by Kerstin Gier
“Have you heard yet where Florence and Grayson are having their birthday party?” Persephone wasn’t interested in Mrs. Lawrence’s explanation of the passé composé tense either. She was more in the mood for one of those whispered monologues that she called “conversation,” and that never came to an end until Mrs. Lawrence was standing in front of us, spitting nails and accusing me of disturbing the peace. How I hated that! “It’s going to be at their grandmother’s house. According to Secrecy, anyway.” Of course, Secrecy knew everything, as usual. Sometimes it was almost a blessing not to have a smartphone. (And I probably wouldn’t have one for quite some time, but I didn’t go so far as to feel grateful to Mrs. Spencer for that.)
“I suppose that means you and Mia won’t be coming. I mean, you’re banned from their grandmother’s house.” A theatrical mini-pause for effect, and then she went on. “I hope you won’t mind if I go all the same, will you? Grayson is sure to ask Gabriel, and when Gabriel asks me if I’ll be there, too, I can’t very well say no … and yesterday I saw that lovely Missoni skirt, perfect for a party, not a typical Missoni striped skirt but dark blue, not boring old navy blue but kind of stronger, not royal blue, though, more of a dark ocean blue, it’s difficult to describe, maybe you can come and look at it again with me tomorrow, they have super dresses as well but you won’t be needing one if you’re not going to the party, on the other hand one can always use a new dress, and my sister says Missoni clothes are sort of timeless capital investments.…”
Persephone chattered and chattered or whispered and whispered. It was like sitting next to a defective compressed air system. But after a while I got used to it. Out in front was Mrs. Lawrence’s monotonous but tuneful French, beside me was Persephone’s soporific whisper—my head sank to my arms again.
“… was caught? Henry had to go and fetch him from the police station.”
Suddenly I was wide awake. “What? Who?”
Persephone looked at me, shaking her head. “You don’t have to tell me if you’d rather not. But I’d love to know if that’s true—I mean, it seems odd to me, a boy of twelve stealing expensive perfume.”
“What boy of twelve?”
She stared at me, wide-eyed. “Oh goodness, you don’t know about it, do you? Hasn’t Henry told you?”
“No,” I said. I didn’t mind if I was showing my ignorance, I just wanted to know who Persephone was talking about.
Without further ado, she handed me her phone. And I could read it all there in black and white, while at the same time Persephone gave me a running commentary on the facts all over again.
Henry’s little brother, Milo, had been caught stealing a bottle of perfume in a department store, and Henry had had to go and fetch him from the police station. They weren’t going to prosecute, but Milo was banned from that store. Secrecy and Persephone could only guess at Milo’s motives, but they were sure he didn’t have any money to speak of, because as everyone knew, his father had been neglecting the children since separating from their mother, and he spent money only on his new girlfriend.
“It’s so sad, don’t you think?” Persephone took her phone back, never mind the fact that I’d been about to click on the link that Secrecy had given to the Bulgarian former lingerie model who was Henry’s father’s girlfriend. “The poor kid must have taken the perfume just to give his mother something nice. Isn’t it terrible the way men always want younger girlfriends? It means a woman is either abandoned or she has to marry a very old man.…”
I was listening with only half an ear. Because all this had happened only last Saturday, the very day when Mia and I were on our way home from Switzerland. When Henry’s phone rang and he said he had to go and collect his brother from a friend.
From a friend!
“Olivia Silver! Persephone Porter-Peregrin!” Mrs. Lawrence had obviously said our names several times already, because I saw the angry vein that always stood out on her forehead when she was about to enter someone in the register.
“Oui, madame, pardon, madame, I didn’t understand the question,” said Persephone like a good girl.
“The verb devoir,” said Mrs. Lawrence. “Fabien et Suzanne. Attendre une heure à la caisse du musée.”
“They really had to wait for a whole hour at the museum ticket office?” Persephone clicked her tongue disapprovingly. “But I suppose it depends what the exhibition was. I’d probably have waited even longer to get into the Kate Moss exhibition; it was really super.”
Now Mrs. Lawrence’s vein looked as if it might burst any moment. “Fabien et Suzanne ont dû attendre une heure!” she cried. “Ont dû! They had to wait for an hour.”
Well, that was their tough luck. But for now I couldn’t care less about Fabien and Suzanne and the stupid museum.
15
THE JANUARY SUN shone through the high windows of the cafeteria, bathing everything in warm golden light that was out of kilter with the way I felt. Henry was already sitting at our table, talking to the boys. At the moment he was laughing at something Gabriel had said, and suddenly I didn’t want to walk over to them. Instead I stopped in the middle of the room as if rooted to the spot. Originally I’d been going to grab Henry and shake him and ask why the hell he hadn’t told me anything about his brother and the rest of it, but seeing him sitting there and laughing, I realized that I wasn’t angry with him at all. I was … yes, what was I? Sad? Disappointed? Confused? Anyway, a bit of all those. He sat there in the sun, looking so familiar and at the same time so strange.
A shadow fell between us. “You’re in my way.” Emily had stationed herself in front of me with a laden tray and was acting as if she couldn’t get past. I took a step aside. All the same, Emily made no move to go on.
“Didn’t you do brilliantly with Florence and Grayson?” she said. “I suppose you’re proud of yourself. No one’s ever managed to divide the twins before.”
“I didn’t…” I closed my mouth again. No way was I going to justify myself to Emily. “Your soup will get cold,” I said instead.
Emily shook her head. “I wouldn’t like to be you,” she said. “It must feel dreadful inside your head … so sick! First that business with Mr. Snuggles and now … Hey! Put that down at once!”
I had taken the bowl of soup off her tray and sniffed it. “Yummy, cream of leek—supposed to be really good for the hair.”
“You are sick!” said Emily, but I could see that she was scared of what I might do.
I raised the soup bowl. “More gloss, fewer split ends … Want to massage it in yourself, or shall I do that for you too?”
“Don’t you dare!” Since Emily was stuck holding her tray with both hands, she decided to go on without her soup. “Absolutely, totally sick,” she said over her shoulder as she walked away.
“Talking about herself, is she?” asked Henry. I hadn’t noticed him leaving our table during my little spat with Emily. “Do you want help?”
“No. Do you want some soup?” I offered him Emily’s bowl.
Henry grinned, took the soup from me, and put it down on the nearest table. Then he put his arm around my waist and drew me close. “Hey, you’re late today, cheese girl. I really must tell you what I’ve found out.”
I stiffened. “Why didn’t you tell me about your brother? Why did you lie to me?” I spoke very fast and very quietly, and to be honest, I half hoped that he wouldn’t hear me in all the racket of the cafeteria. But my words wiped the smile off his face.
“You’ve been reading Secrecy’s blog.” He let go of me and sighed. “One of these days I’ll find out who she is, and then I’ll wring her neck with my own hands. Don’t you want any lunch?”
Silently, I shook my head. Persephone was sitting at our table now with Arthur, Eric, and Gabriel. You could see her red cheeks all the way from where I was. An hour ago, I’d felt ravenous, what with missing breakfast, but suddenly my stomach was churning. “Can we go somewhere else? Where no one can hear us?”
Henry sighed again. “Listen,
about Milo … why would I bother you with that?”
“Yes, why would you bother me with things that worry you?” I repeated, putting as much sarcasm as I could manage into my voice. “I’m only your girlfriend. Why would you tell me what goes on at your home, or what really is on your mind? Why would you introduce me to your family?”
“I do tell you what’s really on my mind,” said Henry. “No one should know me better than you do.”
I laughed indignantly. “I suppose that’s a joke, is it?” Henry looked hurt, but I couldn’t stop for that now. “Even Secrecy knows more about you than I do.”
“Heaven only knows where she got that from.” Henry ran his hand through his untidy hair. “Anyway, it wasn’t even perfume—it was a stupid fragranced candle. Jasmine and vanilla, what a nasty combination. Don’t you want to know what I’ve found out about our friend Senator Tod?”
“No,” I said. By now I didn’t mind that we were in the middle of the cafeteria. Anyway, only the students at the table right next to us could hear what we were saying. And they were talking at the tops of their voices about the latest Arsenal football match. “I’d like to know why I’ve never been to your home. Why I don’t know your parents or any of their other kids except for Amy, in her dream. Do you have some kind of problem with me?”
“No, Liv! Of course not.” Henry was staring at me, horrified.
“Or do you think none of that is anything to do with me?”
He frowned. “Hey, not everyone has such an uncomplicated family as yours.”
“Uncomplicated?” I couldn’t be hearing this properly. “My parents are divorced, my mom is living with the new man in her life, his daughter hates us like poison—”
“You’re the Sunshine Family,” Henry interrupted me. “Everything about you is warm, clean, and friendly, you’re all fond of one another—Florence doesn’t count—there’s always home baking on the table, even your dog could be straight out of an ad. Whereas we are the Drizzling Rain Family. Or maybe the Hailstorm Family. Milo steals fragranced candles, my four-year-old sister calls every man who crosses her path Daddy, my mother only ever bakes when she’s been swallowing too many antidepressants, even our cat’s gone out of her mind. She’s stopped being house-trained, so the cleaning lady has given notice. Why would I think it might be a good idea to take you home to our place? So that you can see it all with your own eyes?”
Although he spoke quietly, the intensity of his words took my breath away for a couple of seconds. “Yes,” I said then, looking him firmly in the eye. Oh, I loved him so much. And I felt so, so sorry about his mother having to take antidepressants, not to mention the cat.…
For a little while, we just stood facing each other in silence.
“Oh, Livvy…” Henry put a strand of hair back from my forehead, very slowly. For the first time since I’d known him, he looked vulnerable, and for the first time, I wished I was the big, broad-shouldered one so that I could simply comfort him by holding him close. I almost started to cry, but I managed to blink back the tears. After all, there was no reason to cry, it was just because I was so tired. And hungry.
“It could be that your cat just feels neglected,” I said, talking very fast so that Henry wouldn’t notice anything. “My aunt Gertrude had that problem once. With Tipsy. Or maybe it was Patsy. Anyway, she called in an animal psychologist, and now Tabby is just fine again. Or Tibby as the case may be.”
This time when Henry smiled, it was that very special smile meant just for me, the smile I liked more than anything else in the world.
“Okay. Then how about meeting at my place this evening?”
Just like that? He was suggesting it himself? I was suspended somewhere between confusion, relief, and distrust, and the mixture unsettled me so much that I just went on babbling. “Oh yes, that would be great,” I said breathlessly. “Or no, well, of course I mean yes, but I have kung fu this evening, and after that I was going to the movies with Lottie and Mia, we planned it ages ago—you’re welcome to come, too, if you like. Although I bet it’ll be another of those tearjerkers with vampires, because Lottie is going to choose the film. That’s a good thing for me because at least I can get a bit of sleep—see these rings under my eyes? Another few sleepless nights and I’ll look like a panda. Mom must be wondering why her concealer runs out so fast.…” Oh heavens, I sounded just like Persephone. It was with some difficulty that I managed to stop my endless nattering by pretending to have a coughing fit.
Henry waited patiently until I’d finished. “Tomorrow evening, then?”
So he really meant it. I took a deep breath and nodded. “Yes. Yes, tomorrow evening will be perfect.”
I felt so relieved. My distrust and confusion had gone away, and everything between us was all right. Why hadn’t I said all those things earlier? It had been easy, after all.
I took Henry’s hand and drew him behind one of the trolleys for dirty dishes, to kiss him. We didn’t need to have the whole cafeteria watching. Couples making out in school got on my nerves, but I thought we were pretty well hidden. Henry seemed to think so too and held me close. Only when the Arsenal fans began shouting and clapping and Henry carefully moved away from me did I notice that one of the girls who helped out in the kitchen had wheeled our camouflage away.
Embarrassing.
“Just take no notice,” said Henry, smoothing my hair. Unlike me, of course he hadn’t gone scarlet in the face.
“So what have you found out about Senator Tod?” I whispered.
Henry gave me a conspiratorial grin. “I did suspect there was method in his madness, remember?”
“Dona denting the tenor … oh yes.”
“Rotor,” Henry corrected me. “It took me a little while to work it out, but then it all came clear. Anagrams.”
“Like Anna, level, and madam I’m Adam?”
“Sort of, but those are palindromes: they have to read the same backward as forward. In anagrams, the letters can be all over the place. Senator Tod Nord. Rodents at rondo. Stranded on root! Tornado, nerd, sot.” He beamed at me. “I did wonder who he was calling a nerd. But he was just telling us his name, every time!”
His enthusiasm was infectious. “So do we know this character?”
“Not yet,” said Henry. “But Google knows him. His name is…”
“No! No, don’t tell me! I want to work it out myself. I love word puzzles.” I tugged him over to our table. “Does anyone have a pen and a piece of paper? A paper napkin will do.”
“The lunch break ends in exactly one minute,” said Persephone.
Damn it.
16
“AND IF YOU don’t eat them all, there won’t be any sunshine in the Sunshine Family tomorrow.” Mom was looking down on Mia and me with her hands on her hips. I felt afraid of her. Not only because she was covered all over with flour and looked a bit like a zombie, but because her eyes were sparkling in such a nasty, determined way. Muffins towered up all around us, on the working surface, on the shelves, the table, the windowsill, mountains of muffins, and they all looked burned, moldy, and downright unappetizing. When I picked one up, the crust broke open in my hands, and a maggot crawled out.
“I can’t eat that, Mom,” I said miserably.
“You can and you will. I don’t take all those antidepressants for nothing!” My zombie mom grabbed hold of Mia, tried to force her mouth open and stuff a muffin into it, and Mia began screaming. I snatched her away from Mom, stumbled backward over a pile of muffins with her, and looked around in panic for a place to hide or some way to escape. There in front of us—a green door … Oh, thank goodness, it was only a dream. I didn’t have to be afraid of my zombie mom anymore. With a blink of my eyes, I made her and all those disgusting muffins disappear, then I blinked the screaming Dream-Mia away—I had to go out to protect the real Mia’s dream door. I’d borrowed a bracelet of hers on purpose and put it on before I went to sleep. I couldn’t forget what Grayson had said last night: suppose someone was really stea
ling into Mia’s dreams by night? Anabel, for instance.
The corridor was empty; everything was calm and peaceful. The sight of Henry’s black door opposite mine made me smile—I was so glad that we’d cleared things up between us. I’d visit him tomorrow, and then I’d finally meet his family. And the cat. I felt a bit excited when I thought about it. I hoped they’d like me. Maybe I ought to take something home-baked to make myself popular. It sounded like they weren’t used to that sort of thing. And cat treats for the cat. Or simply a bag of cat litter. I’d looked it up on the Internet, and it seemed that many cats stopped being clean around the house because no one cleaned out their litter tray.
But now my priority was Mia. Her door was right beside mine. It was a plain wooden door painted forget-me-not blue with a dull silver doorknob, just right for a natural stone house somewhere in the countryside, like the line of little pennants hanging over the lintel. There was no lock, no peephole, and the flap of the letter box was so wide that a small animal could easily fit through it. Last time I’d been here, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, the big toy rabbit with the fox’s tail, had been patrolling up and down outside the door, but there was no sign of him tonight. Experimentally, I tried the door handle. It wasn’t locked! How careless of Mia’s unconscious—anyone could just go in like …
“Hello, hello, hello!” A large head appeared right in front of my nose, and I jumped back in alarm. Fuzzy-Wuzzy, the toy rabbit in the yellow overalls. I’d never before realized how much worse soft cuddly toys look when they’re larger than life. Particularly when they’ve been loved as hard as Fuzzy-Wuzzy. There was nothing cute about his missing eye now—it gave him a malicious look, and that impression was reinforced by the two long buck teeth that showed when he spoke.
“Wanna pome! Wanna nurthewy whyme!” he lisped in a grotesque kind of baby talk that was in total contrast to his monumental appearance. His voice was squeaky and childish, like the voice of a rabbit in an animated cartoon.
“You want a poem? A nursery rhyme?”