White Petals

by Maria Grace

  I dropped the bits from my hand and I froze on the spot, unable to move.

  I heard my mother crying. ‘I don’t want to be here,’ she said quietly.

  I was paralysed with fear. She wouldn’t hurt herself, would she?

  ‘Tess, you don’t mean that,’ said the policewoman. ‘Now, why don’t you just put the knife down, love? Let’s make a nice cup of tea and talk about things.’

  ‘I want to be with my husband,’ Mum spoke through her sobs.

  ‘Tess…’ The policewoman’s voice was shaking. ‘No, Tess… TESS!’

  I jumped off the sofa to run to my mother.

  All of a sudden, the front door burst open. A load of people in uniforms came rushing in, and I couldn’t get to my mother because they were like a swarm of bees around her.

  I could see blood and I didn’t know where it was coming from. Was it my mother’s blood? Was it the policewoman’s blood? Why was there blood?

  I didn’t know what was going on; everything happened so fast.

  The paramedics were holding Mum down.

  ‘Leave her alone!’ I shouted at them.‘You’re frightening her! You’re hurting her!’

  She was kicking out and trying to get them off her. She was screaming and throwing herself back and forth as hard as she could. I saw one of them take something out of a case, but I couldn’t see what it was. Then he turned to face my mother, and I saw a tiny bit of liquid squirt out from the top of a syringe that he was holding.

  I tried to shout again, but nothing came out. I couldn’t speak.

  Five people restrained her, holding her entire body down.

  The paramedic jammed the needle into her leg, and she passed out on the spot … just like that.

  I heard Mel’s voice calling me away from the memory, and back into the hospital room. ‘Emmeline!’

  I looked up from the magazine, slightly dazed.

  ‘Wake up!’ Mel clapped her hands together. ‘I was just saying that when your mum is better, we should all go to the zoo. Your mum loves the zoo, doesn’t she?’

  ‘I do love the zoo, Em!’ said Mum.

  I tried to clear my throat so I could respond.

  ‘We used to go all the time when Emmeline was little.’ Mum smiled. ‘She was such a darling, Mel. You should have seen her when she was a baby!’

  She started rummaging through her bag, taking out baby photos of me and Freya. I caught sight of a red scar on the inside of her wrist. I looked away, wincing. Mel was looking through the photos and saying how cute we were, and Mum seemed happy to be sitting there, chatting about our baby years with someone who really engaged in the conversation. I felt guilty that maybe I didn’t always pay Mum enough attention. Perhaps if I had, she wouldn’t have ended up in here. If I had just made sure that she was taking her medication every day, none of this would have happened.

  Mum was looking at me, her head tilted to one side as she squinted through her half-shut eyes. She was joining her fingers together and making a square shape around her eyes, as if she was mentally fitting me inside a frame.

  Mel laughed awkwardly and picked up a glass of water.

  ‘Mum?’ I frowned. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Just looking,’ she said, squinting her eyes tightly.

  ‘Looking at what?’

  ‘If I look at you like this,’ she said, ‘you look a bit like your scan photo from when I was pregnant.’

  Mel choked on her drink, snorting loudly as water shot out of her mouth and flew across the room.

  Mum started giggling.

  ‘Sorry!’ Mel waved her hands. ‘It just took me by surprise, that’s all.’ She was getting redder and redder by the second because she was so embarrassed.

  Mum found this hilarious. She was laughing so much that her nose started running. She leant over to me so I could help her.

  ‘Quick, Em!’ Mum shrieked with laughter. ‘I’m full of snot!’

  I grabbed the sleeve of my lucky cardigan. I pinched the material together with my thumb and index finger, and for the second time that day I wiped my mother’s nose.

  EIGHTEEN

  It was the end of the week, and Jolly Clive brought me to school as usual. Every Friday, his wife gave him choc-chip muffins, so we sat in the car and ate two each while we listened to his Boyzone album. I wasn’t really a big fan of Boyzone, they were a band from the olden days, but Jolly Clive seemed to really like them so I was happy to give them a chance.

  I spotted Megan and Ollie getting off their bus, so I said thank you for the muffins and got out of the car as Megan walked towards me.

  ‘You are so lucky to have your very own taxi driver!’ She waved to Jolly Clive as he pulled off, and he beeped the horn back. ‘I have to sit on that rank machine that they call a school bus, breathing in the millions of bacteria that will probably lead to my death.’

  Ollie ran to catch up with us. ‘Have you two done your history homework?’

  ‘Of course we have, Ollie. It’s us.’ Megan smiled proudly.

  ‘Good girls. I can copy some of your answers for the ones I didn’t finish.’ He winked at us and Megan rolled her eyes.

  We walked into school, talking about all the homework that had to be finished in time for Christmas. We arrived at registration class, and the walls were lined with students. I was so involved in my conversation with Megan and Ollie that I didn’t see Stacey Lock push her bag slowly out on the floor as I got closer to the registration line.

  ‘Watch you don’t trip, Smellmeline!’ Stacey’s voice was sour, and I looked up to see what was going on, but I couldn’t see her mouth moving.

  Just then, my foot got caught in the handle of the bag, and I did one of those weird falls where you trip over yourself and go down like a sack of spuds to the floor. My bag went flying across the ground, and as I landed, I hurt the corner of my elbow. A tingly pain went right through my arm, all the way down to my fingers. It felt like jelly. I really had to fight to stop myself crying. I was so embarrassed; my whole face was on fire I was blushing so much.

  ‘Ohhh!’ Stacey Lock looked down at me. ‘Smellmeline! Look at you on the floor. I always knew you were a scrubber!’ She laughed and The Clones laughed with her.

  Megan picked up my bag and Ollie helped me up from the floor.

  ‘What’s your problem, Stace?’ Ollie frowned.

  Stacey looked humiliated by Ollie’s telling-off.

  I brushed myself down and joined the line.

  ‘You should be more careful, Em.’ She winked at me.

  ‘Why have you got to be such a cow all the time, Stacey?’ I frowned at her.

  ‘Well, thank you very much. I’ll take that as a compliment.’ She smirked and walked into class.

  ‘Did you hurt yourself, Em?’ Ollie asked.

  ‘Just my elbow, that’s all.’

  ‘Humerus?’ He tried to hide his grin as he lifted my arm to see the injury.

  ‘Oh, ha-ha,’ I said, nursing my elbow. ‘No, it wasn’t humorous at all, thank you very much.’

  ‘I’m surprised you even know what the humerus bone is,’ Megan smirked at Ollie. ‘Let alone how to use it in a joke. Well done, Ollie. I’m impressed.’

  ‘I’ll have you know that I’m very good at biology,’ Ollie replied. ‘And I also broke my humerus bone once, during a rugby match. It wasn’t humorous at all for me, so I don’t know why medical science insists on calling it that.’

  ‘Will you two just shut up about the bloody humerus!’ I snapped at them as I lifted my arm up over my head to try and ease the pain in my elbow.

  After that, I thought I’d heard the last of Stacey Lock for the day. Not a chance.

  When we finished our gym lesson, I gathered my things to leave the changing room. When I turned around, I got a locker door smack-bang in my face. My nose burst straight away; blood spilling out of it like a can of cherryade that had been shaken and then popped open.

  My eyes stung fiercely as the teacher sat me down on the bench
with tissues for me to hold my nose.

  I knew Stacey had done it on purpose, but she insisted that it was an accident. I was sent to the nurse’s office. Luckily, it wasn’t broken. The nurse said I was fine, but I had to take it easy for a few days because it would be sensitive. She let me stay in her office until the lunch bell went, and she gave me a lollipop. If anyone else had been there, I would have probably been too embarrassed to accept it, but as I was on my own, I just said thank you and cherished the lollipop as I sat in the office.

  Lunchtime came, and I was grateful for the chance to chill out with Megan. I sat on the steps and wrapped my lucky cardigan around me to soothe the tears threatening to fall. Apart from my half hour in the nurse’s office, it had been a horrible day. And, as if the universe was waiting for that perfect moment to ruin my tiny bit of peace, my nose started bleeding again just as I opened my packet of crisps.

  ‘WHYYYYYY?’ I shouted to the sky.

  ‘Calm down, Em!’ Megan panicked. ‘I’ll get you some tissue. Just stay still!’

  A drop of blood fell onto a crisp.

  I threw my head back in distress. ‘MY CRIIIIISSSSPPPSSS!’

  Megan ran quickly to the girls’ toilets, and came skidding back with a load of bog-roll spilling from her hands. She threw it into my face, jumping around in alarm. I tilted my head back and covered my nose with tissue to soak up the red slime. I could taste blood in my mouth, oily, warm and metallic.

  ‘That stupid bitch, Stacey Lock!’ Megan was tamping; pacing back and forth with her hands on her hips. ‘I can’t believe she slammed the locker door in your face. What a low-life piece of…’

  ‘It’s fine!’ My voice was squeaky from pinching my nose together. ‘Don’t worry about it. I’ll deal with Stacey Lock in my own time.’

  Megan sat down next to me on the step.

  ‘Can’t you tell those girls in the children’s home? They could sort her out for you, couldn’t they?’ She looked at me with sad eyes.

  I shook my head. ‘They already think I’m a wimp. I don’t want to have to call on them every time I have a problem. I want to be able to fight my own battles.’

  ‘But that’s the point, Em,’ she said. ‘You can’t fight your own battles, not this one anyway. Why don’t you just ask them for help? Otherwise Stacey is going to keep slamming doors in your face, or tripping you up, or whatever else she can do to make you miserable, for the rest of your life!’

  She had a point, but I didn’t want the girls to find out about this. They would just come storming down here to give Stacey Lock a visit that she wouldn’t forget. And if that happened, I could end up getting suspended from school. How would that look on my Record of Achievement?

  Besides, Karra had been getting grumpier and grumpier over the past few weeks. You couldn’t ask her what the time was, let alone ask her for a favour. That boy she’d been seeing, Lucas, had been messing her around a lot. He never rang when he said he would, it took him ages to text her back, and Quinn said it was common knowledge that he was necking Sticky Vicky behind the chip shop last weekend.

  It was us that Karra took it out on. We had to tiptoe around her because if you did anything to annoy her, she would jump down your throat.

  I had to think of something else. I had to take care of this by myself, and I had to do something soon because Stacey Lock was getting worse. Some days she would leave me alone, but other times it was like she’d set her eyes on me for the day, determined to make it as grim for me as possible. Today was one of those days.

  So there I was, sitting on the steps in C-block, stuffing toilet roll up my nostrils like one of those stupid people who stick things up their nose because they think it makes them look like a walrus.

  I couldn’t go on like this. Something had to change.

  Perhaps Megan was right; maybe I could just mention it to Karra.

  Last class: English.

  I couldn’t concentrate. Usually, English was my favourite subject, but I was so irritable today I just couldn’t wait to get from there. I had so much restless energy running through me I couldn’t keep still. I had to keep shaking my hands, like I was trying to dry my nails, except it was to try and shake the adrenaline out of my system. What was going on? Maybe I was coming down with something.

  Megan was looking at me stupid. ‘What is wrong with you?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ I answered, ‘I’m just so restless. I can’t focus at all.’

  ‘Maybe you should go and see the nurse again.’ Megan looked concerned. ‘You might have concussion or something. You’re acting really weird.’

  I tried to concentrate on my work.

  We were doing something about onomatopoeia – whatever that was.

  Stacey Lock was sitting a couple of rows away, to my right; her presence irritating me like a fly that I wanted to splat with a magazine. Bzzzzzzzz. Bzzzzzzzz. I could hear her buzzing to The Clones about how much she hated English.

  She felt too close to me, even though in reality she wasn’t very near. My body pumped with frustration, just knowing that she was there.

  I hugged my lucky cardigan to me, trying to ease the tension building inside.

  My ear started ringing again. I would have to see a doctor about this. Auntie Sue said that it might be something called tinnitus. Usually old people suffered with it.

  I pulled at the bottom of my ear, but the ringing was still there.

  The teacher spoke, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying. The ringing got louder, and the more I thought about it, the stronger it got. Between the noise in my head, the pain in my nose, and Stacey Lock being right there, I felt like I was suffocating.

  I put my head into my hands.

  Go away.

  I pressed my thumbs into my ears, and rubbed my forehead with my fingers to try and ease the tension. I felt like my head was going to implode. I just wanted everything to … STOP!

  All of a sudden, everything was still.

  The ringing noise had gone. I wondered where it went, and how it had disappeared so suddenly.

  ‘What is he talking about?’ Stacey Lock’s voice made me jump.

  I looked across at her, but she was facing away from me so I couldn’t see properly.

  ‘I’ll just copy off someone. Whose work can I steal?’ She started going through some names in the class, listing the people she could potentially copy from.

  There she was, just brazenly planning her cheating methods. Out loud.

  I shook my head at the cheek of it.

  I heard her say Megan’s name. ‘Megan’s smart. She always gets good marks for things. Bloody swot…’

  Huh! As if Megan would even consider doing anything for her. I looked at Megan and raised my eyebrows in a ‘who-the-fudge-does-she-think-she-is?’ kind of way.

  Megan looked back at me in a ‘what-the-fudge-are-you-talking-about?’ kind of way.

  Why didn’t she look annoyed at what Stacey had just said?

  I heard Stacey’s voice again. ‘I suppose I could ask Emmeline, but she’d probably say no.’

  Yeah, I thought to myself. Too right I’d say no, you stupid muff. Who did she think she was? I’d had enough of this. That girl needed to be told, and if nobody else had the guts to say anything to her, then maybe I should.

  ‘I feel bad about the locker thing,’ said Stacey. ‘I felt a bit sorry for her. I didn’t mean it to hit her that hard.’

  Oh-my-life. Was she serious? Didn’t mean to hit me that hard? The girl had bust my nose! I looked at Megan again to see if she was reacting at all, but there was nothing. Not even a glimmer of rage. Why was she being such a sly-off? Why didn’t she care what Stacey Lock was saying?

  Stacey’s voice came back again, except this time it was very strange.

  ‘I wonder what it’s like in the homes. Auntie Zoe reckons Emmeline’s mother is a right nutter. I bet Emmeline hasn’t really got an en suite bathroom. That cardigan is nice. I’m going to get one the same, except mine will be better. I like
her hair – it’s always so shiny. No wonder he fancies her. No, he doesn’t fancy her! She’s probably a man-stealer, just like the rest of the women in her family. I wish my hair was like that. Bitch. I hope her nose is OK. No, I don’t. I hope it’s broken. No, I don’t. I hope it’s OK. Miss Baker had a right go at me. Moany old cow.’

  What was happening? Why was she talking so fast? She was just skipping from one sentence to another. It was like her words were changing as quickly as her thoughts. Who did she think fancied me? And why would she call my family man-stealers?

  She spoke again. ‘She’s probably a psycho skank, just like her mother!’

  WHAT?

  I screwed up my face. ‘Don’t you dare speak about my mother like that!’ I scowled at her across the tables. ‘What’s your problem? You’re the SKANK, Stacey Lock!’

  Everyone looked up from their books.

  I was annoyed that they were all staring at me.

  ‘Oh, yeah, that’s right!’ I shouted. ‘She sits there, saying all that stuff. But, it’s me who gets the funny looks!’

  The whole class burst out laughing.

  ‘EMMELINE ROSE!’ The teacher shouted from the front of the room, ‘What do you think you’re playing at?’

  I looked around at all the laughing faces. I looked at Stacey Lock. She was the only other person in the class who wasn’t laughing. She looked like she’d seen a ghost.

  The teacher tried to calm the class down. ‘Alright, alright! Settle down! You’ve had your fun! Now, get on with your work!’

  He looked across the room at me. ‘Skank, indeed. Any more of that, Emmeline, and you’ll be visiting the head teacher. Is that clear?’

  ‘Sir.’ I nodded my head solemnly.

  Megan looked at me with wide eyes. ‘What are you doing, Em?’ she whispered.

  I was confused. I looked across at Stacey Lock again, and she looked as shocked as me.

  I turned to Megan. ‘I don’t know,’ I whispered back.

  I heard Stacey Lock’s voice once again. ‘What was that? What just happened?’

  She sounded scared, but when I checked to see her face, she was looking down at her book. She wasn’t even talkingto anyone, but I could still hear her voice.