by Jo Cotterill
I happen to know that the road Grandpa is referring to has a speed limit of fifty, but I don’t bother to point this out. To Grandpa, speed limits are for other people.
“And then when I pulled over so I could pass her on the inside, she moved right in front of me! I nearly crashed into her, the stupid woman.” He shakes his head. “Women drivers—they’re so dangerous.”
I give a deep sigh.
“What’s the matter with you today?” he demands, taking another sip of wine. “Cat got your tongue?”
“A cat?” I say slowly. “Why should a cat get my tongue?”
Grandpa snorts. “I don’t know, it’s just one of those sayings. I meant you’re very quiet.”
“Well,” I say softly, feeling like the words are just coming out by themselves, “you don’t give me a chance to say much.”
He stares at me and his eyes narrow. “Smart, aren’t you? Always fond of the back talk. Got no respect, that’s your problem. Like all young people.”
“We’re not all the same,” I say dreamily. “All young people—that’s not really a thing. It’s like saying all old people. Or all white people. Or all middle-aged men with opinions.” A slight smile tugs at the corners of my mouth. I am aware of a faint tingling in the air around me. Tiny sparks of something dangerous.
There is a pause, and then Grandpa shouts to the kitchen, making me jump. “Arlene! What’s got into this child of yours today? Is she ill?”
Mom comes in, clutching a small knife and a potato. “Pardon? What do you mean?”
Grandpa jerks a thumb toward me. “Talking nonsense. Like something’s wrong with her brain.”
“What are you talking about?” Mom takes a few steps toward me, puzzled.
I look up and smile at her. “It’s all right,” I say mildly. “I was just pointing out to Grandpa that he gets things wrong sometimes.”
Grandpa’s face is slowly turning red. The pinpoint flashes around me are multiplying, I can see them from my place outside the scene. I know he is getting angry, and I don’t care. “This kid of yours,” he snarls, “should learn some respect. I’ve always said so, haven’t I, Hilary?”
Nan, who has been hovering in the doorway like a shadow, shrinks back.
“That’s the trouble,” Grandpa goes on, putting down his wineglass and inching forward on his chair, “with no decent discipline. You’ve never been strict enough with her, Arlene. Letting her talk to people like that! And all this silly mimicking. It’s rude and bad behavior, and if there was a man around the house, he’d soon sort it out! I never let you speak to me like that.”
“No,” murmurs Mom, “you didn’t.”
I look at Grandpa, clear-eyed. “You don’t let anyone speak to you in the way you speak to them. If you could only hear yourself.”
Grandpa stands up. “Apologize, young woman!” he snaps. “Right now.” He’s pointing at the floor, almost as though he expects me to get down on my knees. “I’m waiting.”
“Jelly . . .” breathes Mom, so quietly I almost don’t hear her.
The tingling pinpricks flow together like lightning in the air around me. And suddenly, like a giant wave, they flood into me, pulsing through my veins, jolting me to my feet, my heart racing and my head clearing until I see only one thing: what is right and what needs to be said.
I plant my feet squarely on the floor. I feel rooted, like energy is flowing from the ground into my body, up out of my head and into the air. “I will not apologize to you,” I say to Grandpa, and it is me speaking, not some mechanical body. “You have never apologized to me. You criticize everything about me: what I like, how I look, what I eat. You say hurtful things so often I think you must like it. You like hurting other people. You say hurtful things to Mom and to Nan, and they are afraid of you, so they don’t say anything back. But—” I look him straight in his narrow, nasty eyes “—my mom is the best mom anyone could ever have and she has given me everything, and that means that I know you are wrong and you are unkind, and I am not afraid of you!”
Grandpa steps forward, and his hand swings up through the air so fast that I barely see it move, and he brings it down, right across the side of my head—or where my head would be if Mom’s arm wasn’t there, quicker than sight, blocking it. She yelps with the pain of the blow, but then she is standing in front of me, in between me and Grandpa, and she is pale and quivering and I don’t think I’ve ever seen her look like this. It’s as though she is filled with cold fire.
“Do not touch my daughter,” she says to Grandpa, and her voice is hard like ice and stone and diamond. “You will not hit my child. Not today, not ever.”
“She needs to be taught a lesson!” Grandpa blusters. “You should be teaching her how to behave! You were always the weak one!”
Mom’s voice shakes with fury. “You’re right. I should’ve been more like Maggi. I should’ve stood up to you a long time ago. But I will not have you crush my daughter the way you’ve crushed me all my life. If you can’t be civil to my family, you can get out.”
“Your family.” Grandpa laughs sarcastically. “I am your family.”
A sudden screeching sound rips through the apartment—the smoke alarm.
“The pan!” gasps Nan, and rushes to the kitchen. The sudden noise distracts us all, and Mom runs after Nan, while I grab a cushion and dash to the hallway, flapping the cushion back and forth underneath the alarm to get it to stop.
By the time Nan has doused the burnt saucepan in the sink and Mom has opened the window, and the awful piercing noise has stopped, Grandpa has his coat on and is opening the front door, car keys in hand. “Hilary,” he says, and leaves.
Nan looks from me to Mom in dismay. No one says anything. She hugs us both and then leaves too.
The door closes behind them.
Chapter 30
“Well,” says Mom, and swallows. “Well.”
“Yeah,” I say.
The air smells of burnt metal, a tang on my tongue. I look down at my hands. They don’t fizz with energy now. Instead there’s a quiet kind of hum to them, like the blood is singing under the skin, ebbing and flowing through the veins. I turn my hands over to look at the palms, marveling. I don’t quite know what just happened, but it’s like I flew back into my body.
There’s a strange noise behind me, and I turn to see Mom, her shoulders shaking, face white, cheeks wet with tears that stream down in rivers. She leans against the wall so that she doesn’t slide to the floor.
“Mom . . .” I say, and go to help her.
We sit on the sofa together and I hold her hands. “You saved me,” I say. “He was going to hit me, and you saved me.”
“Of course I did,” she says. “I won’t let anyone hurt you. You’re my baby.”
“Are you OK?” I ask, which seems like a silly question but I don’t know how else to put it.
She gives me a watery smile. “Oh, I dunno. Yes, no, maybe. It’s all been a bit of a shock. I’ve never stood up to Grandpa before. No one apart from Maggi has. And then you . . .” She strokes my hair. “You were amazing. So strong and calm and wise, and true. Everything you said was true.” She pauses a moment and then says, “I wish I could be more like you.”
My mouth falls open. “More like me?” I stammer. “Why?”
“You’re so . . . sorted,” Mom says. “You just go through life, brushing things aside. You don’t let things get to you. You stand up for yourself.”
I stare at her, stunned. She doesn’t know. But then, how could she? I’ve fooled her, just like I’ve fooled everyone else, all this time.
Sometimes you know you’re in an important moment. Balancing on a tightrope of choices.
Option One, Option Two . . . who knows how many there are? Pick the wrong one, and you slip and fall and you’ll never get back up on that tightrope again. Pick the right one . . . take a step . . . another step . . . and you might make it to your destination.
“I have to show you something,” I say to Mom.
>
I get up and go to my room and fetch the book. I sit next to her again, and I lay the book in her lap.
“What’s this?” she says, and opens it.
She turns the pages, reading and breathing, and, beside her, I read and breathe too. Those are my words, my insides, my blood and tears on those pages, through squiggles that shouldn’t convey anything because they’re just lines and curves, but somehow . . .
“Oh, Jelly,” she whispers, “these are . . . wow. I never knew you felt like this. Some of these are so . . . angry. Painful. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It was easier not to,” I say simply.
She stops at the poem about love and music being like honey and ice, and after a moment she gives a sniff and wipes at her face. “Yes,” she says. “It’s just like that. You clever thing.”
I turn the pages until I find the poem that Lennon set to music. She reads it and looks at me, baffled. “This is Lennon’s song.”
“No,” I say, “it’s my song. He set my poem to music. I was going to sing it in The K Factor and he was going to accompany me on guitar.”
Her face crumples. “Oh,” she says. “Oh, darling, I’m so sorry. I’ve ruined everything, haven’t I?”
I put my arms around her. “Does it have to be ruined?” I whisper. “Can’t you fix it?”
She sighs deeply and pulls back. “He won’t want me, Jelly. They never do, in the end.”
“But he loved you,” I say. “What went wrong?”
“Nothing,” she says with a half laugh. “He’s perfect. Kind, thoughtful, talented, gorgeous, sweet . . .”
“I don’t understand,” I say. “I thought that’s what you wanted.”
“He’s too good for me,” Mom says. “Oh, Jelly, why would he want me? I’m nothing special. It’s better for me to get out before things go wrong.”
“Nothing special?” I exclaim. “Nothing special?! You’re everything special! You’re kind and thoughtful and hardworking, and you’re brave and beautiful—”
She laughs. “You’re my daughter—you’re bound to say stuff like that. But at some point I always do something wrong, and then they get tired of me . . . and then they leave. They all leave.”
“Lennon isn’t like the others,” I say firmly.
“No,” she agrees, “he’s better. Much better. That’s why I don’t want to ruin it.”
You know when someone says something that just makes you go “AAARGH!” on the inside, but you can’t say it because then they’d be upset? I want to shout, “But you’ve already ruined it!” but of course that wouldn’t be kind or helpful, so I press my lips together and think very, very hard about what to say next.
“Mom,” I say, and I choose my exact words oh-so-very-carefully, “do you know what Lennon told me? He said you were a beautiful soul. He didn’t say you were pretty or skinny or any of that. He said you were beautiful on the inside. He doesn’t see what everyone else sees. He saw you, and he saw me—the real me—the one I’ve been hiding. Lennon made me feel stronger and better, like I could be more than the funny one. And he made you laugh. Really laugh, I mean, not fake-laughing like you used to do with Chris.”
She looks startled. “I did?”
“Yes. Lennon makes us . . . real, Mom. He makes us real.”
She looks down at her hands and breathes out a long breath. “Have I been very stupid?”
“Yes,” I say. “Very. Dumb, in fact. Really obtuse.”
She snorts a laugh and looks at me. “I love you, Angelica.”
“I love you too, Mom. Text him.”
“Oh, I can’t.”
“Do it.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Tell him you made a mistake and you’re sorry.” As I say it, I think of Kayma and Sanvi. I should have trusted them with how I was feeling too. I should have let them in. They’re my friends, they would be there for me. Tomorrow I’ll tell them everything: all about my poetry and my secret fears.
Mom reaches for her phone and types with shaking hands. The text sends and we wait expectantly.
Nothing happens.
The phone stays silent.
Mom laughs shakily. “How long are we going to sit here?”
My stomach suddenly rumbles. “Did we miss dinner?” I say in alarm.
“We did!” Mom leaps up. “The meat’s still in the oven! Oh, it’ll be completely overcooked by now. I’ll have to throw it out.”
We eat SpaghettiOs on toast and grate cheese over the top and wait for Lennon to reply.
The phone stays silent.
As the minutes tick past I feel more and more tired. Mom doesn’t mention Nan and Grandpa and neither do I. There isn’t anything to say about them anyway. Both of us just want to hear from Lennon. But he doesn’t call.
I get into my pajamas and wash my face. And then, as I’m brushing my teeth, I hear the sound of a text, and I swallow my toothpaste by accident and rush back to the living room. “What did he say, what did he say?” I gurgle, choking slightly.
Mom nearly deletes the message by accident, her hands are shaking again. “He says . . . he says: ‘Thank you. I’ll get back to you tomorrow.’” She stares at me.
“That’s all?” I’m disappointed. For some reason I thought he would say he forgave her and he was on his way over. . . . For a moment I’d thought that maybe fairy tales were real after all.
“We have to wait,” Mom says, and she blinks too many times. “It’s only fair really.” She smiles brightly at me with wet eyes. “Get some sleep, gorgeous girl. How lucky I am to have you. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“Love you, Mom.”
“Love you, Jelly.”
Chapter 31
There’s no further text in the morning, but I am feeling calmer. Yesterday was kind of epic. I almost can’t believe it really happened—me standing up to Grandpa, and Mom dashing in to protect me like some white knight on a horse, or whatever the saying is.
It feels like yesterday was a turning point. Like I’d been scattered, bits of my soul and my feelings, all thrown into the air and floating around—and then they were all pulled back into me and they formed a new pattern: a new Jelly.
I’m glad I showed Mom my poetry. Isn’t it funny when you suddenly discover that someone else worries about exactly the same things you do? Mom thought she wasn’t good enough for Lennon. I’ve never really felt good enough for . . . for the world, I suppose, because of my size. Both of us were afraid of being seen for who we really are inside. And now . . . now we’re not. Or not as much anyway. I set off to school feeling strangely zen-like. (I heard about zen once. It’s to do with inner peace and, I think, motorcycles.)
When I see Sanvi in the playground, I go over to her and say, “Sanvi, there’s something I should tell you.”
She immediately looks worried. “What is it?”
Kayma comes running over, full of annoyance over something Hula did this morning.
“Shh!” Sanvi says, which is most unlike her. “Jelly’s got something to say.”
Kayma turns to me. “What?”
So I tell them both. About how I worry about my weight, how everyone is thinner than me and sometimes that really, really bothers me, how I use humor to distract people from seeing I might be upset, how Mom had the perfect boyfriend who could have joined our family and maybe I could even have had a dad, and how I would really, really like that, but it’s gone wrong and I’m sad about it. How I write poems at home that I’ve never dared show anyone.
The bell goes as they’re listening, and Kayma says, “Oh, shoot,” and Sanvi says, “Keep talking, Jelly,” and she links arms with me as we walk into school.
They don’t really have a chance to say much before Mr. Lenck takes attendance and starts the lesson, but Sanvi squeezes my hand really hard, and Kayma gives me a hug as she goes past to collect some paper, and those little things really help. At break time I talk some more, and they listen, and Verity comes past at o
ne point and sees I’m upset and sneers, and Kayma jumps up and challenges her to a fight, which makes me laugh but also strangely proud and grateful.
“Wow,” says Sanvi every now and then. “That’s . . . wow.”
“Can I see your poems?” Kayma asks. “Are any of them funny?”
“Er . . . not really,” I admit. “Most of them are kind of sad or angry or confused.”
“Oh,” she says. “What was the one like that got turned into a song?”
“A bit sad,” I say, with a smile. “It’s about putting on a happy face even when I don’t feel like it.”
“I do that sometimes,” says Sanvi unexpectedly.
“You do?”
“Well—” she looks from me to Kayma and back again “—we all do it, don’t we? It’s like when we did that poem about the mask in English. The happy face is the mask.” She gives a sad little smile. “My parents have been arguing quite a lot recently. It makes me afraid that . . . I don’t know. Maybe I should try writing a poem about it.”
I give her a hug. “Maybe you should. I’m sorry—that sounds horrible.”
“I’m jealous of Hula,” Kayma confesses suddenly. “You know when I said I always say what I really feel? It’s not exactly true. She gets all the special treatment because everyone feels guilty about her arm, so she’s always the one to get the extra treat and that kind of thing. Sometimes I wish I’d been in the accident too so that people would make me special.” She goes red. “I know it’s really wrong to wish that. I feel bad about it.”
Sanvi and I hug her too. “Sounds like your poem could be really angry,” I suggest.
Kayma laughs. “Yeah—it so could.”
Sanvi says, “You should tell Mrs. Belize all of this. I bet she’d let you back in The K Factor if she knew what was behind everything.”
I shrug. “It’s OK. I don’t want to do my impressions anyway. And I can’t do the song without Lennon. Besides, the final is tomorrow night. There wouldn’t be time to practice or anything.”
The other two nod. “I probably won’t go either then,” says Kayma. “I was only coming to cheer you on.”