Ella on the Outside

by Cath Howe

  The doorbell played a tune.

  Sophie came to let me in wearing a blue spangly dress. “Ella!” she screamed. She held out her arms like a sleepwalker. Did she want a hug? I stepped uncertainly towards her but she just waved her hands about and giggled, rushing away down a wide hallway that smelled of polish, calling, “You’re late. Everyone’s out the back.”

  Late?

  I caught sight of my reflection in a gold-edged mirror: red straight hair just past my shoulders, small pale face. I should have been in a dress more like Sophie’s, instead of my summer trousers and long-sleeved T-shirt with embroidered owls. Mum liked girls to wear practical clothes. I lined up my brown shoes next to lots of bright party ones. Beautiful. I must ask Mum again about shoes.

  I found everybody in the conservatory at the back of the kitchen. Little shrieks of hellos. Lydia was stretched out on a long pink sofa with girls lounged around her. There must have been at least twenty. “Ella! Just put the present in the pile on the piano,” she called.

  “Oh, Ella, you’re here,” said Immy. “Weren’t you free at two thirty then?”

  The room went quiet. I stared around at them all.

  Lydia smiled. “We’ve got ages,” was all she said.

  Two thirty? Lydia had definitely said four thirty. Why had she invited me two hours after everyone else?

  “Oh, you brought a sleeping bag. Well done,” called Lydia’s mum, appearing from behind a giant pink frosted cake. How about all you girls go out on the trampoline while we clear up?”

  I looked at them all stretching out their fingers, full of little admiring cries. A lady in a white apron was packing away little bright bottles. I could smell the acid tang. Nail varnish – they’d all had their nails decorated in bright colours and designs.

  I made myself grin but the smile felt tight on my face, wrong on my mouth.

  As they all disappeared outside, Lydia came up to me. “I knew you wouldn’t want your nails done,” she said. “I’ve told the others that they won’t catch your disease just from touching you, but if you have nail varnish on, people will look at your hands more … won’t they, Ella?”

  I flushed, a whole tight ball of misery rising inside me.

  Lydia pursed her lips. She was being kind. “Aw, this must happen to you such a lot,” she said.

  Of course everyone was bound to have noticed how bad my hands looked; so flaky and red raw. But I’d never been to a nail varnish party. And now I never would.

  Tears brimmed in my eyes. I blinked them back. I stood stupidly. Do not cry in front of her. Don’t!

  I joined the others outside and watched them bounce on Lydia’s trampoline.

  “No more than six at a time!” Lydia’s dad shouted.

  There always seemed to be six every time I tried to have a go. I took loads of photos of Sophie and Hannah and Rachel doing star jumps. It was so hard to catch them leaping high, mid jump. I did get to go on the trampoline eventually, with some girls from Lydia’s dance class. They were doing forward rolls and amazing jumps and I got off and took some photos of them too. We ate a huge tea and watched two scary films, all hiding behind plush stripy cushions. Everyone grabbed their friends when the zombies attacked and although nobody grabbed me I liked screaming.

  Rachel flopped down beside me and held out the bowl of popcorn, laughing “That was so scary!” Rachel was a quiet kind of person. We discovered we were reading the same book. Immy talked to me too, about the school football team.

  Most of the girls left after the film. Lydia’s special friends from school were going to be sleeping in the loft, her dad said. That included me. When we went up there, I felt really pleased all over again that Lydia had invited me; it was decorated like a grotto with little sparkly lights and orange lava lamps in the corners that glooped. While we stretched out all the bedrolls and mattresses, Lydia told each person where they were going to sleep and I really didn’t mind sleeping next to the door; I could get out easily to go to the loo. I felt safer there too; it was nearer home, for getting out. So, that was good.

  I put my pyjamas on in a shiny green bathroom and wished they were more interesting or had film characters on. I didn’t have slippers, so I just put my socks back on. I tried not to mind that my sleeping bag was just one of our brown family camping ones.

  Lydia told everyone to sit. “Each of us is going to tell a secret.” Her eyes flashed. “It’s got to be a juicy one that no one else knows.”

  Lydia’s eyes were like an Egyptian cat’s in the orange glow: so big and blue and staring.

  Panic hit me. Think about a secret… My own family secret filled my head. Mum had said not to tell anyone. I thought of Mum saying over and over “It’s no one’s business but ours,” and me promising, saying “Don’t worry, Mum.” I flushed. I felt as if the truth must be written on my face. What could I say that wasn’t our secret, Mum’s, Jack’s and mine?

  All the others were giggling, just like they had at the film, and there was a frenzy of whispers. I needed to think of something else private or important. My best friend from my old school is called Grace? No, that wasn’t a proper secret.

  Lydia pointed to the one who was going to speak. She picked Sophie first.

  “You all know mine,” Sophie said, and everyone burst out laughing except me, but I caught up and laughed loudly even though I had no idea why.

  “If it’s about you and James, that doesn’t count,” said Lydia like a game show host.

  “I smashed an ornament at my nan’s and hid it behind the fridge and it’s still there!” Sophie giggled.

  Gasps. “That’s really bad…! What was it?”

  “An ugly bird. I was only five.”

  Murmurs of sympathy.

  “I copied Angelina’s history homework and got a commendation and she didn’t,” Immy said.

  Big laugh.

  “I hid in the loos to miss the maths test,” Rachel said.

  My hands went sweaty. I stared at all the grinning faces. Nobody had said they couldn’t think of a secret and almost everyone had said one now.

  “I ate my sister’s Easter egg and told my mum and dad that she’d left it on the bus,” said Zing.

  I smiled then. Maybe I could think of a Jack thing. That would be all right. Eating sweets from the big tin at Christmas and blaming it on him? That was a great one. But, all at once, Lydia’s finger was pointing at me.

  Chapter 7

  Secret Time

  Dear Dad,

  Is your food nice? If Mum lets me come and visit one day, I could bring you some cake. Mum always makes Jack and me eat very sensible food, which is not nice, but it will make us live for a long time. Do you remember our Pizza Jellybeana nights? Do you remember your marshmallow and liquorice one? I’m sending you a picture of me and Jack in the garden and a joke photo I made with lots of different things to go on pizza. Which is the odd one out? Shall I send you Blu-tac for sticking them up?

  Love, Ella

  All those eyes, staring. My Jack idea went out of my head. Think. Quickly. Something bad or wrong.

  “Last week I went inside a house that was so messy the piles of things made walls,” I told them. “You wouldn’t even be able to walk around in there.”

  A few people shrugged. “Maybe they were having a clear-out,” someone suggested. “That’s just being untidy.”

  “My bedroom’s like that,” Sophie said.

  “Were there rats?” asked Immy.

  “No… not rats,” I said.

  How could I explain? I took my mind back to that house where Molly lived… to that rabbit leading me. “There were towers of things. There was a piano with a rocking horse on top and furniture in the middle of a room with a fireplace and a sofa on its side and cupboards and guitars and sculptures.”

  Now they were all listening. Now their faces looked like, “Mmm, how odd…”

  Everyone joined in. “Imagine if there were so many piles of things inside your house, you got lost.”

&nb
sp; “I wish my sister would get lost!”

  “Like a maze.”

  “Where was it? Near here?” Lydia’s bright eyes seemed to burrow inside me.

  I rubbed my wrist on the frayed label of my sleeping bag.

  “Come on. Does someone from school live there?”

  I nodded, wriggling, gripping the zip, grating it against the skin. A cold squirming feeling started in my insides.

  “Is this person in our class?”

  “You’re making this up,” Sophie said.

  “Is it Molly Gardener?” Lydia asked.

  The giggles stopped.

  “Is it her house?”

  “She is so odd… she never invites anyone,” Hannah said.

  A ripple of conversation began and this time I could join in.

  “Nobody ever invites her.”

  “I heard she went to Georgie’s party ages ago and she gave her a scarf as a present that was second-hand with a hole in.”

  “She’s weird.”

  “She didn’t talk to me,” I said. The squirming feeling got stronger – a seasick kind of dread. “She just wanted money. She just wanted us to go away.”

  In the shadows, behind the bubbling lamps, Molly’s stern face with its curling black hair and dark eyes seemed to watch me… that tall serious girl listening.

  “Did you see anyone else?” Immy asked.

  “Doesn’t she live at number 13?” asked Hannah.

  The figure all curled up I’d seen in Molly’s living room, with the long white fingers, sprang into my mind. The strange front room in Molly’s house and then, looming out, the headless thing from the graveyard in the film we’d just watched.

  “Imagine living in a really properly haunted house though…” Hannah said.

  “Maybe Molly’s a werewolf,” Zing said. “Maybe she turns all hairy when there’s a full moon.”

  “Yeah.”

  Some faces grinned, teased; mouths and eyes lit up in the glooping orange light.

  “Takes off her head,” Immy said, “waits for you.”

  “You’re creeping me out!” Rachel said. “Put the lights on.”

  “No!” Lydia said. “No, it’s better like this.”

  My cold squirming feeling about Molly seemed to fade away. And my family secret was safe too. I laughed. It was fun. Everyone was just making things up.

  “Imagine if a cat wandered inside,” Zing said.

  “It would starve,” said Immy.

  “Yeah,” everyone echoed.

  “It would stagger all the way up the piled-up things,” Sophie said.

  Immy laughed. “Yeah, there’s the poor cat going, ‘I’ll never get to the other side of this stupid house – there’s an even bigger pile in this room!’”

  Lydia jumped up. “Come on.”

  She made us all drag our sleeping bags into one big mountain. Sophie did an impression of a staggering cat trying to get up it, then we all tried to climb it and slid off.

  After that, the secrets turned into stupid secrets.

  “My secret is I sing in the bath.”

  “I saw Jessica Branson at the cinema with a boy.”

  “That’s her brother.”

  “Oh… oh well.”

  “I liked your secret best,” Lydia said when we were brushing our teeth. “It was… different.”

  Delight rose inside me.

  I pulled out my special handwash and quickly squirted my hands and rinsed them.

  Lydia opened a pot of blue jelly stuff and rubbed some on her face. “How come Molly let you in, though?”

  I hesitated. My breath felt tight. “I was buying the uniform she was selling,” I said. “What’s that cream you’re putting on?”

  Lydia didn’t seem to have heard. She began wiping her face with a cloth. “So Molly actually asked you in?”

  I thought of the rabbit and shooing it back inside. Molly hadn’t invited me in. She hadn’t been friendly at all.

  “So clever,” Lydia went on, “getting invited into Molly’s house. Nobody else has ever been to Molly’s.” She soaked a white pad in some liquid and rubbed it around her eyes.

  Lydia seemed to do so many things to her face.

  “I am disappointed, though,” she said. “Ella… really disappointed… in you.” Her hands stopped moving.

  “Are you?” My voice trembled. Lydia seemed to be staring right inside me.

  “There’s something that you’re not telling me. I can see it in your face.” Her voice had a harsh slicing tone. “How can I be your friend if you don’t tell me, Ella? I let you come to my sleepover.”

  A huge rush of hot feelings in my head, like electric wire, burning. “I promised Mum.” The words leaked out of me. And then the shame of it. My hand flew to my mouth. “No… no, I can’t!” I stared into the sink where the soap had left white foam round the sides.

  Lydia’s arm came round my shoulder. “Poor, poor Ella,” she said very gently. “Everyone’s got a secret.”

  “Have they?” I hiccoughed.

  “Of course.” Her face snapped back to relaxed, chatty Lydia. “I… I love your name… ‘Bella’ means ‘beautiful’ in Italian. My mum told me. Ciao, bella!” she sang. “Hello, beautiful! See these cat faces on my pyjamas? I’ve got dog ones too.”

  She rinsed out her mouth.

  I rubbed some cream on my hands and tried to smile. I should be able to think of a name for her too. I definitely should. But I could only think of ‘Lyd’ like a lid for a pen or a pan.

  “Can we go back to the others now?” I asked.

  “My funny girl!” she giggled. “Come on.”

  Up in the loft again, we all threw the pillows and had a midnight feast and… it was like I was part of everything. We all chatted for ages, so long that I fell asleep even before Lydia’s mum came up to tell everyone off and woke me again.

  “Friends for ever, Ella Bella,” Lydia whispered to me, as I left the next morning.

  “Yes… I mean, thank you,” I whispered back, grinning at her as she moved to hug the next person.

  Hi Grace – I miss bike ballet. This cat comes in our garden – I’ve called him Smokey. Did you ask your mum if you can come and stay?

  Hi Ella – everyone says hi. I’m glad you got a cat.

  Hi Grace – I haven’t got a cat. It’s not mine. Say hi to Abbi for me.

  Hi Ella – I taught bike ballet to Abbi. She’s really good! We’re on holiday next weekend and Abbi’s coming too. Can’t wait!

  Hi Grace – did you ask your mum about coming to see me?

  Hi Grace – I might be back at Christmas. I could come and see you.

  Hi Grace – are you on your holiday now? Why don’t you answer?

  Chapter 8

  A Present

  Dear Dad,

  My best friend Lydia invited me to her party and it was AMAZING – the cake had pink and white mice all over it and it tasted of strawberries. (I only ate a small bit and I was fine.) Here is a selfie of the loft with all the sleepover people. Immy is the one near the front and Zing and Rachel are next to the big lamp. We watched two scary films. Argh!

  Lydia likes art – same as me!

  Ella

  On Monday, at school, Lydia handed me a little envelope. The card inside read “thanx for your gift” and then a space where she’d written, “Earrings – cool!”

  Everyone already had their places in Willow class. I didn’t mind. I just had to keep my pencils and things away from Bryony so she didn’t steal them. I’m sure that’s where my sharpener with the cats went. Bryony wriggled things to the edge of the table and flicked them down into her bag. I saw her. I kept catching Lydia’s eye all that day and she held on to my gaze each time. I kept wondering about texting Grace again. Grace going on holiday with this person called Abbi. I couldn’t remember her at all. Maybe she met her at Sea Scouts. No, that couldn’t be right; she said she was sitting next to her. If I was still there, would we be in a three?

  At lunchtime, when I
was sitting on my own on the wall, Lydia’s voice rang out. “Now, where is my Ella Bella?”

  Her whole group appeared around me: Immy was chasing Zing, Sophie was arm in arm with Rachel.

  “Ella!” Lydia pulled out a carrier bag. “Look what I’ve got for you.”

  “Did you leave something behind at the sleepover?” Rachel asked.

  “I don’t think so,” I said.

  “It’s present time,” Lydia said. “Silly!”

  She opened the bag and held up the sparkly pink shoes she had worn at her birthday party on Saturday. “Ta-da!” The air filled with gasps.

  Lydia did a little dance step, twirling. She sang me her laugh. “You love them, don’t you?”

  “I… I… yes,” I said. “They’re really… they’re nice. But it’s not my birthday.”

  “Who cares?”

  “Why are you giving those to Ella?” Immy asked.

  “None of your business, Miss Nosy-pants,” Lydia said.

  I realised my mouth was wide open so I shut it.

  “Well, try them on,” Lydia said impatiently.

  I scrabbled to undo my laces and dropped a shoe and pulled the pretty sparkly one over my school sock.

  “Perfect,” said Lydia.

  Soon I had both of them on and Lydia was making me turn round so the others could see. The shoes felt tight round my toes but I didn’t care. I looked from surprised face to surprised face. Proper party shoes. Mum would never have bought me shoes like these. Lydia’s present was a miracle.

  “Why are you giving Ella your shoes?” Immy asked again.

  Lydia shook her head, crossly. “Ella is new. I just want her to have them. I knew they would be right for her. And they are.”