by Hayley Long
This wasn’t the kind of thing that I’d been expecting at all. I’d been expecting her to tell me I was horrifically disgraceful and that I should be publicly flogged and then thrown off the flyover. Inside my wardrobe, I stopped feeling stupendously furious with my mum and started to feel stupendously confused instead.
Dionne gave a big sigh. ‘This girl I knew, she started getting in trouble at school and was rowing a lot with her parents, and everyone thought that she was a troublemaker. Eventually she even got thrown out of school.And the thing is, Lottie, the more trouble she got in, the more depressed she felt. I suppose what nobody realized was that she was just very, very unhappy with who she was, and getting into trouble was a way of waving at the world and saying, “Hello, everyone, I’m over here. Will somebody please come and help me.” ’
I opened my door a fraction more and looked at Dionne’s face as she spoke. I’d never actually heard her say that much before because, usually she just keeps herself shut away in the office of Sole Mates and organizes her hectic social life. This new chatty side to her personality was a bit of a revelation. I still wanted her to leave though so I said, ‘Yeah, whatever, but I don’t actually want my job back.’
Dionne looked surprised. ‘Well, that’s good because I haven’t come here to offer you your job back. Much as I like you, I don’t think you should be working anywhere just at the moment. I’ve got a shop to run, remember, and whatever the problem might be, you’ve still been nicking enough shoes from me to kit out a millipede.’ She paused and then said, ‘Are you gonna come out of that wardrobe?’
‘I doubt it,’ I said.
Dionne smiled to herself. ‘Well, in that case, I won’t stay long, Lottie. I just wanted to tell you that this girl I knew, she went through such a bad time when she was a teenager that she even ran away for a while. But that didn’t help either because the thing that she was trying to run away from was this bad feeling inside her head. She could have gone to Disneyland or the Bahamas even and she’d still have done bad things and got into trouble because she had this horrible, miserable feeling trapped in her head and she couldn’t make it go away. In the end the police found her and brought her home. And by then her head was in such a state that finally everyone realized that there was something seriously wrong and got her some help.’
Dionne stood up. ‘Anyway, the reason I’m telling you all this is because that girl I knew would have felt a whole lot better if she’d known that she wasn’t the only person in the world who suffered from that kind of problem.’
And then she smiled to herself again, a bit sadly this time, and walked towards my bedroom door.
‘Dionne?’ I opened the door of the wardrobe and clambered out. Dionne had paused at the top of the stairs.
‘Dionne – what happened to that girl? Was she all right in the end?’
Dionne’s face brightened. ‘Yes, she was actually. For a while, she was given pills to help control her moods, but pretty quickly she decided that she didn’t want to be taking them forever so she learned how to spot when a bad mood was coming so she could control it by herself. And now I’m really happy to say that she’s almost always in a good mood and has loads of fantastic mates and is out partying with them nearly every weekend – and if she does have a bad mood, she just keeps her head down until it passes and eats custard slices for a bit of a boost. And she manages a shoe shop. And she’s only twenty-two. That’s not bad, is it?’
And then she gave me a wave of the hand and turned and went downstairs.
I was about to climb back into the wardrobe and think about this when my mum’s voice floated up from the hallway and stopped me in my tracks.
‘Thanks for stopping by and having a chat with her, Dionne. That was really good of you,’ she said.
‘I wanted to,’ replied Dionne. ‘Goodbye, Sergeant Biggs.’
And then I heard the front door close. I don’t mind admitting that I was mightily weirded out by that little exchange. I had absolutely NO IDEA that my mum and Dionne knew each other. My mum has never ever once mentioned it and neither has Dionne. How totally random is that?
a Break iN the CLOuDs
Dionne had barely been gone twenty minutes when the doorbell rang again. I had no idea who it could be pressing the button this time and I was too worn out to bother guessing, but I felt certain that whoever it was had stopped by to visit me; for some reason, I suddenly seemed to be getting more visitors than the Pope. I wasn’t taking any chances though so I ran to the top of the stairs and shouted, ‘Mum, if it’s Gina and you let her in, I WILL throw myself out of the window. I’m just telling you that now so you know.’ And then I got back in the wardrobe and closed the door.
Wardrobes are handy things. They are blatantly very useful for keeping your clothes in and if, like me, you have a big wardrobe and a small body, they are also extremely accommodating places to hide. Especially if you are fifteen years old. Nobody would ever think to look for a fifteen-year-old inside a wardrobe.17 Wardrobes are not, however, any good if you want to keep track of what’s going on in the wider world. Unless people are either shouting or in the same room, you can’t actually hear anything much of what’s going on. For a few minutes I sat curled up in the silent fusty darkness of my wardrobe, waiting for whoever had rung the bell to come barging into my bedroom without an invitation, and while I sat in there I started praying, over and over again, in an urgent little whisper, and what I was praying was this:
‘Please, God, don’t let it be Gina. Please, God, don’t let it be Gina. Please, God, don’t let it be Gina. Please, God, don’t let it be Gina. Please, God, don’t let it be Gina. Please, God, don’t let it be Gina. Please, God, don’t let it be Gina.’
And I really, really desperately meant it,because the possibility that Gina might walk into my room at any second had forced me to think through the decision to throw myself out of the window if she did. And, actually, however bad I’d been feeling recently, I didn’t think that I really seriously wanted to do it. But I still wasn’t sure so I started to make a list in my head of all the reasons why I might – and that list looked like this:
Reasons For Jumping Out of the Window
I won’t have to face Gina.
My mum can go back to work.
I won’t have to go to any more double-science lessons ever again.
I’m too short anyway.
I’ve got a stupid nose.
I am a thief.
I’ve got mental problems.
This list made me feel fairly depressed to be honest and, for a moment or two, I thought that maybe I’d convinced myself and that was that, but then I remembered that there are always two sides to every argument so I started to make another list and that list went like this:
Reasons Against Jumping Out of the Window
My mum will be sad forever.
So will Ruthie.
So will my dad.
So will Goose.
Gareth Stingecombe might be for a little while as well.
I haven’t finished my English coursework yet and I think I might get an A*.
The school disco is a week next Friday and I’m not 100% sure that I don’t want to go.
I’ve only just discovered the music of Jimi Hendrix. I might discover other stuff.
My nose might be stupid but the rest of me is OK.
Kylie Minogue is even shorter than I am and it doesn’t bother her.
Madonna isn’t all that tall either and she’s a billionaire pop bitch.
I haven’t yet had a sexual experience.
I want to show the world that I am no longer, and never again will be, a thief.
I’ll miss loads of art lessons.
I want to go into the sixth form and get some A levels.
I want to see orang-utans in the wild.
I’d also quite like to ride on a camel.
I wouldn’t want to die with my roots showing.
A reasonably significant mental disturbance is nothing to be a
shamed of.
Me and Goose have an outrageously funny time sometimes.
Double choco-mochaccinos.
Most of my teachers like me so I can’t be all that horrific.
Gareth Stingecombe likes me.
Even Dionne said she likes me and I stole her tights.
Charlotte Beryl Biggs must be all right really, I reckon.
And when I’d finished this list, I sat curled up in the fusty silent darkness of my wardrobe and, for the first time in absolutely ages, my face was properly like this:
And it was a seriously happy face.
I sat there in my wardrobe, just letting all this good stuff roll around inside my head and it felt really cosy and nice. Whichever way I looked at it, the second list made so much more sense than the first that it just completely blew that first list to pieces. It felt so good that I forgot all about the fact that Gina was quite possibly about to barge her way into my bedroom at any moment and I just sat there, smiling to myself, in the dark. And it was so quiet and I felt so tired after all that chit-chat with Goose and Dionne, and it was so perfectly peaceful in my fusty old wardrobe, that I just closed my eyes and without even realizing that it was happening, I drifted off and fell sound asleep. And the next time I opened my eyes it was because someone had opened the door of the wardrobe and put her arms around me and was giving me a big squeeze. And that person was my sister Ruthie. She gave me a kiss and whispered, ‘What’s been bugging you then, fart face?’
I was so chuffed and so relieved because, at last, it felt like the sun had properly come back out in my head.
the writiNG ON the waLL
On this day, Monday 14 July, I, Charlotte Beryl Biggs, aged fifteen years and almost one month, of 62, Springfield Place, Whitchurch, Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom, Europe, Planet Earth, The Universe, left my house and boldly ventured BACK TO SCHOOL. In no way was it easy, but it was definitely positively the right thing to do. My mum wanted me to stay at home because there is only one more week of term before the summer break, but Dr Edwards said that I should try to go in if I could because otherwise starting school again in September after such a long gap could just feel like a total freaking nightmare. And besides, I really need to catch up with my schoolwork because I’ve got important exams next summer and I want to get into the sixth form to study English, history and art. After that I’ve decided that I’d quite like to go to university and do a degree in writing because I’ve learned a lot about myself in the last month or so and one of the nicer things I’ve learned is that writing is something which I actually enjoy doing very much. Ruthie says that I’d probably like it at Aberystwyth University because it’s chilled-out and friendly and by the sea and loads of interesting people live there. I asked her to name one of them but she couldn’t. My mum says I should stay in Cardiff where she can keep an eye on me. I’ve been doing some research and I’ve decided that I’d like to go to the island of Jersey because it has a wildlife foundation which has a very large and happy collection of orang-utans rescued from situations of danger all over the world but mostly from Sumatra. If I studied in Jersey, I’d be able to go and watch them swing around as often as I liked.
When I told my mum and Ruthie this, Ruthie laughed and said, ‘Duh! I think you’ll find that there isn’t actually a university in Jersey, fart face.’
My mum said, ‘Ruthie,WILL you STOP calling her that!’ and then she said, ‘Don’t worry, Lottie, you’ve got a few years yet to decide anyway.’
And I suppose that was when I really knew that I was feeling a whole lot better because thinking about the future seemed OK and didn’t make my brain melt.
Ruthie was still around this morning and walked to school with me and Goose. When we got to the gates she gave me a big hug and said, ‘Be brave today, Lottie, and when you’re feeling absolutely better I promise that you can come up to stay in Aber one weekend and meet all my archaeology friends.’
I said, ‘BIG WOW! That sounds positively thrilling, fish breath.’ And then I gave her a big hug back and went into school with Goose.
It was well weird being back there. Well weird. I’d just had three whole weeks off school and, apart from that time when I was seven and broke my leg, I’ve never had three weeks off in one go ever. Normally my mum likes me to be certifiably dead before she’ll let me stay off for more than three days in a row. Three weeks away felt like forever. Everybody I saw in the corridor looked different. They’d got bigger and grown longer hair and swapped spots and stuff. Melvyn Pugh had even developed a moustache – sort of – and he’s only four foot ten. I don’t mind admitting that, as I walked into the main building, the whole scene was making me quite nervous and edgy. Even so, I was feeling nowhere near as nervous and edgy as I’d been feeling just a week ago. It might sound weird, but knowing that I have an ACTUAL PROPER PROBLEM which doctors can help me fix has cheered me up a lot. Before that, I just thought I was going nuts.
The day didn’t get off to a very good start. I was a bit worried about going on my own to registration, but then Goose said she’d come along with me even though she’s not in my form. Luckily my form tutor is Mrs Peebly. I haven’t mentioned her before because she’s completely pointless and about as useful as a holey bucket. Being this useful does have the potential to be supremely annoying, but on this occasion it was actually fairly handy because Peebly didn’t notice that Goose wasn’t supposed to be there. I’m not sure that Peebly actually even understands why she has to go to registration herself. Most of the time Beca Bowen has to remind her to take the register. Another thing about Mrs Peebly is that she has these funny eyes that look in two different directions both at once so that you can never be too sure who she is looking at. She is not a very good form tutor, but she would make an excellent spy.
When we walked in Mrs Peebly sort of looked at us and also at the wall behind us and said, ‘Good morning, girls,’ and then, sort of looking at me but not looking at me, she said, ‘Bethan, you need to see the year tutor at break-time.’ I paused in front of Mrs Peebly’s desk and said, ‘I’m Lottie Biggs.’ Mrs Peebly turned her head to the right a bit, looked Goose full in the face and said, ‘Yes, I know, dear. I hope you’re feeling better. I was talking to Bethan.’ I just smiled then and nodded and moved quickly out of the way. Goose did too. Sometimes it’s for the best.
Me and Goose walked over to the emptiest corner of the room and sat down. I was feeling a bit freaked out. It wasn’t just the random weirdness of conversational exchanges with Mrs Peebly that had done it; there was a whole load of stuff making my head boggle. Stuff like:
Why are school corridors painted the colour of cat sick?
Why would anyone want to stick chewing gum to the ceiling?
Why do boys Tipp-Ex pictures of penises on to chairs?
Why do I then have to sit on those chairs?
Why do all classrooms smell like pet shops?
Why don’t any of the windows open?
Why does Lee Fogel eat pizza at half past eight in the morning?
Why has someone written THIS DESK IS GAY on my desk?
Why does Mrs Peebly wear such nasty shoes?18
Why do we have to sit in form rooms doing nothing for fifteen minutes every morning?
Why can’t we just begin every day with double art?
Like I said before, WELL WEIRD.
To be honest, I don’t reckon it’s worthwhile wasting too much energy trying to find the answers to these questions because I don’t think that there actually are any. Some things about life make no sense whatsoever and you just have to do your best to operate around them. This is something I am learning. So I sat down with Goose and tried not to think about any of this. Besides, it was way too deep for 8.35 in the morning. Instead I tried to relax a bit before art. But I’d barely been sat there, trying to relax, for more than a nanosecond before Gareth Stingecombe saw me and boomed at the very top of his voice, ‘Biggsy!’ Then, before I even knew what was happening, he’d pulled me up out of my seat,
lifted me right off the ground and swung me round in a big bear hug. I think he mistook me for a rugby ball. Goose coughed and said, ‘Gareth! Lottie’s been ill, you muppet.’ Gareth Stingecombe put me down then, held out his hand for me to shake and said, ‘Good to have you back with us, Biggster.’ Gareth Stingecombe can be quite weird as well, sometimes.
He’s OK though.
After Gareth had wandered off, I tried again to concentrate on being calm and peaceful. It was tricky. At the back of the classroom, Lee Fogel had finished his pizza and was shouting his mouth off about some amazing goal he’d scored at the weekend. He wouldn’t shut up. He’s got a very loud voice. He sounds like a radio which is constantly tuned to STUPID FM. I was really doing my best to ignore him by thinking about orang-utans and other calming nice stuff, and I was doing quite well until Lee took a football out of his bag and kicked it in a woeful attempt to recreate the goal he was boasting about. The ball shot across the room and smacked me hard on the side of the head. Mrs Peebly, who, as I may have mentioned, is about as useful as a chocolate teapot, looked in the wrong direction and squeaked, ‘Lee, put that ball away and apologize to Lottie, please.’
Lee Fogel laughed.
Goose jumped up out of her chair and said, ‘Oi, Fogel! Watch what you’re doing, you numpty!’
In a slightly delayed reaction, which I can only assume was due to post-traumatic stress, I put my hand to my head and said, ‘OWW!’
Lee Fogel walked across the room, picked up his ball and said to Goose, ‘What’s she going to do about it? Steal my trainers?’
And then he turned around and started swaggering back across the classroom with his ball tucked under his arm. I don’t like him much.
Goose went bright red and opened her mouth to say something, but whatever she was about to say was lost forever. Instead, from the back of the classroom, Gareth Stingecombe’s voice boomed out:
‘FOGEL! APOLOGIZE!’