Alex takes him from me and looks at him closely. She strokes his fur and sniffs his head and then passes him back to me.
‘You can have him, if he means that much to you.’
I don’t know what to say. The thing is, I’ve wanted Mr Cuddles ever since I can remember. I’ve got my own cuddly toys, of course, but none of them seems special. Not like him anyway. He was a ‘welcome to the world’ present to Alex from Grandpa. Mum was really young when she had Alex, and Grandpa was majorly upset with her until the day Alex was born when (as Mum tells us every year on Alex’s birthday) he took one look at his first ever grandchild and fell totally in love with her. He dashed straight from the hospital into town, spent ages choosing a teddy bear that had the nicest face (only the best would do for his granddaughter) and put it in Alex’s cot when he went back later to visit. So Mr Cuddles has slept in the same bed as Alex every night since she was born.
By the time I came along, babies weren’t such a surprise to our family. I guess the novelty had worn off a little bit. I’ve got loads of things to cuddle: a rabbit, a hippo, a strange-looking kangaroo glove puppet with a baby in its pouch and quite a few teddy bears. Mum kept a sweet wooden rattle that I was given when I was a baby and a family of plastic ducks that you can pull along on a string. They used to quack, but not any more. I reckon it’s just another one of the perks of being the oldest child: people make a bit more of a fuss if you’re the first.
This is why I don’t know what to do right now. I’ve longed to have Mr Cuddles snuggled up to me in my bed at night – but not like this. Alex is being cross and confusing and I don’t think she really means it.
‘You can’t give him to me. He’s yours. It’d make Grandpa sad if you didn’t have him any more.’ Alex rolls her eyes at me, but sits up, cross-legged, on her bed. ‘And I think you’d be sad without him too.’ I say this last bit really quietly, just in case it makes her yell at me again.
Alex reaches out her hand and strokes Mr Cuddles again. Then she looks up at me and smiles, and she looks like my normal, lovely big sister again.
‘OK, I guess he can stay.’ She takes Mr Cuddles from me and stares him hard in the eye (he’s only got one eye left after years of being scrunched and snuggled and slept on by Alex). ‘You’ve been given a stay of execution, Mr Cuddles. Izzy has argued your case. Now what do you say to her?’
‘Thank you, Izzy,’ growls Mr Cuddles/Alex.
‘You’re welcome,’ I tell him, grinning at Alex, and then navigating across her floor to the door, taking great care not to trample on the piles of school books that are strewn everywhere. I think that I could have a great career ahead of me as a minesweeper, all the practice I get avoiding stepping on Alex’s stuff.
Once I’m safely out of her war zone of a room and across the landing, I open my own bedroom door and step inside. My room could not be more different to Alex’s. Everything has a place. My homework is stacked tidily on my desk and my clothes drawers are all neatly closed – not half open with underwear and T-shirts flowing out. I’m not weird or anything – I just like everything to be tidy. I like knowing where everything is; it makes me feel calm inside. Alex teases me about it, but Mum says there’s nothing wrong with needing to be ordered and that everybody likes to feel in control of something.
I sit down on my bed and twist my mood ring round and round on my finger. I love my mood ring and I wear it all the time. Alex gave it to me for my tenth birthday. She got it from one of the funny little shops that she likes: shops that sell candles and incense and weird statues. I know that it’s just supposed to be a bit of fun, but I realized pretty quickly that my mood ring is actually quite accurate. I wouldn’t ever tell anybody, but sometimes it feels like it REALLY can tell what’s going on in my house, even before I can.
It started one day when I noticed that it had gone an amazing silver colour and when I checked with my mood-ring guide it said that could mean loneliness. And then, the very next day, Betty, my cat who I’d had for eight years, got run over and died, and I felt lonelier than I’ve ever felt in my whole entire life. It just seemed too much of a coincidence.
Anyway, it’s a murky colour at the moment, which means that I must be feeling anxious or scared. I suppose Alex’s grumpy mood has made me feel a bit worried so maybe that’s it. Then again, we’ve got that horrible maths test at school tomorrow and I just know that I’m going to fail – I didn’t understand a word that Mrs Hardman said when she was teaching us about simple equations. There was definitely nothing simple about them though, I know that for sure.
Something’s making me feel nervous and I don’t like it. It’s like that feeling you get when there’s about to be a big storm: things start to feel wrong. I think I’ll distract myself until Mum gets back from work by finishing my homework. Then I might make sure my pencil case has got everything I’ll need for tomorrow’s test. Best to be prepared, just in case a miracle happens and I actually understand one of the questions. It’d be a shame if that happened and my pen had run out of ink.
All That Glitters Is Not Gold
Some nights I have the same dream. A recurring dream – a dream that you just can’t stop, even if you really want to. I dream that I’m sitting in a seat in a theatre. The seat is covered in red velvet and I can tell it’s old because of the way that there’s a rip on the side and the armrests are worn through and shiny, from the hundreds and thousands of arms that have rested on them over the years. There are rows of seats stretching out in front of me and rows of seats reaching into the distance behind me, but they’re all empty. I’m all alone in the theatre, except for one other person.
Alex is on the stage, standing in a single spotlight. She starts to dance, slowly at first, but then faster and faster, until she’s whirling and twirling so fast that I forget to breathe – I’m so sure that she’ll fall. There’s never any music, but it doesn’t matter because Alex is the music. The way she moves is so beautiful, so everything, that music couldn’t compete with her. Definitely not me on my violin.
And then, suddenly, she stops. I clap as loudly as I can – I clap until my hands hurt. I stand up and cheer and call her name.
‘Alex! Alex! I’m over here!’
She stands on the stage, eyes sparkling, with the biggest smile I’ve ever seen. She’s breathing deeply, out of breath, and I can feel her excitement and pride; it’s radiating out from her in purple waves.
I want to run to her, to hug her and tell her how amazing she is, to tell whoever will listen that this is my big sister. I feel like I’ll burst, I’m so proud.
And then something catches Alex’s attention and she turns slightly, looking right in my direction. I wave and shout, but she looks straight past me. I spin round to see who’s behind me – whose name is on her lips – but there’s nobody there.
When I turn back, Alex has gone. This is when I wake up. When the dreams first began, I’d be sweating and crying. Mum would come running in and I’d try to explain why I was so sad. But, after a while, the crying stopped. Now I wake up and lie in the dark, looking up at my glow stars on the ceiling. I wonder why, not once, even though I’ve been having this dream for over a year, Alex has never looked at me.
Tickled Pink
I’m sitting at the kitchen table struggling over my science homework when I hear the back door open.
‘Hi, Finn,’ says Mum, without turning round from the stove.
‘Hi,’ Finn replies, flopping down into a chair. He’s wearing a grey sweatshirt that’s perfect for him; grey people are reliable people and I’d trust Finn with anything. ‘What you working on, Izzy?’
‘The rock cycle,’ I tell him.
‘That’s cool! You get way better homework than we did in Year 7. If you want any CDs, just let me know. I’ve got all the classics and loads of examples – garage rock, indie rock, punk rock, soft rock, hard rock, grunge.’ Finn stops to take a breath. ‘And then I’ve got blues rock, psychedelic rock and, obviously, progressive rock.’
‘Not that kind of rock,’ I say. ‘I’ve got to look at how different rocks are made, like sedimentary rocks and igneous rocks.’
Finn looks disappointed so I rush to reassure him.
‘Your kinds of rock are much more interesting than mine,’ I tell him. ‘I wish my homework was about them!’
‘Well, I’m not going to be much use to you then – I was rubbish at science. Gave it up the first chance I had.’
I sense Mum turning round behind me.
‘But wouldn’t you agree, Finn, that science is a very useful subject and Izzy should do her absolute best to finish her homework?’ Her voice is friendly, but I know she’s raising her eyebrows at Finn in a ‘get the hint and agree with me’ way.
‘Oh yes. I totally agree. Science is very important. I really wish I’d worked a bit harder when I was in Year 7. And just wait till you’re in Year 13 – we have so much work to do it isn’t funny!’
Mum is satisfied with his answer and turns back to the stove. Finn grins at me and I stifle a groan. Why does Mum have to make me look like such a baby in front of him? I always do my homework; it’s not like she has to nag me to do it.
‘Here you go, Finn – try one of these.’ Mum puts down a plate of biscuits on the table in front of us. ‘Careful, they only came out of the oven a few minutes ago so they’re piping hot!’
‘Thanks, I thought I could smell something good.’ Finn grabs a biscuit and then quickly drops it, yelping and shoving his fingers in his mouth.
‘I did warn you,’ says Mum.
I laugh at the face Finn is pulling and carefully take a biscuit for myself, gently pulling pieces off the sides and blowing on them before I risk eating one.
Today must be a no-reason visit from Finn because there’s no band practice. I know this because Alex spends hours and hours getting ready on band nights and I can’t ever get anywhere near the bathroom. Not until she’s gone out at least. Alex is quiet today – suspiciously quiet actually. Now that I think about it, she’s not making any noise whatsoever, which is very unusual. There’s no radio blaring from her room, or the sound of her hairdryer at full hair-destroying throttle. Very strange indeed.
Finn has obviously recovered from his burns because he reaches for another biscuit and stuffs it into his mouth, whole.
‘Ooobledook Aldrgghhh ergghhh?’ he splutters through the crumbs. I really, really like Finn, but I wish that he wasn’t such a boy sometimes. There are crumbs all over the table and somebody will have to clear them up and you can bet that it won’t be him.
‘What?’ I ask him. ‘I don’t speak biscuit language.’
Finn swallows and wipes his mouth.
‘That was lush – thanks! I said, is Alex about?’
I look towards the ceiling, which is daft because I don’t have X-ray vision.
‘Well, I thought she was in her room,’ I tell him. ‘But now I’m not so sure. It’s very quiet up there.’
Finn stands up.
‘I’ll go and have a look,’ he says, and saunters off towards the stairs. Mum doesn’t say a word, just keeps stirring her pan on the stove. If it was any other boy, she’d have a fit – there’s no way that Alex would be allowed to have a boy in her room – but Finn is different. I don’t know why, but he just is. It’s silly really because he actually still is a boy, even if he’s just Finn.
I keep going with my homework, labelling a diagram with erosion and weathering and other confusing things. After a few minutes, I hear heavy footsteps clomping down the stairs and then Finn appears in the kitchen doorway.
‘Was she not there?’ asks Mum, looking worried for a moment. She likes to keep very close tabs on me and Alex, which is not a problem for me as I have nowhere else to be but home or school, but Alex hates Mum ‘constantly going on’ about where she’ll be and what time she’ll be home. They had a whopping argument about it the other night and Alex yelled at Mum that maybe she should just be done with it and make Alex wear a tag like a prisoner – then she could track her location at all times. Mum shouted back that she thought that was a great idea and that when Alex showed she was worthy of trust then she, Mum, would be more than happy to give it to her.
I pretended that I couldn’t hear them, which was quite difficult as I was watching TV in the living room and they were standing in the hallway right outside the door. I turned the volume up on the TV to drown them out, but then Alex stormed off and slammed the front door, and Mum marched into the living room and yelled at me for having the sound too loud. So unfair – it was Alex who wound her up, not me.
‘She’s there,’ Finn tells Mum. His voice is quieter than normal and I look up to see what’s wrong. ‘She’s busy. I’ll catch up with her another time.’ He walks quickly across the kitchen and opens the back door. ‘Thanks for the grub. Good luck with the homework, Izzy.’
‘Finn –’ starts Mum, but the door has closed and he’s gone. Mum looks at me and shrugs. I shrug back. I have no idea what just happened. Finn and Alex are inseparable. It makes me feel a bit left out actually – the way they can spend hours lounging around with each other, totally relaxed and laughing at jokes that only they understand. She’s never been too busy for him before. Not ever.
‘Maybe she’s finally starting to understand the importance of her A levels,’ Mum says, drying her hands on a tea towel. She looks quietly pleased, but I don’t buy it. Alex is never that predictable.
‘Supper’s in the oven. You’ve got about half an hour,’ Mum warns me and then she heads towards her study and the mountain of marking that’s balanced on her desk. She teaches for three days every week and the rest of the time she’s always really busy looking after us and Granny and Grandpa. She doesn’t ever really go out with friends, even though Alex has been going on at her to get a social life. She does talk to Granny on the phone for ages every day though, and she pops in to see them virtually every day too, so it’s not like she hasn’t got anyone to talk to.
I keep going with my rocks for a few minutes, but curiosity overwhelms me and I can’t think about sediments and magma until I know what Alex is doing. I creep out of the kitchen, past the closed study door and up the stairs. Alex’s room is at the top on the right and her door is slightly open – Finn can’t have closed it properly when he left. I’m not an eavesdropper, but surely if I just happen to hear something then that’s OK? And if I’m crouched on the floor by Alex’s door when I happen to hear something then that’s totally explainable and fine. I could be looking for a contact lens or something. Except I don’t wear contact lenses so I’d probably be looking for something else small and hard to find. Like a pin. Or a needle. Or maybe a pencil sharpener – I can never find one of those when I need it.
I sink on to the carpet and press my face up against the door. I can hear Alex, but she’s not talking in her normal voice. She’s speaking really quietly and giggling. Alex doesn’t giggle. She laughs – a loud, rumbling laugh that makes everyone who hears it join in. It’s totally contagious, Alex’s laugh; even if you’re completely miserable it makes you start sniggering. But that’s not the laugh she’s doing now. Now she’s making a sweet, tinkling sound, like sleigh bells. It’s not a bad laugh – it’s just not her laugh. It sounds like a pink laugh, fluffy and sweet. I wonder if she’s thinking about choosing a new laugh like she chooses new handwriting styles. I hope not. It wouldn’t sound like her.
It’s hard to hear what she’s saying in this new fairy-princess voice that she’s using, but if I press my face against the wall and squint I can see her through one eye. She’s lying on her bed and talking on her mobile. I have no idea who she’s talking to, but I don’t think it’s her best friend, Sara, and I know it can’t be Finn. Whoever it is must be extremely important for Alex to send Finn away.
I glance down at my mood ring. It’s red, which means danger, and I feel a tingle of fear run down my spine.
Izzy
Some things just go
together.
Like toast and pe
anut butter, or
envelopes and stamps.
You CAN have
one
without the other, but they’re
better together.
That’s just the way it is.
Like me and
Alex.
Better together.
Without her, I’m OK. Not fantastic, but not
totally useless.
But with her
I can do anything.
Without her, I creep along, shoulders
hunched against the
mean shouts
from the aggro boys,
swallowing their nasty words
so that they swirl and whirl
inside my stomach,
making me feel
jagged and
alone.
Footsteps behind me make me
speed up,
fear prickling my neck like a
miniature hedgehog
crawling along the collar of my school shirt.
My shoulders scrunch into my
ears as a hand
grabs
me.
And a voice calls out and I know that she is
here
and there is not an aggro boy alive who can
stand up to Alex.
She shouts and she tells them what
she will do to them
if they ever
bother
me
again.
Then she drapes her arm round me
and my shoulders sink back down like one of
Mum’s cakes when she takes it out of the oven.
And we walk home.
The heaviness of Alex’s arm
tethers me to her and I am
safe.
We don’t talk about it,
Violet Ink Page 4