Truth or Dare

by Non Pratt

  “I wish you were staying,” I said, pretending it was still about the driving.

  “I know.” My uncle rested a heavy hand on my shoulder. “Farah told me what happened.”

  “Dad won’t look at me, Amir hates me—”

  “Amir loves you.”

  But Uncle D hadn’t seen the look that accompanied the words.

  “Siblings fight, Sef.” His eyes lost focus for a second, like he was remembering long-distant arguments with Mum and Auntie Iffat. “We fight because we love. We struggle because we love.”

  We weren’t talking about me and Amir any more and I studied the wiry white hairs emerging from the black of his eyebrows, avoiding the tenderness in my uncle’s gaze.

  “Please stay,” I whispered. Begged. Prayed.

  “I wish I could—”

  “You can!”

  “This family needs…”

  “This family needs you.” I needed him.

  “… money.”

  I frowned down at the wodge of notes in my hand. “What? We’ve enough, haven’t we?”

  “Not if your brother needs to stay where he is.”

  My attention sharpened. “What do you mean?”

  “I shouldn’t be talking to you about this—”

  “Please. Tell me – no one else will.” I sounded so desperate, wanting to be treated with the same respect, the same confidence as Kam would have been.

  Uncle D sighed, sinking back into Mrs Bennet’s seat and staring out at a ginger cat ambling across the empty road.

  “I don’t know how much your parents would like me to tell you…” Almost nothing, but I didn’t say so. “The first six months of your brother’s care is covered by the NHS, but after that, it changes.”

  “Changes how?”

  “I don’t even know if I’ve got this right. It’s complicated.” Uncle D’s hands opened out in his lap in a shrug.

  “Do the government stop paying? Just like that?”

  “Funding for the next level of care must come from the local health authority. There isn’t much to go round and the Recreare is one of the best of its kind, which means a place there is expensive. Perhaps if we had a compensation claim—”

  “And we don’t?”

  “Your brother was trespassing. He ignored the wire and the warning signs on the bridge.” His expression was the same I’d seen my parents wear. One of sorrow and sickness that there is nothing to be done about the past.

  “What sign?” Mentally I was scrambling up the bank to the top with Matty and some of the others from school, holding the wire wider for them to get through…

  There hadn’t been any sign – I was sure of it.

  “… notice warning anyone stepping beyond of the risks they face. You ignore the warning, you forfeit liability.” As my uncle rubbed his eyes, I tried to process what he’d told me. “Something like that, anyway. I’m not a lawyer. Your mother is talking to people, but…”

  There was no hope in the way he said it.

  “Why does that mean you have to leave?”

  Uncle D turned to look at me once more. “Your brother needs two things, Sef: family and money. Kam has his family. He has his parents, his brothers. Of all of you, I’m the only one in a position to choose to provide the other. This contract in Oman is a good one.”

  “How much does he need?”

  “More than I can earn.” Obviously I’d reached the limit of his trust. “But still I must try. And so must you.”

  But I couldn’t. That night, I lay awake, thinking about seeing Kam in intensive care. That whole time felt like a stare-out with death and if we so much as blinked, death would win. Every second I spent away from his bed would have me panicking. Sleep was the only time I got a break, my brain shutting down so effectively that I didn’t even dream, waking instead to the nightmare of what had happened. I’d bolt my cereal (breakfast, lunch, tea, each meal the same), barely shower long enough to get wet and I’d sit by the door, like a dog pining for a walk. I’d mentally run through red lights and straight-line roundabouts on the journey there, walk so fast along the corridors that if Mum was with me she’d have to jog to keep up. And then I’d get to his bedside, watching, waiting and hoping with everything I had that Kam would live.

  When I thought he was dying the only place I wanted to be was by my brother’s side. Now he was alive, I’d rather be anywhere else.

  Amir’s disappointment was something I felt in every sullen look over breakfast, every slammed door, every second of the silent car ride to West Bridge. I wanted to tell him that I was disappointed too. That no one could be as ashamed as I was.

  The day after I saw Uncle D, I left my stuff and walked up to the Rec from school. With every step, my blood grew thicker, legs and heart and soul heavier. I waded through the weight of my shame and the depths of my fears until I reached the glass doors of the Rec.

  Breathing was hard, and it felt like the world was contracting around me. All I had to do was push.

  But I couldn’t. Instead I sat on the wall for a long, long time, thinking about everything my uncle had said, piecing together an ugly truth.

  Back at the start of summer, when my jump off the bridge made the front page of the local paper, there’d been no sign to stop me – but there had been one by the end.

  It doesn’t take a Cambridge-bound brainbox to work out why. Not only was I a failure as his brother; I was the reason he needed the money.

  Your brother needs two things, Sef: family and money.

  If I couldn’t provide one, I would do anything to provide the other.

  CHAPTER 6

  Post was piling up on the top of the radiator next to the front door but the most urgent would make it through to the dining table, where Mum (never Dad) would read it over breakfast before dropping it in the bowl on the sideboard to be dealt with later. Didn’t take me long to find the correspondence from the Rec, letters stamped with the logo of a pair of hands cradling the top of a person’s head, but these letters were less helpful than I’d hoped. I needed a firm figure.

  The best way to get an answer for something is to ask, but there was no way I could ask my parents. Not with things as they were. I’d have to go straight to the source.

  Taking a breath and slipping into character, I dialled the number on the letterhead.

  Five minutes later and I’d been put through to a very helpful lady who seemed keen to set up a meeting to discuss my fictional mother’s care following her stroke.

  “Let me get this straight –” my voice smooth and smarmy – “the cost is two thousand five hundred per week?”

  “Thereabouts, as I explained, Mr Bibi.”

  “And you only accept residents whose costs can be covered for how long?”

  “Six months, but that shouldn’t be a problem if your mother has private healthcare.”

  I’d said this so they’d take me seriously, but Imaginary Mum’s insurance had become more of a hindrance than a help.

  “And if I’m wrong and she doesn’t?”

  “We still need six months guaranteed in advance. The Recreare takes continuity of long-term care seriously.”

  After ending the call, I tapped the figures into the calculator on my phone, a violent flutter of blind panic breaking out in my chest at the figure I kept getting.

  My nerve has always been something I’ve had going for me.

  “Oh my God!”

  Kam grabbed my leg and practically hung off me to stop me from climbing over the fence. He was heavy enough that it worked and I scraped my shins and elbows as I slid back down.

  “What did you do that for?” I yelled at him, stung at my brother embarrassing me in front of my friends. Izzy Khan and Declan Summers were smirking at each other behind his back.

  “What were you doing?”

  “Getting our ball back.” I shot a shifty look at my friends.

  “Have you got a death wish?!” On the other side of the fence, the dog that lived at Number 71 was bark
ing and snarling, the panels of the fence shivering as it threw its body against the wood.

  “It’s just a dog.”

  “With teeth!”

  “I’m not scared of it…” I turned round as if to try and climb back up, but Kam had me by the collar and yanked me back. This time when I stumbled round, Izzy and Declan weren’t looking so smug. No one likes seeing another family row.

  “You’re an idiot then – that dog wears a muzzle in the park.”

  In truth, I’d thought all dogs did.

  “I’m still not scared,” I said resolutely.

  Kam wasn’t listening. He dragged me round to the front of the house – my friends following like puzzled shadows – and pressed the doorbell, holding me until the woman who lived there answered the door with a scowl, revealing a gold tooth and a bad temper.

  “Excuse me,” Kam said, perfectly polite. “My brother accidentally kicked his ball into your garden. Can we go and collect it, please?”

  Only she told us to fuck off. We’d probably done it on purpose and if we didn’t get off her doorstep, she’d set her dog on us. As lessons went, it wasn’t the one Kam intended.

  Later, after tea, while Amir was in the bath and we were allowed an extra hour of telly, Kam turned to me with a grin and asked who’d dared me.

  After a pause, I said, “Izzy.”

  “How much for?”

  “Offered me some Lego she got for her birthday.”

  Kam grunted. “Charge cash next time.”

  And from then on, I did.

  When I went up to the Media Suite, it wasn’t with any particular plan in mind. I’d heard about challenge channels, watched a few, found them pretty lame, and figured I’d see if I could do better. Since the video on my old phone was bust, I thought I’d try my luck with Miss Stevens.

  Finding Claire there kind of surprised the truth out of me. One I regretted revealing almost as soon as it was out. Sweet as it was that she wanted to help, I was only humouring her when I agreed to meet up.

  I didn’t want her help, just her camera.

  When she turned up at the cinema, I couldn’t help checking out just how low the neckline sat on her infamous breasts and decided to put at least a little effort in.

  “So I buy you a drink and you lend me your camera, deal?” I looked at her like it was a joke, but that’s pretty much how I expected it to play out.

  “I made some notes,” she said, her embarrassment blossoming up from her neck. I reached over, deliberately brushing her arm.

  They were surprisingly good. Reading them through gave me ideas and I had fun making her laugh, enjoyed the way she sparred back. I’ve always fed off the energy of my audience and I could feel my character taking shape around the way her eyes would meet mine before darting away as if she’d been caught, the way certain jokes would bring out the hint of a dimple in her left cheek.

  It wasn’t until I flipped over another page of her notes that I discovered what role she really had in mind for me.

  “Ignore that.” Claire tried to turn back the page, but I pinned it down, intrigued by all the little doodles between her brainstorming – funky little tapirs peeking out from behind the boxes she’d drawn around the ideas she liked best, a galaxy of stars crammed into the margin and two figures at the bottom of the page, lines so sharp they could have come from the pages of one of Amir’s comics. But their stance, their figures, the way she’d styled their hair … their identity was unmistakable.

  TRUTH GIRL and DARE BOY.

  The sentiment behind it punched me in the heart.

  Claire was serious about helping me – and in a moment of weakness, I was willing to accept that help.

  “It’s good!” I looked up, cocking my eyebrows and giving her the grin. “We should do this.”

  “Are you serious?” Claire looked wary.

  “Why not?”

  “It’s just … you’re an actor and stuff. Don’t you want to be the star?”

  But that’s never what it’s been about.

  “I’m better with someone to spark off –” I glanced at her lips for a second, just to suggest – “and me and you, I reckon there’s a spark.”

  “Is there?”

  “You don’t think so? And you say in your notes that we need a good brand…”

  “It doesn’t say anywhere that I’m a part of that brand!”

  For a moment I wondered if I was being too pushy. But there was something in Claire when I looked for it.

  “But you could be,” I said.

  Like everyone else, all Claire has ever wanted is to be noticed.

  Once she’d left, I slid round behind the counter and thanked Mia for covering for me.

  Mia’s always been my favourite to work with and since the accident I liked her even more. Nothing in the way she treated me had changed. She’d asked me about Kam exactly once and when I’d told her, she’d said, “These things are shit, aren’t they?” and offered me the other half of the misshaped cookie she’d been eating.

  Major film geek.

  “You know that scene in Galaxy Quest?” she said.

  “Nope.” I’ve always avoided space stuff to piss Kam off.

  “Well –” Mia followed me along to where the tills were – “there’s this magnetic minefield and the pilot flies the spaceship so close to all the mines that they become magnetically attracted to the ship. When it leaves the minefield, this big-ass spaceship has a trail of activated space mines trailing after it ready to blow up the second they hit something.”

  “Sounds shit. Do you think we need more tens?”

  “No, we don’t, there’s a bag under the drawer there. My point is, Spaceship Sef, why are you flying so close to yet another lady-shaped mine when you’ve already got so many trailing after you?”

  She leaned on the counter, arms crossed, eyebrows arched towards her tiny hipster fringe.

  I didn’t really get what she was on about.

  “You mean my own special brand of customer service?” Not that I’d had a chance to serve any customers yet.

  “Well, there is that…” Last week Mia had fielded two questions about whether I was seeing anyone. “But I meant that girl just now.”

  “Claire?” I closed the till and logged off.

  “If that’s her name.”

  “She’s helping me out with something.” Mia pursed her lips sceptically. “Get your mind out of the gutter.”

  “Wow. It’s like you don’t even know you’re doing it.” Mia slid along the counter towards me, pressing near as she pretended to be very interested in what I was doing. “I mean, look how close you have to be to see the same piece of paper … and –” looking up at me through her eyelashes – “how playful it is when someone looks at you like this and touches you when they want your attention…”

  “Get off!” I twitched my arm away. Mia’s one of the few people on this planet I don’t flirt with. “I was being friendly.”

  “It’s not friendly if they fancy you.”

  “It’s friendly if I don’t fancy her. I’ve got standards, you know.”

  “You’re a dick, Sef.” The colour had drained out of her mood and when she turned away, Mia added, “I’d have thought the fact that you have a girlfriend might have been more important than your so-called standards.”

  OCTOBER

  CHAPTER 7

  We moved to the area during the summer holidays before I turned eleven and I’d been at school exactly three weeks when I found out Milla Stenner fancied me.

  Despite caring more about collecting Pokémon than girls, I was very pleased about this and made the mistake of bragging about it to Mum. Mostly because no one else would have listened.

  “Helen Thompson says Milla wants to kiss me if we all go to the cinema on Saturday.”

  “And what are you going to do about it?” Ever pragmatic, Mum took advantage of me being in the kitchen and nodded at me to open the oven door for her.

  “Nothing.” I was more inte
rested in hanging out with Finn Gardner, who had recently acquired the latest Fallout, a game Mum wouldn’t let in the house. “Milla’s not very pretty.”

  Mum had given me a shrewd look, ditched the oven mitts and guided me out to the dining table.

  “I’m going to talk to you about—”

  “NO! PLEASE!” I pinned my hands over my ears. “School covers that stuff!”

  Mum laughed and gently reached out to lower my hands, holding them in hers so I couldn’t escape.

  “This is not that talk, Yousef – although that will come, once you’re mature enough not to behave like a child.” Mum has always known where to apply pressure. “This is a talk about respect.”

  I’d frowned.

  “Whoever this Milla is, she is no worse for not being pretty than you are better for being handsome.”

  I missed the point and she tutted at the way I puffed up at being called handsome.

  “Goodness, where did all your ego come from? It’s not something to be proud of, one way or the other.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  Mum took a moment, staring over my shoulder to where Amir was hitting a tennis ball against the back wall with a cricket bat. I could hear the uneven slaps of success and growls of frustration when he missed.

  “Do not judge people on the things they cannot choose for themself,” Mum said, as much of her attention on Amir as on me. “A person cannot choose pretty. They cannot choose the colour of their skin or the fact that they need glasses.”

  “They could wear contacts.” I was trying to be clever.

  “But they cannot choose that they need help to see.” She looked at me very seriously then. “Judge people on what they have control over. Judge them on the way they treat their friends, or whether they persevere when they can’t do something.” We listened to Amir outside – slap … smack … frustrated growl … slap… “Be careful not to confuse a beautiful face with a beautiful heart.” She’d kissed my head as she stood up. “Not everyone is blessed with both.”

  “Did we settle on a sum?” Matty said after he’d caught me talking to Claire in the corridor.