by Maggi Gibson
‘That’s awesome!’ Megan gasps. ‘I’m so happy for you!’
And I honestly don’t think she realizes she doesn’t belong here, in my friend’s room, with my friends.
‘But I’m getting these vibes,’ Cordelia frowns and spreads her fingers wide. ‘You’re not 100 per cent happy, are you?’
‘Course I am,’ I laugh, but it comes out wrong. An ugly, brittle sound, like glass splintering. Tears sting the back of my eyes and I hate myself for being so easily hurt. ‘Why wouldn’t I be happy?’ I say. ‘I’ve just made my first demo. There’s a chance Y-Gen might even sign me –’
‘It’s Twig, isn’t it?’ Cordelia interrupts, as Taslima comes back into the room and hands me a plate and napkin. ‘Megan was just saying you need to sort things out with him.’
‘I don’t see why I should!’ I splutter. ‘He was in the wrong too –’
‘But maybe he was in the wrong for the right reasons?’ Megan blurts. ‘I mean, he took a big risk taking his dad’s camcorder, and then you just clean forgot all about him.’
‘So it’s not surprising he’s a bit upset with you,’ Cordelia sighs.
Then Cordelia and Megan and Taslima start arguing about me and Twig and what I should do. And suddenly it feels like I’m the one who doesn’t belong. Like they’re in a friendship bubble and I’m on the outside, bouncing off an invisible barrier.
For a split second it flies through my brain that this is all because I have this silly fixation with being a star. With recording my songs and getting famous. That my life would be much better if the Y-Gen people had never called round last week. That I should have settled for being ordinary old Sassy Wilde, then Megan wouldn’t be here. I’d still be friends with Twig. None of this would be happening.
‘Listen, Sassy,’ Taslima says. ‘We think you should talk to Twig –’
‘Look, can we change the subject?’ I mutter. ‘Twig’s made it clear he doesn’t want to see me –’
‘That’s SO not true,’ Megan protests. ‘He went round to school especially to see you this afternoon. And, omigod, he was so upset when he saw you and Magnus in that Hummer. Before I came out he was banging about the house, saying he hated it in Strathcarron and he was going back to live with his mum –’
‘Please stop it, Megan!’ I blurt. ‘You’re just making everything worse… and…’ I try not to say them but the words slip past me like darting fish and no way can I stop them. ‘And you shouldn’t even be here!’
Megan’s face crumples and tears spring up in her eyes. She jumps up from the bed and dashes for the door.
The bedside table rocks and the three glasses topple. Juice spills everywhere. Taslima and Cordelia grab napkins and start mopping furiously. I clench my eyes tight shut. Taslima’s mum is so uptight about her room being ‘nice’, about us being ‘nice’. Now she’ll be in big trouble and it will be all my fault and she’ll hate me forever.
‘Is everything all right up there, girls?’ Mrs Ankhar calls from the foot of the stairs. Taslima takes a deep breath and goes out on to the landing. Megan’s locked in the toilet and there are little snuffly sounds coming from behind the door.
‘Megan choked on a bit of bhaji, that’s all,’ Taslima calls down. ‘She’ll be OK in a minute.’
Then she comes back into the room and stares at me. ‘You should have let Megan finish,’ she says quietly. ‘She stuck up for you with Twig. She told him what a fuss you made when Ben came for you in the Hummer.’
‘Then she asked him if he wanted to make up with you,’ says Cordelia. ‘And he said yes.’
‘But maybe you need to make up with Megan first?’ Taslima sits on the bed beside me and puts an arm round my shoulder. ‘Sassy, you’re our friend. But Megan’s lonely. That’s why I asked her over tonight. She’s doing her best to fit in, to make you like her. Give her a break, please?’
And I’m thinking that it’s all very well for Taslima to feel like that, but I’m the one Megan hurt. OK, so I know she apologized a while back, but –
Just then Megan comes back into the room. She sits down carefully on the edge of the bed, biting her lip to keep the tears back. Taslima gives me a meaningful look and I know what she wants me to do.
‘Sorry, Megan,’ I say quietly.
‘No worries!’ Megan smiles shakily, ‘you’re a friend, aren’t you?’ She leans over and wraps me in a big hug.
And I can’t help it, but there’s no way I can make myself really hug her back.
I swear I have never felt so bad in my whole entire life.
The next morning I don’t wake till almost eleven.
‘I thought I was doing you a favour!’ Mum objects when I grumble as I make a zingy wake-me-up smoothie. ‘You were more tired than you know last night. I don’t think you’ve been sleeping properly all week. It’s just as well you came home.’
I yawn and press the button on the smoothie-maker. It roars into life, drowning out anything else Mum’s saying. I hate to admit it, but she’s right, I was pretty exhausted. Even so I didn’t go straight to sleep. I thought about the Megan thing for a while and decided to do my best to be nice to her. See what happens. Then I thought about Twig. And I made a decision. I’m going to get this smoothie in me, then pretty myself up and go round to see him. Sort things out. I mean, there are enough wars in the world already without me and Twig joining in.
Pip’s sitting at the kitchen table, brooding over a bowl of yogurt and strawberries. I plonk myself down beside her. ‘What’s wrong with you?’ I ask, yawning.
Pip pokes at the strawberries with her spoon. ‘Mum’s insisting on force-feeding me! Like one of those Suffer-Jets!’
‘What?’ I ask.
‘Suffer-Jets. You know, those women who fought so we could get equal rights and things and not be bossed around!’
‘Suffragettes,’ I correct her, slurping my smoothie. ‘And I think Mum’s right, Pip. You should eat breakfast every day. The Suffragettes fought for you to get the right to vote, not the right to starve yourself. And strawberries and yogurt aren’t going to make you fat. It’s chips and choccies that are evil.’
‘Mmmph!’ Pip says, licking delicately at a strawberry.
Just then Dad comes bouncing into the kitchen. Mum lowers her latest self-help book, Your Inner Goddess, and How to Find Her, and peers at him over her glasses.
‘OK, girls,’ he beams. ‘Pretty yourselves up. We’re going to Great-Gran’s.’
What!!
‘Can’t we leave Great-Gran’s till next weekend?’ I ask, alarmed. Dad’s already filling Brewster’s dog bowl with fresh water and fetching a few chews to keep him busy while we’re gone.
‘Sorry, Sass,’ Dad says cheerily. ‘Great-Gran might be dead –’
‘ANGUS!’ Mum chucks a tea towel at him.
He ducks and it lands on Brewster. ‘We’ve been putting this off for weeks, Sassy. Your mother and I decided last night. We’re going today. All of us. No exceptions. No excuses.’
Pip and I exchange a glance. Instant allies once again. Honestly! My father might be a politician, but sometimes he forgets that young people have rights too!
‘Shouldn’t we be part of the decision-making process?’ I protest. ‘I mean, this is a democracy, isn’t it?’
Pip nods her head vigorously. Encouraged, I continue to make our case. ‘As daughters of reduced age, we may not have the vote.10 But our rights are protected under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. And you haven’t even asked me and Pip if we have other plans for today!’
‘OK.’ Mum cuts in. ‘Pip! Sassy! Do you have other plans for today?’
Ooops. I wasn’t expecting that. I’ve been so carried away with formulating the next bit of my speech – about how parents should have to go up for election every year and then we could vote them out if we felt they weren’t treating us fairly – I haven’t worked out a suitable fib to tell them. The last thing I’m going to say is that I want to go round and make up with Twig.
‘Study?’ I say hopefully.
‘Sassy, since when have you ever wanted to study when you don’t have to?’ Mum laughs. ‘So I call this debate to a close. We’re all going to Great-Gran’s. Go get showered. Now!’
Half an hour later we’re all in the car. Pip is in an almighty huff. Mum has insisted on making her dress like a nine-year-old. Which I have to say, I think she should be doing anyway.
‘Great-Gran’s heart’s not very strong,’ Mum insisted as she tugged one of my old cotton frocks over Pip’s head. ‘She thinks you’re a sweet little girl, and I want her to continue thinking that. So no make-up either!’
‘Can’t I put on a teensy bit of lipgloss?’ Pip pouted as Mum dragged her out to the car.
‘When will we be back?’ I ask as I strap myself in.
‘Stop moaning!’ Dad says, which I think is pretty unfair. All I did was ask a reasonable question! ‘We should be back by about seven. You can have the whole evening to yourself.’
Great-Gran lives over a hundred miles away. Which, in one way, is a blessing as she’s not the easiest Great-Gran to get on with. But it does mean a long boring car journey.
Pip and I snuggle down in the back. We’re well prepared. I slouch low in the seat, pop my earplugs in, switch on my fave sounds. Pip gets out a sketchbook and her coloured marker pens. (Her teacher told her recently she’s good at art, so she’s decided she’s going to be a fashion designer.) Mum yawns. Dad puts his sunglasses on, starts the engine, and we’re off.
And I’m off too.
To sleep.
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
Suddenly I’m lurched rudely awake as the car swerves. Dad slams on the brakes and we judder to a halt. Blinking against the sudden daylight, I tug out my earplugs – just as a police car slews across in front of us, blue lights flashing. It emits one long final wail and a policeman leaps out, rushes over, pulls Dad’s door open and shouts: ‘OUT OF THE CAR! NOW!’
Dad stumbles out, looking totally confused. So am I. Dad never speeds. We’re lucky if we ever get over forty. The officer hollers at Dad to lean over the bonnet of the car, his hands clasped behind his back. Wow! I’ve heard stories about police being heavy-handed, but this all seems a bit extreme!
There’s a police officer at Mum’s door too. A woman. She orders Mum out in a fierce voice and sends her to sit in the back of the police car. The passing traffic slows as people try to see what’s going on. The policeman’s frisking Dad like he thinks he might be armed.
Then the policewoman opens Pip’s door. ‘Don’t be scared,’ she says, suddenly all soft and smiley. ‘You’re safe now. Everything’s going to be all right.’
Pip’s face is deathly white. ‘I think there’s… maybe… been a… misunderstanding…’ Pip stammers in a tiny voice.
‘It’s all right, poppet,’ the policewoman says kindly. ‘You don’t need to lie. They can’t hurt you now.’
I pinch myself, sure that I’m trapped in some weird kind of dream where I think I’m awake but I’m not. But nothing changes.
Then Pip turns round and, her hand shaking, removes a sheet of drawing paper from the back window.
The policewoman takes it from her, and as she does, I realize why Pip is suddenly so pale. In her childish scrawl, in bright red letters, it says:
HELP! CALL POLICE. IM BEING KIDNAPED!
I could kill Pip!
So could Mum. And Dad. We all have to go to the police station to clear up the ‘misunderstanding’. When Dad insists, little puffs of steam coming from his ears, that he’s a Very Important Person – an MP no less – and questions will be raised in Parliament about the ridiculous way he’s been treated, the police officer says, ‘Child abduction is a very serious issue, sir. If we didn’t act on 999 calls from the public you would raise questions in Parliament about that too, I suppose?’
Dad shuts up after that.
Mum is so angry she can’t speak. Her hair has frizzled up with rage and her face is an alarming magenta colour.
Pip is blubbering.
I am fuming. I got up this morning with one simple plan. One thing I wanted to do. Go round to see Twig and sort things out. But instead, thanks to my despotic parentals and my dysfunctional little sis, here I am, stuck in a police station like a common criminal.
At last they let us go.
We climb into the car in a silence so tense you could trampoline on it. Mum takes Pip’s sketchbook and coloured pens. ‘I think I’ll have these,’ she says. ‘Before you get any other daft ideas.’
Dad starts the engine.
‘Good!’ I say. ‘Can we go home now?’
‘We set out this morning to go to Great-Gran’s,’ Dad growls. ‘And that’s what we’re doing.’
‘But I’m traumatized!’ I complain.
‘We’re all traumatized,’ Mum says. ‘It’s not Great-Gran’s fault she’s got a delinquent for a great-grandchild.’ She fires an angry look at Pip. But Pip is already recovering. She pops her earphones in and gazes serenely out of the window.
I sit back and go over in my head once again just what I’m going to say to Twig when I at last get the chance to see him.
The visit to Great-Gran’s lasts, I think, roughly a thousand years. It’s a gorgeous summer’s day, but Great-Gran’s like a bat. Or a vampire.11 She doesn’t like the sun. She says we’ll all get skin cancer if we sit out. And then we’ll be sorry. We’ll not live to a ripe old age like her.12
So we are forced to sit in her gloomy living room – with the central heating on full blast, which is SO irresponsible and must be contributing MASSIVELY to global warming – drinking watery juice, listening to her wittering on and on and on and on about all her friends who’ve died recently.
Then she starts up about her gallstones. Don’t ask me what gallstones are! But Great-Gran’s are playing up.
Her toenails are a problem too. Turning against her, they are.
And then there’s the paper boy. Keeps delivering the Mail when she wants the Express. ‘What is it with young people nowadays?’ Great-Gran says, fixing me with her fierce stare, like I am personally responsible. ‘Don’t they teach you to read any more?’
This is not one of Great-Gran’s good days.
Don’t get me wrong. I love my great-gran. But I find it really, really hard to sit in her living room on a brilliant sunny afternoon listening to all her moans and medical details when I absolutely totally seriously need to go round to Twig’s and get my love life back on track.
At last Great-Gran decides she’s had enough of us. Which is just as well as I swear a thin layer of dust has settled over me and I have lost the will to live.
‘Do you lot not have anything better to do with your time than clutter up my house?’ she grumbles. Pip and I don’t wait about. We hug her hugely like she’s our most fave person on the planet, then dash for the door.
Free! Free! Free at last! So this is what Nelson Mandela felt like when he was released from Robyn Island after twenty-seven years of imprisonment. I turn my face up to the sun and feel its golden life-giving caress.
It’s all I can do to stop from cheering as we climb back into the car and wave goodbye. Mum chides, ‘Wait till you’re Great-Gran’s age, Sassy, and then you’ll know what it’s like!’
By the time we get home it’s almost nine o’clock. I say I’m nipping round to see Megan and Twig, which is not quite a lie, is it? I promise I’ll just be half an hour.
‘OK,’ Mum shouts as Dad pours her a glass of wine to calm her nerves. ‘But make sure you are. We’ve had more than enough drama for one day!’
As I walk up the path to Twig’s house, I peer up into the tree where he was that first night I met him. I gaze deep into the thick green leaves, sort of hoping to see his face grinning bac
k at me.
Then I take a deep breath, press the buzzer and wait.
Megan’s mum opens the door.
‘Sassy!’ she exclaims. ‘How lovely to see you! But Megan’s out. Round at Taslima’s. She’s due back soon, if you want to come in.’
When she says ‘round at Taslima’s’ this little jealousy-beast stirs inside me and bares its fangs, but I take it by the throat and squeeze and it retreats into a dark corner of my heart.
‘Actually…’ I force myself to smile. ‘I was wondering if Twig’s in?’
‘Twig?’ she echoes, and I feel my colour start to rise. Megan’s mum’s known me since I was in Nursery and whenever I speak to her I feel three years old again. Far too young to be asking after a boy. ‘I’m sorry, Sassy. He’s not. And I really don’t know when he’ll be back. In fact I’ve no idea where he even is. He’s a law unto himself, that boy.’
‘Oh!’ I say, disappointed. ‘Can you tell him I called?’
‘Course I will!’ Mrs Campbell smiles. ‘Oh, and Sassy,’ she says as I turn to go, ‘I’m so pleased you and Megan are friends again. She’s been so much happier this last couple of weeks.’
And she closes the door.
My heart’s heavy as I make my way down the path. If only my stupid parentals had let me go and see Twig this morning, instead of dragging me off to Great-Gran’s, we might have made up by now.
And I’m thinking that this is one of those days where I should just have stayed in bed, when something small and hard bounces off my head and rolls along the path in front of me. A nut!
Even before I see where it’s come from, this little bubble of hope starts to swell inside me.
As another nut ricochets off my skull, I pull a paper hankie from my pocket and wave it like a white flag. ‘I come in peace,’ I shout up into the branches above me.
‘That’s what I was hoping,’ Twig says, swinging down from the tree and landing lightly beside me. ‘So we’re not at war any more?’
‘Were we at war?’
‘Sort of…’ Twig says, hanging his head sheep-ishly. ‘But the point is, I’m sorry.’