‘Where are you staying?’ Mum asked.
Dad turned his coffee cup round and around. ‘In the TravelStop near the station.’ It was one of those cheap, very basic hotels. He’d been there since last night. Since about an hour after Zoe and I had done our ritual, in fact. What I couldn’t understand was why I felt so guilty about that. After all, this was what was supposed to happen. It had to go wrong with Ellie first, in order for Dad to come back to Mum. But Dad looked so tired and sad.
‘Could he stay here?’ I asked. I gave Mum a cheesy smile.
Mum hesitated, while Dad shook his head and tried to make out he was fine.
‘You’d have to kip on the sofa,’ she said. ‘I don’t think it’s the most comfortable place to sleep.’
‘I don’t want to put you to any trouble,’ Dad said, but I could tell by his eyes that he was keen on the idea.
‘You won’t,’ Mum said. She folded her arms. ‘You get your own food and you do your own washing. That’s if you’re here that long. She – Ellie – might relent soon.’
Dad hung his head a little. ‘Thanks. I don’t deserve you.’
‘That’s true,’ I said and cuffed him across the back of the head. Then I ran out into the back yard to text Zoe: U ll never guess. Dad is here. Evil E threw him out. Last nite!!!
She pinged back straight away. Now u believe me?
I sat up until midnight just chatting with Dad. It made me realise something: I didn’t know everything about him, as I’d thought I did. With Mum and Dad, I’d only seen them in 2-D, in terms of what they did for me, when actually they have all this other stuff going on. My dad was interested in things I didn’t know about. I’d never have guessed that he’d read some books I like. I had to admit that it was Ellie who’d got him into some of them, though. Also, he knew more than I thought about goth rock bands. I even got him to sing ‘Bela Lugosi’s Dead’ and I totally got why it’d made Mum laugh so much.
The next day, Zoe caught up with me at the edge of The Cut as usual, and when she saw me she ran up and threw her arms around me. We gave each other a tight hug. ‘That’s amazing, amazing, amazing,’ she said, with a little high note in her voice. It was so unlike Zoe to get excited like this, that I couldn’t help laughing. ‘Tell me he’s still with you?’ she added.
I nodded. ‘Yes. He and Ellie have fallen out big time. He’s sleeping on the sofa and he hasn’t had a row with Mum yet.’ I held up my crossed fingers.
Kerry was lurking behind us. ‘What’s happened?’ she asked.
Zoe and I looked at each other.
‘Tell me,’ Kerry said, in that grating whine.
Zoe gave me a meaningful glare. I knew I could only tell Kerry half of the story. I explained that my Dad was staying with us because he’d fallen out with his girlfriend. And that I was hoping he’d get back with my mum.
‘Oh. Right.’ Kerry was nowhere near as excited for me as she should be, I thought. Zoe knew, though, just how big a deal it all was. Zoe understood me.
That wasn’t all. Zoe followed Tom’s band, Gothic Winter, online and she linked me to a news item on their website. Their van had been in a minor crash – they’d escaped with cuts and bruises but the van was a write-off and it meant they were going to be off the road for a few weeks. There was a picture of Tom with a bandage across his nose. ‘An improvement, if you ask me,’ I said, making Zoe giggle.
‘We did it again, though,’ she whispered. ‘I asked for payback, because of what he did to me. And look what happened.’
‘It could be coincidence again,’ I pointed out. ‘Mum had the radio news on this morning and there’ve been a few accidents, because of all the rain.’
‘There’ve been a lot of coincidences since we started doing magic,’ Zoe said. It was hard to argue with that.
We had exams at school, because it was almost July and the end of the term. But I couldn’t get my head into the zone. I had my dad back at home like I’d wanted and I was about to go out with Luke. On an actual date. Zoe made her disgust about this quite plain. It really didn’t help that Kerry wouldn’t shut up about it and kept making really embarrassing jokes.
‘It’s like having a five-year-old kid sister or something,’ I grumbled to Zoe in between classrooms. ‘Except one that’s a good head taller than me.’
Zoe yawned. ‘Don’t expect any sympathy from me,’ she said. ‘This is what you get for going out with the prize jerk’s brother.’
Zoe’s disapproval took some of the shine off my romantic night out. The other issue was whether I should come clean to Mum and Dad about where I was going. The funny thing was, I realised, if it had just been Mum, I’d probably have told her the truth, but Dad being there complicated things just a bit. He’d ask more questions about it than Mum, I knew. And he’d insist on dropping me off and picking me up, and he’d arrive too early, and he’d probably be grumpy with Luke and treat him like he was some kind of crime suspect. It would all just be far too embarrassing.
So I said I was going out with some made-up friend for a birthday meal. I dug out the least gothy clothes I could find, which was a bit of a struggle these days and I ran for the bus with my stomach feeling like a pot of hot, bubbling liquid.
Luke met me in town and we went to a pizza place – a budget one that was part of a chain. He had a 2-for-1 voucher for it and asked if I minded if we used it.
‘Course not. Why would I?’ I smiled at him.
‘Some girls would be ashamed,’ he said. ‘But I spend most of my money on my travel to college and I give some to my step-mum. I’m not exactly a millionaire.’
I told him I didn’t mind a bit. After a little while, I almost forgot to be nervous. Luke was easy to chat to and he made me laugh. He was studying at the sixth form college in town and after his A-levels he was hoping to go to the local university.
‘Don’t you want to go away?’ I asked. It was Zoe’s main ambition, to get into a university as far away from home as possible. She hoped for London, but she’d also already checked out other arts courses, all at the other end of the country. We’d talked about going to the same university if we could.
Luke shook his head. ‘Not really. Anyway, Kerry needs me.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t know how to say it, really. She just needs taking care of, sometimes, that’s all.’
He’d been looking after his little sister ever since they were much younger, he explained. If anyone picked on her, he tried to sort them out. ‘I think maybe she has a – a – syndrome or something. I told my step-mum she should get tested, for maybe dyspraxia, or –’
‘What’s that?’
‘It kind of means you can be a bit clumsy, to put it in its simplest terms. But it’s not your fault. Or else, I said, maybe it’s Asperger’s Syndrome. That’s a kind of autism.’
‘Oh, yeah. I have heard of that one. I think a boy in my last school had it. Come to think of it, he was really smart at lessons too, but...’ I tried to find a tactful way of saying that he didn’t have too many friends.
‘Anyway, my stepmum wouldn’t have it. She went mad just at the suggestion. So, I read up about it when I can and I try to think of ways to make things easier for Kerry. I couldn’t just go off and leave her though. She’s too... she’s such an easy target.’It all made me sort of wish I had a big brother, even though I’d never wanted one before. It must be great to have someone looking out for you like that. But would a big brother be able to drive away the bad dreams I had almost every night? Maybe not.
It also made me a bit more shame-faced about the way we sometimes treated Kerry. Most of the time, she acted like she didn’t notice that she got on our nerves. If one of us – usually Zoe – had a go at her or laughed at her, she didn’t fight back. She hardly ever complained about the times we deliberately left her behind, or that we did as much as we could without her, espec
ially out of school. But maybe she noticed more than we thought. Maybe she confided it to Luke. I felt like someone was wringing my insides, twisting my gut.
In the end, I said: ‘Look, Zoe is not mad on Kerry, you know. So sometimes we don’t ask her along to things. It’s just –’
‘I know,’ Luke said. ‘Kerry doesn’t always realise what’s going on, but I do. And yeah, she can be hard work. But she can’t help it, most of the time. And you know what? At least she’s got a friend in you. That makes me feel better.’
‘Right.’ I hoped in the low light of the restaurant he couldn’t see me blush. I cast around for a way of changing the subject and asked him what bands he liked.
After that, don’t ask me where the next couple of hours disappeared to. We talked about bands: he wasn’t keen on the goth scene, but I reckoned I could get into some of the music he liked. We talked about books and films and TV. I could’ve chatted to him all night and it wouldn’t have felt too long. I couldn’t believe it when it was time to get the last bus home.
Luke walked me to the end of my street. ‘It’s been really nice,’ I said, hoping I didn’t sound too childish.
‘Can we do it again, then?’ Luke asked. I nodded. He leaned down and kissed me lightly on the lips. I tried to kiss him back and our teeth bumped awkwardly. And then something happened and it was like our lips sort of melted together and the kissing felt as natural as anything.
16
Demolition
The almost never-ending rain in the first weeks of July meant that school trips, sports days and an end-of-term barbeque all got cancelled. We dragged listlessly into the summer holidays. Neither Zoe nor I were going away anywhere during the break, as neither of our families had any spare money and soon we were bored out of our heads. Dad went off to London on some training course and to be honest, I was quite pleased to see him go. I’d forgotten how annoying it was to have him follow me and Mum round the house switching off lights and things to save on the bills. And he was the reason I still hadn’t told Mum I was going out with Luke, because I knew he’d be difficult about it.
Zoe was doing rituals every other day and I still kept having bad dreams. Almost every night, I woke up in tears, imagining a bed full of graveyard earth, or that I was trapped in a coffin and couldn’t breathe. One time I was sure I was covered in blood and I ran out to the bathroom to find it was only sweat.
It was worse than bad dreams, though. Sometimes, it was more like a kind of hallucination. I knew I wasn’t asleep, but I could feel that soil and mud all around me as I lay down. I swear I could feel cold, waxy fingers pressing my eyes closed, clamping my mouth in case I screamed. I felt stale breath on my face and insects crawling through my hair. But if I leapt up and slammed the light on, nothing was there and I would find myself glaring around an empty room, panting, my heart pummelling my ribs.
Mum tried to get me to go to the doctor about not sleeping properly, but I didn’t want to. I could hardly tell the GP that I had a bedroom stuffed with tools for witchcraft. He’d surely have me locked away or something.
After a couple of weeks of dull summer holidays, Zoe’s mood was sour. She hated me spending any time with Luke and I couldn’t cope with all her nasty jokes and comments, so I kept the dates to a minimum. Plus, I felt guilty about the way she’d been treated by Tom, so it felt wrong to say anything about boyfriends at all.
Soon the rituals happened every day. Zoe seemed to feel better after them. The cuts on our fingers where we’d nicked them, to drop blood on the skull as an offering to the spirits, were getting scabby and sore.
One afternoon, when the rain beat on the windows and it was so dark and cold I had my dressing gown on over my clothes, Zoe decided we should cut our arms instead, a little bit, and I was insisting on putting a plaster on mine because I didn’t want Mum asking questions.
Just then there was a ring at the doorbell and we both jumped and giggled. ‘Who’s that?’ I groaned, hoping Mum hadn’t sent some friend round to check on us while she was out.
Zoe went into Mum’s room, which was at the front of the house, and leaned out the window. She winced. ‘Who do you think?’ she said and I realised Kerry had spotted her, because she gave a half-wave and turned back to me, rolling her eyes upwards. We should have guessed it would be Kerry – if we had, we could’ve hidden in my room and not answered the door.
‘So much for bringing us something good,’ I said to Zoe, as we headed down the stairs. ‘The spirits sent us Kerry.’‘Oh, dear goddess, what did we do wrong?’ Zoe smirked and we shrugged at each other and opened the door.
There she was on the doorstop, looking like she’d found all her clothes in a skip as usual and grinning from ear to ear. ‘What you up to?’ Kerry asked. She wrinkled her nose. ‘What’s that smell?’
‘Nothing,’ I said, hoping that would answer both her questions.
‘Good!’ said Kerry, bouncing up and down on her toes. ‘Guess what? I’ve just seen Jodie and Dave. They’re having a party tonight at their flat. They said we can come.’
Zoe and I gave each other a look. Now this was more like it.
‘What time?’ Zoe asked.
‘They said from six, but,’ Kerry glanced around and giggled, ‘it’s going to go on all night. He said it was a – oh, no, I’ve forgotten –a demonstration party. Or something like that. Can’t remember. Dave said bring a bottle, but Jodie said we couldn’t be expected to buy drink, so she said bring crisps or something.’ She held up a rustling carrier bag.
Zoe frowned. ‘I’ve got no money.’
Kerry bounced up and down again. ‘No problem,’ she said. ‘I’ve got loads in here. I had some cash left from the last time my aunty Eileen was here. My mum doesn’t exactly know, though.’ She gave us a goofy smile. This was Kerry’s idea of being really, really bad.
I glanced at my watch. It was almost four o’clock. ‘Right, let’s go and start getting ready. We’ll tell our mums we’re going to Emma Wood’s house.’
Kerry started to follow us up the stairs. ‘Who’s Emma Wood?’
‘She’s a girl at school and she lives on the new housing estate.’
‘I don’t know her,’ Kerry said, as we went into my room.
‘That’s ’cause she doesn’t exist, you dumbo,’ said Zoe. ‘Emma Wood is someone we made up ages ago. That’s where we always say we’re going, when we don’t want to say where we’re really going. Get it?’
‘Ohhh.’ Kerry flung herself down on my bed. ‘What is that smell?’
‘We said, nothing,’ said Zoe, shaking her head at Kerry.
‘It’s not – marijuana, is it?’ Kerry looked at us with an open mouth. We’d had drugs education at school before the holidays. Zoe and I collapsed with laughter.
‘It’s an incense stick, Kerry,’ I said. ‘What are you like?’
I knew Zoe was thinking the same as me, that this would be so much better if we didn’t have Kerry tagging along with us. But hey – after two dead weeks of nothing, this was an adult party at a mate’s flat. Cool, cool, cool.
Of course we couldn’t find anything to wear and soon we had all the contents of my drawers and wardrobe scattered all over the bed. Zoe painted Kerry’s nails and put some mascara on her, although she made us promise we’d take it all off before she went home. Zoe and I were about the same size and so eventually we found some T-shirts that would just about do.
‘What happened to your back?’ Kerry blurted out, as Zoe was changing her top. There were a few purple bruises spoiling her smooth skin. Zoe pretended she hadn’t heard.
‘Hey, Zoe. I said, what happened to your back? It’s all bruised,’ Kerry persisted, even though I gave her a glare that was meant to say ‘shut up.’
‘Nothing,’ Zoe muttered.
‘But it’s all horrible marks,’ Kerry chirped on like a silly bird. ‘Have you had a fall?’
‘That’ll be it,’ Zoe said.
I tried to catch Kerry’s eye and gave a tiny shake of my head. How had she not worked out by now that this was something Zoe never, ever talked about? Fortunately, Kerry got distracted by a poster on my wall and started rabbiting on about that. She really was like a baby sometimes. I tried to remember what Luke said – she couldn’t really help it – but it was hard.
Then we did each other’s make up. Zoe was great at that. She did brilliant eye-liner, bright purple for her, dark green for me, flicked out at the corners of our eyes, and the sort of shiny eye colours that we would buy in moments of madness but never usually got the chance to wear.
When my mum came home from work, we told her we were all going for a pizza with Emma Wood. She even gave me some money, which made me feel a bit guilty but I took it anyway. Zoe phoned her mum from our house. Then we set off.
The rain had stopped. The air was thick and warm and full of promises. Some trees or bushes were giving off a strong, heady scent. My insides were tingling, as if something big was about to happen. I knew without asking that Zoe was feeling the same. We kept catching each other’s eyes and grinning. The summer holidays were long and eventless, but this might make up for it. It would give us something to talk about later, back at school, when the other girls were ear-wigging.
‘I’m a bit scared, are you?’ Kerry suddenly stopped walking. ‘If I get found out I’ll be in so much trouble.’
Zoe shrugged. ‘Don’t come then.’
Kerry opened her mouth and closed it again. Then she said: ‘No, I want to come. It’s just – I’m a bit nervous.’
‘More than happy to go without you,’ Zoe said, turning away and striding forward.
I looked at her, then at Kerry, who’d gone red in the face. I went back and put my hand on her arm, touching as lightly as I could get away with.
‘Come on, Kerry. Zoe doesn’t mean that. We wouldn’t even know about the party if Jodie hadn’t invited you. You won’t get in trouble, I promise. It’ll be fun.’
The Misper Page 12