‘I’m surprised you made it at all,’ he scoffs, ‘with your foot … and your elbow …’
All things considered, the practice doesn’t go too badly. Matthew lends me some of his kit, and I remember a lot of what I learnt. I’m not great, but I’m not disastrous either.
A bright moon casts a blue light across the room through the partially open curtains.
The bedside clock shines 03.10 into the room in red numbers and I am awake, and the same as the other nights … there is no Ben.
‘You’re really freaking me out now,’ I call out into the room. ‘It’s not funny, Ben … DO SOMETHING!’
An eerie silence fills the room, but I still can’t help but believe that Ben is up to something.
I notice how the moonlight reflects on the little hanging threads of web from the light fitting and how a dead fly dangles from one of them, its legs curled up like a clawed hand.
I tiptoe downstairs to get a cold drink from the fridge, but see that Mum is asleep on the sofa wrapped in a blanket, an empty mug of something beside her. I take a peek at her and her hair is a tangled mess and her mouth is slightly open.
So it is not just for me that in the depths of the night, fear is always greater and sadness is always sadder and guilt is always stronger.
Once more I’m filled with hate over what Nathan’s mum has inflicted on us.
Tucking the blanket higher round my mum’s shoulders, I go back to bed, sucking at the straw of a carton of berry fruits, and trying to stop all my worries leaking through the holes in my precious time as a living, breathing person. An image of Beth comes floating forward to join the unhappy party going on in my head.
We did everything together and I miss that so much, the laughs, the shopping, the parties and the late-night messaging. We weren’t part of the popular crowd, the perfect kids who are so perfectly perfect they probably never even farted. We were edgy and confident and crazy … and now … we’re not.
I would love to go and see her right now and talk about the fun we could still have now that I’m back! I imagine knocking on the door of her house, and when she answers telling her that I am Lily, then she will hug me and cry with happiness. Then we’ll get a couple of Cokes and a huge bowl of popcorn and lie on her bed and talk all night long. I sigh again.
Where do I fit in now?
I feel like that fly. Dead, dangling and suspended.
The most amazing master plan for the disposal of Joe and Graham comes to me when I’m in the shower the next morning. I work out how to ensure their demise, exploring all the scenarios that might make it fail, and as soon as I am dressed I start searching. After looking through all of Ben’s pockets and the zipped areas of his bags, I then look in drawers and under the mattress and in all the clutter under his bed. With relief I can find nothing to indicate that he’s been doing drugs. It would appear that my brother was about to buy his very first five-pound bag of weed, which makes my plan so much easier.
A rush of nervous anticipation prickles its way through me, bringing with it a thrill at the thought of how this will pan out. It has got to work!
I dress without washing. No time. A mist of deodorant and fresh clothes will do. I am aware that rushing is making time move even more quickly, every time I glance at the clock the numbers have changed and seconds have somehow become minutes, but right now I have to rush to get the most out of this day.
‘Have you got any change?’ I ask Mum, holding my hand out and jittering in my need to get out of here quickly. She takes her fingers off her cheek, and reaches for her purse to give me a two-pound coin. ‘No, change,’ I repeat. ‘Lots of change, maybe pounds, fifties, twenties possibly a couple of tens. Something like that.’
‘Please would be nice,’ she comments. ‘What’s it for?’
‘Please … There’s a cake sale at school … for charity,’ I say, knowing that this will make her dig deep. She routes in her purse for some coins and puts several of them in my hand.
‘That’s a lot of cake, Ben.’
‘I like a lot of cake,’ I answer, stooping to give her a quick hug goodbye.
‘Bye, love,’ she says and kisses me on the cheek.
‘I love you,’ I yell, as I slam the door behind me.
I take a small detour on the way to the school bus stop, where there’s a public telephone, and if I’m quick I will have just enough time. Pulling open the heavy door with its grimy glass panels, I step inside, wrinkling my nose a little at the stale smell of pee and wondering if this thing even works. One of the bottom panels of glass has been smashed and my feet crunch on the shiny cubes scattered on the floor. I study the instructions, as I’m not entirely sure I have ever used a public telephone, except for the time when several of my friends and I tried to see how many of us could fit in one. We got five, until someone complained about the smell.
‘Stinks of piss,’ I think her exact words were.
I look to see what coins should be used, and put some in the slots and wait. It rings. Thankfully the vandals stopped at kicking in the one window and spray-painting a variety of swear words in black letters across the rest of the glass. Why would anyone even need one of these things? Doesn’t everyone have a mobile phone?
A voice on the other end of the line interrupts the ringing tone and talks through the receiver into my right ear. My heart is thumping in my throat but, changing my voice as much as I can to a deeper, more adult tone, I become a member of the public tipping off the school about the possibility of drug dealing within year eleven. I am, of course, asked to give names and reasons for believing this, which I’m prepared for. I give Joe and Graham’s names but I also give Ben’s, and the name of another boy called Paul, who I know hangs out with them, I don’t much like him either with his pale shifty eyes and his contrasting red acne.
The voice on the other end of the phone takes me seriously.
‘Thank you for this. An investigation will be conducted as per the school policy, and, if necessary, it will be acted on …’ I can feel my beating heart change its thump of fear to the thump of elation without even changing rhythm. ‘… if I could just take a few details. Sorry, I missed your name, Mr …?’ There is a pause as the person taking the information waits for me to give her my surname.
I slam the receiver down on the cradle. I’ve said all I need to say, and she said they would investigate it, so there’s nothing more I can do; now I just need to pray that Joe and Graham have still got the stuff on them.
My idea to name Ben as a suspect, along with Paul, means I can be pretty sure that Joe and Graham won’t suspect me as being the one who exposed them.
As the school day begins I wait in tense anticipation.
I’m jumpy, and do my best not to react each time a member of staff comes within a few feet of me.
And then it happens.
The Year Head comes to our class with his face drawn into a very serious expression and calls the four names that I had given on the phone. We all scrape our chairs back as we stand, the harsh noise breaking the awed silence of the interested kids who remain with their faces turned to the door, watching us troop out. Joe is nervous, I’m sure of it; his body language is over-cool but he hides it from his self-assumed fan base by grabbing his crotch and shoving it towards a girl on his way past.
While we form a line outside the Head Teacher’s room, situated at the back of the reception lobby, the rest of us are openly uneasy. The fact that I’m panicking about what I’ll do if Joe and Graham don’t have any evidence on them, is making my behaviour realistically nervy to the others.
Graham is called first, which means that we are going to be interviewed individually. This is a huge disappointment, as it means that I’m not going to be able to see if they’ve got anything in their bags. I shift in my seat, heart thumping at the thought of this idea going wrong. When Graham eventually comes out, the Year Head escorts him down the corridor and we all watch them go, none of us knowing if he’s going back to class or not. The
only hint I have that this may be going in the direction I want it to is the fact that his cheeks are too red and he’s over-exaggerating the swagger.
When Paul eventually emerges from the room, escorted by the Year Head, he looks slightly green and not at all happy. My hopes rise.
Then Joe is called and after some time, the same thing happens, except he grins an over-confident grin at us as he walks by. Now I’m really beginning to feel sick. It’s hard to tell if he’s trying to brazen it out or not. Out of all of them, Joe is the one that I need get booted out of school. This plan has got to work!
The Head and the Year Head look severe – straight faces, calm, assertive movements – as they ask me to come in and place my bag on the table.
‘We’ve received a call this morning suggesting there may be drugs on the premises, and due to the serious nature of this call, we are conducting an immediate search of the bags of the students in question. If anything suspicious is found, your parents will be notified and we shall deal with it according to the school policy.’ There is an uncomfortable silence while they let me digest the seriousness of the situation, but in truth all I care about is that they found stuff in the others’ bags.
‘I don’t have anything, sir. I don’t do drugs,’ I say, defending myself.
‘That is great to hear, Ben. But if you could just help us by turning out your pockets and your bag,’ the Head says, using her I’m not accusing you but really I am accusing you tone of voice.
In my bag there is nothing, and in my pockets there is nothing. I am obviously completely, wonderfully squeaky clean. I have deliberately only got the remaining change that Mum gave me for the public telephone, £1.90, not enough to be planning to buy anything more than a drink or some chocolate.
I’m asked a few questions but I tell them Joe and Graham gave me a cigarette on Monday and later, tried to sell me some stuff after school, but I wasn’t interested. I also tell them that they cornered me and tried to get money off me, desperately hoping that if they have found anything on them, my embellished story will confirm that they are not only dealing but trying to exhort money out of defenceless kids. They give me a lecture on smoking and drugs anyway, then thank me for being helpful with the search and, to my huge, lung-collapsing relief, I’m allowed to return to class … un-escorted. Surely the fact that the others were escorted and I’m not must mean something. Entering Ben’s class, I force a massive rush of euphoria inwards, displaying a talent for acting that I didn’t know I had when I realise that the other three are not at their seats.
The resulting rumours that are circulating year eleven are incredibly pleasing to my beautifully innocent ears. The corridors are ringing with the drama of it all. Someone saw the police turn up, someone else saw their parents arriving, and everyone thinks they’ll get expelled … this is FANTASTIC! Stories are swapped, such as what happened to the brother of a friend of a friend in another school and so on, each story getting more adventurous than the last. I feel a tiny bit sorry for Paul because he did nothing to me, but then perhaps it will teach him not to hang around with Joe and Graham, but to take his shifty eyes and spots elsewhere. A group of friends, including Beth, Nathan and Matthew, corner me in the break.
‘Why were you searched, Ben?’ Beth asks.
‘Oh, I haven’t done anything … I was just stupid enough to take a cigarette off Joe the other day. Whoever tipped off the school must have seen me and thought I was taking something else.’
‘So you smoke now?’ Matthew asks, and Nathan joins in. ‘Tell me you don’t smoke?’ They look pretty disgusted at me.
‘No, I don’t. It was a one-off. They made me do it …’ I know I sound pathetic and my voice trails off.
‘Nice friends,’ Beth scoffs, and I hate the way she’s looking at me.
‘They’re not my friends,’ I answer. ‘I was stupid. Like, really stupid.’ Then I add, ‘You’re my friends … you know … we’re a group.’
I watch them all looking at each other, trying to gauge what is going through their heads, so when after a long drawn out silence, Beth eventually says, ‘Yeah, we’re a group. Welcome back to the group, Ben.’ I almost squeal in my Lily way with relief.
My step is lighter now. I am free to move around the school without fear, and I’m loving this feeling of safety. I feel confident that I’ve completed a mission, to save both me and Ben from Joe and Graham.
Even so, the rest of the day is difficult as Thursday is another day when Ben and I had totally different subjects. I am not at all sure where to sit, and I keep getting it wrong. I have to check how the other boys are sitting, talking, acting in class. I even have to constantly remind myself to write like Ben. The only other bright spot is that Holly Watts ignores me through our entire maths class, texting some other victim on her mobile phone.
Not a bad effort. I’ve got rid of three prize idiots in one day!
I’m doing a good thing.
Lily’s mum prepared to go out, carefully putting on her make-up and choosing the right lipstick for her dress.
It suddenly dawned on her, as if someone was spitefully poking her with a sharp-nailed finger, that for once she had not been thinking about Lily. For a short while, perhaps even minutes, she’d been thinking only of going to meet her friend and after she’d carefully applied her make-up at the dressing-table mirror it was the first time she’d not seen a bereaved mother looking back at her.
She had come to accept that her family as she knew it had died the day Lily had, yet the other day, when she found herself in James’s arms as he lifted her off her feet to kiss her, a tiny fragment of who she used to be had lifted too. The guilt that threatened to envelop her and suffocate her in those terrible hours in the middle of the night was her penance, but in her waking hours could there could ever be a time when Lily’s death would not hurt her so much?
The sharp-nailed finger continued to jab at her, accusing her of daring to even try to enjoy her life, when she was to blame for Lily making her own way home that night.
I need to see Beth. I don’t want to spend another day without doing something that a regular teenage girl would do. That Lily would do.
I find myself standing at her cheery red front door, a cheery colour for a cheery house. I’m familiar with every part of this door, arched at the top with a letter box and knocker in yellow brass. The porch is painted white with a plaque showing a circle of flowers surrounding the number ten. Beth’s house is white, and clean, and small, and familiar, and I clatter the knocker, calming myself, and stilling my nerves, reminding myself that I must not march in as soon as the door is opened, as I would have done before, like part of the family, reaching for the cookie jar, sharing half of my biscuit with Charlie, and chatting to Beth’s mum. Now I’m a visitor and have to stand at the door, being Ben, with whatever reason he may have for being here.
Beth’s mum opens the door, a mug of something steaming in her hand and a pair of rabbit slippers on her feet.
‘Hi, Ben.’ If she’s surprised to see me she doesn’t show it and she greets me in her normal cool, casual way. Her naturally pale skin looks fresh against the sky blue of her jumper, and her shoulder-length hair has the amber that lightens the wiry curls of Beth’s Jamaican hair. She points to the stairs for me to go on up, calling, ‘Beth, Ben’s here.’
I kick off my shoes and make my way upstairs, two at a time, with my new slightly longer legs, knowing that I haven’t asked which direction Beth’s room is, and I can’t be bothered to pretend. Knocking at the same time as I open the door, I slip inside her neat, pretty and familiar room, where she’s lying on her bed with her earphones in. She’s curled up on top of the duvet, facing the wall. She clearly didn’t hear her mum calling up and is watching something on her phone, totally unaware that I’m here.
Her bed is double, in white cream ornate metal, and her duvet is cream with enormous magenta roses all over it. She has a magenta fluffy rug beside the bed, and a host of pretty things pinned to the wall above
her head. Hanging hearts on strings, with pearls, glittery crystals and mirrors with ribbons; a string of little flags from each country she has visited; some peacock feathers and some wooden flowers. Large dark purple, fake flowers reach into the room from a tall black vase, and a string of coloured lantern lights hang from the curtain pole. I know her room so well, yet I can’t stop looking at everything as if it is the first time. As I make my way over to Beth, I notice a new collection of photos on the wall above her dressing table, and they are mainly of me and her. I stop to look at each one.
Beth pulls the earphones out of her ears and sits up. ‘Ben …? What are you doing here?’ For a second, I can’t read the strange look on her face, but eventually a smile breaks through. Even so, there’s something else in her expression and I don’t know what it is.
‘How are you doing, Beth?’ I ask as casually as I can, even though my head is ringing with the questions that I really want to ask. How are you doing without me? Do you miss me?
‘I should be asking how you’re doing,’ she says.
‘Well, better for seeing you,’ I answer, wondering if that sounds a bit odd, coming from my brother. ‘Shove up,’ I order, pushing her legs over and flopping on the bed as I would have done as Lily. I reach my hand into a half-eaten bag of wine gums and pull a few out, putting one in my mouth and chewing on it. ‘What are you watching?’ I ask. It feels so perfect to be here.
‘Just a video on YouTube,’ she answers. ‘It’s supposed to be funny.’ She plays it, and it is funny. We both start sniggering at it, and when a really funny bit happens we both laugh loudly at the same time.
‘We used to do this a lot. Endless funny videos that made us laugh,’ Beth says when it comes to an end and I have to stop myself from saying ‘I know!’ Instead I ask her a question.
‘What do you miss the most about Lily?’
‘This,’ she answers quickly. ‘Hanging round each other’s houses. Having a laugh.’ Again I have to stop myself adding ‘Me too’ at the end of her sentence.
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