Them

by L. A. Weatherly

  Them

  by

  L. A. Weatherly

  For Brennan

  First American edition published in 2013 by Stoke Books, an imprint of Barrington Stoke Ltd

  18 Walker Street, Edinburgh, United Kingdom, EH3 7LP

  www.stokebooks.com

  Copyright © 2006 L. A. Weatherly

  All rights reserved. International copyright secured. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise – without the prior written permission of Barrington Stoke Ltd, except for inclusion of brief quotations in an acknowledged review.

  A catalog record for this book is available from the US Library of Congress

  Distributed in the United States and Canada by Lerner Publisher Services, a division of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.

  241 First Avenue North, Minneapolis, MN 55401

  www.lernerbooks.com.

  ISBN 978-1-78112-184-9 (Hard Cover)

  ISBN 978-1-78112-185-6 (Paperback)

  ISBN 978-1-78112-186-3 (eBook)

  Printed in China

  Contents

  1

  Home Sweet Home

  1

  2

  Getting in With Jaz

  10

  3

  The Voices in My Head

  18

  4

  I Am a Haddock

  28

  5

  More Proof

  36

  6

  Talking Back

  44

  7

  Smash Up

  53

  8 Edward

  60

  Chapter 1

  Home Sweet Home

  “Put those boxes in the kitchen, please,” Mom said to the moving men. Then, as they stacked the boxes next to the fridge, she turned to me.

  Her face looked tense. “Kylie, you could help, instead of just standing around.”

  She didn’t need to say, Since this is all your fault anyway. But I knew that was what she was thinking.

  I felt as if I might cry, but I was careful not to show it. “What? D’you want me to start moving boxes around or something?”

  1

  “No, but you could start unpacking them!”

  Mom walked out of the open front door of the apartment, and I heard her shout down the stairs. “Could you be careful with that, please?”

  I shook my brown hair out of its ponytail, then pulled it back up again. I looked around me. Our new apartment was full of dark, gloomy pieces of furniture. The landlord had filled it with stuff that no one else wanted. But the walls had just been painted. That was the only bright thing about the rooms.

  My little sister Jenna was messing around in the back of the apartment somewhere. Now she came into the living room. She was holding a Barbie that was wearing a pink skirt and nothing else. Jenna looked sulky. “I hate it here,” she said and thumped Barbie onto the couch. “It smells.”

  It did, too. The place smelled of damp and old cat pee. I started to say something nice, but suddenly Jenna screwed her face up and threw the Barbie at me, as hard as she could.

  “I hate you!” she cried. “We would never have had to move here if it wasn’t for you!” She ran 2

  into one of the bedrooms and slammed the door shut after her.

  Mom came in again. She looked annoyed.

  “Kylie, what—”

  “Nothing! I’m going for a walk.” I shoved past one of the moving men and ran down the stairs.

  I slowed down once I got outside. Was it my fault that we had to leave our house and come and live in this apartment? I thought about how Dan had shouted at me, how he had shoved his face up next to mine so that I could smell the whiskey on his breath and feel flecks of his spit hitting my cheeks. I shivered at the thought of him, even though it was September, and still warm.

  Alongside our apartment building was a

  narrow path. It was muddy and overgrown. I kicked a beer can out of my way as I walked down it. I came around the corner and saw the path led to some community gardens.

  I stared at the patchwork of small gardens and began to feel a little better. It was the only bit of green I had seen since we left home to go to the homeless shelter six weeks ago. That 3

  was before we came here. There hadn’t been anything green at the shelter. It had been awful there, even if they had tried to make it all cheery and welcoming. The gate into the gardens was locked. I shook it, and it rattled. Should I climb over it? I looked around. There was no one in sight.

  A moment later I was over the gate and

  walking around the gardens. I breathed in deeply, drinking in the smell of plants and earth.

  After a while, I sat down on an old wooden bench and pulled my legs up under me.

  There were so many new things in my life that I didn’t want to think about. Like our new apartment, which wasn’t new but old and shabby.

  And the new year at school, which started tomorrow. I felt sick when I thought about it. My old school had been bad enough—what would this one be like? It had looked awful when Mom drove me past it yesterday, like a prison camp.

  I heard a clinking sound, and I spun around.

  Someone was unlocking the gate! A few seconds later, a boy with blond hair and glasses walked in. He was carrying a big fork and a bucket. He stopped when he saw me.

  4

  “Who are you? You don’t have a garden here.”

  I stood up and wiped my hands on my jeans.

  “Um—I’m Kylie. I was just looking around.”

  The boy kept staring. What a weirdo! What was he looking at? “Look, I’ll just go,” I said and I started to move past him. He put out a hand to stop me.

  “No, wait—I was just asking, that’s all. My name’s Adam.” He held out his hand. It was long and thin, like the rest of him.

  His face was covered in zits, half of them about to burst. I shook his hand slowly and wished I’d never come in here. “Hi. Um, maybe I should go now … ”

  “Are you new here?” Adam said and he

  pushed his glasses straight with a finger.

  I gave a sigh. OK, I was going to have to talk to him. “Yeah, we just moved in.” I pointed to our apartment building, and he grinned.

  “Really? That’s where I live, too. I live there with my mom.”

  Oh, great. “Yeah, cool. Well—”

  5

  “Do you want to help me weed my mom’s garden?” Adam asked. He swung his fork to and fro. “Come on, it’s easy. See, these are the weeds.” He walked over to one of the square patches of garden and knelt down.

  He didn’t look up to see if I’d followed.

  Somehow I found myself walking over to him.

  “I don’t really like gardening,” I said.

  The sun glinted off his glasses as he peered up at me. “What were you doing in here, then?”

  I shrugged. I didn’t feel like telling him anything. Suddenly I had an idea. “Oh, I don’t know. The voices in my head told me to come.

  I always do what the voices in my head tell me,”

  I said.

  Adam looked hard at me. I could see he was worried.

  “That was a joke,” I told him.

  “Oh.” He blinked. “Sure, I knew that.”

  I bet he didn’t have any friends at all. Which meant that we might have a lot in common, if this school was as bad as my last one. I knelt down on the ground and pulled at a weed.

  6

  I yanked it out hard and it came up, with lots of earth on its roots.

  “I’m not really into gardening, either,” said Adam after a moment. “I’m a scientist.”

  A scientist, right. He was my age. “Reall
y?” I said.

  He nodded. “Yeah, I love science. In fact, I’ve just made a water clock that can tell the time to the nearest ten minutes. I did it all myself. I had the idea of trying to make the water run more slowly and …”

  He went on and on about his stupid water clock. “What do you do for fun?” I asked. I stood up and brushed the earth off my jeans. “Or do you just do science all day?”

  Adam bent down to pull up some weeds. “No, I do lots of things for fun,” he said. “Like, I read tons of science fiction.”

  I tried not to laugh. “Science fiction, huh? I better go now,” I said and I headed for the gate before Adam could stop me again.

  As I pushed it open, he shouted after me, “It was nice meeting you!”

  7

  God, what a loser!

  Mom was outside on the road when I got

  back. She was holding Jenna by the hand. Her face was red and she looked fed up. “Where were you?” she asked.

  “Nowhere,” I told her. I hoped my jeans weren’t all covered in dirt.

  Jenna stuck her tongue out at me. I hate you, she mouthed without making a sound.

  ***

  That night I lay awake for hours in the tiny room I had to share with Jenna. I listened to her slow breathing, and the sound of traffic rumbling past. A street light shone just outside our window. It gave the room an orange glow.

  Everything felt so odd, so new.

  In the end, I got up and opened one of the boxes I hadn’t had time to unpack. Edward lay there, looking up at me—the old, old teddy bear that my dad had given me when I was just a baby. My real dad, I mean. Not Dan.

  I took him out, and crawled back into my bed. I know it’s babyish, but sometimes when I’m upset or can’t sleep, it helps to have Edward with 8

  me. I can hardly remember my dad, but when I hold Edward, it’s almost like he comes back to me. I put my arms around the bear’s furry middle and gave a long sigh.

  I fell asleep as I was cuddling him. It was as if I could still smell my dad as I hugged Edward’s worn fur.

  9

  Chapter 2

  Getting in With Jaz

  From the second I walked into Bankside

  High School the next day, I could see who was in charge of the ninth grade—Jaz Parbinder. She had a smug smile and masses of black hair.

  At break I stood and watched Jaz and her group. But I didn’t want them to see. I had already made up my mind that I was never going to go through the same kind of crap that I had gone through at my last school, not ever. Being tripped in the halls. Finding my books ripped up in my locker. Everyone laughing at me.

  And that meant I had to be friends with Jaz.

  10

  But there were lots of people ahead of me in the line to be Jaz’s friend. Everywhere she went she had a gang of people all around her, boys and girls both. Everyone waited to hear whatever she said and laughed when she laughed.

  “Jaz, look, have you seen this dress?” A girl with red hair showed Jaz something in a magazine.

  Jaz gave her a look full of pity. “God, Izzy, no one would actually wear that. Look at the stupid ruffles on it.” Everyone sniggered. Izzy looked like she wanted to sink into the ground. She put the magazine back into her bag.

  My heart beat faster as I stepped closer to the group. Jaz didn’t notice me. I tried so hard to think of something I could say to her. I wanted to say something witty and cool that would make her black eyebrows fly up with respect. I couldn’t think of anything. And saying the wrong thing would be worse than saying nothing at all.

  “Hi, Kylie.” Suddenly Adam was standing there with a big grin on his face. He was in the ninth grade too, of course.

  Damn! I gave a weak smile. “Oh. Hi,” I muttered.

  11

  “I’ve got a book for you.” Adam waved a book at me. It had a spaceship on the front cover.

  His zits looked even worse today, like they were about to start oozing white goo.

  I gulped and looked quickly over at Jaz. If she looked up and saw me talking to Adam, that would be it. She’d know I really was a loser then.

  Like I’d been at my old school.

  I tried to laugh. “Thanks, but—I don’t actually like to read very much.”

  “You don’t?” He looked amazed. “But you like stories, don’t you? Movies?”

  Go away! I thought. “Yeah,” I said, “but …”

  “Well, a book’s just like a movie that goes on in your head. And this one’s great. It’s about these people who get trapped on a spaceship, and …”

  Jaz and her group started heading towards us. They were talking and laughing. They hadn’t noticed me yet, but I knew any second now they would. Before Adam could say anything else, I grabbed the book and shoved it in my bag.

  “Thanks,” I said, not looking at him. “I’ve got to go to the bathroom now.”

  12

  I rushed off before he could reply. Why did I have to meet him yesterday? All I needed at my new school was this nerdy boy to latch onto me!

  I had to stop this right away.

  I tried to avoid him for the rest of the day.

  It wasn’t difficult because we didn’t have any classes together. Bankside put all the smart, pimply kids together in their own group.

  I was in Jaz’s group. I watched her as the day continued, and I knew that I’d been right. She was the center of the ninth grade, the hub of everything. I knew I had to be her friend for the others to like me.

  But Jaz wasn’t interested in me at all. Half of our teachers talked about me at the start of their classes. They said I was new and told everyone to make me welcome. But Jaz didn’t even bother to roll her dark eyes or smirk at her friends.

  It was as if I didn’t exist.

  That night I picked at my dinner and didn’t say much. No one else did either. Jenna was scowling as she looked down at her Chinese food.

  Mom kept rubbing at her temples as she ate. Her short, streaky blonde hair looked flat and messy 13

  and not at all like the sleek haircut she’d had a few months ago.

  “Um … how was work?” I asked at last.

  Mom looked up. “Hmm? Oh, all right, I guess.” She gave a sigh. “I wish I could get something that paid more …”

  Mom had got a job at an insurance company.

  She used to be a secretary years ago, after Dad died. That was before she and Dan got married.

  Dan was a banker, and made tons of money.

  Mom hadn’t had to work for years or worry about money. Now everything was different.

  A piece of beef chow mein flopped onto the floor. “Jenna!” Mom said with a groan. “Try to be more careful.”

  Jenna shoved her plate away. “I don’t like this. It tastes funny.”

  “Eat it anyway,” snapped Mom.

  “I want chicken nuggets.”

  “Well, there aren’t any.” Mom picked up the beef and put it back on Jenna’s plate.

  Jenna’s face twisted up. “I want my dad! Dad would let me have chicken nuggets.”

  14

  “Your dad’s not here,” said Mom firmly.

  “I want to call him … Can I call him? Please!”

  My heart stopped. I stared at Mom. She wouldn’t let Jenna call, would she? Jenna would tell Dan where we were!

  Mom’s face had gone pale. She slowly shook her head. “No, Jenna. I told you before why you can’t call Dad. Maybe later we’ll try to fix something up but not now …”

  Jenna let out a sob and ran from the table.

  Her chair fell over, banging onto the floor. I could hear her crying in our room a few seconds later.

  Mom slumped her head down into her hands.

  I wanted to say something to her, but I couldn’t.

  We wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for me.

  I stood up and cleared our plates away.

  Forget it, I told myself. There’s nothing you can do about it. Just concentrate on Jaz, on ho
w you can be her friend.

  So that’s what I did.

  ***

  15

  At break the next day I saw Jaz. She was leaning against a wall outside and eating a bag of chips. I had lain awake for hours the night before and I’d planned what I would say to her.

  But now I couldn’t get my feet to move. It was like I was frozen.

  In the end, I edged forward a few steps. As I walked up to Jaz I practised what I would say.

  The line I’d planned was, Hi, I’m Kylie. What do you do for fun in this stupid school?

  “Look at that,” Jaz said loudly. “God, how pathetic.”

  Oh no! I froze. Was she talking about me?

  Everyone’s head turned to look but they weren’t looking at me. I turned to look too. Adam was walking by, reading a book. He was actually reading a book while he walked. Thank God he hadn’t seen me.

  Jaz shook her dark head. “We should do something about him. He’s such a show-off. He thinks he’s so smart.”

  “He lives in my apartment building,” I said.

  My cheeks flushed bright red. That wasn’t what I’d meant to say. Everyone looked at me. I 16

  wanted to shrink, like I always did. This time I stood up tall.

  “Who are you?” said Jaz as she popped

  another chip in her mouth.

  I smiled, and tossed my brown hair back like I had seen Jaz do. “Kylie Winters. We’ve just moved here.”

  Jaz looked bored already. “Yeah, and …?”

  “And Adam thinks we’re friends … it’s really sad.”

  There was silence for a moment, and I

  thought I’d blown it. Then suddenly Jaz laughed.

  “Hey, that’s great. We could do something with that.”

  And I was in, just like that.

  17

  Chapter 3

  The Voices in My Head

  “Right, tell us everything,” said Jaz that day at lunch. I felt like I’d won the lottery. It was only my second day, and here I was sitting with the most popular girl in school!

  “What do you want to know?” I asked.

  She rolled her black eyes. “What he said to you! What you said to him! Come on, Kylie, it’s not hard.” One or two of the others sniggered.

  Izzy sniggered the loudest.

  I bit my lip, trying frantically to remember.