?”
“It’s lying by omission, which is lying in my book!”
“Whoa. Do I need to go and get Tess to stop you laying into me?”
“Yeah, that was sly. Coming down here with a student so I couldn’t have a go at you.”
“Like I say, Tess has her uses, even if she is a bit creepy. The silence. All that black hair.” I stifle a sob. “Talk about spooky.”
“We can’t keep doing it. It isn’t fair. I’m no good at lying.”
Mr. Richardson chuckles like I’m the punch line of a bad joke. “A room swap, was it?” I force myself to look. They’re smiling, basking in each other as I experience something of a solar eclipse. There’s no warmth in this supply cupboard. No light. No hope. The sun’s rising between them, this hot ball of passion, setting their faces on fire. “That was inspired.”
Miss Gilbert groans, but she’s enjoying the agony. “Why did I say it?”
“It was ridiculous!”
“Math and Art! Oh God! As if that would ever happen in a million years. No offense, but what could someone dull as a math teacher possibly want with a room like this?”
“Maybe it’s not the room he wants.”
“Don’t,” she warns, but she moves closer, stopping herself at the very last second. “Don’t say that if you don’t mean it.”
“I can’t stop thinking about you, Laura. I’ve tried, and I can’t stop.”
“But you said you wanted to be friends. You said you’d made a mistake.”
“All last night. In the shower. In bed.”
“What about your wife?”
“Don’t talk about my wife.”
“And your son?”
“I don’t know.”
“They’re your family, Jack.”
But he doesn’t hear, because he’s pulling her toward him, their bodies colliding with a boom that shatters my world.
Stop!
The word bounces off the bones of my skull, boomeranging back on itself, stuck in the cage that is my head as Mr. Richardson drags Miss Gilbert around a corner, out of sight of the window, but in full view of me. The sliver of room becomes a slice as I slowly open the cupboard door.
“Stop!”
It isn’t me who says it. This word is free. Untrapped. It bursts out into the classroom as Miss Gilbert halfheartedly pushes Mr. Richardson away.
“Stop!” she says again, but then she moans because he’s kissing her neck and jaw and ears, his lips on the crescent-shaped moons. “Stop. No. This isn’t right! This isn’t—”
She looks up, sees me, and gasps in dismay. She shoves Mr. Richardson away, properly this time. He stumbles then stops, facing the opposite direction, his body tense because he knows.
“It’s Tess, isn’t it?”
Miss Gilbert’s silence says it all.
“If you mention this to anyone,” he whispers, without turning around, “I’ll call your parents and tell them I caught you trying to steal my phone. Do you hear me? Do you hear me, Tess?”
The only reply is the door slamming closed. I stagger into the hallway, weaving through a crowd of people inexplicably having an ordinary day. I hurtle out of a fire exit next to a girl wrapped up in a thick red coat, biting into a browning apple. It makes me think of Henry and the rotten core he sees at the heart of the world. It’s more true than he could ever have imagined. There is something rotten at the heart of his world—and it’s his dad.
But not my dad I suddenly know with absolute certainty, and there’s a glimmer of relief, even as I stumble out of the school gates, grieving for yet another Jack.
45
I plunge my hand into the bin. Mr. Goldfish is at the bottom, buried beneath I don’t know what, tucked inside a Styrofoam cup, no doubt in an effort to keep warm. My heart bleeds for him, weeping scarlet tears in my chest that’s getting bigger or smaller, or wider or thinner, or maybe all these things at once because definitely my body feels peculiar. My head too, wobbling about on my neck a thousand miles long as I gaze down at myself, watching my hand grab Mr. Goldfish and flick his switch.
Nothing.
I flick it again.
No light. No voice. No magical bursting into life.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” I strain my ears for a reply that doesn’t come. He’s lifeless, lying on my palm, eyes open but seeing nothing because—“No. Definitely not. No way.”
I give Mr. Goldfish a shake, just a gentle one, stroking his beautiful golden head. He’s alive. He has to be alive. Hoping for a miracle, praying for it, I click the button to resurrect him from the dead. No words emerge from his lips. No reassuring ray of hope shines out of his mouth. There is nothing but darkness, and I am alone—a Pluto, lost at the very edge of the solar system where I thought I wanted to be.
I walk in the opposite direction of school. I guess I’m cutting class, and isn’t it strange how easy it is, how completely and utterly simple to break the rules when you no longer care. I trudge with Mr. Goldfish, cradling him in my palm as if he’s asleep, not dead.
People are possibly staring. I don’t know and I don’t care because I only have eyes for my fish. My friend. I hold him tight as I proceed down the road, carrying him to his final resting place, which will be somewhere warm and protected with—
“—Some hot lady-flashlights for me to lie with for the rest of eternity?” Mr. Goldfish says weakly. I spin him around in disbelief and, wow, there’s an abundance of light, but it’s from my face, not his. It’s my eyes that are radiant, my joy that is golden, my happiness that is dazzling my friend.
“You’re alive! I thought you were dead!”
He flickers faintly. “Nope. Not dead. No thanks to you, mind. You left me.”
“I know.”
“In a bin.”
“I know that, too.”
“Do you also know what people put in a bin, Tess?” He sounds frail but irritated. I’m so thrilled to see his grumpy face, I laugh out loud. It’s a whoop, a holler, a huge great big shout of delight. Definitely people are staring now, and definitely I don’t care because Mr. Goldfish is here. “Get off me!” he says, as I cover his puckered brow in kisses. “Tissues, Tess. That’s what goes in a bin. Used tissues. Poo bags from dogs.” I giggle at his look of revulsion. “It isn’t funny.”
“I know it isn’t. I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking straight.”
“You admit it now, do you?”
It comes back to me in an excruciating rush—the lies and the betrayal and the kiss, burned on my retinas so I can see Mr. Richardson’s writhing body when I close my eyes. He’ll know I’m skipping by now. Probably an e-mail will have gone around, alerting all staff that Tess Turner didn’t turn up for French five minutes ago.
“You were right about Mr. Richardson.” Mr. Goldfish doesn’t say I told you so or gloat in anyway whatsoever, just nods sadly. “He isn’t my dad, is he?”
“No, I don’t think so. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s a good thing. I’m glad. Honestly.”
“It’s okay to b
e upset,” Mr. Goldfish whispers because my bottom lip is trembling. I bite it as hard as I can, drawing blood.
“No, it isn’t. Not for him.”
“You’re bound to be disappointed.”
Tears fill my eyes, but I blink them back. “I thought we had a bond. A connection. He said he felt it too, but it was a lie, wasn’t it? To get closer to Miss Gilbert?” The gap between how I viewed Mr. Richardson and how he really viewed me opens up and I stare into the void in disbelief. “None of it was true.”
I’ve been walking without paying attention to my surroundings. I blink again, trying to work out where I am—a quiet street, a petrol station in the distance—the road where I flagged down the cab to go to the HFEA the first time I ran away. A black taxi with a light glowering on its forehead grumbles into view. It would be so easy to stick out my hand and race to London on the pretense of needing answers I’m too scared to ask the only man who can give me the information I seek. Whizzing to Manchester Piccadilly Station, I could catch a train to anywhere in the country—vanish in Scotland, disappear in Wales—and never have to see either Jack again.
I could forget the words of the blog. The words spoken in the art room.
The words Jack said this morning to Andrew.
The words Mum uttered in my bedroom when she handed me the hot water bottle.
I could live without words. Without a name. Without a past.
“Tess?” Mr. Goldfish says. The taxi is approaching, the exact color of night, of space. It would take me far, far away. My hand quivers as I hold it out and step closer to the curb. The car slows… slows… slows… but does not stop because I jerk back my arm and shake my head.
No.
It roars past, the light flashing like a shooting star as I stand on the ground—as I stand my ground.
I’m not going to hide from the truth anymore.
46
I wander about until the end of school then buy some milk and chocolate biscuits for Gran, the best ones I can find. I run to her house, relieved to have chores that need completing. I’ll dust. Pick up the crumbs off the floor. I’ll even do the baseboards, scrubbing them until they shine. I’ll clean Gran’s street then move on to Mr. Richardson’s, getting rid of the filth until it’s pure. Untainted. Fit for Henry and his mum.
Silence Is Goldfish Page 22