Driftwood

by Driftwood (epub)

  Out in the bay sits Seal Island, a tiny chunk of rock, grass and sand, glistening in the water. We used to call it Treasure Island and pretend a gang of cut-throat pirates lived there instead of just seals and gulls and long-necked cormorants.

  I head out across the scrubby old strip of field at the back of Beachcomber Cottage, down to the beach. There’s a rowing boat upside down next to the field wall, an ancient, weathered, grey thing that Jed used to take us out in. We’d go for picnics to Seal Island, and fishing expeditions where we used to try to catch mackerel with cotton line and silver chocolate wrappers as bait. We never caught a thing. The oars lie askew on the grass, abandoned.

  We’ve played on this beach every summer since I can remember, Joey and me, being sailors and smugglers and castaways. We’ve had beach barbecues with Jed and Eva and Mikey, made bonfires from driftwood and toasted marshmallows in the flames. We’ve spent hours swimming here, building sandcastles that get washed away with the tide.

  I’ve been out here hunting for driftwood too – hauling branches up to the cottage, searching through the tideline for anything weird or wonderful. I’ve gathered gulls’ feathers, pebbles, hunks of seaweed and broken glass polished by the waves into smooth, frost-bright jewels. I’ve seen dead jellyfish like fallen stars, razor shells, mussels and shells like tiny pink fingernails. I have found old shoes, plastic bottles, broken toys and once an old wooden-framed sofa that Joey and I dragged up beyond the tideline and used for sunbathing all summer long.

  The beach has a way of shrinking your problems down to size. As I walk out to the sea, the rain begins, a soft drizzle that pelts my cheeks and turns my hair to rat’s tails. I let the churning waves crash over my shoes in a froth of white, while the wind lifts my hair and whips it around my face.

  I am not proud of how I feel. My best friend is in love with my brother and it makes me feel left out, unwanted. Self-pity seeps through my body. It’s an ugly feeling, like barbed wire inside you.

  I lift my head and wipe my eyes, then turn and walk along the edge of the water, as far as the headland. By the time I reach the sliver of land that juts out into the bay, I am shivering with cold. I stand looking out to Seal Island for a while, watching the surf break above the dark, rolling waves. White horses, Eva said once, pointing at the surf, and I’d watched the sea for hours on end hoping to see magical horses rise out of the water.

  I still hope, sometimes, with that little part of me that wants to believe in magic.

  ‘Hey!’

  There’s a shout behind me, and I turn to see Paul picking his way along the tideline, stopping to pick up the occasional shell. I wave, pulling the hood of my coat a little tighter against the rain, tucking the rat’s tails back out of sight. My face is wet, but with rain, not tears, and if my eyes are red it could easily be the salt spray that’s made them that way. I walk along the tideline towards him.

  ‘Hey,’ I greet him. He’s grinning, the toffee curls plastered flat against his head, green eyes wide.

  ‘When did you sneak off?’ he asks me. ‘I didn’t notice.’

  ‘No,’ I agree. ‘Nobody did.’

  ‘You’re wrong – someone noticed. Someone followed.’

  I look around, but we’re alone on the beach. Paul sticks a hand inside his coat and pulls out a damp scrap of tortoiseshell fur.

  ‘Krusty!’ I squeal. ‘Paul, she shouldn’t be this far from the cottage! It’s too wet, too cold. She’s too young!’

  ‘Don’t blame me,’ Paul shrugs. ‘She didn’t ask permission, just dragged herself out of Jed’s new cat flap. I heard the door swing shut, and I couldn’t see her, so I grabbed my coat and went outside. I looked everywhere – found her right down by the edge of the sand. She’d tracked you all the way.’

  ‘She… what?’

  ‘She followed you, Hannah,’ Paul repeats. ‘Some kitten, yeah?’

  ‘Oh!’ I reach out for Krusty and she clambers into my arms and up on to my shoulders. My hood falls back, and she settles herself round my neck, her favourite position. I can feel her purring like a small lawnmower, burrowing under my hair, her fur like silk.

  There’s a warm feeling inside me, and the barbed-wire jags don’t hurt as much any more. We trail back up across the sand, stopping beside a tumbledown stretch of old sea wall. The sand forms a little hollow there, protected on both sides by scrawny tufts of marram grass and gorse.

  ‘Why did you take off?’ Paul asks.

  I shrug, looking back at the water, my eyes fixed on the horizon. ‘Kind of felt out of place,’ I tell him. ‘My brother, my best mate – it feels a bit awkward, somehow. I don’t like it.’

  ‘Yeah, tough one.’

  Paul sits down in the sandy hollow, and I huddle down to join him. It’s sheltered there, out of the wind and the rain. We lean our backs against the old sea wall and watch Krusty leaping about in the sand, stalking an old crisp packet that’s fluttering through the marram grass.

  ‘They don’t mean to hurt you,’ Paul says. ‘They’re just so wrapped up in each other.’

  ‘I know,’ I say helplessly. ‘It’s stupid to feel this way. I just keep thinking – well, why them? Of all the girls in the world, Kit has to pick my best friend. I just wish…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, that things could go back to the way they were before, when all four of us were friends. It’s like, since they’ve got together, everything is messed up.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ Paul sighs.

  ‘You never get upset,’ I say. ‘It must be hard for you – I mean, I’ve seen how Kit treats you now. I know they’ve all dropped you, Fergus and Murphy and Tom, but you don’t let it get to you. I wish I could be like that.’

  Paul stares into the distance, silent. He wipes his eyes a couple of times with his coat sleeve, but his lips are set hard.

  ‘Even when you feel like dirt,’ he says at last, ‘you can’t let them see it. You have to put on a brave face. You can’t let them win.’

  I stare at Paul. ‘He did hurt you, didn’t he?’ I exclaim. ‘Kit. The loser.’

  ‘No,’ Paul argues. ‘He didn’t mean anything. He’s cool, your brother.’

  ‘I used to think that. Not any more.’ I look out at Seal Island and the ocean beyond, and the wind whips my hair across my face and hides the tears that threaten to mess up my don’t-care expression.

  ‘Hey you’ve got to get over this,’ Paul tells me. ‘Life’s too short to be gloomy and sad. You’ve got to dump the bad feelings, lose them.’

  ‘Yeah, but how?’ I ask, watching Krusty tearing chunks out of a strip of seaweed.

  ‘When I feel bad, I come down here and think,’ Paul says. ‘There’s a kind of power about the sea, a sort of magic.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ I say scornfully, but I’m listening. Paul gets up, picking up a couple of small rocks.

  ‘You could bury your problems under the sand,’ he suggests, ‘or write a wish at the water’s edge and let the tide take it away. You could write a message in a bottle…’

  ‘Have you ever done that?’ I ask.

  ‘Maybe,’ he says. ‘When Mum left, I used to think that if I could just get a message to her, she’d come back, sort everything out.’

  ‘D’you still think that?’

  ‘Don’t know,’ Paul considers. ‘It was a few years back, and I didn’t have a beach to work with – I threw the bottle into the River Clyde. It has to be worth a try, though.’

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘Anyway’ he says, brightening up, ‘this kind of beach magic definitely works. You think about your problems, then find a rock or a stone to stand for each one. Choose it carefully – picking the right one is important. As you pick it up, your problem passes over into the stone, and then… well, you just chuck that stone as far out to sea as you possibly can. The sea will take your problems far, far away.’

  ‘You reckon?’ I laugh.

  ‘Yeah, I reckon!’ Paul says, and he hurls his stones out across the rolli
ng sea. ‘Sorted!’

  I stand up and look around, then pick up two smooth, flat stones that fit in the palm of my hand. I shut my eyes tight and try to visualize all my Kit-problems seeping into one, all my Joey-problems flowing into the other. Then I walk down to the water’s edge, Krusty leaping at my heels, and skim the stones out over the water. Joey’s stone skips twice before it falls under the waves, Kit’s three times, which isn’t bad on the open sea on a blustery day like this. I feel lighter, better. Perhaps I just have a strong imagination.

  ‘Good skimming,’ Paul says. ‘I’m rubbish at that.’

  ‘It’s all in the arm movement,’ I tell him, and we skim stones for twenty minutes or so, until Paul has got the technique sorted. I scoop up Krusty, the fearless, salty sea cat, and put her in the hood of my jacket, and we walk back up to Beachcomber Cottage, laughing.

  CHAPTER 11

  First thing on Monday morning, I am lounging aimlessly against the wall near the school kitchens, while Joey and Kit loiter nearby, giggling and whispering and holding hands. I am trying to develop a strong stomach, so I blank them out. It’s too early in the morning for this amount of mushy stuff.

  I am adding a few finishing touches to my map of Roman Britain when I see Miss Quinn coming up from the car park with armfuls of African fabric, a Swiss cheese plant and a bundle of hazel twigs complete with catkins. The hazel twigs are trailing behind as she wrestles the load into submission.

  ‘Need a hand, Miss?’ I ask.

  ‘Oh, Hannah, that would be wonderful,’ she beams. ‘I think maybe I needed to make two journeys.’

  I rescue the hazel twigs and the Swiss cheese plant, following her across the courtyard and up the stairs to the art room.

  ‘It’s my free period, and I want to change a few of my displays,’ Miss Quinn explains, setting the fabric down on the table tops. ‘Get a bit of colour into the classroom. Thank you, Hannah!’

  ‘No problem, Miss,’ I grin, untangling myself from the Swiss cheese plant, which is trying to ruffle my hair with its fat, green fingers. ‘See you later.’

  The bell is ringing, but I push past the crowd of sleepy Monday-morning faces and nip into the girls’ loos to fix my hair. I pick catkins from behind my ears and a wisp of hazel twig from my blazer. I brush my hair out and force my lips into a reluctant smile.

  I’ve missed registration and I’m late for history, but I don’t care enough to hurry. By the time I head out from the loos, the corridors are quiet.

  As I approach the stairs, a small shower of coloured felt pens falls down the centre of the stairwell. A scattering of pencils and biros follows, and then a hail of squashed sandwiches, on granary bread. One catches me on the shoulder, and I pick it off gingerly. Cheese and pickle.

  ‘Hey!’ I shout up the stairs. ‘Watch what you’re doing!’

  There’s no reply but half a dozen exercise books flutter down next, landing in a heap on the floor. I crane my neck to look up to the floors above, then duck out of the way as a huge chemistry textbook crashes down.

  Someone is being hassled, their bag emptied out and flung down several flights of stairs. This is not good. I would like to turn away and ignore the sudden downpour, but my history class is in Room 31, at the top of this staircase.

  I hesitate, then walk up the stairs, slowly, warily. On the second-floor landing, there’s a knot of S2 boys. Paul stands in the corner, his face pale, unsmiling. Kenny Murphy, Fergus Brown and Tom Greenway stand on the stairs, laughing. Kenny’s holding a glass bottle of Cherryade over the stairwell, while Tom dangles Paul’s school bag, taunting.

  These are Kit’s friends, and they were Paul’s friends too until a few weeks ago. Now they look anything but friendly.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I demand.

  ‘It’s OK, Hannah,’ Paul sighs. ‘Just Kenny’s idea of a joke.’

  ‘Yeah, it’s a real laugh,’ I snap. ‘Bunch of losers.’

  ‘This is private, Hannah,’ Kenny Murphy says. ‘Run along to class, like a good little girl.’

  I realize how much I dislike Kenny Murphy. His face is twisted into a tight, mean snarl of a smile.

  ‘Don’t tell me what to do,’ I mutter, sounding braver than I feel. ‘And leave Paul alone. He’s my friend.’

  ‘Oooh!’ Fergus says in a mock-squeal. ‘He’s your friend, is he? Cute!’

  ‘If you want your stuff, Muppet-boy, you just have to come and get it,’ Kenny Murphy says. He waves the bottle of Cherryade about tauntingly.

  ‘I don’t want to fight,’ Paul says coolly.

  ‘No, girls don’t fight, do they?’ Kenny laughs. ‘Oops! Dropped it…’

  The bottle of Cherryade plummets down the stairwell and smashes into pieces at the bottom. A pool of red, sticky liquid seeps out over the fallen books and pencils, like someone’s been shot.

  Tom drops the dangling school bag after the rest, laughing.

  ‘Nice talking to you, Hannah,’ Kenny Murphy snaps. ‘I’d choose my friends more carefully, though, if I were you. Your little boyfriend here… well, you can see what a loser he is.’

  Kenny leans forward and flicks Paul’s tie so that it slaps him in the face. Paul doesn’t even flinch, just gazes out of the window as though he’s a million miles away.

  ‘See you around, Muppet,’ Kenny says, then turns away and saunters down the stairs, Tom and Fergus on his heels.

  Paul takes a deep breath in. He pushes the hair back from his face with a shaky hand.

  ‘Paul?’

  ‘Don’t, Hannah,’ he says. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘But you’ll have to talk about it!’ I exclaim. ‘You’ll have to tell Jed and Eva, and the teachers. This is bullying, Paul. Look what they did to your stuff!’

  ‘It’s OK,’ Paul shrugs. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  I’m speechless.

  ‘It does matter!’ I protest. ‘Paul, you can’t ignore this!’

  ‘Watch me,’ he says. ‘And if I can, you can. Stay out of this, Hannah. Please.’

  He shoves past me, going down the stairs. I look down the stairwell and see him kneeling in the mess of glass and pop and crumpled books, mopping at things with a tissue and stuffing them back into his bag. I turn and climb the stairs to Room 31.

  CHAPTER 12

  You cannot let lads like Murphy, Tom and Fergus shove you around and call you names and trash your school stuff. If Paul ignores it, they’ll know they can get away with it – he may as well scrawl victim on his forehead in thick black marker pen.

  I spend all day worrying about Paul, and although I hang out in the art room all lunchtime, waiting for him, he doesn’t show. Later, on the bus ride home, he tells me he walked down to the harbour to watch the fishing boats unload.

  ‘I was worried,’ I tell him. ‘Y’know, after this morning…’

  ‘Don’t want to talk about it,’ he says. ‘It never happened.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘But nothing,’ Paul says gently ‘I can handle this. Trust me. Stay out of it, and don’t even think about telling Jed and Eva. Or the teachers. Promise?’

  I don’t want to promise. It feels like promising to stab your best mate in the back with a rusty compass point. Staying silent on this is a big mistake, I just know it.

  ‘Hannah?’ Paul asks. ‘I’m asking you not to tell Jed and Eva, or the teachers. It’ll just make everything a million times worse, OK? They’ll tell my social workers, and then everything’ll go pear-shaped. I like it here, Hannah. I want to stay.’

  ‘I want you to stay as well,’ I say.

  ‘So promise.’

  ‘I promise.’

  ‘OK,’ Paul grins, unwrapping a chocolate bar and handing me a square. ‘It’s sorted.’

  I put the chocolate in my mouth, but it doesn’t quite take away the bad taste that’s there.

  Later on, after tea, I knock at Kit’s door as he’s getting ready to go out. He’s moulding his hair into pointy spikes with some kind of red hair gel tha
t stains his fingers. He looks like he’s just butchered a small animal and wiped the gore all over his head. Joey will be impressed.

  ‘What d’you want?’ he says, which is polite, for Kit.

  ‘Nothing much,’ I say.

  ‘Push off then, I’m busy.’

  I wander into the room and sit down on the midden that is Kit’s bed. Paul made me promise not to tell Jed and Eva, or the teachers. He didn’t mention Kit.

  ‘Y’know Paul?’ I begin.

  ‘That muppet,’ Kit scoffs. ‘What’s he done now?’

  ‘It’s not what Paul’s done, it’s what your so-called mates have done!’ I explode. ‘They’re giving him loads of hassle at school. Picking on him, messing up his stuff and calling him names.’

  Kit leans against the chest of drawers, wiping his hands on an old T-shirt.

  ‘So he went running to you,’ he says. ‘Typical.’

  ‘He did not,’ I argue. ‘He told me to stay out of it. But I can’t, Kit. Murphy and Tom and Fergus really hate Paul Slater. I don’t know why. He never did them any harm – I mean, they were all friends once, weren’t they?’

  Kit frowns. ‘Not really’ he says. ‘Paul’s a weirdo, and they were pretty quick to catch on to that. Face it, Hannah, he doesn’t even try’

  ‘He does!’

  Kit shrugs, tugging at his flapping jeans so that exactly four centimetres of boxer shorts is visible above the belt. He looks like his jeans could fall down at any minute, but he’s happy.

  ‘Paul doesn’t even mix much with the Donovans,’ Kit argues. ‘Heads off early to the pool most days to swim, hangs out at the beach all on his own, mopes around with that stupid sketchbook –’

  ‘Kit, stop it!’ I snap. ‘You were there when Paul told us about his mum. You can’t expect him to be a bundle of laughs, can you? What d’you think it feels like, being dragged around the countryside from one foster-family or children’s home to another? What d’you think it feels like, knowing your mum left you? Not knowing if you’ll ever see her again?’