by Holly Webb
Maya slipped into the classroom, hoping no one would notice her. She was halfway to the table she shared with Poppy and Emily, when Mr Finlay turned round from the whiteboard. Maya sighed. She hadn’t even missed numeracy.
“Hello, Maya!” He looked confused for a moment. “Are you all right? Oh, your mum sent a note, didn’t she? Something about…” He trailed off, catching the panicked look on Maya’s face. “Um. Yes. An appointment. Right, go and sit down, please.”
Maya hurried to their table, her cheeks burning.
Emily leaned over. “Where have you been?”
“Doctor’s.” Maya crossed her fingers under the table. There was no way she was telling them the truth. She’d never live it down.
“What’s wrong with you?” Emily asked, eyeing her doubtfully.
“Nothing, just a cold. Mum was fussing.” Maya scrabbled around for her pencil case so she could avoid looking at Poppy and Emily. She wished they’d stop asking questions. She hated lying to her friends.
“Actually, you do look really red round the eyes,” Poppy told her. “Maybe you’re getting a cold. I’ll bring you in some throat pastilles I made, they’re excellent.”
Maya smiled nervously. She’d had experience of Poppy’s homemade remedies before. Her friend was really into natural cures – like putting spiders’ webs on cuts to heal them. A couple of weeks ago, when Maya had tripped in the playground, Poppy had disappeared off on a spider-hunting expedition and made Mr Finlay panic that she’d run away to join the circus. (Not all that unlikely.) Luckily she hadn’t found any. It wasn’t that Maya was scared of spiders, just that she hated the thought of their claggy webs on her skin, even though Poppy swore to her that it was safe. “And cobwebs are bio-degradable, Maya,” she’d promised, knowing how much her friend worried about the mountains of landfill all over the place. “Not like plasters. They’ve been used on wounds since the Middle Ages, honestly.”
Maya still wasn’t convinced. Didn’t people always die really young in the Middle Ages? It was probably because of all the spiders’ webs.
Anyway, there was no way she was even trying the throat sweets – who knew what Poppy had put in them? Chocolate and nettles or something. She’d have to flush them down the loo. But she didn’t want to hurt Poppy’s feelings. “OK,” she murmured, crossing her fingers under the table again. Emily rolled her eyes at her, just a little.
Anyway, Maya didn’t really have a cold. The red eyes probably just meant she was allergic to the stupid false eyelashes Mum’s stylist had insisted she wore for the magazine photoshoot.
It was worth it, though. The interviewer had let Maya talk about cruelty-free make-up, and she’d promised they’d put that bit in the article. Mum had even said she liked to use animal-friendly brands too, after Maya had elbowed her in the ribs to remind her they had a deal. She’d refused to do the last two photoshoots, so Mum would have promised her almost anything.
No one she knew was ever going to see it, anyway, Maya told herself hopefully. No one at this school seemed to read celeb magazines much. Anyway, with that much make-up on, the photos wouldn’t even look like her…
It would have been different if she’d still been at Graham House, her old school. There all the girls would have been passing the magazine around. Someone would have recognised India Kell, and they would have gone on and on about it for days, as though it was the most exciting thing in the world that Maya’s mum used to be a singer.
She still was, Maya supposed. But her mum mostly did TV presenting now. People always wanted to interview her. The magazines wanted to talk about her clothes, and her house, and her favourite make-up. And Maya. Her mum had a book of all the photo spreads from over the years – Maya as a baby, Maya the cute toddler, all the way up to age seven when she’d stopped enjoying it. She wanted to wear scruffy old jeans, not dress up and put on lipgloss so her mum could show her off.
Maya tried to listen to what Mr Finlay was talking about, but her thoughts kept taking over. It would be OK; it wasn’t as if she had the same surname as her mum – she was Maya Knight, and no one would expect to find boring Maya Knight in a celeb magazine. She’d worked hard at being boring, ever since she came to Park Road School.
When Maya had begged her parents to let her move schools, they’d been really shocked – she’d been going to Graham House since nursery. It was the only school she’d known, everyone knew her too, and all her friends were there. It was even one of the reasons her parents had moved close to Millford in the first place. How could she want to leave?
“Maya, is someone bullying you?” her dad had asked anxiously, leaning over the table to grab her hands. They were in a restaurant, a smart one that had just opened somewhere in London. Maya couldn’t remember where. It was her dad’s birthday.
Maya’s eyelashes fluttered now as she thought about him, her lovely dad. He’d been so worried about her. He knew she wasn’t happy at Graham House, but he hated having to go into the school. He said the head teacher always made him feel stupid. She’d watched him across the table that night, swallowing nervously as he thought about it. It was funny that someone who wrote such amazing songs couldn’t find the right words when he was talking to a teacher.
“No. I’m fine.” Maya had stared at them both, widening her eyes as though it would make her look more truthful. She really wanted them to believe her – and not just to believe, but to understand how she felt. “No one’s mean to me, ever. Because I might invite them over, Mum, and they’d get to meet you. They could say they’ve hung out with India Kell.” She’d frowned, kicking at the table leg. Someone on the other side of the room had recognised her mum, she could see them whispering, and doing that funny ducking up and down people did when they were trying to stare without being obvious. It never worked. She looked up and glared back at the woman, who went pink and pretended she was just talking to her friend. Maya felt guilty, but only a little bit.
“I don’t believe that’s true, Maya.” Her mum’s eyes were widening too – that was where she’d got the look from, Maya suddenly realised. It was the way her mum looked when she sang, whenever she was really deep in the song. Her eyes were a dark, purplish blue, like Maya’s. “You’ve got such good friends there. You’ve known Macey since you were three, come on!”
Maya nodded reluctantly. OK, her mum was right. She would miss Macey. But there was no way that she was going to lose touch with her. Macey was her best friend, and the only person at Graham House who’d ever dared say anything that wasn’t wonderful about Maya’s mum. Everyone else had been going on about how brilliant her last album was, and Macey had asked Maya if she really liked it. Maya didn’t listen to her mum’s music that much. It was too weird, especially the songs that were about her. So she’d only shrugged, and Macey nodded. “Mmm. I could take it or leave it, I suppose.”
No one ever said anything like that.
“Macey can come and stay in the holidays,” Maya had pointed out that night. “Or I could go and stay with her. I’d miss her loads, of course I would, but not any of the others.”
Her mum was shaking her head. “I don’t see how it would work, Maya. Schools like Graham House understand how to look after celebrity children.”
Maya made a face. “I’m not a celebrity,” she muttered. “I don’t want to be. That’s why I want to change schools!”
“Most girls would love all the attention you get.” Her mum was staring at the pattern woven into the tablecloth, and her purplish eyes were all shiny with tears now too. Maya pulled her hands back from her dad, and sat on them. She was not going to give up and go and hug her mum, and say it was all OK. It wasn’t.
“Everything shouldn’t be about whose daughter I am!”
“You sound like you wish you belonged to s
omebody else!” Her mum was trying to laugh, but her voice was really hurt, and Maya sighed miserably.
“Of course I don’t. I just want to be me. Not India Kell’s daughter. And I can’t do that unless I go to a different school.”
“But Maya, you are a celebrity child, and the local primary school isn’t going to be able to deal with all that.” Her mum sat up straight, sounding decided, but her dad was folding his napkin into a strange flower shape, and frowning.
“Would it really be that difficult?” he asked. “We’d have to explain to the school, I suppose. Ask them to be understanding.”
“Why?” Maya muttered. She hadn’t wanted anyone making a fuss. But her dad had been right – it wasn’t fair to expect Park Road School not to ask questions when, after another three weeks of begging, she turned up two weeks into Year Six. And her mum never went to Parents’ Evening, or the school play. Her dad came instead, with sunglasses on. People didn’t recognise him very much. He’d suggested a hat and a big scarf as well; Maya suspected he liked being undercover. He wanted to be boring too, sometimes.
Maya frowned down at her work. Boring was the wrong word. Normal. She just wanted to be normal, like Poppy and Emily.
She stifled a laugh, stuffing the back of her fist into her mouth and feeling suddenly better. Even though she was still worrying about the magazine spread, she couldn’t help it. Poppy the spider-web queen, normal?
Her friend was leaning over the maths worksheet that Mr Finlay had handed out, and her wavy browny-blonde hair was swinging forward and falling out of its ponytail. Maya could see the blue and green streaks underneath. Poppy loved dyeing her hair, but they weren’t supposed to for school, so she only streaked the under-layers. She’d explained to them that the blue meant the sea and the sky, and the green was the earth. Poppy was just waiting for her next allowance so she could get a fiery red dye too. Maya couldn’t quite remember what the red meant – probably volcanoes. Or life force, or something like that. Sometimes Maya suspected Poppy was making it up as she went along, but she could be so funny about it, no one minded.
Emily nudged Poppy and pointed at her hair, nodding at Mr Finlay, who was walking round checking their work. Mr Finlay might not notice dyed hair, but their classroom assistant Miss Grace was wandering around too, and she definitely would. Poppy stared at Emily vaguely, and then seemed to wake up, hurriedly tucking her hair behind her ears to hide the coloured streaks, and beaming gratefully.
“We’ll go on with those worksheets tomorrow,” Mr Finlay called over the sudden scraping of chairs as the bell rang for lunch. “I’ve got something exciting for you all this afternoon!”
Emily whispered in Maya’s ear. “More maps!”
Maya snorted with laughter. Mr Finlay loved maps; he kept bringing them in and spreading them out over all the tables. They’d measured bits of maps for numeracy, drawn their own maps in art lessons, and the maps were always coming out in literacy so they could be inspired by the names of the places scattered all over them. Poppy was convinced Mr Finlay had a map tattooed all over his back; she swore she’d seen it through his shirt once. Maya wouldn’t have been surprised. She’d really enjoyed writing a mad story about smugglers, when her table had been given an old map of Cornwall a few weeks back. But everyone in 6F was getting a bit sick of maps now. All the boys did was try and find rude place names – Strawberry Bottom had got Nick Drayton sent to Mrs Angel’s office for the whole of lunch.
“Are you feeling better?” Poppy asked, draping an arm round Maya’s shoulders, and peering at her anxiously.
“You have to hope she is or you’ll have caught her lurgy, hugging her like that,” Emily pointed out.
Poppy shook her head calmly. “No. I won’t catch anything.”
Emily folded her arms. “Are you wearing that crystal necklace again? I thought Mrs Angel made you take it off?”
Poppy sighed. “No. She still wasn’t being fair, though. It wasn’t jewellery. It was protection. And by the time she gave it back to me it wasn’t working any more. She’d been keeping it in a drawer, and that one really needed sunlight.”
“You could put it under a sunbed, you know, really charge it up again.” Emily giggled.
Poppy sucked in a horrified breath. “Fake sunlight? It’d probably poison me if I wore it after that!”
“Sunbeds kill people,” Maya put in, and Emily laughed at her.
“They do! UV rays are really bad for you.”
“I know they are, but it was the way you said it. Like this mean sunbed was going to creep up on Poppy and squash her to death. Evil sunbeds. They’re coming to get you!”
Maya scowled, but Emily elbowed her, grinning. “Don’t be so grumpy! It was funny!” She made claws of her fingers, scrunched her nose and showed all her teeth. It was amazing how ugly somebody so pretty could look all of a sudden. “Grrrr! I am an evil sunbed…”
The corner of Maya’s mouth quirked up just a smidge, and then she grinned back. “Oh, all right. I suppose it was a bit funny. Only a bit, though. Poppy, what are you using to not get ill then, if the crystal’s broken?”
“Herb tea. I’ve got some in a flask in my lunch box, you can try it if you like.”
Maya gave her a surprised look. Herbal tea was surprisingly normal for Poppy. Her dad drank herbal tea all the time, he said coffee kept him awake too much. “Does that stop you being ill?” She’d have to tell Dad.
“My kind does. I made it myself. It’s got mint and dandelions in it. And golden syrup.”
“Dandelions are weeds, Poppy.” Emily was eyeing her friend worriedly. “Are you really eating them?”
“No, you chop them up and pour hot water over them. The leaves as well. It’s very good for you. I got it out of a book from the library on nature’s secret remedies.”
“Do those books call out to you when you go in the library?” Emily shook her head. “You’ve always got some random book under your bed. Is the tea nice?”
Poppy went pink. “Actually, it tastes horrible,” she admitted. “That’s why I put the golden syrup in it. It’s not in the recipe, but it sort of hides the taste of the dandelions. Almost.”
“You’re really selling it, Poppy…” Maya told her. “I’ll pass.”
“It works though!” Poppy protested. “I haven’t been ill for ages. Well. Since Tuesday, when I found the recipe.”
“Four whole days. It’s a miracle.” Emily nodded solemnly. Then she sighed. “Who knows what’s in my lunch. I’ll be lucky if it’s not a pot of mashed-up carrot and banana, or something else disgusting. I can’t stand bananas, but Mum’s trying all kinds of random stuff to get Sukie to eat. She’s the world’s fussiest baby. I think I’ll make my own sandwiches tomorrow.”
“Oooh, banana sandwiches… I might ask Anna to do me some of those.” Maya was suddenly hungry. “Come on, let’s go and eat lunch.” Because her mum and dad were quite often out of the country they had a housekeeper who looked after Maya a lot of the time. But Maya never called her that in front of anyone at school. It sounded far too posh. Too pop-starry, having “staff”. But Anna picked her up from school occasionally, if she was in town or Maya needed school uniform or something. Emily had thought Anna was Maya’s mum, so she’d had to explain. She’d told Emily that Anna was her au pair. It didn’t sound quite as show-offish. But even then Emily had raised her eyebrows. “An au pair?”
“Yeah, because my mum works,” Maya muttered.
Emily nodded. “I s’pose. My mum would kill for an au pair. Is she nice?”
Anna was, very. But she usually made Maya’s lunches for her, and she disapproved of Maya being a vegetarian. She was from Spain, and being vegetarian wasn’t as common there as it was in Britain. Anna had been known to “accidentally” put ham sandwiches in Maya’s lunch box, in the hope that she might be tempted. She thought Maya was going to waste away without eating any meat, even though Maya had explained to her loads of times that humans were better off eating mostly vegetables anyway. A
nna always just sniffed. Whenever she and Maya argued about it, she’d cook roast chicken for dinner the next day. She knew it was the hardest thing for Maya to resist. Veggie sausages just didn’t cut it next to roast potatoes and gravy, especially with those bits of spicy sausage she added. Maya’s mouth was watering just thinking about it, and it was cheese sandwiches for lunch – again.
The girls found a free table in the hall and got out their lunches. Emily and Maya watched Poppy opening up her flask. She poured out a cupful of dull, greenish liquid, with bits in.
“Forget sunbeds, that looks poisonous.” Emily shuddered. “You’re not really going to drink it? Urrggghh, Poppy, don’t!”
“It isn’t that bad.” Poppy swallowed a mouthful, and grimaced. “Not enough golden syrup. I should have put honey in it instead. But Jake and Alex keep using it all up making toast. They just live on toast. Dad says it’s because they’re teenagers, they need a lot of energy. But they eat a loaf of bread every day. Each!”
Emily nodded sympathetically. “Brothers… You’re so lucky not having any, Maya. I would love to be the only one.”
“Wouldn’t you miss them?” Maya asked doubtfully.
Emily wrinkled her nose. “I might miss Sukie. When she’s not yelling, anyway. But Toby and James are just…” She shrugged. “Well, you know what they’re like.”
Maya smiled. She’d never met Jake and Alex, Poppy’s twin brothers; they were at secondary school, and the one time she’d been to Poppy’s house, they’d been holed up in their room, their music making the kitchen ceiling tremble. She had noticed a large pile of crumbs and a couple of sticky knives by the toaster, though, now she thought about it. But everyone at Park Road knew Toby and James, Emily’s little brothers. James was only in Reception, but he followed Toby around like he was tied on, and the pair of them were in the middle of every pile-up in the playground. If something got broken, they would be there, looking very sweetly sorry.
“What’s really unfair is they get away with it because they’re cute,” Emily muttered. “Mum wants to put wings on them and Sukie and take a photo of them all to be our family Christmas card. With tinsel round their heads.”