This amazes Quark. “But you have so many friends! Your Satellites are always orbiting you! You’re a popular girl.”
Ellie laughs, “first we try out-insult each other and now we try to out-compliment each other!”
Quark smiles too, a sad smile that does not reach Daisy’s eyes. “But you are alive — I mean popular!”
What’s happening to him?! First he sucked up to the head teacher, now he’s making up to Daisy’s worst enemy; some rebel he’s turning out to be! It’s almost as if instead of turning Daisy into a teenage rebel PQD, it is he who was being changed — into PDQ!
“I’d rather be brave, like you.” Ellie says.
Quark nods, as if understanding something for the first time. “We want what we don’t have.” And maybe that’s what’s going on inside him: he wants what he can’t have; what’s he’s never had. Maybe he missed his chance to pounce on Daisy as she left her lair because he wanted to live as much as she does? He realises he is becoming as reluctant to end her existence as he is to terminate his own.
“Yes, and we want it NOW!” Ellie laughs, “life’s like that — everything’s about extremes.”
“Yes,” Quark mutters sadly. “And you oscillate between the extremes: it is wonderful, it is terrible; I love you, I hate you. I want to live!” I don’t want to die, he adds silently to himself.
This time Ellie lets out a full-throated laugh. “I never want to see you again, I want to be with you forever!” Her smile twinkles again, “but seriously, Daisy, that clever analysis is so typical of you. And what a word to choose! ‘Oscillate’. It’s perfect. I just love how you express yourself.”
“I speak funny sometimes.”
“Recently, maybe. Since your … accident.”
“Now I sometimes I feel I don’t fit in.”
“Yeah! Like you’re a mutant or something!”
“What?!” Just for a moment, Quark thinks she’s seen through him.
Ellie chokes back a guffaw and covers her mouth with her hand. “No! Sorry — I didn’t mean you; I just meant we all feel as though we don’t fit in. I was just teasing …” she adds quietly.
Quark nods. “It is so hard; everything feels so intense. Sometimes …”
“Yes …?” Ellie encourages.
“Too intense to cope with. There is so much going on.”
“With your body?”
Quark nods. “And in my head.”
“Yes, it’s so draining!”
“It certainly is!”
“It’s all like: ‘who am I?’ ‘What am I doing?’ ‘How will all this end?’”
“Yes,” Quark says, “that is exactly it: how indeed …?” It must end, he thought, and soon. Because it was becoming too much for him!
Chapter 47
AT LEAST IT CAN’T GET ANY WORSE
Quark, you practically made a pass at Ellie Watson! You know she’s a gossip, and even the slightest hint of trouble becomes a fully-fledged scandal by the time she’s finished with it. She gets a kick out of being vindictive.” But otherwise she’s just so perkily perfect!
“First, I did not ‘make a pass’ at her, I spoke to her —”
“You said she was beautiful and had a great body.”
“We sorted that out — and anyway she knew what I meant; and it was not a pass.”
“Well, you spoke to her, and that’s enough.”
“And second,” Quark went on, completely ignoring me, “as I have told you before, Ellie is a nice girl. There have been faults — on both sides — and you have given as good as you have got from her. You have misunderstood each other’s motives. “Plus,” he continues, “why are so obsessed with the way you look — with your face and your figure?”
“What? I never said that!”
“No, but you thought it and I can read you like a book. This openness cuts both ways, you know. What’s the point of wishing to look different? You are still growing and I think we look just fine just now.”
“Again with the ‘we’! We are not ‘we’! Let’s get this straight once and for all: me, Daisy Jacobs, you, body-snatching alien.”
He ignores my sniping. “Anyway, you cannot change things simply by wishing it.”
“Of course you can!”
“Nonsense! By thinking alone?”
“Yes, you can. If I am cheerful and happy and positive that I can influence how other people react to me. I can make them feel better. And making other people feel good makes me feel even better.”
“But it does not change things on a quantum level. It does not have a fundamental effect.”
“I disagree.”
“What scientific theory is that based on?”
“Feelings and emotions.”
“You oppose the theory of Quantum Mechanics based on ‘feelings and emotions’?”
You have no idea how irritating it is to hear your own voice go all sarky-snarky when it’s used by an obdurate alien to talk down to you! “I didn’t say that, you’re just putting words into my mouth.” Like your invasive thoughts in my head, I think.
It’s difficult to read him well when I can’t see my face in the mirror and at the moment we’re moving — outside I think, because I can hear street noise as well as the sound of my voice. I can’t make out where we’re going, Quark’s masking it somehow, but that makes his thoughts easier to understand and ‘my’ low voice (that he’s muted to prevent passers-by thinking I’m nuts) easier to hear. We’re good at this communication lark now; I mean, seriously good. It’s virtually seamless. But then I guess it should be as we’re both inhabiting exactly the same space in the universe. However, Quark’s focus is on stopping me from seeing where we’re going for some reason — as if I could stop him, anyway!
“No, I’m telling you that merely being positive, being ‘happy-clappy’ will get you nowhere,” he continues.
“That is just bleak. Quark, you are a sad individual.”
“Daisy, being positive will not set you free.”
“Again, I disagree. I find it hard to be glum and down-in-the-dumps for long. I’m cheerful, I’m an optimist — I just can’t help looking on the bright side. Even with you in my brain, I still think my glass is half-full! And I live a happier life simply by feeling happy. If you smile, people smile with you; if you expect the best in people, you’ll often find it. Although I find it hard to see it in you …” What I can see in him is the blurry outline of some plan or trap he has in store for me.
“Optimism will not set you free either.”
“Well, being negative certainly won’t! If I’d not been an optimist, this would have been over long ago and we’d all be dust floating in space by now.
“And you can be as cheerful as you like, but you’re still stuck in that little room in your head.”
“And you can be as miserable and misanthropic as you like, but I will be here, which means you are stuck too!”
Quark pauses and gives me another one of those ‘you sad, sad thing’ sighs which he’s become really good at (and which I may keep for future use when I evict him from my body and regain the use of all my faculties).
After what Quark said a minute ago, I’m careful to shut down the links to other bits of my brain so that my thoughts don’t leak out to him. Despite my talk of staying positive, I’m finding it difficult to do just that at the moment.
During the day I’m in my ‘room’. I’m shut away in this barely used bit of my brain. My guess is that way back in pre-history it probably did something useful — maybe tracking prey or avoiding predators; that may explain why I can usually follow and avoid Quark and often work out what he’s up to. Anyway, this is a safe space. But each morning when I wake up, or come to or whatever happens to me after I have shut down to recharge, my room feels more like a prison than a refuge. Because every day I’m reminded that, even though I hold the key, I am still locked in here.
My room started off as barely functional. Gradu
ally, I’ve furnished it with some of my own stuff. Now there’s a copy of my bed and a sofa. I had schoolbooks for a while, but Quark won’t let me do any homework, in case I get good marks and wreck his reputation-wrecking plans! Life’s so dull without homework! There are no books to read either, as I can’t remember whole books and so replicate them in here. I have limited access to other parts of my brain, but most of my research now involves physically leaving my room and exploring. And opening myself up to danger.
Of course, none of this is real — there’s not really a sofa in my brain. But I ‘see’ these things as being here in the same way as I see my door — and my lock. Imagination is a key life skill!
Now, I look around — at the dark, dank, dreary world of this imaginary refuge and see that it is as much a cage as anything else; it’s a prison of my imagination. And I realise I’m hemmed in by shadows of my lingering panic, as much as because I’m suffering my own, personal, alien invasion. Yes, I’ve shut Quark out, but equally, I’ve locked myself in. And, in a way, I always have.
I feel young and small and very much alone. And I’d be lying if I said I’m used to the lack of connection to my real life, to existence and context and human interaction. I really miss the physical day-to-day contact with my family and friends; the hugs and little touches that we all take for granted but which say so much.
The ‘images’ I carry round with me, or store in some minuscule part of my tiny room are not actually all visual images, some are kind of ’smell-o-grams’ and some are like aural emojis. I can recall the heady, floral fragrance of Mum’s perfume and almost taste the sweetness of her home-made Seville orange marmalade — ‘Mama-lade’ we call it. I can hear the calm, solid, reliable tone of Dad’s voice, the sheer unflappability that helps me centre myself and remain steady even in moments of intense crisis. I can bring to mind Luke’s gangling awkwardness, his happy smile and infectious laughter; and Amy’s wit, her focus, the extraordinary positivity that makes even me seem like a pessimist … and the overwhelming comfort she brings me just by her presence in my heart.
I don’t have space in my room for all my memories, but there’s some natural data retrieval system at work, so that even in my locked-in state I’m not word or face blind, or thrown by everyday events and situations. I know who I am and where I am (most of the time) and I seem to be able to bring into my room any piece of information that I, Daisy Jacobs, could ordinarily recall. But the memories, thoughts and images that mean the most to me are with me all the time and help sustain me.
Quark is still in his garrulous mood though and won’t let me feel alone for long. “And I am not sure how to moderate my behaviour. Sometimes, I do not know how to act when I am with other people.”
He needs sense talking into him; even fourteen-year-old sense. “Don’t worry, no one does. Don’t let actors on TV fool you; don’t believe the cool people at school; deep down, no one has any idea what they’re doing for most of the time — we’re all just making it up as we go along.”
“I try to take a lead from my — our — friends.”
“What, Amy and —”
“Ellie Watson too — and her charming group of friends. They have been most helpful.”
“Not ‘Icky’ Ellie again! No — you can’t believe anything that lot tell you. It’ll end badly. Ellie’s not charming by any rational definition; and anyway, don’t forget we’re trying to make you more believable — a real teenager would not say ‘charming’.”
“I found her charming — and she’s impressed by some recent changes in your personality. A big improvement.”
Well, that tells you all you need to know, I think, but do not say. I also noticed “some” — maybe Quark is going too far, even for Ellie!
“And Connor too.”
“Connor? But I — I mean you — I mean …” What do I mean? I grit my metaphorical teeth, “we haven’t seen Connor today.”
I can’t see it, but I can feel the way he twists my lips into what passes for a smile where he comes from. “Why do you think we are sitting here in the coffee shop? We are meeting Connor.”
“We are?” It’s like he’s been blindfolding me, or forcing me into the blinkers that racehorses wear to stop them from being spooked by their surroundings; suddenly, they’re removed and I can see. I’ve just been congratulating myself on my amazing ‘Spidey’ skills and all the time Quark’s been tricking me. That’s why he’s been so talkative!
“And here he is.” I see Connor approach, a smile curving his lips as he sees ‘me’. Then I feel my body stand and tilt as Quark leans in to hug Connor as he reaches our table.
Then I’m looking at Connor. But not like before: not like his smile and his dreamy eyes and his — okay, okay — his delicious butt, but in a new and entirely unsettling way. Not at all in a yearning, admiring, teenage-crush sort of way, but in a more covetous — no, avaricious way. I can feel it/me wanting him. That makes the real me, in the secure environment of my locked room blush the brightest scarlet, but I really don’t mean wanting as in wanting his body in the one-track-minded way that teens would think of; I mean literally ‘wanting’ his body — in an almost vampire-like way! Connor Wheeler’s body. His … form. Even weirder, I want Ellie Watson too. Ellie-too-good-for-the-likes-of you-Watson! And Steve Cooper. And Sophie Lewis. Even Mrs Griffin. I want her too. I want them all, each and every one of them. I want their … forms. They should all become — that’s what they should do! They should give their forms to me! Connor and Ellie and Steve and Sophie and Mrs Griffin and all of them; the whole school; the whole town; the entire world!
It’s like suddenly I am Quark, and not vice versa! His ‘door’ is open and I truly feel him. Unequivocally sense him. I understand how he operates; I can sense the becoming he has so long desired and how I/he/we would be Daisy just a fraction of a second from now if I let him; and then, not even moments later Daisy Jacobs would be history — everyone in this room, in this town, in this county would go. And in minutes Earth would be less than a memory, because there’d be no-one left with a memory. I see this with absolute one hundred percent clarity. It almost literally blows my mind, the sheer enormity of it … the beauty of it. And I do mean ‘beauty’. From Quark’s perspective, I see and fully appreciate the neatness and perfection of becoming.
These thoughts are powerful and exciting; I’m inordinately, overwhelmingly powerful. I’m ancient, vast and overwhelming, yet small and vulnerable and THAT WRETCHED GIRL WILL NOT JUST ROLL OVER AND DIE!!! WHY WON’T SHE DIE? WHY WON’T SHE BECOME? I WANT IT; I WANT IT; I WANT IT —
And, like that, I snap out of him and I’m back; I’m me again. He’s still here, Quark’s still here; still in my head. Still me. But now I know him. Who and what he really is. It’s like some horrendous game of inter-galactic tag: I’m it! How have I held back this force, this all-encompassing immensity for all this time? What on earth has curbed such ferocity? Although I’m still me, for that brief moment I saw behind the mask. This force can overwhelm me in the way an armoured tank rolls over an ant. So … is this it now? Am I becoming?
I try to ground myself — difficult when I don’t have a body to ground. I imagine coming home to my body; to my mind, my own locked room … and somehow I convince myself that all is well. And the fear melts away like I don’t have space for it in my life, which, in a way, is true!
Meanwhile, back in the real world, Connor’s staring at me, his hand still in mine, one arm clasped awkwardly around my shoulder, his mouth open, a touch of dribble at the corner of his generous lips. My eyes, Quark’s eyes, gaze into him. Did I, did we just … did I just nearly become Connor too? Does he, on some level sense what nearly happened? He looks as though he’s been tasered to insensibility.
There’s something more going on here, something to do with the closeness between Quark and myself and a physical, almost chemical reaction to Connor and … something else I can’t quite grasp that’s happening inside me, making me more open; mak
ing both Quark and I more open … and more vulnerable.
It’s like there’s not enough brainpower between us to control what’s happening in my body and in my head. It seems we have one too many drivers!
Then I see a flash of what’s coming; it’s almost like a vibration in the air. I know what will happen. This is — maybe — what I wanted from the very start. But not now! Not like this. Please — no! Not when I’m not really me.
But Quark doesn’t care, and Connor looks stunned into insensible oblivion. His smile is almost sad, his face serious as he closes his eyes, leans in to me … and presses his lips to mine. It’s the briefest, slightest moment of fusion. I’ve thought about this and if you are or have ever been a teenage girl; I think you’ll get exactly where I’m coming from: I mean really thought about this; and while I’ve always imagined this kiss would have my brain fizzing, I now feel only the anguish of an experience, a life stolen from me.
Yet I feel a flicker of consciousness, a hint of the real. Emotionally, his kiss gives me none of the depth of feeling I expected and hoped for. But there is a touch. Our lips meet. I feel his mouth meet mine! Not quite how I wanted, but I do feel the slightest touch of his lips — I feel it physically; his lips/my lips — I don’t imagine them coming together, I feel soft flesh meeting soft flesh.
For that moment, I’m back: I’m Daisy Jacobs in Carlo’s Coffee on the High Street, with my arm around Connor Wheeler as we lean awkwardly into one another. I feel his warm breath on my mouth, taste the mint he had before he arrived here — was he expecting to/wanting to kiss me?! I feel the texture of his soft blue sweater, I hear the clamour of voices as the other patrons get on with living actual lives, rather than existing in imaginary cages in their heads, I smell the heady aroma of coffee, and as the lady I see over Connor’s shoulder brings a muffin to her mouth I want to run over and snatch it from her, so I can taste its blueberry yumminess. I can’t believe it! I want Connor to kiss me again, so I can feel it properly. Or I can—
Daisy Jacobs Saves the World Page 20