by Jean Ure
“You’ve probably heard of God’s Mission? No? Well, maybe not. It’s a strict religious sect that believes in keeping as far away as possible from worldly temptations. When I was little, Uncle Stefan decided we should all go and live in this commune and be independent. So he moved us out to this big old house in Norfolk – my mum and dad and me, Rachel’s mum, Rachel’s gran, and another couple of families who’d fallen under his sway. Others joined us over the years. We were almost completely cut off from the rest of the world. No television, no computers. Nothing. Except for a radio, which belonged to Uncle Stefan. Nobody else was allowed to listen to it. He just passed on to us all the evil things that were happening in the world.”
I really felt I ought to say something, but I couldn’t think what. Fortunately Auntie Helen didn’t seem to be expecting any response.
“It must be difficult,” she said, “for you to understand why we all put up with it. I can only say that Uncle Stefan was not the sort of person you crossed. Not unless you were Rachel’s mum.”
A faint smile briefly lit up Auntie Helen’s face, all big and plain and bony, but somehow reassuring.
“My cousin Ruth was the one rebel amongst us. She was the one that used to creep in and listen to the radio when Uncle Stefan wasn’t around – until he found out and started keeping it under lock and key. She was always questioning … why this, why that? It used to make him so angry! Then when she was sixteen she ran away. We never got the full story of where she went or what happened, whether she fell in with a bad group of people, though if she did it was hardly her fault. What did she know? She’d had no experience. Anyway …”
There was a pause.
“Zoe, I’m really sorry,” said Auntie Helen, “burdening you with all this. I know it’s not fair. But you’re Rachel’s only friend, and you need to understand why it is if she sometimes seems a bit … different.”
“OK.” I sat up straight and did my best to look serious and intelligent.
“The fact is, my cousin Ruth ended up with a baby … Rachel. I remember she was terribly ill after the birth and we weren’t allowed to see her. I begged and begged, but Uncle Stefan wouldn’t budge. And then it was too late. She died, and we never got to say goodbye to her. I don’t think Auntie Ellen ever got over it. Rachel’s gran, that is. Things were just never the same after that. Uncle Stefan became even stricter. At least some of us were able to remember what normal life was like; we had at least experienced it. Rachel never had that chance. Not until now. You can imagine what an upheaval it’s been for her. At the moment, she’s still just trying to cope with ordinary everyday living. I’m sure she’s finding it difficult – I know I am! But she’s determined to get there. She wants so much to be like everyone else! She’s not doing too badly, do you think? I mean, all things considered?”
Auntie Helen looked at me anxiously. I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t believe she was telling me all this. I was only thirteen! But even I could see she needed to talk. So I just mumbled “Mm,” in what I hoped was an encouraging sort of way. Auntie Helen’s face lit up.
“She’s trying so hard! It’s barely a year since Uncle Stefan died and the commune broke up. You can’t imagine! It was like being released from prison. Everything was just so new and strange. A bit scary, actually.”
Auntie Helen gave this small apologetic laugh. Like grown-ups aren’t supposed to be scared. Or they’re not supposed to admit it. But I didn’t think any the less of her.
“By the end,” she said, “it was just me and Rachel and her gran. Rachel so much wanted to go to boarding school! She’d read about it in these old books she had.”
“Me too!” I nodded, enthusiastically, glad I was able to make a contribution at last. “That’s what made me want to go.”
“Well, all I can say is I’m extremely glad you did. I was so afraid that it was a mistake; that she’d never manage to make any friends. And she does so need them! Someone to understand and show her the way.”
I wrinkled my nose, embarrassed. “Dunno if I’m doing that.”
“Oh, but you are! She’s so much more confident than she was just a few weeks ago. I’ve been doing my best but really and truly –” Auntie Helen laughed again; that same little half-ashamed laugh – “really it’s like the blind leading the blind. I’ve no more idea of what passes for normal than Rachel does. You can teach her; I’m just floundering. And her gran, of course, is no help. Just the opposite. It’s all happened too late for her. That’s why I thought it might be best for Rachel to go and board. Left at home with her gran – or even with backwards-old me – she’d never manage to break free. As it is, she’s become almost rebellious! Getting her hair cut, for instance … You have no idea what a bold step that was.”
“I hope she didn’t get into trouble?” I said.
“Well, her gran wasn’t best pleased, but Rachel’s learning to stick up for herself. Like that trip to the theatre. A year ago she would never have been allowed. She still wouldn’t have been if her gran had had her way.”
“She was ever so excited,” I said.
“What about the dress?” Auntie Helen said it eagerly. “She wanted something special to wear. Was it all right?”
I hesitated. What could I say? That awful yellow dress!
“It wasn’t,” said Auntie Helen, “was it?”
“It wasn’t that bad,” I said.
“It was! I can tell from your face. I do hope people didn’t laugh at her?”
“N-no. They just sort of accepted that maybe she didn’t know any better.”
“But what do they think of her? Do they think she’s … well, in any way … peculiar?”
“Different,” I said. “But … you know! She’s a Daisy.”
“Ah, the famous Daisies! I’ve heard all about them. She’s really proud of being one.”
“It’s only the name of our dorm,” I said, “but we tend to stick together. We’re doing Shakespeare scenes at the end of term. On stage. It’s not supposed to be a competition, but we really want the Daisies to do well.”
“I’m sure Rachel does too.”
“She won’t join in, though. Fawn’s written her this really nice little part as one of the fairies in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and she just won’t do it!”
Sadly, Auntie Helen shook her head. “If you’re asking her to get up on stage and act, then I’m afraid just at the moment that would almost certainly be a step too far. You have to remember, she’s been brought up to believe that anything to do with the theatre is sinful. That’s why it was such a breakthrough when she went on that school trip. But actually getting up on stage herself … she’s not ready for that. There are just too many bonds that tie her to the past. She’s doing her best, she really is, but we can’t expect her to burst free of them all at once. I’m so sorry, Zoe, I know it’s asking a lot of you, but you’ll have to be patient.”
Well, I thought, maybe I could be, now that I knew the reason for her strange behaviour, but I wasn’t so sure about Fawn and the others. Not unless I could tell them the story.
I was about to ask Auntie Helen if that would be OK when she leaned forward, very earnestly, and said, “I must ask you, by the way, not to pass any of this on. I only told you because you’re Rachel’s friend, but she would be absolutely mortified if she knew.”
I wasn’t sure what mortified meant, but I guessed that for some reason it meant she would be upset. Auntie Helen explained.
“She so desperately doesn’t want anyone to know. We had to explain to the school why she’s never learnt anything about computers, but even they don’t know the whole of it. If it had been up to me, I would have told them, but Rachel begged me not to. She got so upset! She just wants to be thought of as a normal regular person.”
But she wasn’t a normal regular person, and people were beginning to lose sympathy.
“I can trust you,” said Auntie Helen, “can’t I? Please, Zoe! Promise me you won’t breathe a word.”
; Of course, I had to. What else could I do?
“I realise,” said Auntie Helen, “that it’s a lot to put on your shoulders, and maybe I shouldn’t have done it, but I do worry so about her. She’s been through such a lot! And she depends on you so much.”
I wriggled, uncomfortably. I didn’t want to be depended on! I just wanted to get on with my life without all these complications. Auntie Helen glanced at her watch.
“Time to be going. Zoe, I want to thank you so much for listening to me! I feel a lot better now that I’ve met you.”
As I sat on the train, I thought back over all that Auntie Helen had told me. It explained so much! Even a little thing that had subconsciously niggled at me ever since that first day we’d met, in the dorm, before the others had shown up, when I’d asked Rachel if she was Swedish and she’d said that her granddad had been.
“He was called Lindgren. That’s why I am.”
I hadn’t really thought about it at the time, but later it had come back to me and I had wondered what her granddad had to do with it. Her granddad had been called Lindgren. What about her dad? And now I knew why she’d never played Snap or seen a pack of cards. Why going to the theatre had been such a big thing. Why she had no dress sense. Why she knew nothing about computers. Why, so often, she seemed to be playing a part. It was like she’d been brought up in some kind of vacuum, totally shut off from society. Really, the more I stopped to think about it, the more I had to admire her for the way she was coping. If only I could explain to the others!
I’d hardly been home five minutes when my phone rang. It was Fawn, wanting to know how things had gone.
“Did you manage to talk some sense into her?”
I said, “No, but I honestly don’t think it’s her fault.”
“What d’you mean, it’s not her fault? All she’s got to do is just learn half a dozen lines!”
“Yes, I know, but—”
“She still won’t do it?” That was Chantelle’s voice, loud and angry in the background.
“Did you really try?” said Fawn.
“I did! But—”
“Oh, stop making excuses!” That was Fawn again. “She’s just gone and ruined everything and that’s all there is to it.”
Bang. End of conversation.
I couldn’t help feeling that Fawn’s reaction was a bit over the top, though maybe that was only because I knew things that she didn’t. Looking at it from Fawn’s point of view, I had to accept that Rachel probably just seemed to be letting everyone down.
Mum happened to be passing as I was talking to Fawn. “Trouble?” she said.
I heaved a sigh. “I don’t know what to do!”
“Want to talk about it?”
I hesitated. It surely wouldn’t do any harm to just tell Mum. When Auntie Helen had made me promise not to tell anyone, she’d only meant other people at school. Mum would never let on.
In the end I told her the whole story, the way Auntie Helen had told it to me. Mum listened intently.
“Oh, the poor girl!” she said. “Thank goodness she has you for a friend.”
“But what do I do?” I wailed. “Auntie Helen asked me not to tell!”
“In which case you mustn’t,” agreed Mum. “Auntie Helen was right when she said it was a lot to burden you with, but she probably has no idea which way to turn. From what you say, she was just as much a victim as Rachel, and for far longer. She must be struggling too.”
“She says it’s like the blind leading the blind.”
“I’m sure she’s right.”
“So what am I supposed to do?”
“I think all you can do,” said Mum, “is stay loyal to Rachel and stick up for her as much as you can. I know it’s a lot to ask, and it’s not going to be easy, but if anyone can do it, you can.”
I looked at Mum, wonderingly.
“Come on!” said Mum. “You’re no shrinking violet. Overweening confidence. Remember?”
It was what one of my school reports had said. I hadn’t known what overweening confidence meant. “Too cocky by half!” according to Dad. I suppose it is true that I sometimes go jumping in without thinking. But not this time! This time I had been sworn to secrecy.
“Don’t worry,” said Mum. “You’ll be fine. Just do your best, you can’t do more.”
I did my best. I really did! But Fawn and Chantelle were so cross. Chantelle said they had spent hours over half term rewriting Fawn’s script. I could feel for them. It is one thing to do ordinary revising, like we are always being told to do; quite another to be forced to go back and butcher something that you’d got just the way you wanted it.
“We had to pick it all to pieces,” grumbled Fawn. “It’s not simply a case of cutting lines.”
“Or just giving them to other people,” added Chantelle.
Humbly I said, “No, I can see that.”
They weren’t actually saying it was my fault, but I knew they all felt I hadn’t done as much as I could to make Rachel change her mind. Even Tabs and Dodie were reproachful.
“She is supposed to be your friend,” said Tabs.
They all got especially mad when I tried to stick up for her.
“If you say one more time that she can’t help it, I’ll scream!” declared Fawn.
“And why can’t she help it, anyway?” That was Chantelle, all aggressive.
“It’s the way she’s been brought up,” I pleaded.
“What way?”
“Well, like … home-educated?” I said. I couldn’t see there was any harm in just saying that.
“So what?” Fawn turned on me, savagely. “Lots of people are home-educated. Stop making excuses!”
In the end, since sticking up for Rachel didn’t really seem to be doing much good, and in fact if anything it was just making things worse and getting them all even angrier, I stopped doing it. There didn’t seem any point when I couldn’t properly explain why I was sticking up for her. If I wasn’t careful, they would all turn against me and then I would be cast into outer darkness, just like Rachel. I couldn’t see how that would be of any help to either of us.
Fawn declared that from now on we were going to rehearse at least three times a week and that when we weren’t rehearsing we would be making costumes and “Bottom’s head”.
“Which I have decided,” she said – she had become extremely bossy, but she was, after all, both the writer and the director, not to mention the star – “will be a mask rather than a proper head. Dodie’s good at that kind of thing, aren’t you?”
Dodie, modestly, agreed that she was.
“Right,” said Fawn. “First rehearsal tomorrow and I want everyone to be word perfect!”
“Ooh, can I come?” begged Rachel, when she heard. “Can I come and watch?”
Fawn said, “No, you most certainly cannot! Rehearsals are strictly private.”
“Only for people taking part,” said Tabs.
“But you wouldn’t even know I was there! I’d be quiet as a mouse.”
“I said no,” said Fawn. “It’s my production, I’m the director, and I say we don’t need any outsiders.”
Rachel’s face grew crimson.
“It’s nothing personal,” Dodie assured her, though of course it was. “It’s just that it’s a bit off-putting if there are people watching you before you’re properly ready.”
“At least I can help make the costumes,” said Rachel.
But they wouldn’t even let her do that.
“We don’t need any help,” said Chantelle. “We’ve got it all sorted.”
I did my best to soften the blow.
“It’s just that we’re meant to do everything ourselves. It would be like cheating if we let you help, being as you’re not part of it.”
Rachel didn’t say anything to that. I knew she was feeling hurt and upset, but what was I supposed to do? I couldn’t even tell her that I understood what she’d been through. It would have helped if we could have talked about it, but Auntie He
len had sworn me to secrecy, so I had no choice. I am not good at keeping secrets at the best of times. They tend to come blurting out of me before I can stop them. So when Fawn and Chantelle were being especially nasty it took a real effort not to say anything.
I hated to see Rachel so downcast. I hated being the one in the middle, trying to be loyal to Rachel while at the same time staying friends with the others. Above all, I hated the responsibility. I really almost wished that Auntie Helen hadn’t told me.
On the Tuesday after half term, Rachel received a letter. Almost nobody ever got letters, unless maybe it was their birthday; it was all emails and texts. Or maybe Facebook, if, like Dodie and Chantelle, your mum and dad were abroad. I suppose we were all mildly curious when Rachel came bouncing in at morning break, pink and flushed and waving an envelope. Not that any of us would actually have shown it. Not even me. As for the others, they were all pretty well ignoring Rachel these days.
I watched as she carefully opened the envelope and pulled out a card. Could it be her birthday? Surely not, or she would have told me. A little excited squeak came out of her. And then she fell into a fit of the giggles and pressed the card to her lips.
Fawn looked across at her in some annoyance.
“What is it?” I said.
Rachel gazed at me, soulfully, over the top of the card.
“It’s him … It’s Danny!”
“Oh,” I said. “You saw him?”
She nodded, ecstatically.
“You went for a coffee?”
“Not just a coffee.” She giggled again and pressed the card back to her lips. “We’re seeing each other!”
Fawn and Chantelle exchanged glances. I saw Fawn’s lip curl. They were being totally unfair! Having a boyfriend was a bigger thing for Rachel than they could possibly imagine. I was just so pleased for her. Relieved too. She might be going through an unpopular phase at school, but at least in her private life she had something happening. It was more than I did! I hadn’t had a sniff of a boyfriend since John Arthur.
“God,” said Fawn, later, “she is such a drama queen! What’s with all this mwah mwah kissy kissy stuff?”