Close Your Pretty Eyes

by Sally Nicholls

  The more I got to know Daniel, the more I liked him. I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t help it. I thought when I first met him he was going to be totally goody-goody and boring. Harriet was like that a bit, but he wasn’t. The first week I was there, we were playing on our bikes in the yard. Daniel and I were showing off what tricks we could do – wheelies and spins and jumps, and stuff off the packing cases.

  “When I was at Fairfields,” I said, “there was this kid who rode her bike off the garage roof.”

  “Did she die?” said Daniel, hopefully.

  “No! At least, I don’t think so. It was before I lived there.”

  “I bet she didn’t do it really,” Daniel said. “You’d die if you rode a bike off a roof.”

  “You wouldn’t!” I said. “Not if you landed on your wheels, you wouldn’t.”

  “You wouldn’t land on your wheels,” said Daniel.

  “I would!” I said.

  So then, of course, I had to do it.

  I wanted to ride off the actual barn roof, but it turns out it’s pretty hard to get a bike up a ladder, even with Daniel holding on to the bottom. In the end, we dragged the bike up the stairs to the hayloft at the top of the barn. The hayloft was a bit of a stupid name, because when the farmer who rented Jim’s fields actually brought in the hay – later in the summer – it went underneath, by the ping-pong table and the bikes.

  “You aren’t really going to do it, are you?” said Harriet. Harriet was a bit wet, but I liked having her there to look impressed. What’s the point of riding a bike off a hayloft if you don’t have anyone to look impressed?

  “Course I am,” I said. I wasn’t worried. I was scared of the things other people might do to me, but the things I did to myself – climbing too high up trees, riding my bike too fast down hills, walking all the way along the top of the roof at Fairfields – that sort of stuff never bothered me. I broke my arm when I was seven, falling out of a tree, and I never even cried.

  My plan was to sort of spin in the air and then land on my wheels. It didn’t quite work though. I lifted the front wheel up when I rode off the edge of the loft, thinking I’d leap up, like you do when you jump, but I just went down, and a lot quicker than I’d expected. I didn’t have time to spin or anything. I went from in the air to on the ground in about two seconds flat.

  Harriet started screaming. “Olivia! Are you dead? Are you dead?”

  “Of course I’m not,” I said. And I wasn’t. I tore a great hole in my jeans though, and a big raggedy patch on the sleeve of my jacket. My leg and my arm were both pouring blood. That was why Harriet screamed, all that blood. I didn’t scream.

  “Doesn’t it hurt?” said Daniel, but it didn’t, not really. One of my superpowers is not really feeling pain – or hot – or cold – or hungry. I just don’t notice things like that the way ordinary people do. I can feel hurt, but my arm has to be practically falling off before I do. My stupid therapist, Helen, says it’s because I got hurt so often when I was little. She thinks it’s a bad thing, because it means I keep forgetting to wear a coat when it’s cold, or don’t notice when I’ve hurt myself. I think she should try living in a children’s home for a week and then tell me it’s a crappy superpower.

  I thought Jim would be angry with me for riding off the loft, but he wasn’t.

  “It’s your arm, mad woman,” he said, which I liked. It was the sort of thing Liz would have said. I hoped I might have to go to hospital, but Jim just washed all the gravel out of my arm and leg and stuck the whole thing over with big plasters.

  “You’re bonkers, Olivia Glass,” said Daniel, but I could tell he liked it, just a little bit.

  “I’ll ride off the house roof next,” I said.

  HOME NUMBER 14

  SARAH AND TONY

  Before I lived in Fairfields, I was with this couple called Sarah and Tony. I moved in with them after Liz told me I couldn’t live with her any more.

  I didn’t understand at first.

  “But why do I have to go?” I said. “I’ve been so good.”

  Usually when people move me, it’s because I’ve been bad. But for Liz I was really, really good. I thought Liz was wonderful. And I thought she liked me too.

  Ha.

  “Olivia,” said Liz. She knelt down next to me and looked into my eyes. I squirmed away. “Listen, I’ve loved having you live with me. You know that. But this was always a temporary placement. The plan was always that you’d stay with me for a year and a half, and then we’d find a new family for you.”

  “But why?” I said. I still didn’t get it. I wanted to live with Liz, and Liz was the first person in years who’d loved having me live with her. I did know it was only supposed to be temporary, but if Liz really loved me, like she said she did, that wouldn’t matter, would it? A real mum would want to keep me for ever, wouldn’t she?

  “Olivia, this is my job,” said Liz. “I look after young people and help them learn how to live in a family. And then when my job’s done, my kids are able to go out and live with someone new. If I kept all the kids who’ve lived here, I’d need a house as big as Hogwarts.”

  She was trying to make me laugh, but it didn’t work.

  “You only like me because they pay you,” I said. “You’re a big liar and I hate you!”

  “You live with me because that’s my job,” said Liz. “But that’s not why I like you. I like you because I like you. And I hope your new family will like you too, and you’ll be able to stay there until you’re grown up.”

  She was a stinky liar pants. No family was ever going to keep me. She was a big, fat, stupid, ugly, horrible, nasty liar.

  “I’m going to kill them!” I told Liz. “Whoever they put me with. I’m going to rip out their eyes and feed them to toads. I’m going to break everything they own into a million, billion, trillion pieces!”

  “Mm-mm,” said Liz. She did that when I said things she didn’t like. Pretended she couldn’t hear me until I said something nice.

  “I’ll kill you too!” I said, and I punched her as hard as I could in the stomach.

  “Olivia, go to your room,” said Liz.

  “I won’t!” I said, and I punched her again. She doubled over, and suddenly I was afraid. I thought Liz was so powerful, I thought she could protect me from everything, but I could just punch her and she couldn’t do anything about it.

  She walked out of the room and called Social Services, and I moved out the next day.

  I knew I was going to hate the people I moved in with, Sarah and Tony. My bedroom was yucky pink. The other foster kids were these big boys who frightened me. And the first night I was there, Sarah served pasta sauce that looked like sick. I told her I wasn’t going to eat it and she said, “All the more for the rest of us then,” which is just what Liz used to say. I was so angry, I threw my glass of water at her, and she said, “None of that, kiddo,” and locked me in the bathroom. I was furious. I was furious with Sarah and Tony for not being Liz, and furious with Liz for not wanting to keep me, and furious with myself for not being the sort of kid she’d want to keep. I kicked a great big hole in the door, and I smashed the medicine cabinet with my elbow, so there was glass all over the floor. I picked up this bit of broken glass and stabbed it into my arm, over and over and over again until the blood gushed out and over the floor, just to feel something that wasn’t this.

  Sarah said she didn’t want me after that, and I got sent to Fairfields.

  TWO THINGS HAPPENED TO ME ON FRIDAY

  The Friday after I came to live with the Iveys, two things happened.

  The first thing was, Liz rang.

  “Hello, love,” she said. “How’s it going?”

  “Fine,” I said. “Absolutely fine. Actually, I’m really busy now, so I’ll probably have to go and do that thing I was really busy doing. Sorry!”

  “What
were you doing?” said Liz. I could hear her almost laughing at me down the phone, which made me angry and also sort of happy, that she knew me well enough not to get pissed off when I pretended I didn’t want to talk to her.

  “I’m playing on my new bike,” I said. “And my new skateboard, and my new unicycle, which Daniel taught me how to use and now I can ride it even better than he can, and I can do juggling at the same time, only I drop the balls sometimes.”

  That bit wasn’t actually true, but it wasn’t like Liz would ever find out.

  “You and Daniel are getting on then?” said Liz.

  “Oh, yeah,” I said. “Daniel and me are best friends.”

  “I like Daniel,” said Liz, and my stomach tightened, because everyone likes nice kids better than me.

  “You all set for tomorrow?” she said. She was supposed to be coming to see me. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to see her, though. Not if she liked Daniel more than me.

  “Dunno,” I said. “Because, actually, I’m going to be doing tricks on a unicycle tomorrow, so I might be too busy.”

  “That’s a shame,” said Liz. “I’ve cleared all this time off so I can come and visit.”

  I hesitated. “Really cleared time off?” I said.

  “Really, really,” said Liz.

  Silence.

  “Though I could always go to the Doctor Who meet-up instead,” said Liz. Liz was a massive Doctor Who fan. She had pictures of Daleks stuck up all over her kitchen, and an air freshener shaped like a TARDIS that let out a nice smell when you spun it through time and space. She had a cyberman costume in her garage that she used to dress up in for conventions.

  “I don’t care,” I said.

  “See you at half eleven, then?” said Liz.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Only not half eleven. Come at half one, ’cause I’ve got lots of important things that I need to be doing tomorrow morning.”

  Liz laughed, in a way that made my heart clench.

  “OK, sweetheart,” she said. “Half past one.”

  And then there was the other thing.

  I was coming down the creepy servants’ stairs when I heard this noise. It was a baby crying, upstairs somewhere, on and on and on.

  It gave me the shivers. I hate babies’ crying. I always have. And this baby sounded so lonely and sad. It sounded like a baby who nobody loved, who nobody cared for. Which was frightening, because of course it must be Maisy, and if Jim could hear Maisy crying like that and not do anything about it, then he wasn’t as nice as he’d been pretending to be.

  I stood on the stairs, listening to the baby and getting more and more afraid. But I couldn’t stay halfway up for ever, so I didn’t. I went down.

  Grace was in the living room, reading another big, boring book. Maisy was on the floor, playing with her wooden bricks. She wasn’t crying at all. She was laughing.

  Which just made me even more afraid.

  Because if it wasn’t Maisy crying, then who was it?

  I don’t do very well when I’m scared. Mostly what happens is, I get angry. I get angry a lot.

  I went into the dining room. Jim was sitting by the fireplace with Zig-Zag on his lap, reading a letter.

  “There’s a baby crying,” I told him. He looked a bit surprised.

  “Maisy’s crying?” he said. “Is she? I can’t hear anything.”

  “No,” I said. “It’s not Maisy. It’s another baby. A baby who isn’t there!”

  “Oh,” said Jim. “Well, that’s good. I wouldn’t want to think that a real baby was crying.”

  He was laughing at me. He thought I was just being stupid.

  “It’s not funny!” I yelled. “Stop it!” I grabbed his letter out of his hands and tore it up. It served him right. He was treating my important things like rubbish. It served him right if I did the same to him.

  Jim didn’t agree though. He made me do all the washing-up as punishment. People always blame me for everything.

  THERAPY

  I had therapy when I lived at Fairfields. It was a waste of time. My therapist was this idiot woman called Helen who kept asking me questions like, “How did you feel about that?” or “Why did you do that, then?”

  I used to turn it into a game. I would pretend to be this sweet little orphan and blink at her and tell her how sad I was because the other kids used to pick on me. I’d tell her everything mean the other kids did, and everything mean the workers did, and hope she’d leave me alone.

  She was pretty stupid though. She kept asking me stupid questions, about Liz, and my old adoptive parents, Grumpy Annabel and Dopey Graham, and all sorts of things I’d made it perfectly clear I didn’t want to talk about.

  “How do you feel about not living with Liz any more?” she’d say, and I’d shrug.

  “Fine.”

  “Really?” she’d say. “How did you feel when she told you?” And I’d shrug again.

  “Still fine.”

  Sometimes she’d just sit there and not say anything and wait for me to talk. I hated that even more. I used to make stuff up. I’d tell her I was afraid of ghosts, or monsters under the bed, or some other rubbish. I’d start fights with her.

  “Why are you telling me off when you’re the fat, ugly one? Why don’t you lose some weight and get some plastic surgery before you start picking on me?”

  Disagreeing with whatever she said was also good.

  “You sound very angry.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “How do you feel then?”

  “Fine.”

  “What would you like to happen now?”

  “Doughnuts. Jam doughnuts. And laser death rays.”

  “Does acting like this make you feel safe?”

  “Not as much as laser death rays would.”

  She wouldn’t shut up though.

  If she’d really wanted to help, she could at least have given me the doughnuts.

  I thought I’d get out of going to therapy once I came to live with the Iveys, but no such luck. Some lunatic was paying for a taxi to take me there every Monday after school.

  “But it’s pointless!” I wailed, when Liz told me.

  “Of course it’s pointless if you never do anything!” said Liz. “Honestly. How exactly do you think Helen is going to help you if you just sit there and glare at her? Get working, kid. You’re not stopping until you do.”

  This was just another example of bonkers grown-up logic. Something doesn’t work, so you keep doing it until it starts to. If Liz really wanted me to be happy, there were loads of things she could do about it. Doughnuts would be a good start, but I wouldn’t say no to lasers.

  TWO WOMEN

  Liz came to visit on Saturday. I wasn’t exactly sure how I felt about it. I liked Liz, but I was still angry with her.

  When I saw her, though, I was pretty pleased. She looked just the same as always – little, with red shoes, black curly hair that was starting to go grey, and a round face which was always laughing. Liz was about the most cheerful person I knew. It was nearly impossible to piss her off, and I should know. I tried really hard when I lived with her.

  She put her arm around me and gave me this massive hug and said, “How’re you doing, sport?”

  I hate all that “How are you?” stuff, so I mumbled, “I’m OK.” I didn’t want to talk about me any more, so I said, “Did you know Jim’s got ducks? There are six of them and they’ve all got names. Daniel and Harriet named them, but I said it wasn’t fair that they named them all and I didn’t, so Harriet said I could name two of them. Come and see—” And I dragged on her arm to pull her over.

  “Hey!” Liz pulled her arm away. “What do you do if you want to ask me something?”

  “Ugh!” Liz was awful about rules. “One day I’m going to be drowning,” I told her, “and I’ll be yelling, �
�Save me! Save me!’ and you’ll be all, ‘That’s not an appropriate way to ask for help,’ but by then I’ll be dead and—”

  “Yep,” said Liz. “I’m a cold-hearted woman, I am. So you’d better practise asking properly, hadn’t you? Otherwise the fishes’ll be feeding on Olivia and chips.”

  “Huh,” I said. “You wouldn’t care. You’d be happy if I drowned, then you wouldn’t have to keep coming to visit.”

  “Yep,” said Liz. “Must be tough, having this horrible old woman who loves you so much.”

  “You don’t love me!” I said. “You don’t love me at all!”

  “Too right,” said Liz. And she grabbed me and started tickling me. I squealed.

  “Stop it! Let me go!”

  “Who’s come to visit you because she loves you? Who?”

  I wouldn’t say it.

  “I don’t know!” I said. “No one!” But Liz wouldn’t stop. “OK, you! You! Stop it!”

  “Damn right I love you,” said Liz. “Let’s go, shall we?”

  We went to Bristol, because I said I was fed up of fields.We went to the cinema and then for a walk by the canal. We counted canal boats and fed the ducks, and admired the little baby ducklings all following their mother in a line. Then we had scampi and chips at a pub and watched the canal boat people opening and closing the locks to let the narrowboats through.

  “I wish I lived in a narrowboat,” I said, but Liz said she didn’t.

  “Spiders,” she said. “And damp.”

  But I wouldn’t care. I’d just like to be somewhere where no one could mess with my stuff, and no one could make me do anything I didn’t want to, because if they tried, I’d just motor off, and no one would ever find me.