by Juno Dawson
I think of Grandad when I was little – some of my earliest memories are us together in the garden in Hampstead. He was such fun, so healthy, so full of life. I wonder if he was already infected, counting down like a silent time bomb.
‘Dear Lord, it was cruel, and people were so cruel. All I could do was sit at his side as he faded away, day by day. I remember holding his hand, covered in sarcomas. He looked a hundred years old. Those poor, poor men.’
I can’t speak because I’ll cry.
‘I have never, ever in my life felt so useless. So utterly, utterly powerless.’
I shake my head and swallow the giant cube in my throat. ‘You weren’t useless,’ I say. ‘You were there for him. For them.’
Margot nods, saying nothing for a moment. ‘Felicity, I can’t tell you what to do – you have a mind of your own, as you’ve demonstrated on more than one occasion – but I am asking you not to tell your mother any of this. I know you’ll hardly remember him, but think about what your grandfather wanted and think about how ill your mum is. Whether she really needs this information.’
‘I won’t,’ I say, my voice cracking. I quickly swipe the tear off my cheek. ‘I won’t say anything. I’m … I’m so glad I met him before he … and I’m glad I remember him too.’
‘Thank you,’ says Margot, and takes a sip of her hot chocolate. She says no more, but neither can she look me in the eye.
Bronwyn reads the last chapter of the diary on one of the library beanbags. ‘Oh wow,’ she says. ‘It looks like a truce to me.’
I haven’t told them the full truth about Grandad and AIDS. I’m not going to tell anyone, even them. ‘I know. I feel really bad for being so horrible about her now.’
‘Don’t,’ says Danny. ‘She was pretty vile too. She tried to kill your piglet!’
‘Valid. The diary kind of makes sense of everything though, don’t you think?’
Bronwyn nods. ‘It certainly explains why she’s a double-hard mofo.’
‘Right. I’ve been thinking about this,’ I say. ‘It’s like after everything she went through, the only way she could survive it all was to shut down or build these fortress walls or whatever. I can’t say I blame her. After all that, I’d be a dribbling wreck.’ I’m quietly impressed at my amateur psychoanalysis.
‘It looks like she’s trying to let you in now.’ Bronwyn hands me back the diary and I slide it in my bag.
‘Trying is the operative word. She’s still pretty frosty.’
‘Frostier than a penguin’s asshole,’ Danny offers.
‘Ach-a-fi, Dan!’ Bronwyn makes a distasteful face.
The bell clangs, signalling the end of break. ‘See you here at lunch, yeah?’ Danny asks.
‘Sure.’ I have RE now, which I dread because Mr Ramsey is old and a bit odd and everyone makes fun of the weird white stuff on his teeth. Gross, but I do feel sorry for him.
I make my way to the classroom and it’s even rowdier than usual. ‘What’s going on?’ I ask Dewi, who’s waiting in the corridor.
He takes a breath. ‘Mr Ramsey is off sick or something, like.’
‘Just go in and sit down quietly,’ future Mrs Thom Deacon, Miss Crabtree, says over the ruckus. ‘I’ll find out where the supply teacher is.’ She shuffles off in her FLAT SHOES and I briefly imagine pushing her down the stairs.
It doesn’t matter how many times I tell myself Thom doesn’t like me like that, I haven’t quite got rid of the pins and needles in my heart when I think about him. I shake it off. I’ve got much bigger things to worry about. A crush is the least of my worries.
We file into the classroom and, without a responsible adult present, it’s all a bit Lord of the Flies. God, people are immature. Case in point: I’m hardly over the threshold when someone slams into my right shoulder, hurrying to get past me. ‘Ow!’
‘Oops!’ shrieks a loud voice as my satchel slips off my shoulder. I recognise the tone at once. Megan. ‘Sorry, love, didn’t see you there.’ I suspect she did because she then kicks my bag across the floor and the contents spill out.
‘Megan, don’t be a bitch, yeah?’ From the flash of anger in her eyes, I’d say now is not the time for Dewi to step in and be chivalrous.
In my haste to scoop up exposed Tampax before boys learn the secrets of womanhood, I totally forget about the diary. ‘Ooh, what’s this?’ Megan crows. ‘Is it your diary?’ She snatches it up.
Oh, shitballs. I can’t show that I’m bothered or she’ll know how precious it is. I play it cool. ‘Megan, give it back, please. It’s not mine.’
‘Oh my God! What does it say?’ Rhiannon cackles.
‘The Secret Diary of Lady Felicity Fanny-Fart,’ Megan says in a ludicrously posh accent. ‘Dear diary, today I did a fanny fart.’
Some of my classmates laugh. I suppose ‘fanny fart’ is pretty funny in an alliterative sort of way. Megan starts to flick through the pages and I grit my teeth. it won’t take much for the whole thing to fall to pieces. ‘Megan, please.’ I reach for the book, but she snatches it away.
‘Megan,’ Dewi tries again. ‘Give it back, yeah?’
‘God, if you love her so much, why don’t you come and get it?’ Megan strides across the classroom and I try my very hardest to keep cool. I have no choice but to trail after her. Megan pulls herself onto the teacher’s desk and starts to read at random in the same fake accent. ‘Tuesday 21st January, 1941. I intended to write yesterday, but I was simply too exhausted. What’s this bollocks then? You writing a little story?’
What else can I do? ‘It’s my grandma’s diary. Please, Megan, give it back. It’s really old.’
Wrong thing to say. Knowing how valuable it is, her eyes light up. She’s finally found the chink in my armour and, boy, is she gonna slide the knife right in. ‘Oh, I better be really careful with it then, hadn’t I, like?’ She holds it upside down and gives it a shake. The photos and Dear John letter from Rick fall to the floor.
‘Megan, stop,’ I say forcefully. ‘Look, I don’t know what I’ve done to piss you off, but can you not take it out on my grandma?’
‘Oh no, is Princess Felicity gonna be in trouble? Better not rip it, had I?’ She tears a page out and lets it drift to the classroom floor.
‘Megan!’ I cry, my voice shrill and whiny. ‘Stop it!’ I feel so feeble. ‘Please! God, what do you want me to say and I’ll say it.’ Sorry I saw you hooking up in a cave? Sorry for sounding a bit posh? Sorry that Dewi ever spoke to me? Sorry I don’t have a sketchy alcoholic mum?
She suggests I perform an intimate act on Dewi. I roll my eyes, but Dewi jumps in again. ‘Megan, don’t be disgusting.’
‘Oh, as if you wouldn’t,’ she scoffs.
‘Clearly that’s not going to happen.’ I hold out my hand again. ‘Please can I have it back?’
‘Rhiannon, you remember in history when we had to make our letters look all old?’
‘Yeah,’ Rhiannon says. ‘We had to burn the edges.’
‘Good idea!’ Megan slips a cheap pink cigarette lighter from out of her coat pocket, the sort you buy five-for-a-pound at the market.
‘Megan, don’t …’ I say. She will not burn that diary.
Dewi goes to snatch it back, but Megan sparks the lighter, holding the book hostage. ‘Come any closer and it goes up in flames …’
‘Please, Megan, you have no idea how much that means to my grandma.’
‘Aw, poor little Fliss. Are you going to cry?’
I make one last snatch for it. With a determination in her eyes that suggests she’s not just mean, she’s a freaking sociopath, Megan starts to burn the bottom corner of the pages.
What I do next is all a bit out-of-body experience. The nearest thing I can lay my hands on is a WORLD’S BEST TEACHER mug with dried coffee stuck to the bottom. The rage is so blinding I hardly see as I pick it up and smash the thing into her fucking face.
Chapter 34
‘So let me get this right?’ Mr Rees, the head, circles his desk, drumming hi
s spindly Grinch fingers together. There’s something a little bit Christopher Lee about him and this is hardly an ideal first meeting. ‘You smashed a mug in her face?’
Well, if we’re splitting hairs, her nose smashed, the mug is still intact. ‘Yes,’ seems like the wisest answer. There was a room full of witnesses, so there’s no point in lying.
‘This is very serious, Felicity. It’s assault. You’re very lucky I haven’t called the police.’
‘I’m sorry, Mr Rees. I was just … so angry. She was trying to set fire to my grandma’s diary …’
‘Yes, yes, I’m very well aware of that, but, Miss Baker, we do not hit people in the face with mugs at this school.’
I have to fight not to burst into hysterical laughter. I can feel excess, unnecessary adrenaline in my blood and it’s bubbling up, needing release. ‘I know,’ I say. ‘I’ve never, ever done anything like that before. I suppose it must be everything that’s going on at home …’ If there was ever a time to play my CANCER CARD, it’s now.
‘I’m aware of your home circumstances, but it simply does not excuse …’ There’s a knock at the door and the mousy receptionist enters. Margot looms over her shoulder. Oh crap. ‘Ah, Mrs Baker, is it?’
‘Hancock. I’m Felicity’s grandmother. What has she done?’ The temperature drops about twenty degrees as she takes her seat next to me. As ever, she’s in her wax jacket, her hair wild.
‘I’m afraid to say, Mrs Hancock, Felicity was involved in a very serious assault.’
‘I hit a girl called Megan in the face with a mug.’
Margot’s hand flies to her mouth. Was it really to cover a smile? ‘Felicity, that’s awful, just awful. I trust you were in some way provoked?’
‘She tried to set fire to your diary.’
Her eyes widen, but she says no more. Mr Rees goes on. ‘I’m afraid I have no option but to suspend Felicity until we can establish her suitability to return. I have to warn you, the exclusion may be permanent.’
‘What?’ I cry. ‘It’s totally a first offence!’
Mr Rees holds up a hand. ‘That will all be taken into account. I shall be in touch. I recommend you spend the time at home studying and reflecting on your actions.’
Margot stands, hauling me up by the sleeve. ‘I assume,’ she adds coolly, ‘the young arsonist is also being dealt with?’
Even Mr Rees wilts in Margot’s presence. ‘Well … yes … of course.’
‘Good. Felicity – the car.’
Head bowed, I slope out of the head’s office. I sheepishly climb into the passenger seat of the Land Rover. Margot slams her door shut. She adjusts the rear-view mirror. The silence is pretty effing loud. ‘So,’ she finally says, ‘this Megan character, did she have it coming?’
‘Oh yes. She’s been on my case since literally day one and—’
‘That’s all I need to know. We Hancock girls are no one’s victims. A mug though, Felicity? Really?’
‘I don’t know what happened.’
‘Lacks finesse.’ She starts the engine. ‘Come on. I don’t want to leave your mother by herself for too long.’
Mum is none too pleased. ‘This is not OK, Fliss. Getting suspended? You’ve only been there three months! For God’s sake!’ She looks more alive than she has in months.
‘I’m sorry, please don’t get worked up.’
‘Do not treat me like I’m made of glass. I will still whup your ass.’
Margot leans against the kitchen counter, smirking in silence as Mum tears strips off me.
‘I said I’m sorry!’
‘You will be sorry. If you think this is an extra holiday, you’ve got another thing coming. I will home-school you to within an inch of your life. I’m going to make Joan Crawford look positively laid back.’
‘Who?’
‘Lesson one: Mommie Dearest.’
We get to work. Discovering that, so far, I’ve studied Shakespeare, John Steinbeck, Blake, Ted Hughes, Laurie Lee and Hemingway, Mum prescribes Iris Murdoch, Sylvia Plath, Angela Carter and Margaret Atwood to even out the balance. ‘Right. You can read these and then write five hundred words about why the contribution of female artists is so often overlooked.’
‘How am I going to do that without the Internet?’
‘You are permitted to go to the library, and that’s it.’ Mum pushes herself up, supporting herself on the kitchen table. ‘I mean it, Fliss. I’m not having this.’
I suddenly feel such a strong guilt my arms and legs almost spasm. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t want to stress you out.’ I can’t look up from my lap I’m so ashamed. ‘It was all in the heat of the moment.’
Mum purses her lips and sits back down. ‘Look. I’m sure it was, but I don’t believe there wasn’t some other way you could have dealt with this Megan girl.’
‘I know,’ I admit. ‘I’m sorry.’
Mum seems to soften. ‘Oh, well. I guess it means we get to spend more time together.’
I nod, not quite trusting myself to speak.
My suspension lasts for the rest of the week. I like Angela Carter and Margaret Atwood more than Sylvia Plath and Iris Murdoch, but am no closer to understanding why all the authors we do at school are male. Sometimes Margot mutters ‘patriarchy’ at the evening news, and I think it must be something to do with that.
The following Monday I’m summoned back to Mr Rees’s office. This time Mum is feeling well enough to join us, so we all go. His office smells of the Bacon & Egg McMuffin he’s clearly had before school. Mrs Evans, as my head of year, is also benevolently present. Her candy-pink nails are the only blob of colour in the head’s beige office. Even the dried flowers are wheat-coloured.
‘It seems,’ Mr Rees begins, ‘that Felicity was provoked on this occasion. We also have a statement from a witness who came to me to explain that Megan Jones has singled out and victimised Felicity since she first started.’
My cheeks burn. I feel like the archetypal, Poindexter ‘victim’ you see in educational videos about bullying. I never thought of myself as a ‘victim’, but I guess I was. I wonder who the witness was. I’m guessing Thom has spoken up on my behalf.
‘It’s unfortunate you didn’t feel able to report this behaviour to a teacher, Felicity. We could have avoided this incident.’
‘Megan was already on her last warning,’ Mrs Evans adds. ‘This was the final straw. I mean, she could have burned the whole school down. She has been excluded.’
‘Permanently?’ Mum asks.
‘Yes.’
School without Megan? It’s almost too good to be true, although the dark goblin of pessimism immediately mutters that she’ll probably meet me at the school gates at home time to stab me. I also think about her skanky mum briefly, but find it pretty hard to feel any pity for her. She made her choices. I know it’d be the humanitarian, altruistic thing to reach out and heal her poor broken-home heart or whatever, but Megan Jones is a thrusting megabitch, and this isn’t an episode of Saved by the Bell; it’s my life.
‘Am I allowed back?’ I ask tentatively. The fact I was told to come to the school in uniform is a good portent, I feel.
‘Yes,’ Mr Rees says, and I swear I feel iron fists let go of my shoulders. ‘Although we will not tolerate any more flighty or violent behaviour. Is that understood?’
‘Yes. I promise.’
‘This is at least partially my fault,’ Mum says. ‘There’s been very little routine in Fliss’s life for the last few years and …’ She tails off. She looks sickly, clammy.
‘Mum? Are you OK?’
‘I’m fine,’ she says.
‘Mrs Baker, would you like some water?’ Mrs Evans asks.
‘Erm, yes, thank you.’
I don’t take my eyes off her. Whatever she says, she looks awful. Once again, I’ve made her do too much. She takes a sip of water, her hand shaking.
‘Perhaps,’ Margot says, ‘I should get Felicity’s mum home.’
‘Of course.’ Mr Rees stands at once, no
ne too keen to have a dying woman keel over on his brown carpet. ‘Felicity, you’ll go to lesson two as normal, please.’
I don’t need to be in any more trouble, but I also don’t want to leave Mum. ‘Mum, are you going to be OK?’
Her eyes are glassy. She leans on Margot for support, but tries to stand tall. ‘I just need some air. I’ll be fine.’
To be fair, the McDonald’s smell is pretty off-putting, I could use some air too. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Felicity, go to your lesson,’ Margot says definitely. ‘I’ll get her home.’
I nod because I know that she will. Whatever else, I trust Margot.
Chapter 35
By Tuesday, Mum has to be admitted to the Ysbyty Cwm Mawr’s specialist cancer ward. It’s not good. There’s a horrible resignation to it, like we’re taking a patchy cat to the vet for a final visit.
We’re told, by kind, sombre doctors that THIS IS NOT THE END, they simply need to stabilise the calcium levels in her blood. Hospitals, I learned ages ago, are all pretty much the same, only this one has bilingual signposts. Otherwise, it has the same endless linoleum corridors, stark blueish lighting and sad brown visitor armchairs. Even when I’m seventy, I’ll never forget my thighs sticking to the vinyl on hot July days.
The worst thing about hospitals is the wailing. At any given time, it seems someone is wailing: either calling for a nurse, crying in pain or just moaning. It’s ghostly, like the Disneyland haunted mansion or something. I hate it.
Visiting hours are four till seven. Margot collects me from school and we drive over. I take her books to read and also smuggle in Chat and Bella, because her guilty pleasure is ‘real-life stories’ about women who accidentally married serial killers or think they’re the reincarnation of Marilyn Monroe. We go every night.