Jelly Cooper: Alien

by Lynne Thomas

  Today we’re making liquids change colour and burning stuff, which is both interesting and fun so, alas, no drinking old bluey for me.

  Well, I would be burning stuff if my clicky ignity thing worked. I shake it, stick it over the gas and try again.

  Click.

  Nothing. Great. Everyone else’s Bunsen is burning away and the liquid mix in their jars is swirling mysteriously while my Bunsen sits unlit and my liquid is stagnant and very un-mysterious. I growl and shake the clicky ignity thing with more vigour. It flies from my hand and sails across the lab.

  Mr. Carmichael frowns and shakes his head.

  Fantastic. Maybe I should go get bluey after all.

  I curse under my breath and glare at my failed experiment.

  All you had to do was burn you little shi –

  The Bunsen burner bursts into flame.

  Oh-kay.

  I look over my shoulder. No one is paying any attention.

  Did my Bunsen burner just light itself?

  Timothy Prescott taps me on the shoulder and hands me my clicky ignity thing.

  Yup. Looks like it did.

  Why do I always get the dodgy warped stuff?

  *** *** ***

  He’s not reading it properly and he’s ruining it.

  I don’t like many subjects, but I love English and I love this book we’re studying and Jason Stevens is spoiling it and it’s making me hyperventilate.

  Why did Miss Walsh have to pick him, of all people, to read today? I’m starting to have real doubts about the calibre of Seabrook’s English teacher. In fact, I’m beginning to think that Miss Walsh is a thicko. Nothing else would explain how she could pick Jason Stevens to read aloud the bit where Atticus shoots the rabid dog. Who’s she going to ask to read the trial scene – Rhiannon?

  If that happens, swear to God, I won’t be able to stop myself doing something really bad.

  Unlike now. Look at the restraint I’m showing when all I want to do is grab that book from Jason Stevens’ hands and batter him around the head with it.

  Why doesn’t he read it properly? Doesn’t he get how good this book is? Doesn’t it do anything for him?

  If he’s not going to read it properly, you’d think he’d at least have the decency to trip over Miss Walsh’s handbag and knock himself out on his way to the deck.

  Up at the front of the classroom, Jason Stevens’ foot catches in the shoulder strap of Miss Walsh’s handbag. He tumbles forward and smacks his head on the side of her desk. He falls to the ground like a tree being felled. To Kill a Mockingbird flies from his outstretched hand and spins across the floor. It comes to rest against the metal bin with a soft clang.

  Miss Walsh yelps and Gavin Boulder gives Mervyn Winters the thumbs up. It takes the ambulance six minutes to get here. Impressive.

  I think I’m going insane.

  *** *** ***

  I tell myself that what happened to Jason Stevens wasn’t my doing. I tell it to myself all the way through South Block, across the netball court, through North Block hallway and into the canteen. My breathing kind of shallow, I scan the room for Humphrey or Agatha, but there’s no sign.

  I wish they were here. I need to talk to someone. I need to get rid of this madness in my mind.

  My heartbeat’s going crazy; it’s jumping around all over the place. My head feels a little squooshy too. Wow, there are a lot of people in this canteen. And lots of food and foody smells. And the noise! Like those Caribbean kettle drums. I hate those. Everyone seems to love them though. Can’t understand it. And look, there’s Rhiannon.

  Rhiannon.

  If I did that to Jason Stevens just for reading wrong –

  I didn’t touch him!

  - imagine what I could do to Rhiannon just for being Rhiannon.

  I’ve got to get out of here.

  Dread swills round my stomach. Dread that has been growing in my belly since I left home this morning.

  I have to get out of school. I have to get home.

  No! Not home.

  I hear the sound of my own breath as my lungs fight to draw air against contractions of panic. Something bad is going to happen to my family. I suddenly know it with a certainty that’s terrifying. Something’s coming - something unshakable, unstoppable - and it’s coming for me. My family is in the way of it and me. I don’t think it, whatever it is, is going to like that and I have a horrible feeling that time is running out.

  It’s lunch time. I have lessons all afternoon. I need to calm down and breathe deep and get control of this thing and stick out the rest of the day.

  I look around for a spare seat.

  Rhiannon sees me and the corners of her mouth curl.

  I turn and run. I run all the way home.

  *** *** ***

  “Keys. Where the bloody hell are my keys?”

  Stood on the doorstep, rummaging in the cavernous depths of my bag, my throat tightens.

  I’m tired. So tired that I’m going to burst into tears unless I find my keys, get indoors and into bed in the next thirty seconds.

  I rest my forehead against the door and close my eyes. Someone up there takes pity on me and my fingers brush the serrated edge of a key. I yank the bunch out of the bag, slam the key in the lock and tumble into the hallway.

  What’s the matter with me? My life is going haywire.

  “Mum!” I shout to the kitchen. “We’ve been sent home early because Jason Stevens had an accident. Agatha and Humphrey are coming over later. I’ll be upstairs.”

  Without waiting for an answer, I head up to my room and sit on the bed, shaking and trying not to die.

  Chapter Four

  BANG BANG BANG!

  I wake violently, choking on fear.

  “Come in.”

  My voice is shaky. That’s just great. I prepare to be mad at whoever has the nerve to bang on my door like the local debt collector. The door swings open and Molly walks into the room. I replace the frown with a smile. It feels all tight and strange on my face.

  Molly is an unbelievable pest and would be a nightmare to live with if not for the fact that she is adorable. She loves me with a lack of reserve that only a kid can and, in return, I adore her and try to protect her from all the nastiness in the world. It’s our deal and it works for the both of us in our own way. It’ll probably change in the future, but then things do, don’t they? Roll with the dice, change with the times and all that malarkey.

  The unbelievable pest approaches the bed, her arms extended in front of her, ‘Emily dolly’ clutched tightly in her hand.

  Shaking off the shackles of unhappy slumber, I jump up and hoist her into the air, twirling us both around until she screams with laughter. Plonking her back on the floor, I chuckle as she sways like a drunk and topples forward into the duvet. Molly giggles and slides to the floor, so I kneel and tickle her belly.

  But she doesn’t laugh and she doesn’t try and squirm away. She cocks her head to one side and appraises me with the full intensity of a six-year-old. It’s very unnerving, so I try hard not to be unnerved.

  “You look funny.”

  “Thanks a lot,” I grunt.

  “You do! You look funny. Your eyes are broken.”

  My eyes are broken. Unease stirs in my stomach. As Molly stares at me with terrifying honesty, it swells into dread.

  “Molly, what’s wrong with my eyes?”

  She squints at me for a long time then nods her head, her bobbed hair swinging.

  “They’re on fire.”

  Ri-ight.

  Molly picks herself up and straightens her skirt. Clutching Emily dolly by the hand, she walks to the bedroom door.

  “Mum said to tell you Humpty’s downstairs.”

  “Humphrey,” I mumble out of habit.

  “Yup, he’s downstairs eating biscuits.”

  Clearing my throat, I murmur, “um – tell him to come up.”

  “Cool,” Molly grins and rushes off. She has a super-crush on Humphrey and thinks they’r
e going to get married when she’s ten.

  I run a hand through my hair.

  So now my eyes are burning? Well of course they are, because I’m going mad and my world is collapsing. I think I just experienced my first hallucination.

  I should note that down in my diary; mark the date or something. The head-doctors will probably need to know stuff like that. When did it happen, where did it happen, what happened, exactly?

  Just one problem: I don’t have a diary. I’ve never had a diary.

  First thing tomorrow. I’ll go and buy a diary first thing tomorrow.

  A soft knock sounds on the door. The sound runs through my body like a tazer blast. The door creaks open a couple of inches and Humphrey pokes his head into the room.

  “Safe to come in?”

  Humphrey exercises extreme caution when entering my room. He once walked in on me fastening my bra and was too mortified to look at me for a week.

  I open my mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. For the first time in my life, my voice refuses me. Humphrey strides into the room and grabs me by the shoulders.

  “You look like hell. What’s going on? Are you OK?”

  “If it makes you feel any better, I’ll go and tidy myself up.” It was meant to come out all biting and sarcastic, but comes out all scratchy and pathetic. “Don’t make me flick your ear,” I say, tetchily, and sit on the bed with my head in my hands.

  When I was little, we used to have a strange decoration on our Christmas tree: a toy doll with a tiny body and a big plastic head. It was a little girl with brown hair and a cute, freckled face. The head and the body were connected by a retractable string and every time you gave the head a tug, as the string retracted the body, the girl would say something in a loud American accent. She had a couple of different sayings, like ‘I’ve lost my head over you!’ and, bizarrely, ‘there goes my mommeeeee’, but my favourite had always been: ‘I’m falling apart, tee hee!’

  “Humphrey, I think I’m falling apart.”

  He sits beside me.

  “Go and splash some water on your face and take a couple of deep breaths. You look like little orphan Annie and I can’t concentrate properly with you all fruzzy and spaced out.”

  He smiles at me and gives me a quick hug.

  I trudge to the bathroom, secretly grateful to Humphrey for making light of the mess I’m becoming. I close the bathroom door and catch sight of myself in the mirror. There’s no doubt about it; I look like hell.

  My hair is cobbed and tangled from running against the wind and my skin is the colour of bone; even the dreaded freckles seem to have faded. My eyes are sparklier than I’ve ever seen them. No wonder Molly thought that I looked funny; I scare myself.

  I lean closer to the mirror and peer at my reflection and my heart stops beating.

  Molly’s right: there are flames flickering in the depths of my green eyes.

  My restarting heart slams against my chest and starts to race.

  Just to clarify, I say again: there’s a wild, mad, fire. Burning. In my eyes! A wild mad fire that other people can see.

  This isn’t Watership Down. This is sunny old Seabrook, where the weekly high-point consists of the local Post Office getting its regular consignment of Walnut Whips. I am finished.

  Groping for anything nailed down, I plonk on the edge of the bathtub. Deep breaths. Get a grip. Humphrey’s waiting for me. Deep breaths. Humphrey’ll know what to do for sure.

  I splash water on my face, try to drag a brush through the tangled mess of my hair, will my eyes to behave and go to face what I hope is going to be light at the end of a very long and very weird tunnel.

  “Hi Jay.”

  Except that Humphrey’s not alone. Agatha has joined him on the bed. My step falters.

  “Um…hi, Agatha.”

  Agatha smiles, her thick-framed specs wobbling. Startling violent eyes gaze at me from behind the lenses.

  Why am I so damned uncomfortable? When you find yourself in a desperate situation – eyes that are on fire. I’d call that desperate - you turn to your friends. You share your troubles. You invite them into your confidence. Or, if your name is Jelly Cooper and you’re socially incompetent, you push it all to the back of your mind and turn to your other close friend: denial.

  Given the choice between telling Humphrey and Agatha that there’s something very, very wrong with me and telling them about some stupid dreams…

  Stupid dreams it is then.

  “So what happened this afternoon? Where did you go?” Agatha asks, eyes twinkling.

  Agatha, whilst no doormat, is constantly amazed at my sheer lack of self-restraint. There’s that and the fact that she’s a brilliant student who secretly adores school and can’t understand why I don’t feel the same. Seriously, she gets cravings for homework about two weeks into the summer holidays! Can you imagine?

  Not that I hold it against her; we’re all different and this I fully accept. Plus, I love the way Agatha tries to hide her enthusiasm from me because she’s, um, how shall I say, sensitive to my feeling of intense mistrust towards the whole educational establishment.

  But I’m stalling and they know it.

  “I came home. That thing with Jason Stevens freaked me out.”

  Agatha frowns. She’s sharp as a tack and you really have to watch what you say around her. Something I seem to have forgotten.

  “What do you mean ‘that thing with Jason Stevens’? He fell over a bag, didn’t he?”

  She glances at Humphrey, who nods and mumbles, “that’s what I heard.”

  Backed into a corner, I do what I swore a long time ago not to do: I lie.

  “Erm, yeah. But I was really close and I saw him go down and it, erm, made me feel sick?”

  Humphrey sighs in typical Humphrey style. “Liar. What’s wrong?”

  Scary-astute friends. I have two scary-astute friends.

  I don’t know whether to laugh or cry and I certainly don’t know how much of my fractured sanity I should reveal. I’m not ready for the straightjacket just yet.

  “OK, it was nothing to do with Jason Stevens. I’m having a reoccurring nightmare. A really, really, nasty reoccurring nightmare, over and over again and it’s driving me nuts.”

  “Are you sure it’s the same dream?” Agatha asks, sees the look on my face and retracts. “Of course you’re sure.” She frowns at me and I just know that she’s paying close attention to my pale skin and tired eyes. “How often?”

  See what I mean?

  “Every night. At first it was every now and again but recently, every bloody night.”

  Humphrey slowly raises his eyebrows. My intention is to smile. It doesn’t quite make it.

  Agatha jumps off the bed and forces me to sit down in her place. “You should tell us everything.”

  I do as she says. Agatha’s smart. It pays to listen to her.

  *** *** ***

  “He drops me. He drops me head first into the canyon. I die, then I wake up.”

  I don’t tell them about the early dreams, the ones about a man in a yellow raincoat. What’s the point? That guy is like Santa compared to my latest nightly visitor.

  “That’s it?” Asks Agatha with wide eyes. “That’s the whole dream?”

  “YES THAT’S THE WHOLE DREAM!”

  She flinches and some part of me regrets shouting at her. But I really am teetering on the edge of crazy and crazy comes complete with erratic behaviour. Agatha, though, won’t let it go.

  “Is that the whole dream or have you left anything out?”

  My gaze flits around the room from object to object, landing on anything except a pair of violet eyes that have a habit of reading too much into things. You see, here comes the really wiggy part; the part that scared the living daylights out of me just when I thought I couldn’t be any more scared than I already was.

  “He, erm…drops me. I wake up.”

  “So you said.”

  Sometimes, Humphrey comes this close (holding thumb and foref
inger millimeters apart), I swear.

  “Yes, thank you Humphrey,” I mutter. “Oh well, you’ve heard the rest of it, you may as well hear the freaky bit into the bargain.”

  Ignore the fire, ignore the fire.

  “Like that wasn’t freaky enough.”

  “Humphrey, I’m warning you…”

  “Sorry.”

  I puff out my cheeks and take a minute to gather my thoughts. Here goes…

  “I’m lying in bed, not quite sure if I’m alive or dead, wondering what just happened to me. Just when wake up properly and realise that I’ve had a dream about him, the Hunter, I hear his voice. Inside my head.”

  Blank faces.

  “While I’m awake,” I stress. “He says, ‘I’m coming for you Camille. I’m closer every day.’ It’s a freaking nightmare!”

  I throw my hands in the air.

  Agatha taps her bottom lip for a while as she steals sneaky glances at my face. It’s annoying, but I let her carry on. She’s obviously cooking something up in that enormous brain of hers.

  She stops tapping and says,

  “We may need to go through this whole thing again. At first I thought that Rhiannon was finally getting to you and you were going a bit loopy because of it”.

  “HAH!”

  I know that I shouldn’t interrupt, but come on! We’re talking about me having a seriously deranged reoccurring nightmare and surreal panic attacks as a result of some teasing by a pompom-waver with the IQ of a wicker basket! I think not.

  Agatha waves her hand. “Yeah, yeah. I know. Anyway, I don’t think Rhiannon has anything to do with your dream. It doesn’t feel right.”

  Humphrey’s head comes up at this point. “Sounds right to me.”

  “Well,” Agatha twiddles the ends of her hair. “The maniac in Jelly’s dream wants to kill her – like really wants to kill her. Rhiannon and the mini-me-minions are usually just talk, they hardly ever do hands on. The threat of a couple of girls, and I use the term loosely, saying nasty things and waving their fingers about doesn’t add up to what Jelly experiences in her nightmare. Right?”

  She looks at me and I nod, once.

  “It’s weird,” I say after a while. “It all feels so familiar to me. Him especially. I get déjà vu every time I think of him.”