by Jean Ure
I don’t think even then I would have asked, but then Dee started laying into me.
“How could you? How could you do such a thing? How could you even think of it? Accusing him like that!”
And then it just burst out of me. “But why did he take me on the wrong road?”
“Would you want to drive past the spot where the two people you loved most in the whole world had been killed?” shouted Dee.
Dee never shouts. Never. I found that I was trembling.
“If only he’d turned round …” The words came out in an apologetic whisper. “If only he’d turned round when I asked him!”
“How could he turn round? How can you turn round when you’re going down Gravelpit Hill? It’s crazy. He would have turned round at the roundabout, if you’d just given him a chance!”
Suddenly, I was back on that dreadful night. I was falling out of the car, stumbling across the road. Paul’s voice was calling after me: “Joanne! I’d have taken you! I was going to go round the roundabout!”
It was true: you can’t turn on Gravelpit Hill. At the time I had been in too much of a panic to think straight. I realised now that Paul would have taken me back into town, if I’d just waited.
I told Mum about it when I got home. I said that I had upset Dee, I had upset Paul, and Dee was never going to forgive me. Mum tried her best to comfort me. She kept saying things like “You weren’t to know” and “It was just unfortunate.” But I felt that I had lost Dee for ever.
“She’ll never be friends with me again!”
“Give her time,” said Mum. “I’m sure she will.”
Mum was right, of course; she always is. The very next day, Dee slipped her arm through mine and said, “Truce?”
We got together that weekend, the three of us, and started unravelling, tugging at all the threads. Dee said that Paul blamed himself, for not being brave enough to take me home on the Tanfield Road or trying to explain why he was going the long way round. Then I said that I blamed myself, for “misusing my gift”.
“Mum’s always warning me not to play around with things I can’t properly control.”
“Yes, but that was our fault,” said Dee. “We tricked you.”
“Actually, it was my idea,” said Chloe.
“But I went along with it,” said Dee.
“So did I,” I said.
“You didn’t know,” said Dee.
“But I shouldn’t have been playing The Game anyway!”
“Well …” Dee shrugged. “We shouldn’t have encouraged you.”
“And I shouldn’t have talked to Ellie.” Chloe sat back on her heels and looked at us, challengingly. It was like she was saying, There! I’ve admitted it.
I wasn’t about to contradict her. “But if I hadn’t been saving up for a pair of stupid glitter boots, I’d have got a cab back like I was supposed to, and Paul wouldn’t ever have offered me a lift in the first place.”
“Glitter boots?” said Chloe. “Is that what you were saving for?”
Somewhat shamefaced, I nodded. “I wanted to impress Danny.”
“Oh! Well.” Chloe bounced back upright. “That’s understandable!”
“Absolutely,” said Dee.
“But they were hideous!” I wailed.
“Yes, they were,” said Chloe.
“So why did you want them?” said Dee. “If you thought they were so hideous?”
“’cos at the time I thought they were funky.”
“Funky?” Chloe crinkled her nose. “You’ve got to be joking! You know who had a pair, don’t you? Mel.”
“Yes, and you know who Danny spent all evening talking to?” I said.
“MEL!” We all chorused it together.
“Boys are so rubbish,” said Chloe.
We were back at our usual girly chitchat – that is what my dad calls it. Situation normal: we were friends again!
But somehow or other, and I am not really sure why, things were never quite the same as they had been. We laughed and joked and gossiped, we were still a threesome; but over the coming months, almost without our realising it, we slowly began to drift apart. I guess it might have happened anyway, as we moved up the school. We’re Year 10, now, and we’re all in different classes.
Looking back on those early days, I can see that we didn’t really have all that much in common. Dee’s into science in a big way, I’m more into languages.
Chloe’s not really into anything, except boys. Her period of thinking they were rubbish was quite short-lived. She’s as scatty as ever! She mainly hangs out with Mel, and they go boy hunting together.
Dee and I are still friends; just not as close as we were before. My best friend at the moment is this really sweet girl called Grace, who comes from Hong Kong and only joined the school last term. She has inspired me with the desire to travel! That is why I am working really hard at my languages.
As for Dee, she goes round with a group of fellow boffins. All very earnest and totally brilliant. You know the sort of thing. They claim to like opera and play bridge. Well, some of them do. They tend to look down on the rest of us; to them, we are just riff raff. But Dee and I respect each other. I think that respect is important. I have even learnt to respect my gift. I certainly don’t mess with it any more. To be honest, I try not to even think about it. Grace, for instance, has no idea that I have a gift. That’s the way I want to keep it! Maybe one day I’ll be like Mum and put it to some sort of use, but for the moment I’m just trying to concentrate on being a normal, ordinary person the same as everyone else. Life’s a whole lot less complicated that way. I don’t feel ready to cope with school, and boys, and growing up, and the clairvoyant thing. Treating it like I did, like some kind of party game, I caused so much unhappiness to the one person who certainly didn’t deserve it. I mean Paul, of course.
I bumped into Paul a few weeks ago. I was in the shopping mall and he was coming out of one of the stores. My instinct was to turn and run. I mean, I really thought that I would be the last person on earth he would want to see. But there were people all round me, and I left it too late. We were face to face before I had a chance to take avoiding action. My only hope was that he wouldn’t recognise me, but he did. And he stopped. And he smiled.
“Joanne,” he said. “How are you?”
I said, “I’m f-fine. H-how are you?”
“I’m well,” he said.
And he really seemed it. He really seemed happy and relaxed. I was so grateful to him for talking to me! Dee had told me ages ago, when I stammered out my apologies, that according to Paul there was “nothing to apologise for”. But I never, ever thought that he would stop and speak to me. I have been walking on air ever since! I believe now that he is a very special sort of person, and I am just so thankful that I didn’t destroy him – which I so easily could have done.
When I spoke about this to Mum, she said, “Maybe in future you’ll listen to me!” She said it sort of half joking, but I wasn’t joking when I promised her that I would.
“Honestly, Mum! I mean it.”
“Until next time,” said Mum.
She’s wrong. For once she is definitely wrong. There isn’t going to be any next time. No way!
Also by Jean Ure
Lemonade Sky
Love and Kisses
Fortune Cookie
Star Crazy Me!
Over the Moon
Boys Beware
Sugar and Spice
Is Anybody There?
Secret Meeting
Passion Flower
Shrinking Violet
Boys on the Brain
Skinny Melon and Me
Becky Bananas, This is Your Life!
Fruit and Nutcase
The Secret Life of Sally Tomato
Family Fan Club
Ice Lolly
Special three-in-one editions
The Tutti-Frutti Collection
The Flower Power Collection
The Friends Forever Collection
And for younger readers
Dazzling Danny
Daisy May
Monster in the Mirror
Copyright
HarperCollins Children’s Books
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers,
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Is Anybody There? first published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2004
Text © Jean Ure 2004
Illustrations © Karen Donnelly 2004
Cover illustrations by Nicola Slater
The author and illustrator assert the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780007161362
Ebook Edition © JUNE 2013 ISBN: 9780007439959
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