I feel panic rising inside me. Suddenly I’m sick of waiting to do something. I need to get a message to her, right now, let her know what it feels like to have something taken away from you. I turn to Kelly. ‘Will you do me a favour?’ I ask.
‘What?’ She’s dangling a lace over her mouth.
‘Take one of the new girl’s shoes,’ I say, pointing at Hoshi’s clumpy shoes that are lined up at the side of the studio, ‘and put it somewhere funny.’
She stares at me. ‘Where should I put it?’
I sigh. ‘The roof of the gym … down the toilet … I don’t know. Use your imagination!’
‘Why?’
‘Just for a laugh,’ I say. ‘Go on!’
‘Do I have to?’ she asks. I stare at her and nod. Slowly, she gets to her feet and, after checking no one’s looking, heads down the stairs towards the pile of shoes.
I watch her go, her eyes darting from side to side. Kelly gives me one final glance, then reaches for Hoshi’s shoe.
That’s when I see her hand is trembling.
‘Kelly!’ I hiss, and she spins round, dropping the shoe. I force myself to smile. ‘What’re you doing? I was joking!’
She grins, relieved, and comes running back up the stairs. ‘You’re crazy!’ she says, sitting down next to me.
‘Something like that,’ I mutter.
Kelly wriggles a bit closer to me. ‘I was going to put it in with Mr Gill’s snake,’ she says. ‘Right in the tank.’
‘Yeah?’ I say, and I laugh. ‘That would have been pretty funny, Kelly.’ Then we watch the rest of the fight together, Kelly giving me an ongoing commentary while I work my way through her tangled ball of strawberry laces.
After rehearsal, I persuade Kat to walk part of the way home with me. It’s dark and cold, but the rehearsal gives us so much to talk about we hardly notice the wind stinging our faces.
‘Who am I?’ asks Kat, crouching low in front of me, one leg stretched to the side, arms wide.
‘Mr Simms?’ I say. At the end of our rehearsal, Ms Kapoor and Mr Simms demonstrated rehearsed stage combat. Mr Simms announced that he needed to change so he could ‘move fluidly’, then reappeared wearing a pair of silky, clinging trousers: Tai-Chi pants, apparently.
‘Who am I now?’ She throws her bag at my feet and does a forward roll then leaps up and balances like a stork.
‘That would have to be Mr Simms again.’ I laugh. ‘Oh my God, Kat, you were that close to dog poo.’
‘Leaves!’
‘Poo.’
She waves her hands in front of my face. ‘Yield and overcome, Pearl. Bend and be straight!’
‘What does that even mean?’
‘I don’t know,’ she says, picking up her bag. ‘Even Ms Kapoor was embarrassed when he said it!’
We carry on down the street and I pick a leaf out of her hair. ‘Did you see his V.P.L.?’
‘He didn’t have one.’
‘Exactly! They were very clingy trousers … Bit suspicious.’
‘Shut up!’ laughs Kat, hitting me on the shoulder. We’ve got to the underpass that runs under the dual carriageway. ‘Got to go.’ Kat’s checking her phone. ‘Mum’s making raclette tonight. My favourite.’ I don’t know what raclette is, but it sounds good. Like she can read my mind, she says, ‘I’d invite you over, but my sister’s back from uni. Bit of a family thing.’
‘It’s alright. Mum’s expecting me.’
‘I don’t think you should walk that way,’ she says, glancing at the underpass. Traffic streams endlessly along the road next to us. ‘Aren’t you scared?’
I laugh. ‘No!’
‘Text me when you get in.’
‘Alright, loser.’ I walk down the slope.
‘Hey,’ Kat calls after me. ‘Hoshi’s OK, isn’t she? She’ll be a good Juliet.’
‘We’ll see!’ I shout over my shoulder, then I plunge into the gloom of the underpass, stamping through puddles, the traffic thundering over me.
TEN
I let myself in the house and stand just inside the back door. ‘Alfie?’ I call out. Then I hear laughter.
I find Mum and Alfie sitting on the sofa in the living room. Ozzie is sprawled across Mum’s lap and Alfie’s bare feet are buried deep in Ozzie’s black and white hair. Mum looks up from EastEnders and smiles with her eyes half closed. I know without looking that a bottle of wine will be sitting on the coffee table. ‘Hello, love,’ she says. ‘Come and watch telly.’
‘I’m going to check on my fish.’
Mum and Alfie glance at each other and Mum laughs. ‘Don’t worry,’ she says. ‘They’re not going anywhere. Sit down.’
‘OK.’ I drop my bag on the floor and slump on the beanbag. My hands are freezing so I shove them between my knees. Ozzie lifts up her head and fixes me with her ice-blue eyes before flopping back down. ‘Hello, Oz,’ I say. Mum sips her drink and strokes Ozzie’s ear. ‘What’s for dinner?’
‘Spaghetti bolognaise … crispy duck and pancakes … coq au vin!’ says Mum. ‘Whatever you’re making, love.’
Alfie smiles.
‘We haven’t got any food,’ I say.
‘We haven’t got any food,’ says Alfie, copying me.
‘Shut up,’ says Mum. I’m not sure who she’s talking to.
‘Or milk … or shampoo … or –’
‘Guess what?’ Mum stares at me and Ozzie lifts up her big fluffy head and joins in. ‘I’ve been at work all day, for ten hours. So stop moaning.’
Suddenly, I’m starving. ‘It’s alright for you. I bet you ate at the farm.’ Mum takes another sip of her wine then bangs the glass down on the coffee table. I force myself to drop the subject. ‘Hey, Mum,’ I say. ‘We’re doing a musical of Romeo and Juliet at school, and I’m in it.’
‘Yeah?’ she says. ‘I read that at school: “Parting is such sweet sorrow” … That’s it, isn’t it?’
‘“That I shall say good night till it be morrow.”’ I know nearly all of Juliet’s lines. Actually, I know most of the play. When I found out we were doing Romeo and Juliet, I took a copy from Ms Higginson’s cupboard (along with a Terry’s Chocolate Orange and some paracetamol) and started reading it every night.
‘Who are you?’ Mum asks.
‘Tybalt.’
Alfie’s eyes flick from the screen to me. ‘Who?’ he says.
‘Tybalt,’ I say.
‘I’ll come and watch,’ says Mum. ‘When is it?’
‘December. Just before Christmas.’
‘We’ll both come, won’t we, Alfie?’
He reaches for a cup of coffee and takes a sip. ‘No,’ he says.
‘Ignore him,’ she says. ‘He’s in a mood because he drove his bike into the river. We had to use the tractor to pull it out.’ Mum laughs and Ozzie jiggles up and down. ‘He got his Abercrombie shirt all muddy!’
Mum’s laugh gets even louder and I smile, but out of the corner of my eye I see Alfie’s jaw tensing. ‘Tybalt?’ he says suddenly. ‘Isn’t he a man?’
‘In the original play. In this version Tybalt is going to be female.’
Alfie smirks at the screen and Mum lights a cigarette and blows the smoke over her shoulder. ‘Who’s that?’ She points at the screen with her fag. ‘Is it thingy’s brother?’
‘That ugly bloke?’ says Alfie. ‘The one with the beard and the hairy chest? It’s Pearl.’
Mum laughs and tuts.
I get off the beanbag. ‘Shut up, Alfie,’ I say.
In a flash he’s on his feet and Ozzie’s scrambling to stay on the sofa. Alfie sticks his face close to mine so our foreheads are nearly touching. Everything about him is hard: his eyes, his muscles, his mouth. ‘Why did you tell me to shut up?’ he says. ‘Who’s been talking non-stop since they got in?’
I stare back at him, trying to look just as hard.
‘Won’t you two ever stop fighting?’ says Mum. She heaves herself off the sofa and picks up her glass and the bottle of wine. ‘C’mon, Ozzie. Let’s leav
e them to it.’ She walks away, Ozzie following.
A few seconds later, her bedroom door slams shut.
Alfie’s standing so close to me I can actually taste his Lynx Africa. Suddenly he jerks his forehead towards me. I yell and duck out of the way, but he’s not even close. ‘Should’ve seen your face!’ He laughs. Then he flops back on the sofa, arms sprawled above his head, bare toes wriggling. My heart is hammering and I can still feel where his breath touched me. With shaking hands, I get out the key to my room.
I stay in my room for the rest of the evening. I take loads of cool pictures of Oy going crazy for blood worms and I smoke some fags I pinched out of Mum’s bag. I see what everyone’s doing online, but I don’t post anything. Later, I go to the kitchen to look for something to eat. As I walk past the stairs with some leftover pasta, I see a strip of light at the bottom of Mum’s door and I hear her TV. I don’t know where Alfie is.
I sit on the floor and eat the pasta. It tastes even better than last night. As I eat, I flick through Romeo and Juliet, looking for my favourite lines from the play. When Romeo has been sent away from Juliet and he’s lonely and unhappy, he says, I dreamt my lady came and found me dead … And breathed such life with kisses on my lips that I revived and was an emperor. It’s like Sleeping Beauty, only the roles are swapped round.
I drop the book and look at my humming, bubbling tank. Oy sticks his head out from behind his rock and I speak the lines to him; the words give me shivers on my skin. ‘D’you like it, Oy?’ I say. He hovers for a moment, like he’s listening, then zips into a tangle of weed.
Suddenly I realise how late it is. I find my baby wipes, pull my mirror on my knees and start to take off my make-up, dropping the orange-stained wipes on the floor as I go. Kat says I should use proper facial ones, but they cost too much. I sweep one across my eyes and gradually my black eyebrows and eyelashes disappear, revealing my pale hairs. I hate them.
Soon my face is blank and my skin is tight and stinging. I turn the tank lights off and climb into bed. I pull the duvet over me and clothes and make-up spill to the floor. ‘Night, night,’ I say to my fish.
I drift off to sleep imagining I’m playing Juliet. I picture my costume, how my hair’s done and even the shoes I’m wearing. I see myself standing in the wings, waiting for my cue. Jake’s onstage. He stretches out his hand and I step into the lights …
ELEVEN
Mum’s been busy. Piled next to the sink is a stack of plates and bowls, bubbles still slipping off them. Two bulging bin bags sit by the back door. She’s dumped everything in them: milk cartons, empty cereal packets, Gran’s marrowfat peas. There’s even some crusty plates in there. I guess she didn’t even bother trying to wash them.
The kitchen looks much better. Breakfast is a cup of black tea, but I’m not bothered because there’s a note on the table: ‘Going shopping after work. Text if you want anything. xxxxx’
I get my phone out. I can’t ask for too much or she won’t get any of it. Five things are about her limit. Tampons, I text, FRijj milkshakes (chocolate), peanut butter, shampoo (any). Just as I’m trying to decide what the last thing should be, Alfie wanders in. He stares round the empty kitchen, blinks, then goes to the sink.
‘Mum’s going shopping,’ I say.
He grunts and scratches his stomach. He looks like a little boy with his pink cheeks and curly hair all stuck up. He reaches for a mug on the draining board. ‘Alfie!’ I shout, but I’m too late. The whole slippery pile crashes to the floor – knives, forks, plates and glasses all smash on top of each other. In the silence that follows, I watch as a wine glass teeters on the edge of the worktop before toppling over and shattering. I swallow and shake glass off my foot.
Alfie ignores the chaos around him and runs the tap. When the water’s cold, he fills the mug and gulps it down. ‘She’s going to go mental,’ I say. ‘Alfie, you’ve got to clear it up!’
‘Why?’ He puts his mug upside down on the draining board and steps round the mess, stopping in front of me. ‘I didn’t do it, Pearl. You did.’ Then he walks out of the room and jogs upstairs, taking the steps two at a time.
I look around. I can’t let Mum come home and find this! Tonight’s going to be good. She’s going shopping! I look at my phone. My bus goes in ten minutes.
I pull out another bin bag and start stuffing broken glass and china inside, putting away the good stuff as I go. Luckily, not too much is broken. I move quickly and soon I’ve got little cuts on my fingers from splinters of glass, but I don’t stop. I throw knives and forks in the drawer then grab the dustpan and brush and sweep up the bits, chucking them in the bag with the rest of the stuff.
I get down on my hands and knees and scan the floor. I find a couple of shards of glass, drop them in the bag then check the time.
I’ve got three minutes.
I drag the bin bags to the wheelie bin and then I’m running through the farm and down the track, jumping round muddy puddles and manure. I can see the bus going past the top of the hedge. I force my legs to move faster. God, it hurts. Maybe I should quit smoking again. The bus slows and I yell, ‘Wait for me!’ getting there just as it’s pulling away. ‘Stop!’ I shout, slamming my hands on the door. The bus driver hits the brakes and stares at me. Then he reaches over, presses a button and the door swings open.
I’m panting as I flop down on the back seat, tired before I’ve even got to school. I throw my head back and feel the vibrations of the engine running through me. Then I laugh. I actually made it! I get out my phone. Magnums (raspberry), I add to the bottom of my shopping list. Then I press ‘send’. You never know.
Tiann doesn’t get on the bus, but Hoshi does.
The minute she sees I’m alone, she heads in my direction. I notice that today’s ‘thing’ is a tiny star stuck on the middle of her forehead. ‘Konnichiwa,’ I say, as she sits down. ‘How’s your head?’
‘Better,’ she says, rubbing her white hair. ‘So you’ve been learning Japanese?’
I hold up my phone. ‘This goldfish has been teaching me. Each time I get a word right, he eats some sushi and gets fatter.’ I’m doing it because sometimes Hoshi throws Japanese words into conversations and I want to know what she’s saying.
‘It’s a carp,’ she says, looking at my phone. ‘He’s quite skinny.’
‘At the moment. You do it. Eventually he explodes.’
‘I don’t want to see a carp explode.’
‘It’s a cartoon!’
She laughs. ‘Alright. Give it to me.’ It takes her two minutes to make the fish pop, but then we’re back at the beginning with another tiny fish. I take my phone back.
‘Hey,’ she says, staring at my hand. ‘You’re bleeding!’
‘I cut it on glass.’
‘You’ve got cuts all over.’
I wipe my hands on my tights then shove them in my blazer pockets. ‘All gone,’ I say.
‘How did you do it?’ she asks.
I sigh and the bus swings round a corner. ‘Basically my brother’s an idiot who’s always breaking stuff. He smashed a glass and I had to clear it up.’
‘I’d love to have a little brother. I’m an only child.’
‘Alfie’s not little,’ I say, laughing. ‘He’s in our Sixth Form. Well, he’s in one day a week as part of his apprenticeship, but he hardly ever turns up.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t care if he was older or younger, I’d still like to have a brother.’
‘You can have mine. I hate him.’ The bus picks up speed and we bounce from side to side. I realise that talking to Hoshi is distracting me and making me forget why I’ve bothered talking to her in the first place. This happens sometimes: the whole frenemy thing slips from my mind and I can never work out how she’s managed to do it. ‘Tell me how to say something funny in Japanese,’ I say.
‘Like what?’
‘Your face looks like a carp’s butt.’ I stare right at her.
Her eyes narrow. ‘OK, so that would be, Hana no youni kire
i.’
I try it out a few times and Hoshi corrects me until I think I’ve got it right. ‘Hoshi,’ I say.
‘Yes.’
‘Hana no youni kirei!’
She laughs. ‘Perfect.’ The bus sways and we grab the seats in front of us. ‘Dancing at rehearsals today,’ she says. This afternoon, Ms Kapoor is teaching us the dance she’s choreographed for the street fight.
‘And the trip next Friday,’ I say. ‘Are you as good at dancing as you are at singing?’
Hoshi shrugs. ‘I’m OK.’
‘Because you can sing.’ The way I say this it doesn’t sound like a compliment. I watch her closely. ‘Did you do shows back in Japan?’
‘Not musicals. I used to dance and sing with my friends, and we did karaoke.’
I stare at her. ‘So you got that good at singing by doing karaoke?’
‘Yep.’ She jumps up and presses the buzzer, even though we’re five minutes away from school.
‘What’re you doing?’
‘I’m going to Starbucks. You coming?’ She raises her eyebrows. ‘I thought you loved taking mochas into school.’ Then she turns and walks down the aisle. ‘I’m paying,’ she calls over her shoulder.
After a moment’s hesitation, I grab my bag, jump up and follow her. I know I shouldn’t, but I really do love mochas.
TWELVE
Hoshi buys herself a hot chocolate and me a mocha. As we walk into school, Hoshi licks whipped cream off a wooden twizzler and tells me all about Japanese karaoke bars. ‘My favourite is this one where you can sing from a hot tub,’ she says. ‘Also, they’ve got a room called “Heaven” and it has crystals under the glass floor. It’s expensive, but so cool.’
‘You’ve been there?’
‘Oh …’ She blows on her drink. ‘No. Just heard about it. It’s famous.’ She sips at her hot chocolate, staring straight ahead over the top of her cup.
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