Jemima Small Versus the Universe

by Tamsin Winter

  I stopped walking. “Miki, you don’t seriously expect me to go on Brainiacs now?”

  “WHAT?” Miki shouted. A few people by the science block looked over.

  “I’m dropping out. It says in my letter they have reserves.”

  “What are you talking about?” I started walking again, but Miki grabbed my sleeve. “Jemima, what is going through your head right now? You can’t drop out.”

  “I can’t do Brainiacs. Think about what everyone’s going to say about me!” I swallowed the enormous lump forming in my throat. “I can’t believe I ever thought it would be okay. I was so stupid. If I go on the show, it would be exactly the same as those comments. But a million times worse.”

  Miki followed me up the stairs and along the history corridor, past the display of posters we’d made last year about the Romans. I’d made a Roman Mythology Family Tree. Mr Nelson had written Exceptional at the bottom in green pen and given me a commendation. At the time I’d felt so pleased. Now, I couldn’t believe I thought stuff like that actually mattered.

  “Jemima!” Miki said. “It’s less than two weeks until the competition! All the revising you’ve done! You can’t miss out on Brainiacs just because of Lottie Fartman! I won’t let you.”

  “It’s too late, Miki. I’ve already decided. I’m not going on national TV so people can call me gross on YouTube for the rest of my life. I’m going to tell Mrs Savage at lunch.” I stopped outside our form room and looked through the window. Lottie was staring at her phone and Caleb was next to her laughing. My stomach flipped over.

  “Jemima, that’s stupid. It’s like me dropping out of Mary Poppins because Lottie’s in it. I mean, I have to hold her hand!” He grinned. “I could catch Weil’s disease!”

  I laughed, but tears were in my eyes. “It’s not the same, Miki. You’ll be amazing in Mary Poppins and everyone will say you’re a brilliant actor and the star of the show. Even if I won the Brainiacs trophy, all people would say is that I’m gross. And that my mum should be ashamed of me.” I wiped a tear rolling down my face. I didn’t even care about the people walking past. “Millions of people watch Brainiacs, Miki. Millions! And it will be on YouTube for ever. I’ll be called Jemima Big for ever.”

  Miki hugged me, then got a pack of tissues out of the front pocket of my rucksack where I always kept them. They were the special Brainiacs ones I’d got in my goody bag that had lightning bolts on the packet and smelled of bananas. He handed one to me and I dabbed my eyes.

  “Jem, I wouldn’t say any of that. I wouldn’t think that stuff. Neither would loads of people.” He looked like he was telling the truth, but he had been acting a lot lately, so I couldn’t be sure. “I’ll be too busy getting my mind blown with all the weird facts you’ll be saying! You’ll be the best person on that show. And anyway, I think you rocked those gaiters.”

  Miki waited outside the toilets while I splashed my face with water. I still had red blotches around my eyes, but he linked my arm on the way into form and, as we sat down, he called Lottie a last weasel’s fart in Japanese. And when the bell rang for the end of form, he waited with me while I showed Mr Nelson Lottie’s video. It’s called having the best friend in the whole entire universe.

  “I see,” Mr Nelson said, peering at my phone. “How long has she been doing this sort of thing to you, Jemima? This bullying?”

  “Oh, it’s not bullying,” I said. “She just thinks it’s funny to…” Then I stopped. Because it reminded me of when I saw the bruises on Harry’s arm. And him dismissing it like it was nothing. Like his arm was nothing. I suddenly had no idea why I was defending Lottie Freeman. I took a deep breath and started again. “Since the start of Year Seven.”

  “She says stuff to Jemima all the time, sir,” Miki said. “She blows her cheeks up like this. And calls her Jemima Big. She showed everyone in our class that article in the Clifton Echo. She calls her names…”

  “Right.” Mr Nelson clicked his mouse a few times. “It sounds like Lottie is behaving quite appallingly.”

  Finally! I thought, Someone in my life is appalled!

  “I’ll escort you to science and have a chat with Lottie. I think it’s safe to say she’ll be in Isolation today, and losing all her lunch breaks this week.”

  “But we’ve got rehearsals at lunchtime, sir,” Miki said. “She’s Mary Poppins.”

  “Oh dear! I suppose Lottie will have to learn that unless she starts behaving in a more Mary-Poppins-like fashion towards Jemima, the only place she’ll be taking on a starring role this term will be Isolation. I’ll make sure she takes the video down immediately, Jemima.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Of course,” he said, “in Roman times they’d pour molten lead down her throat!”

  “That’s a bit harsh, sir,” I said. “You’d better not mention it to Mrs Savage.”

  And Mr Nelson’s laughter echoed around the classroom.

  At lunchtime, I walked with Miki to the drama studio. On the way there a few people had Halloween masks on, even though we’d been told in form time not to dress up.

  “Run, Big, run!” someone wearing a Scream mask shouted.

  “Please don’t say anything,” I said to Miki, so he twirled under my arm and started singing about flying a kite and sending it soaring up through the atmosphere. Probably because he knew I’d have to inform him that it’s scientifically impossible to fly a kite up through the atmosphere, because for a start you’d need about eight million balls of string. I finished explaining when we reached the studio and we both smiled. It was the most I’d spoken all day.

  Miss Nisha said I could come in and watch the rehearsal, but I said maybe tomorrow. I sat on the bench outside the drama block flicking through the screenshots I’d taken of Lottie’s post. It had disappeared from her profile, which meant the comments had gone too. Not completely though. They were still branded onto my memory, probably for ever. I was about to walk to Mrs Savage’s office when I spotted Gina coming towards me.

  “I’ve been looking for you everywhere!” she said. “Mrs Savage has asked me to do some brain-training with you!”

  “Mrs Savage is trying to ruin my life.”

  Gina laughed like she thought I was joking.

  “Brain-training for what?”

  “For Brainiacs, silly! She wants me to teach you some competition strategies to give you the edge! Just between you and me, I think Mrs Savage might have a competitive streak! But, isn’t it fantastic news! What’s wrong?”

  I really did not want to tell Gina. But my mouth opened involuntarily and I blurted it out.

  I watched her study the screenshots on my phone.

  “You want to know what I see when I look at this?” she said eventually. “I see a girl who didn’t want to do the mud challenge. A girl who didn’t think she could do it, so she sat on a tree stump and gave up. But this girl got back on her feet, ran up that hill and crossed the finish line with her head held high. I look at this, and I see a girl who is strong, determined and clever. A girl with a warrior inside her heart. I know that warrior is in there, Jemima, because I’ve seen her for myself. I see a girl who is pretty exceptional, actually. And, you know what else? If your mum watches Brainiacs, I think that’s what she’ll see too.”

  I took back my phone and looked at the screenshots again. Gina told me it was like one of those optical illusions, where people looked at the same picture, but they saw different things. She said maybe my life would always be like that. Some people seeing Jemima Big, some seeing Jemima Small. She said the thing that mattered most was what I saw. My heart thumped, like there was a warrior in there trying to get out.

  “Now,” Gina said. “Are you ready to do some brain-training? Because that Brainiacs trophy isn’t going to win itself.”

  It was exactly a week before I was due to film Brainiacs and I was standing next to Mrs Savage, feeling like every litre of blood in my body had collected in my cheeks. I hoped I wouldn’t pass out because it would be totally
embarrassing.

  “Good morning, Clifton Academy!” Mrs Savage bellowed. “I am very pleased to formally announce that this extremely bright Year Eight student will be representing our school on Brainiacs!” The hall filled with applause. “This time next week, Jemima will be heading to a television studio in London to take part in this very exciting competition! It won’t be on your screens until Boxing Day, but Jemima, I want to say, on behalf of everyone here at Clifton Academy, good luck! And may your brain be with you!”

  Everyone clapped and I heard Brandon’s voice booming out, “GO, SMALL!” as I shook Mrs Savage’s hand. She presented me with a special brain-shaped pin to wear on my blazer and squeezed my shoulder as the photographer pointed his camera at us.

  “We are all so proud of you,” she said as the camera flashed.

  I stood there, in front of the whole school, on wobbly legs, with calves that probably looked too convex, an asymmetrical face, a round tummy, and definitely bright-red cheeks. And I smiled. It was the same smile I’d practised in the mirror all weekend, but this one felt real. I looked out at the mass of green blazers in front of me, most of them smaller than mine. I wondered how many people were seeing Jemima Small. Because I definitely felt like her.

  The rest of the week went by so fast it felt like I was on the Vomit Comet. Mrs Savage let me miss afternoon lessons to brain-train with Gina. I revised in the library every lunchtime; Mr Nelson made his history club help me study and calculate and memorize everything I could. The librarian made a special sign saying Quiet: Brainiac in Training! And she let me have a comfy chair from the office. And the whole time, Lottie went out of her way to be nice to me. She offered to carry my books to the bus, lent me felt tips for my question cards, saved me the best keyboard in music, and actually properly apologized to me in maths. She must have really, really liked being Mary Poppins.

  And every night, before I went to bed, I wished on all 250 billion stars in our galaxy that I wouldn’t look totally stupid on TV. I hoped at least one of them was listening.

  I blinked and it was Sunday, the day before I’d be filming Brainiacs. I stretched and looked up at the dreamcatcher hanging against my window. According to legend, dreams are sent down to you from the universe every night. Good dreams pass through the dreamcatcher, but bad dreams get caught in its web, then disintegrate in the morning sunlight. They just disappear into nothing, like magic.

  I got dressed, tidied up my revision notes from the last few nights and opened my desk drawer to stuff them in. And that’s when I saw it. The Bright Star Cruises brochure that fell out of my rucksack on the camping trip and that I’d taken out of Dad’s hiding place after he’d gone to bed. When I couldn’t find it in the recycling, I knew it would be in the ceramic jar on top of the fridge. He always hid things in exactly the same place. I’d forgotten about it with all the Brainiacs stuff, which didn’t bode well for the memory round.

  I opened the brochure and looked at a picture of people sunbathing on the deck of a gigantic cruise liner. I sat down and typed the website into my phone. The words The luxury cruise ship that treats you like a star popped up. I tapped on the links across the top. Their ships visited almost every country in the world! Why had Dad acted so weird about it? I swiped through photos of polar bears and glaciers, Egyptian temples and camels trekking across the desert, swimming pools and restaurants with giant light bulbs, and hot tubs, and pods of dolphins. It looked amazing! Then I stopped dead.

  I zoomed in on one photo until the face was so big it filled my phone screen. So big it couldn’t be a mistake. Or a lie. So big it was like I was standing there on that cruise ship, in the restaurant illuminated by giant light bulbs, staring into his eyes for real.

  It was my Uncle Alfie.

  The great illusionist, Alfie Diamond. Who broke Luna’s heart irreparably. And emptied all of the money out of her bank account. And stole my grandad’s old magic-show equipment from his garage. Uncle Alfie, who vanished into nowhere.

  Only he didn’t vanish into nowhere, because there he was. On a Bright Star cruise ship. And their brochure had been in Dad’s rucksack.

  I heard footsteps outside my door and Jasper walked in holding Tornado’s tank.

  “I’ll pay you a pound to clean out Tornado’s tank. Okay, two pounds. Hey, what’s up?”

  He put Tornado’s tank on the floor and I handed him my phone. The horrible empty feeling in my heart slowly started spreading its way around my whole body, like an oil spill.

  “That’s Uncle Alfie! You’ve found him?”

  “I found this in Dad’s rucksack when I was camping.” I handed him the brochure. “He works on one of their ships. Only he’s called Alfie Stone now.”

  “But…I don’t understand. I thought no one knew where he was.” Jasper plonked down on my bed and I sat next to him. He zoomed out of the photo and started reading. “‘Alfie Stone, our resident illusionist, performs his dazzling show to an enchanted audience on Pegasus, our scenic Mediterranean cruise liner.’ That’s so weird. You think Dad’s known where he is this whole time? I wonder why he didn’t say.”

  “Maybe he didn’t want to upset Luna?”

  “Yeah,” Jasper said. “Maybe. It’s weird though because he stole all Grandad’s stuff. Does Dad know you’ve got this?”

  I looked at him.

  “Stupid question.” He turned the brochure over. “Hey! There’s a phone number written on here. It must be Uncle Alfie’s!”

  We looked at each other. The exact same thought made its way across the neural networks in our brains.

  I carefully tapped the number into my phone. “We’ll just see if it’s him, then hang up straight away, yeah?”

  Jasper nodded. I took a deep breath, then pressed Call.

  It rang three times, then: “Hello? Hello? Is someone there? Can you hear me? Hello?”

  I froze. Jasper grabbed my phone and pressed End Call. And we sat there for a moment, not speaking, me staring at Jasper, Jasper staring at the carpet. I wasn’t totally sure what had happened, but I felt that warrior beating her drum in my heart.

  Because that wasn’t Uncle Alfie. It was a woman. With a half-French twang in her voice.

  Jasper finally looked at me. His eyes glistened, and I knew he had the exact same feeling in his heart as me. Half black hole. Half shooting star. Then he said it. And it was like getting swept away by the ocean.

  “That sounded like Mum.”

  Dad was drilling in the garage, but I hardly noticed the noise. All I could hear over and over again was the “Hello? Hello?” from my mum. As we got to the bottom of the stairs, Jasper stopped.

  “You sure we should say something?” he said. “We can leave it for a bit. Like after Brainiacs? Or when Dad’s not holding any power tools?”

  But it was too late. Luna had already walked in and read our minds. Or our faces. “What’s happened?” Her hair was wrapped in a huge bun right on the top of her head, like how Nana wore hers. “What’s happened?” She took Jasper’s hand and led us to the sofa. “Tell me.”

  “We’ve found Uncle Alfie,” I said quickly, before I could chicken out.

  Jasper squeezed my hand like I’d done the right thing. It felt nice. But slightly sweaty.

  “I’m sorry, what?” Luna’s eye’s darted from my face to Jasper’s. I had this feeling like I’d opened Pandora’s box and let out something terrible.

  “We think we’ve found Uncle Alfie,” Jasper said.

  Luna got up and opened the front door, as though she psychically knew where Uncle Alfie was and she was going to run all the way there. But she blew out three short breaths and then took a really deep one. Maybe that’s what you do when your heart’s repairing itself. But she looked like she was going to throw up.

  “And Mum,” I said. “We’ve found a number for Mum.”

  “ORION!” Luna shouted. “ORION! It’s an emergency!”

  “Luna?” My hands started to shake and my blood got that icy feeling. Like you’re suddenly awa
re of the planet spinning. And you remember that everything in the universe, even the ground beneath your feet, is unstable, that things are shrinking and expanding and exploding and collapsing in a billion different galaxies all around you. And you can never be certain of any of it.

  Dad stepped inside. His hair was covered in dust and he had a red bandana tied around his face so I could only see his eyes. Which is why I noticed them looking at Luna, not at us. Something telepathic must have passed between their brains. Because Dad pulled his bandana down and ran into the living room with his dusty boots and put his arms around me and Jasper like he’d not done for half of for ever. Not caring he was getting dirt all over the carpet.

  “Hey, it’s all right,” he whispered.

  “Tell them, Rion, please. About Joanie.” Huge tears fell down Luna’s cheeks.

  I blinked and they fell down mine too.

  “I can’t bear lying to them any more.”

  Dad took the Bright Star Cruises brochure out of my hand and stared at it. I wondered for a minute if this was all a big joke. Like Jasper would suddenly spring up with his vortex tube and pull out a row of handkerchiefs tied together saying, IT’S ALL JUST A BIG TRICK! And my heart would go back to normal.

  But Dad said, “Your mum. I do know where she is. I’m sorry.” He wiped his eyes. “She’s living on that cruise ship with Alfie.”

  That afternoon, I was sitting exactly eighty-three metres above sea level. I know because it’s the highest place in Clifton-on-Sea. It’s called Cowrie Point. It’s named after this famous pirate whose ship was wrecked here ages ago. Not many people come up because the steps on the side of the cliff are rickety. And because people say its haunted. There’s this howling noise, but it’s not a ghost. It’s just the sound the wind makes through the gaps in the rocks.

  I slammed the front door really hard when I left the house earlier, after Dad admitted he’d known where Mum was this whole time. I’d usually get in trouble for doing that. But today I didn’t care. You can’t get in trouble if you’re not even speaking to your dad. Anyway, what Dad did was worse than slamming doors or borrowing binoculars or even smashing glass beakers. He smashed our hearts to pieces. And it’s not like they have spare hearts in the science technicians’ cupboard. They do keep dead frogs in a jar though.