by Maria Grace
I remembered my friends calling for me on Halloween the year before to go out egging, all dressed up as vampires and witches. It was only an hour or so after I got home from school, but I wasn’t allowed to go with them because it was getting dark and my mother hadn’t seen me all day.
‘Why don’t you come in, kids?’ She looked at my mates, standing awkwardly in their costumes, with their bags of flour and cartons of eggs hidden behind their backs. ‘Me and Emmeline can make you something to eat – some ham sandwiches and crisps. I think I’ve even got some cheese and pineapple there. You could stay here tonight. We can play ducking apples!’
She got so excited that she started fumbling around the kitchen for apples and a bowl, giggling to herself.
My mates made their excuses and started backing out of the hallway, trying to escape the pleading look on my mother’s face.
‘Don’t go!’ She took a drag of her cigarette, her eyes wide with nerves. ‘Stay! It’ll be fun. Emmeline will love it, won’t you, Em? She won’t moan about staying in if you’re here. I haven’t seen her all day. I’ve been lonely…’
Oh, Lord.
‘She’s usually here to keep me company and keep the place ticking!’ she said with a mock-sergeant-major-type voice and saluted to nobody in particular. ‘Please stay… Please?’
They didn’t stay.
The humiliation was enough to drive a girl to scraping herself with a compass to try and self-harm. Year eight had started that off in school, and the trend had taken off like a rocket. You couldn’t get a cubicle to pee in when you went to the bogs because there were so many girls in them, sitting on the toilet, scraping emo cuts into their arms. It was messed up.
I only did it once. I realised straight away that cutting was pretty lame, so I never did it a second time. Funny thing was, it didn’t faze anyone in the slightest. The blood, I mean. Nobody gave a toss. The only time it occurred to us that it was actually really weird was when one of the dinnerladies walked into the toilets and saw this mass of tear-and-blood-stained schoolgirls sitting on the cold tiles, watching each other’s arms bleed, with manky compasses lying all over the floor. I thought the poor cow was going to have a heart attack. She started crying and shouting for help, screaming, ‘They’re slitting their wrists! They’re killing their selves! The girls! The GIRLS!’
Drama queen.
No one was killing themselves. We were just bonding.
Anyway, here I was now … in a children’s home. I realised that when the girls had invited me out with them earlier, I hadn’t said no because I was tired – I’d said no because I was scared.
I was scared because I’d never been able to just go out like that.
I was scared because it had been drummed into me and Freya that it was better to stay in, to stay with Mum. Like subliminal little messages downloading into our minds, telling us to copy and paste the actions we observed, we had turned into these nervous little wrecks, like her. And now that she was gone, I was like one of those puppies that get so anxious and excited at the same time, they end up wetting themselves.
It was all too much.
You spend your time wishing for freedom and planning your escape from the place where you grow up, and then overnight, you get what you want.
Be careful what you wish for.
The thought made me want to vomit.
I had so much freedom all of a sudden, I felt suffocated. I had to fight for the air in my lungs. I thought I was going to pass out, so I stood on the bedroom windowsill and opened the window to let some air into the room, so I could breathe.
Eventually I got back into bed. There was no chance of sleep. I hadn’t slowed down for long enough all day to let the pounding settle, to process everything that had happened. Lying in my new bed, in my new room, in the dark, I tried to take it all in. I had to do it slowly. Like an air freshener you buy for the car; you have to open it up a little bit at a time or the smell will make you feel sick.
I just didn’t understand. What was Mum thinking? What happened?
A memory of the paramedics came into my head, followed by an image of the needle. The way they jammed it into her leg … so fast, so harsh. I could almost hear it scrape her bone. My brain winced at the thought of it.
I thought of poor Grandma Coalman, sat at home in her little one-bedroom bungalow, worrying that we weren’t allowed to stay with her because she didn’t have the space. She had tried to work something out with Social Services, but I knew that she didn’t have any choice – we had to go into temporary care. I would ring her tomorrow to check if she was OK. Times like this, she really could have done with Dad and Nana Rose around for support. I was really annoyed with them both for popping off and leaving us. Dead people were so selfish.
All those years, Nana Rose told us about her clairvoyance. She was what our family called a Seer. She could see visions of the past and from the future. Yeah, well she didn’t ‘see’ all this coming, did she? And if she did, she certainly hadn’t warned us about any of it before she died.
There was no use being bitter. I would just have to try and make sure that Grandma Coalman and Freya were coping as best they could. I didn’t know how I was going to manage it, but I had to do whatever I could to keep our family strong.
I thought about Freya. She was probably tucked up in bed by now. I was glad that she was staying at Bill and Nora’s house instead of here. Mel said that they usually tried to keep brothers and sisters together when something like this happens, but she had no choice but to separate us because Bill and Nora didn’t have the room for both of us. I preferred Freya to be there, though – there was no point in two of us being stuck in a children’s home, was there? But now that I couldn’t see her, I desperately wanted to.
And then finally, I thought of my mother. I thought of her face as she left; all doped up on that stuff they gave her. I thought of the blood. And I thought again of the needle. I’d held her hand as they wheeled her to the ambulance. I had tried not to cry as she slurred that I’d left the dishes and she was worried in case we had visitors.
Lunatic.
I squeezed my eyes shut and rested my forehead against the palms of my hands, trying to breathe out the frustration. My foot kept moving up and down, up and down. Angry tears ran down my cheeks, hot and salty with guilt and rage. Why did I let her do this to me? This was NOT MY FAULT.
Why did I feel like I was responsible for all her cock-ups? Like I was supposed to somehow orchestrate it so that she would stay sane?
I hadn’t done anything wrong, yet here I was … lost.
I didn’t deserve this. I was no angel, I knew that. But I also knew that once you got past my mouth, I was alright, you know?
The wave of emotions hit me like a crowbar, and a little voice inside my mind tried to soothe me.
Calm down, Em.
I told the voice to bugger off, because it was disturbing my wallowing self-pity, and then I felt guilty for being mean to myself. So I sobbed by the bucketload for twenty minutes straight.It was quite impressive.
Mum had looked so frightened. I remembered them racing towards her, and she’d looked at me with panic in her eyes. The way a child looks to their mother to save them when they’re in danger.
But I didn’t save her, did I? I just let them take her.
My stomach hurt. I remembered Megan’s auntie having a baby a couple of years ago. The only thing that baby did was scream. It was at such a high octave that the dogs outside would go nuts. Megan’s auntie said that the baby had ‘colic’, which apparently is the worst stomach pain in the world for them. That’s why she made that weird screaming noise all the time.
I wondered if adults could have colic, too. Not that I was a full-on adult yet, but my boobs were growing at a spectacular rate, and I’d gone from a B cup to a C cup in the last six months, so I was almost there.
I managed to silence the nasty little sounds escaping from my mouth as I sobbed, and I squeezed my stomach to stop the pain, but when I
did that, I couldn’t breathe properly, so eventually I just hugged myself and that seemed to do the trick. I sat on the bed with my head resting on my hunched-up knees, and my arms wrapped around them, trying to keep them together. If I could keep my knees together for five whole minutes, then the pain would go away. I just knew it.
And then that little voice – again so faint that I could hardly hear it – started to ‘Shhh’ me.
The sound was so familiar it could have been my own mother.
It occurred to me it could be Nana Rose. When she was alive, she had the same kind of voice as Mum.
In the midst of my snot-ridden heaves, I spoke out loud, ‘Hello, Nana Rose. It’s Emmeline, here. How are you?’
I felt silly, talking to an empty room.
‘I’m really sorry to bother you, but I was wondering if you could do me a favour, please?’
I looked around for some kind of response.
‘I’ve got this pain … right here.’ I pointed to my belly. ‘And it won’t get lost. I know you’re probably busy up there, but could you do something to help?’
Silence.
I may as well have been speaking to thin air. Well, I was.
I sat there for a few seconds, waiting for something that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. But nothing came.
The room was completely still.
What was I doing? What was I expecting? A voice? A person? Did I really think that my dead nan was going to speak to me?
‘This is stupid,’ I said.
I got up from the bed, angry with myself. I wiped my face, but the tears still came and this frustrated me even more because I couldn’t control it.
I felt like screaming! I just wanted it to STOP!
Like a faulty radio signal, there was a sudden ringing noise in my one ear.
I shook the noise out with my finger. It came back straight away, and I banged my ear to try and get rid of it.
It was so piercing that everything seemed distorted for a moment – like my head had been banged between a pair of music cymbals. I couldn’t focus on anything else. It made me feel dizzy, so I sat back down and breathed slowly.
Breathe in. . .
Breathe out. . .
Breathe in. . .
Breathe out. . .
And then it happened.
I was aware of something, but I wasn’t sure what. I sat there, quiet. A sob shook my shoulders. My senses seemed to be on overdrive and the hairs on my arms stood to attention. I wasn’t scared exactly, just … alert. I reached for my lucky cardigan and put it on, glad of the familiar feel of the cotton wrapped around my shoulders.
The ringing had died down now, and there was this buzzing around me, but it was silent at the same time. There was no actual noise, just the feeling of it.
In made-up stories, this would be the part where a beautiful white light shines through the window. But no. What happened next was so much cooler.
I just stopped crying.
Completely stopped.
Just like that.
I couldn’t understand how I had gone from sobbing so hard to being perfectly calm in about forty-three seconds. It was amazing.
Something caught my eye. I looked up and saw the spider’s web on the corner of the window frame. It sparkled in the rain like it was covered in little diamonds. I felt drawn to the window, something calling me to look outside.
I walked over and looked out to the park at the bottom of the hill. I could see the rose bush, illuminated by the street lamps. The roses shone in the dark and I could almost feel the warmth and comfort of their white velvety petals – as if they were making a special blanket just for me.
I suddenly felt really tired. I got back into bed and pulled the duvet tight under my chin.
And finally I was able to sleep.
EIGHT
I jumped awake, startled.
For a moment, I forgot where I was.
You know when you’re dead scared at the thought of waking up one night to find someone standing over you, watching? Like in a horror film or something? Well, this was it.
A tall figure stood at the foot of my bed.
Oddly, though, when it happens in real life, it’s not as bad as you expect. It feels a bit like a dream. You don’t scream or anything, you just lie there.
And then it spoke.
‘Well, don’t just lie there like a wet fish – say something!’
Ahhh, Karra.
She moved, and I could just make out her long red hair in a streak of light that snuck through the bedroom window.
‘What are you doing standing at the bottom of my bed like that, you psycho?’ I asked, my heart pounding in my chest.
‘Shhh!’ she hissed. ‘Keep your voice down. I’ve only just got in. S’posed to be back at ten, wasn’t I?’
She switched on the lamp by the side of her bed, and I squinted at her wobbling around, trying to get her pyjama bottoms on.
‘Oh-my-life!’ She looked at me with wide eyes. ‘What’s happened to you? Your eyes are swollen like a monkey’s backside! Have you been eating crab sticks? My cousin is allergic to crab sticks, and every time she eats them, her eyes swell up like balloons.’
I got my little mirror from the bedside table. She was right; I looked dreadful.
‘Ohhh,’ I groaned. ‘I look like a right minger.’
‘Big time,’ she agreed. ‘Been crying or something, have you?’
I didn’t meet her eye as I shook my head. ‘Just tired, I expect.’
‘Fair do’s.’ Karra nodded. I think she’d sussed me out, but she didn’t push it any further.
She switched off her lamp and we lay in the dark, talking about the lads that she’d been out with that night. University students, apparently. She said that one of them told her that he’d got eight A* GCSE grades, and three B grades for his A levels, before starting his degree. Pretty impressive. That reminded me: I was back to school after half-term, and I’d be choosing my options this year, ready for my GCSEs. What if I was still here for my GCSE year? No, that was almost two years away. I’d be long gone by then, back at home, like none of this ever happened. I tried to convince myself that everything would be fine, but panic started to rise in my chest. There was no way I’d be able to study for my GCSEs in this place! How would I get the grades I needed if I didn’t have anywhere quiet to study?
I could see it in my mind, now. My GCSE results paper would say: ‘Emmeline Rose has failed her GCSEs with ‘U’ in every subject.’
U.
Un-fluffing-classified.
All my life, I had daydreamed about being a teacher, being a writer, being a stylist, being an actor, being an inventor, being everything. If I got rubbish GCSE results, it would seriously cook my swede. I’d hate it.
‘Do you reckon I’ll ever be able to get into The University?’ Karra interrupted my thoughts.
‘What do you mean, The University?’ I was puzzled.
She laughed at me. ‘What do you mean, what do I mean?’
‘Well, you said it like there was a particular university that you want to go to,’ I replied. ‘Which one is it?’
She switched the lamp back on and frowned at me in confusion. ‘TheOne.’
‘Yes, but which one?’ I asked.
‘There’s only one university, you moron! The big one, innit? In London. Everyone knows that. There’s only one that you can go to … TheUniversity.’
‘No, Karra.’ I didn’t want to offend her. ‘There are lots of different universities. You can choose which one you go to. There’s not justone university, one big building that takes on all the students in the world. There areloads of universities – there has to be, or there wouldn’t be enough room for everyone.’
She was trying to suss out whether I was joking or not.
‘And where exactly are all these universities?’ she asked, half-mocking.
‘Well, some people might go to Cardiff. Some people might go to Bristol, London or Manchester. Or perhaps they
want to go to university in Ireland or Scotland. And some people might go to Spain or America, or somewhere like that. It depends where you want to study and do your degree.’
She thought about this.
‘So everyone doesn’t just go to one massive building in the middle of London that looks like a castle?’ She sounded disappointed.
‘No.’ I shook my head.
‘Well, tit me up with a packet of cheese and onion crisps!’ She laughed out loud. ‘I didn’t know that!’
It turned out that Karra wasn’t very scary at all. She was actually quite nice. She told me that she had been in and out of care since she was about six years old, because her mother was an alcoholic and her father was a heroin addict. They had spent years together, with her father knocking her mother about, and both of them giving the kids a few nasty digs along the way, before Karra and her brothers were taken into care. They had moved around a lot since then. They hardly saw each other because they were all in different foster homes or children’s homes and never got the chance to spend any time together. Her mother was still an alcoholic, but her father was clean now because he had spent the last five years in jail after doing an armed robbery on a corner shop.
I cringed at some of the things she told me. She was very open about it all, and as I listened, I remembered Quinn easily mouthing off about her own mother’s drug addiction earlier that day. I realised that being in care for so long had made these stories normal. Like EastEnders.
I felt ashamed. This girl lying in the bed next to mine, who’d had a pretty sick upbringing, was sharing terrible stories of her life with me even though she had never met me before today. Yet there I was, lying in the bed next to hers, desperately hoping that she wouldn’t ask me any questions about my own life. I couldn’t decide which one of us was mad – me or her? Was she abnormal to be that open with a complete stranger, or was I abnormal to be so closed-off? Either way, I felt sad for us both. No fourteen and sixteen-year-old girls should be lying in any bed, talking or not talking about these things.