Removing the Mask

by Aimee Whitmee

  I look at the ball before turning to where they’re team is warming up. How the hell…

  Pulling out an earphone I look back at him.

  “Who the hell kicked that?” I shake my head in disbelief and he slowly holds up a hand with a great big fat smirk on his face.

  “Me. Hence the fact I’m getting the ball.” He props the ball up on his fingers as he holds it up.

  I roll my eyes. “Smartarse.” I say under my breath but by the way he smiles, I think he heard me.

  “You go to that school?” He nods towards where Daniel, Nathanial, Greg and the rest of the team are warming up.

  “No, got kicked this morning.” I shrug.

  “Wow, really?” His eyes shift behind me before returning to me. “Games starting, I better go.”

  I gesture towards the makeshift football pitch.

  “By all means, I’ll enjoy watching your butt get beat.”

  “We’ll see!” He grins while jogging backwards before turning and legging it over to his team.

  ***

  I tug my hood down as I shut the back door.

  They both sit at the kitchen table staring at me. Here we go.

  “Where the hell have you been?”

  I don’t need to look up to know dad’s face has gone bright red. Staying quiet, I toe off my boots.

  “I’m getting in the shower.” It’s worth a shot, for all I know they could say “okay honey, glad your home safe.”

  “No you’re not! I told you not to leave the house but you still sneak out!”

  I sigh and fill a glass with water from the sink.

  “I couldn’t just sit and listen to you two arguing through the floor, I needed to get out and think about everything and I can’t do that with your voice drifting through the floorboards.” I chug the water before putting the glass in the sink.

  “McK−”

  “No! I don’t want to talk, I want to shower and write and that is what I’m going to do. Try and stop me!” I hurry out the room and all but run to my own.

  Sitting on the bed warm after my shower, I turn my phone over in my hands. When I finally click her contact, I only hear her voicemail.

  “The number you are calling is unavailable, please leave a message after the tone or try again later.”

  Tossing the phone to the end of the bed, I slump down into my desk chair.

  I read the last sentence again before carrying on.

  The fire covers me like a second skin. It spreads like water and burns like ice. It feels as if I’m standing in a patch of warm sunlight and not the middle of the woods where my every step squelches.

  I watch fascinated as my clothes slowly disintegrate, leaving me completely exposed, but at the same time, I’m concealed.

  My hair’s the most fascinating with it being a shimmering curtain round my shoulders. I look up and the heavens open up. I hear a hiss as the water comes into contact with my skin. The fire disappears leaving me cold and truly exposed.

  My computer chimes and I check my email, smiling when I see the email from Poppy.

  I expect an apology for not talking to me for the month she’s been in New York. I’m not expecting a website link.

  Hey missy, have a look!

  www.gosp.com

  The website loads and I find a page totally devoted to me. Pictures of me cover the screen.

  I’m wearing my mask and various wigs, but still it’s creepy to think someone’s that interested in me. A little snooping later, I find that there are hundreds of these pages devoted to singers, actors and various other celebrities.

  I close it down and crawl back onto my bed with my book and my iPod. There’s a knock at my door and I call for them to come in.

  Dad slowly slips in before rolling the desk chair closer to the bed and sinking into it with a sigh.

  “I know this is hard for you and that you’re dealing with a lot at the moment but next time I ask you not to leave the house, please don’t. You had me worried McKenzie.” His voice is even and calm. Chastising but soothing at the same time.

  I look down and find myself biting my thumb nail. “Sorry dad.”

  “We need to talk about all this but not tonight, get some rest we’ll talk this all out tomorrow.” He sighs before standing up; he squeezes my shoulder before walking to the doorway.

  “All the teachers are going out to dinner and I’m going with mum, Roger should be here in a little while along with Trisha and Philip.”

  I groan and bury my face in my pillow.

  “I don’t need a baby sitter!”

  “I know that but Roger’s already on his way and Philip want’s to watch the game with him. Oh and Trisha has some things she wants you to model for her again.”

  I roll my eyes, of course she does.

  “Isn’t it a bit late for a football game?”

  “Try telling that to Roger and Philip.”

  My bed room door shuts letting me know I’m alone.

  At least he didn’t tear into me like I thought he would.

  Trisha.

  I bury my face in my hands, I’m not in the mood tonight.

  Trisha likes, modifying clothes, she gets me to try them on and stand there whilst she makes adjustments.

  Why she does this I don’t know, they just get slung in a box if they’re no good or stuffed into my wardrobe to never be worn.

  I look around and my eyes land on my dresser and the A4 sized picture of me and Poppy.

  Poppy’s a journalist, she travels all round doing the stories she’s assigned.

  When all my friends bailed on me, I crumpled with all the stress from my book and the fact I became everyone’s favourite chew toy at school. I crawled through it for three months before Poppy turned up at the front door claiming she was my cousin and was staying with us.

  She picked up the pieces and put me back together, we went everywhere and did everything while she stayed with us. But even when she went back to work we texted, emailed, spoke on the phone and video chatted on msn. She’s been my mate ever since, and a good one up until she left for New York.

  I’d once asked her why she spent so much time with me and she said,

  “Missy you’re my mate! And I need my partner in crime!” She’d winked and elbowed me in the arm hard.

  I close my eyes, wishing to be able to sink into sleep, finding comfort in my memories and the worlds I can create in my head. Places away from here; where I’m not constantly on the edge.

  Of every single memory I have crammed into my head, that guy’s kick pops into my head. Damn that was impressive and I bet he knows it. Which most likely means he’s a jerk but what does it matter? I’m never going to see him again.

  “Kenzie are you awake?” Trisha’s comes from right beside me, making me jump and stiffen. How’d she come in so quietly?

  “No.”

  “Yes you are, come on and get up, I have some stuff to show you.” She nudges my leg.

  “You’re imagining things, but don’t worry, I still love you.”

  “Kenzie get out of bed.”

  “Make me.” I say sighing as I rollover and bury my head in my soft pillow.

  Chapter Six

  When I finally walk through the back garden, its dark, but the garden lights and the glow from the house guides me around the obstacles. My mind’s still on my story, thinking through scenarios that could happen next. Who will it happen to and how bad should I make it?

  I curse when I trip over the leg of the garden chair and bang my knee on the arm rest. Rubbing my knee and limping towards the door, my mind is set on the old bag of peas in the freezer.

  The French door’s windows are steamed up along with the window on top of the sink, so I assume mum’s cooking dinner. My watch says five in the afternoon, way too early to be cooking. This ought to be good. Last time mum cooked dinner at this time, Roger smashed the bay window in the living room.

  I pull the handle down on the door, a weight on the other side push’s me bac
k accompanied by the sound of a very big dog’s bark.

  I stumble backwards and lose my balance making me fall down painfully onto my butt.

  Crab crawling, I scramble away from the great, big, brown dog growling and snapping at me.

  “Holy molars!”

  “Hooch! Down Boy! Sit!” A woman’s shouts and instantly ‘Hooch’ is backing away and sitting down.

  Mum’s concerned face appears in my line of sight and her hands hover in the air as if she’s afraid of touching me. Her eyes scan for injury but she’s moving her gaze so fast I doubt she sees any detail at all.

  Ignoring her, I try to calm my thudding heart while moving to stand up.

  “Don’t move!”

  I jump, my heart beating even faster and grit my teeth. “Mum! I’m fine! Jeez.”

  Standing up, I limp past a stoic dog before shuffling straight to the freezer for the peas. Eyeing the women now sitting at the table, I lift myself up on the kitchen counter before placing the ice cold bag on my abused knee. I wince as the freezing cold bag comes into contact with my inflamed knee.

  Studying the lady standing next to the kitchen table, I try to place where I know her from.

  She’s around mum’s age with grey speckled brown hair. I look at her features closely and she looks back just as interested. I know her from somewhere and when I match the nose and jaw line to Mum’s and Trisha’s I know I’m looking at Bessie. Aunt Bessie, irresponsible aunt Bessie!

  A smile curls my lips and she smiles realizing I’ve made the match.

  My eyes drift to dad, he sits at the table minding his own business reading the sports section in the paper while drinking tea. Like ten seconds ago I didn’t get attacked by irresponsible aunt Bessie’s dog. I roll my eyes. This house.

  My eyes return to Bessie. She’s still looking at me and I realize that apart from dad everyone’s looking at me, well except the dog of course.

  “Well?” I ask as I look at them. “I don’t know what you’re looking at but I’d love some enlightenment!” In other words, why has Bessie driven three and a half hours to see a sister she doesn’t get along with?

  “McKenzie, don’t be rude.” He doesn’t look up from an article under a picture of a footballer with his shirt tucked over his head.

  “It’s not being rude, it’s discourteous.”

  This time he does look up, “It means the same thing.” He chuckles and I can’t help but grin.

  “Ah, but it sounds better. A lot of teenagers are rude, but few can say they’re discourteous.” I raise my eyebrows and he and Bessie chuckle.

  “So now that we’ve covered that I’m uncouth, what’s going on?” When no one offers a response, I click my nails on the counter with impatience. “I’m getting old over here.”

  “Well-”

  “She speaks! Wow, who knew.”

  Bessie actually rolls her eyes before continuing. “As I was saying before you interrupted m-”

  “You said ‘we-”

  “As I was saying, you just got kicked out of scho-”

  “No rea-”

  “Will you shut up! God you are a handful aren’t you?”

  My initial response is a look of pure boredom.

  I gesture for her to continue and she settles back into her chair. “You just got kicked out of school and you have a few options, you either go to a boarding school…or come and live with me.”

  I think eyes balls jump out my skull and roll around on the floor.

  “Y-you’re serious?” I almost jump off the counter.

  She scowls, “this isn’t something to be joked about with! Yes I’m serious, come and live with me and Jimmy and attend the same school as him. I personally think it’s a better op-”

  “Yes! I’d love to live with you and Jimmy. Without a doubt. I don’t want to go to boarding school, I mean, can you imagine the trouble I’d get into? I wouldn’t last long before that school booted me as well.” I grin.

  I look at mum, her gaze is fixed to the linoleum floor because obviously, it’s fascinating.

  “Mum?” She looks up and I give her a tentative smile, “you’re okay with this right?”

  “No! I am not okay with this! I don’t want you to move out! What about M Z Pristine?”

  “What about her?” I shrug.

  She struggles to find an answer, “you’re too young to be moving out!”

  “Boarding school means I have to move out! Would you rather I’m with girls I don’t know or with family! I don’t want to room with a bunch of girls I don’t know and if I live with Bessie, I have Jimmy.”

  “Jimmy doesn’t know about M Z Pristine, are you prepared to tell him?”

  “Of course, I can’t keep something like that from him! Besides, I need to tell him because I write a lot. He doesn’t even know I like to write.”

  The kitchen becomes silent after her sigh; the only sound is the very faint sound of the tick and tock of the clock as the seconds go by.

  “Very well, we have a lot of packing to do...” I try to ignore the sadness that creeps into her features and walk out the room without another word. I have a lot of packing to do.

  I start packing everything neatly…But before long I’m chucking everything into suitcases and stuffing things into places they don’t fit. With every suitcase packed, my excitement grows.

  I finally get a fresh slate. I don’t know whether I’m going to really try again, or if I’m going to just become another grumpy girl at the back of the room. But there’s a big difference this time, I have Jimmy.

  We may only talk from time to time, and only for a few minutes. But he’s not only my cousin, he’s one of my best friends. So we could talk every day, or once a month, our conversations wouldn’t be much different.

  Giving up on trying to stuff a shoe into a hole big enough to hold a balled up t-shirt, I crawl across the floor to my computer. With my fingers crossed, I log onto Skype. Only to find a lot of logged off profiles. Sighing, I send a text before staring at the screen for what feels like forever until the little icon beside Jimmy’s name becomes green and a message appears on my screen.

  Jimmy: Hi :D

  Instead of replying, I send a video request his way and watch my screen change until I see Jimmy’s grinning pixelated face in front of me.

  “Hello cuz’”

  “Hi lil’ Jim.”

  He scowls jokingly. “Don’t call me that.”

  “But your reaction is too good!”

  He shifts uneasily around and I make out the bedframe in the background.

  “So…Are you moving in?”

  I smile and shrug, “yeah, I figured, how bad can it be?”

  He grins but his attention quickly shifts elsewhere. “I’ve got to go but I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  I try to hide my disappointment and smile, “yeah, bye.”

  “Bye!” The screen goes back to the chat room and his icon turns orange for ‘away.’

  My smile drops and I stare at the screen while spinning my chair back and forth gently. What was the point of that conversation?

  “What’s the pout for?”

  Spinning in surprise, I nearly bash my knee on the desk. Gliding to a stop, I find Bessie standing in the doorway.

  “Nothing,” I smile again, even though she’ll most likely see through it.

  “Jimmy’s just moved back in, he’s reconnecting with all his friends. When he gets back into the swing of living at home again, he’ll be more interested in you for moving in.” Was she eaves dropping?

  “What do you mean, ‘just moved back in?’”

  She walks across the room and sits down on my unmade bed after moving my duvet out the way. “He’s been living with his dad in London for the last few years, attending a very high class school, paid for by his dad. He’s just starting his GCSE’s like you, and Dominic wanted him to do GCSE’s he didn’t want to do, so he’s come home to do the GCSE’s he wants to do.”

  “I take it Dominic is Jimmy’s
dad?”

  She nods and toys with a t-shirt I left on the bed. Folding and unfolding it.

  “Does Jimmy have a lot of friends?” I hold my breath.

  “I’d say, sometimes I feel like I’m feeding an army when they’re around.” She chuckles and doesn’t notice when I wince.

  “I came up to tell you, dinner is served.” She stands up and walks towards the door, lingering there; waiting for me.

  “I’m not hungry.” I turn away from her and get up to go to my wardrobe.

  “You need to eat.”

  When I just shake my head, she leaves without another word and shuts the door behind her.

  A weight settles onto my chest as I pack an armful of various pieces of clothing. Is Jimmy going to expect me to join his ‘group’ of friends? Do I want to join? Do I want to have friends that aren’t my family again? Will it end the way it did months ago?

  The questions keep coming. Filling my head with more and more chaos until I finally put my earphones in and turn the music up until my heart beats in time with the music.

  Eventually, mum and Bessie come in and take over the job of packing my clothes leaving me to do the other things like packing some of my books and the laptop that’s been gathering dust for the last year…or more. When it takes more than four minutes to start up I know I’ve got an insane amount of updating to do. I’m just not expecting that many.

  “One hundred and three! Je…epers creepers! This is going to take hours!” Groaning, I flop back against the carpet of my bedroom floor, covering my face with my hands.

  Upside down, I watch dad stick his head round the door before coming in with a stack of boxes and promptly retreating out the room faster than any of us can say thanks. I take it dad doesn’t like packing.

  Degrading my laptop from my lap to the floor, I bottom scoot across the room and grab one of the boxes before bottom scooting to my bookcase. I fill the box up easily and balance some of my notebooks on the top before closing the flaps.

  One of my earphones pops out and I turn to find mum standing over me. Scary.

  “Yes?” I take the other earphone out and put my iPod on the floor surrounded by a tangle of earphones and dark blue wire.