If you want the recipe for Awkward Shy Jelly, it’s this: take me, add lots of unwanted attention and pour out in the shape of a girl. Then watch it wobble …
‘Do you miss her?’ Dot blurts.
‘Mrs Sharma?’ I ask in surprise, though I don’t know why I’m surprised. Dot’s conversations tend to jump around as much as she does.
‘No!’ laughs Dot as if I’m the crazy one in this glued-together family of ours.
‘Do you mean Tia, then?’
‘No!’ Dot giggles. ‘I mean your mummy!’
I go cold and hot and shivery and very probably pink.
We don’t speak about my mum in our family.
At least Dad never speaks about her and I never ask.
It’s not because of Hazel; he didn’t speak about Mum way before they got together. Way before as in hardly ever. I mean, he used to answer simple questions when I was young, but always looked so heartbroken that I felt – even as a little kid – that I was hurting him with her memory.
So all I have is my single precious photo, tucked away at the back of my knicker drawer.
That, and a voice I imagine in my head whenever I squeeze my eyes tight shut.
‘Dot, why are you asking about my mum?’ I say, confused as well as a bit rattled.
‘Because she borned you.’
OK, so Dot is still obsessed with today’s topic of babies.
‘Yes, well, my mum died when I was only a few months old, so I don’t remember her.’
‘But –’
‘Right, that’s it for today,’ I cut her off in a friendly but firm way. ‘I’ve got homework to do and I’m sure there’s fairy dust to be sprinkled somewhere!’
Perhaps I shouldn’t have said that last part – Dot is banned from going within a kilometre of glitter after the incident with the shampoo bottle last week (‘I thought it would be nice if we all had sparkly hair!’) and she’s obviously got an illegal stash of it somewhere, going by the silvery fingerprints on the front door this morning.
But Dot’s head is so full of fluff and babies that I don’t think she’s paying attention to me anyway. I toss the duvet aside so she can flitter and flutter her way out of my room – but it seems that she’s not ready to leave quite yet.
‘You know, it’s all right to miss your mummy, Riley,’ she says, turning back to me and wrapping her skinny arms round my neck. ‘I miss my daddy too.’
Dot’s dad, Charlie, lives four streets away and she sees him for tea twice a week and goes to stay with him on alternate weekends. It’s not quite the same thing.
‘Thanks, Dot,’ I say anyway, giving her a kiss on the top of her head.
With that, she bounces off the bed and goes skipping and wand-wafting away – then stops again, just outside in the corridor this time.
‘Hey, Riley – Coco says that angels are coming to live next door!’
Dot’s friend Coco thinks ice cream is made of snow and that a small dragon lives in an electricity substation at the end of Chestnut Crescent. I can’t say I’d believe everything she has to say. Or anything, really.
‘That’s nice,’ I reply, walking over and gently closing the door on her.
I can hear her sing-songing in her happily out-of-tune way and find myself facing my pinboard on the opposite wall. Strolling over, I study the photos stuck on it, all taken on my chunky kiddie camera. Tia’s face smiles out at me most, with Dot’s coming a close second, then Dad’s. (None of Hazel. She does smile, just not usually in my direction. Which is why I haven’t turned the pink plastic camera in her direction too often.)
Look: there’s me and Tia with those funny Claire’s Accessories wigs on; me and Tia doing useless cartwheels up on Folly Hill; me and Tia dressed as Thing 1 and Thing 2 for World Book Day in Year 5.
But all of a sudden there’s one particular photo I want to look at.
One that I haven’t seen in a really long time.
One that I didn’t take.
I take a sideways step and open my knicker drawer.
Tucked right at the back – under an untidy jumble of pants – is the small plastic folder.
I pull it out, un-pop the popper and let her photo fall out into my hand.
Mum.
She’s standing with her arms spread wide, her strawberry-blonde hair blowing and tangly in the breeze. A blissed-out expression on her face, her eyes on the blue sky above. Her bare feet on green grass, her flowery dress fluttering, except where it’s covering a big bump (hey, I’d forgotten I was in this picture, in a way!).
I prop the photo up against the mirror on top of my chest of drawers and try to copy Mum’s pose.
Turning slightly side on towards the window, I fling my arms back and tilt my face up, but it’s no good. I don’t feel blissed-out. And I’m not on a summery hilltop; I’m in my lilac-walled bedroom, which can look a little grey and gloomy at this time of day, when the late-afternoon sun’s on the other side of the house.
Ping!
Two thoughts suddenly trip into my mind at the same time.
The first is that the hilltop Mum is standing on has to be Folly Hill. (I can see a corner of the Angel’s plinth at the edge of the photo.) Why haven’t I noticed that before?
The second is that it’s exactly where I want to be right now …
‘Riley?’ Hazel calls out as I thunder down the stairs, grabbing my jacket. ‘Where are you going?’
‘Up to the Angel! Back in time for tea!’ I call to her, heading out of the door.
‘But –’
I’m almost always pretty polite to Hazel, but my head is so full that I pretend I haven’t heard her ‘but’ and let the door bang shut behind me.
Following the cut-through paths that link the neighbouring streets, scrunching up the flint path through the grass, it takes me less than five minutes to find myself, breathless, by the Angel.
I throw my arms out wide – like Mum’s in the photo – and breathe in the cool air.
It’s funny to think that twelve and a bit years ago Mum must have gazed at more or less this exact same view. (Funny, weird … and a little bit sad too.)
There’s the sprawl of roads I’ve just run through, and the town beyond.
To the left I can see the towering concrete lump of our school, named after Hillcrest House, the big manor that used to be here. Imagine, a hundred years or so ago, this whole area was just farmland, cows and chestnut trees. Of course, all that’s left of the Hillcrest estate is the Angel Folly, built by some rich owner way, way back in Victorian times.
Straight down the hill I can pick out Tia’s house really clearly. It’s got one of the last of the grand old chestnuts in the garden. When we were younger we’d climb in the branches, sitting there for hours in our own private leafy world.
Oh.
Now I can see a figure coming up the hill towards me, a figure that’s very familiar. Tall, greying brown hair, suede jacket, jeans – and a huge smile, beaming my way.
Self-consciously I drop my widespread arms and sit on the ground, feeling like I might somehow have done something wrong, just by thinking about Mum. Dad is so warm and wonderful, but, like I say, that’s a subject that’s definitely out of bounds, guaranteed to turn him sad and silent in an instant.
‘Dad?’ I call out to him as he strides closer. ‘Why are you here?’
‘I finished work early and was just driving up to the house when I saw you,’ he says, flopping down beside me. ‘Hazel said you’d come up here, so I thought I’d join you.’
Owning the print shop means Dad can leave one or other of the members of staff in charge and come home when he likes. It means he often picks Dot up from primary school, same as he did with me when I was younger. It means he can surprise me by coming to hang out on the hill, just me and him.
Since Hazel and Dot moved in at the end of last year ‘just me and him’ doesn’t happen very often, so this feels unexpected and nice. I try to shake off the guilty feeling and enjoy him being here.
‘Let me guess: thinking about Tia?’ he asks, wrapping an arm round my shoulders.
‘Sort of,’ I say, leaning my head on his shoulder. It feels good.
‘Once she’s settled, you’ll be messaging and chattering on Skype all the time. And, remember, she hasn’t vanished – she’s still there for you, just in a different way!’
I wonder if he’s thinking for a second about Mum there: the missing part of our family who did vanish. I slip my arm round his waist and give it a squeeze.
‘But, hey, Riley, there’s something I was thinking when I saw you come up here,’ he says, giving my shoulders a squeeze back. ‘I know you and Tia have been coming up to the Angel all summer without an adult trailing along. But you’re only eleven – it’s not a great idea to be here by yourself, not now it’s getting dark so early in the evenings.’
‘But I’m twelve in a few days!’ I point out, thinking of Friday, the day of my birthday, the day of the school trip to Wildwoods Theme Park. I unwind my arm from round his waist and hunch myself in.
‘I know, honey, but you understand, don’t you?’ Dad says protectively.
My shoulders stiffen and I stare off tight-lipped at the view.
I mean, yes, I sort of get what he’s saying. But doesn’t he realize that he’s just rubbed in the fact that I don’t have a best friend any more? And not having a best friend (or any friend) means three things:
1) I don’t have the freedom to go places on my own.
2) My birthday is going to be rubbish; I have no one to celebrate with at school.
3) The school trip will be even worse, cos I’ll have to go on the rides solo. (How lame is that?)
‘I’ll just let Hazel know I’m with you,’ says Dad, ending the hug he’s giving me to fish his mobile out of his pocket.
Ha – like she’ll care. ‘OK, so she’s not exactly a wicked stepmother,’ Tia once pointed out, ‘but she’s not exactly interested in you, is she?’ Too right. In our ‘family’, I sometimes feel like I come below Alastair in importance, and, considering he’s a lump of wood, that’s pretty tragic.
No wonder I spend – I mean, spent so much time round at Tia’s, I think to myself as I stare down at her empty house, the golden autumn leaves of the chestnut tree swaying in the gentle October breeze. Y’know, when I think of all the fun times I had there it breaks my –
Whoa!!
In a spine-tingling instant I’m jolted out of my moment of moping. Cos I’m staring at something that can’t be right.
Silver-white … that’s the colour of the blinding beams of light suddenly radiating from the windows of Tia’s house.
‘Dad …’ I croak, feeling myself go rigid and cold against his warm, comforting side.
‘Mmm, just a second,’ Dad mutters, oblivious, his head bent over his phone.
Oh wow …
Every single window, from the living room to the kitchen and the loft bedroom where Tia slept till last night, all of them have an almost neon-bright gleam to them, as if an immense floodlight has been switched on inside.
‘Dad!’ I nudge him more urgently this time, forgetting I was cross with him a second ago.
‘There, sent it. OK – what is it?’
But as soon as Dad lifts his head it’s as if it – whatever it is – knows he’s looking, and the light fades fast, as quickly as it had come.
‘Tia’s house,’ I say, pointing with a trembling finger. ‘The light in the windows was incredible just now!’
‘Mmm, when the sun gets low, the reflections on glass can be really stunning,’ Dad agrees casually, cos all he’s seeing are the faintest twinkles and glimmers, as Tia’s house reverts back to the empty, curtainless blank box that it’s been since her family moved out this morning.
Oh.
So that’s all it was? The sunset reflecting on the windows for a few dazzling, glorious moments? Just a trick of the light …
But to me it seemed – dumb word, I know – sort of magical.
Feeling my juddering pulse slow to normal (and pushing the fear I felt to the back of my mind), I suddenly laugh at myself for coming up with something Dot might say.
Which reminds me. ‘Hey, Dad – Dot thinks angels are moving in next door.’
‘Really?’ he says, getting to his feet and offering me a hand. ‘I heard it was goblins!’
Hand in hand, grin matching grin, me and Dad head down the hill and home.
For a few moments I enjoy this tiny bubble of happiness, like I’ve just had a plaster stuck on my broken heart …
The school dining hall is mobbed.
I deliberately left it late to come here, since the busier it is the less likely anyone is to notice me.
At least, that was my plan.
‘Hey – you dropped something!’
Usually people say stuff like that in a helpful voice, not one dripping with sarcasm.
But those people aren’t Joelle Hunter.
‘Um, thanks,’ I say warily to Joelle, who passes me a folded piece of paper. It’s an info sheet about Friday’s school trip to Wildwoods.
The thing is, I have a sudden, sneaking suspicion that it didn’t fall out of my blazer pocket. There hasn’t been enough time for the sheet to flutter to the floor, be scooped up and handed back, just like that. I’m pretty sure Joelle’s done a perfect pickpocketing move on me.
But what would be the point in that?
‘You must be absolutely gutted that Tia’s left, Riley!’ says Lauren, directing her comment my way.
For a microsecond I think her concern might be genuine – till I hear Nancy snort as she sucks the straw in her juice carton. And, great, now Joelle’s joining in.
‘Well, yes, I guess,’ I answer as blankly as I can, nervously stuffing the folded paper back into my pocket with one hand, while balancing my food tray in the other.
I’m not hanging around to be sniggered at for whatever reasons these girls might have. But, just as I’m about to move on, Lauren talks again.
‘Loving your eyeshadow, by the way,’ she says, completely confusing me this time.
‘Huh?’
‘Red – it’s a good colour on you.’ Lauren smirks, then slaps a hand over her open mouth, pantomime style. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Riley! Are your eyes red because you’ve been crying? Over Tia leaving?’
You have to be deeply shallow to pass the time being casually cruel, don’t you? And I’m not going to stand here for a second longer, being the butt of Lauren Mayhew’s mean jokes.
So I leave.
Or at least I try to.
Suddenly I stumble on something, something that sends me lurching forward – and my lunch tray too.
I see it arcing upward, then swirling round in a perfect somersault.
SCHLOOP!
Goodbye, spaghetti Bolognese.
And hello, trouble …
‘Hey, Riley!’
Uneven paving slabs, bumpy tarmac, tiny stones, windswept wrappers and general rubbish.
It’s only now I hear the voice that I realize I’ve stared at the ground the whole way home from school. I must’ve crossed Meadow Lane with my head down, listening out for the beeps of the green man. As I turned the corner into Chestnut Crescent just now, it was as if my gaze was glued to the ground.
I look up and see Woody from Y7A.
‘Uh, hi,’ I mumble, checking for any signs of him snickering or snorting over yesterday morning’s pavement splat.
‘You all right?’ he asks, sounding friendly. But, hey, so did Lauren this morning, till she put the boot in, so I don’t trust him yet.
But in the meantime how exactly do I answer his casual question?
There’s a bunch of stuff I could say, like I sat on my own all day, an empty seat beside me in every class. Or I could tell him that after yesterday’s excitement with Mrs Sharma, everyone’s gone back to blanking me.
In art I sat making calculations, figuring out how long it would take to save the airfare for New Zealand. (Answe
r: too long.)
Then in maths I sat doodling Tia’s house, with Tia there in the loft window. (It didn’t look right and I rubbed it out three times, ending up with a trio of ghostly faces instead of a smiley best friend’s.)
‘I’m all right,’ I reply, shrugging all those other answers away, and wondering what he actually wants.
‘Er, saw you at lunch.’
Oh, that.
Lauren had yelled at me for getting spaghetti Bolognese all over her new shoes – bypassing the fact that she’d deliberately stuck her foot out right in front of me.
‘The way she was acting, I’d have gone and grabbed somebody else’s lunch and tipped it over her head.’ Woody smiles, booting a stone along the road.
I find myself smiling too, though I’m worried that I’m in deep trouble. There’s no one to protect me if Lauren and her mates decide that it’d be fun to wind me up 24/7. There’s no Tia to frighten them off, with one of her pretty but pretty fearsome scowls.
‘So … heard from your mate, then?’ Woody asks now, leaving the subject of my lunch-hall embarrassment alone.
I might have guessed that’s why he’s talking to me. Woody wants to hear all about Tia. I knew he had a thing for her …
That thought drifts away as my eyes settle on something unexpected.
Up ahead, all along our fence, is wave upon wiggly wave of glinting silver, as if someone has dipped their fingers in molten glitter and dragged them daydreamily along the wooden slats.
Someone like Dot, for instance.
And there she is now, playing in our garden with her little buddy Coco.
‘Roll over!’ Dot is saying, and pointing downwards at something out of sight.
‘Is that your sister?’ asks Woody.
‘No,’ I say.
It’s too hard to explain that Dot is only my sort-of-stepsister. Dad and Hazel aren’t married. She and Dot may have moved in way too quickly after Dad met her (at the hospital, where she stitched up the tip of his finger after he nearly guillotined it clean off cutting paper in his shop) but at least a wedding doesn’t seem to be on the cards. Yet.
Angels Next Door Page 3