by Katy Cannon
Then I looked back.
“Aren’t you coming?” Part of me didn’t want him to, because then I could shout whatever I wanted without being heard. But part of me really didn’t want to do this alone.
Luca shook his head. “We came here for you to do this. I’ll wait here,” he yelled.
Right. Doing this alone, then.
A few more steps and the path widened out as it became pure rock underfoot. One more step and I was inside the cool and damp of the cave.
How did this work, then? Did I just … stand close to the edge and shout? There were no safety railings so I could get so close that I was almost in the water itself…
I took a step back, just enough to be sure my trainers wouldn’t lose their grip and send me flying. Then I looked up into the cascading water, feeling the rhythm of it thrumming through my body like a drumbeat.
“I miss my mum,” I said tentatively, the words swallowed up by the water. “I hate being scared all the time.”
Nothing changed, really. Except that more words started bubbling up inside me.
Glancing quickly to my side to make sure Luca hadn’t followed me, I shouted out my biggest secret.
“I’m Alice. Not Willa. I am Alice Wright!”
My name echoed in my head, and reverberated through the waves.
I grinned to myself. And then I began to shout.
I can’t tell you exactly what I said but I felt the words leaving, taking their worries with them.
I threw out my worries, my fears, my pain. Mum. Dad, in Australia. Mabel. The future. Willa. Italy and London. School. Antonio. Luca. The lies I was telling. The life I’d go back to. Being Alice again. Not being Alice again.
Moving on.
Luca told me later that I was there for a full twenty minutes, so I guess there must have been more. Fears I didn’t even know I had, pouring out of me and into the waterfall.
When I’d finished, my whole body felt lighter but I was exhausted, and my throat was raw.
I stumbled back out of the cave, feeling my way along the path with one hand on the cliff face, to where Luca was waiting for me.
“You get what you needed?” he asked, looking concerned.
I smiled, almost delirious with the relief of letting it all go. “I did.”
Just when I thought the plan was going perfectly, trouble appeared from an unexpected source.
My own body.
Since my periods started, about a year and a half ago, they’d been pretty unremarkable. I was still waiting for them to settle into any sort of a regular cycle, but on the plus side they didn’t last too long and I didn’t get really awful cramps like my friend Noemi did. (Tara always said she was milking it for the attention, but I’d seen her clutching her stomach and begging the school nurse for painkillers, so I didn’t think so.)
Unfortunately, not having a regular cycle meant I had no idea when it was going to show up. Still, this was one area in my life where I believed in being prepared, so I always made sure I had a tampon in my bag – and I’d packed a whole box of them, plus overnight pads, for my trip away this summer.
So when I went to the loo on Friday morning and saw blood, I didn’t panic.
Until I remembered that all my stuff – including my box of tampons – was in Italy, with Alice.
Then I panicked.
My heart racing, I checked the tiny bathroom cabinet for supplies. Shower gel, a spare toothbrush, and some apricot facial scrub. That was it.
Oh God. I was going to have to talk to Mabel. About periods.
Asking Mabel if she had a tampon I could borrow until I could get to the shop to buy my own was even worse than having to ask my dad to go to the shop and buy me sanitary products.
“Alice? Are you OK in there?” Mabel asked, knocking on the bathroom door. Apparently I’d been a while.
“Um, yeah. Fine.” I shoved some toilet paper in my knickers as a temporary fix, flushed the loo, and opened the door. “I just… I got my period.”
Mabel’s face turned white, then pink, then she clapped her hands together and said, “Oh, Alice! Your dad told me you hadn’t yet, but we figured it couldn’t be long, so I made sure I had some supplies in ready. Don’t worry. Wait here!”
She started to dash off towards her bedroom, then turned back and gave me a really tight hug, before disappearing again. I sat down on the closed toilet seat and waited. I couldn’t exactly tell her this wasn’t my first period – not when it should be Alice’s. I’d have to message Alice later and explain, in case her dad called to check that she was OK with it all.
Yeah, this was really weird now.
“Now, it’s important for you to figure out what you’re comfortable with – what your flow is like, how your body reacts, your own cycle and signs, that sort of thing. But to start you off, I have this.”
Mabel handed me a box decorated with brightly coloured paper, and I opened it gingerly. She sat on the side of the bath to watch me.
“This is … great,” I said, with a weak smile, as I surveyed the contents.
Four packs of sanitary towels – for light, medium and heavy flow, plus overnight towels. A leaflet entitled ‘Listen to your body, learn your cycle’. A large bar of chocolate, a book called You’re a Big Girl Now with an awful cartoon of a nervous-looking girl on the front, and a small, shell-shaped purse which, when I opened it, was stuffed with ibuprofen.
No tampons. I guess she thought Alice would be more comfortable with pads, starting off. Urgh. I hated wearing pads during the day. I’d pick up some tampons for when I was out.
Mabel leaned towards me. “If you have any questions at all, or even if you just want to moan about cramps, I’m here for you. I know this must be so hard for you, doing this – growing up, I mean – without your mum here. And I’d never presume to even think about taking her place, for any of it. But… I’d like to be a friend, Alice, if I can. And a good friend is always there with a shoulder to cry on, an ear to listen, and a big bar of chocolate. OK?”
I actually felt a little bit teary at her words – and my mum wasn’t even dead. Stupid hormones.
“OK,” I said, and Mabel smiled.
“Then I’ll leave you to it. Unless you need me to show you—”
“No!” I interrupted quickly. “No, I’m fine. Thank you.”
The last thing I needed was Alice’s possible step-mother showing me how to use a sanitary pad. That was definitely not what I’d come to London for.
Tuppence and her hangers-on were particularly annoying at the theatre that day – or maybe I was just more easily annoyable. Having scored the best scenes and monologues between them, they were now demanding the lion’s share of attention in sorting out their scenery, costumes and lighting for the showcase. Billie looked run ragged – and relieved when Hal showed up at five to help.
“Any chance you can help out a bit more next week?” she asked, and Hal looked to me for guidance. I shrugged.
“I guess so,” he said. “My science camp finished today, so I’ve got some free time.”
Plus if he was at the theatre with me, there was no chance of Mabel running into him somewhere and wondering why he wasn’t still at science camp when I was. Perfect. Well, as long as she didn’t try to visit the camp at the other university site again. But when I’d asked a few casual questions, it didn’t seem like she went over there too often, so we were probably safe.
The course showcase was to be a combination of short scenes performed in small groups and individual monologues. We had some of the classics in there – the three witches from Macbeth (played, appropriately enough, by the three lookalikes), some classic Romeo and Juliet between Tuppence and Ryan, the selfie mirror guy who, it turned out, had already been a child star in the West End. And there was modern stuff too – even a song or two from the musicals. Almost all of which was more fun than my dying queen monologue. Not that I was complaining. Much. Or at least, not when Vincent could hear me. (Hal, on the other hand, had heard all
about it.)
Anyway, we only had three full afternoons to learn, prepare and rehearse the material, find costumes and sets, and sort the tech for our scenes. Vincent claimed that doing it all ourselves gave us a well-rounded overview of the theatre experience. I just figured he couldn’t be bothered to do it himself. After he assigned pieces on the second day, he’d mostly been wandering around our rehearsal spaces, drinking coffee, and imparting anecdotes from his glory days.
I was starting to wonder who he’d paid to write all those glowing reports of his course, to be honest. He wasn’t even directing us!
Hal and I headed home together at six as usual, both ready for the weekend. Mabel texted to say that she was running late and would meet me at the flat, so I said goodbye to Hal at the Tube station.
It was strange letting myself into the empty flat, but before I’d even had a chance to shove my bag in my room, Mabel was at the door, a large bakery box in her hands. And she was grinning.
I had a bad feeling about this.
“Hey, Alice! How are you? How are you feeling? Did science camp go OK today?”
“It was fine.” I stared at the box in her hands. Suddenly, I had an image of a cake iced with the words ‘Congratulations on your first period, Alice!’
No. Mabel wouldn’t. Would she?
I followed her into the kitchen, warily.
“Fancy a slice of cake before we decide where to order dinner from?” She placed the cake on the kitchen table. “Since it’s a special day, and everything.”
Oh God, she would.
“That would be lovely,” I said, trying to prepare my face not to wince when I saw it.
Slowly, she opened the box to reveal…
A perfectly ordinary round cake with cream cheese icing. Thank God.
Then she picked up a knife and sliced through it to reveal the bright red sponge inside.
“Red velvet cake,” she said, giggling. “I couldn’t resist. Sorry. It just seemed so appropriate!”
I couldn’t help myself. I burst into giggles too as I took the plate from her.
“At least there aren’t tampon-shaped candles,” I said, between bursts of laughter.
And after that, we were both laughing too hard to eat the cake for a good five minutes.
“Didn’t you have anything you wanted to let go of at the waterfall?” I asked Luca, as we waited for the first bus that would take us back to Lunice. “No worries or fears?”
Luca shrugged and looked away. “Too many for one little river to deal with.” I flinched. I should have known that. And it only made me wonder again what Luca’s life had been like before he came to live with Sofia and Mattias.
Maybe one day soon, I would feel brave enough to ask.
“Why did you come, then? If you weren’t going to shout into the water or anything.”
“Told you. I knew it was important to you, and I figured you’d need the help.” He flashed me a smile as the bus pulled up beside us. “Besides, it was nice to get away from the farmhouse and everyone, just for a little bit. Don’t you think?”
“Yeah. It was.” In fact, it had been nice just spending time with Luca, and hearing a bit more about his life. I just wished I could have told him more about mine.
We were halfway back to Lunice when I realized something was wrong.
The first sign was the driver swearing loudly in Italian (Luca had taught me those words, rather than Rosa). The other passengers on the bus started muttering, as the bus began to slow.
“Why are we stopping?” I peered out of the window.
Luca looked up from his phone – he’d been trying to get reception on it ever since we left the waterfall. “No idea. Wait, hang on…”
He jumped up from his seat so he could peer through the front windscreen.
“Pigs.” Luca dropped into the seat beside me again. “There’s two pigs sitting in the road.”
“Seriously?” I got to my feet to check for myself. Sure enough, there were two large pigs stopped right in the centre of the narrow road.
The bus driver leaned heavily on the horn, sending the loud noise echoing off the hill on one side of the road, out over the valley on the other.
The pigs didn’t move.
Luca and I were both at the front of the bus now, watching the pigs not moving.
“They’re big for pigs,” I commented.
I leaned further forwards to try to see, just as the bus driver beeped the horn again. It made me jump but the pigs didn’t flinch.
Suddenly, Luca’s phone started beeping and vibrating in his hand. “Reception at last!” His gleeful expression soon fell, though. “Wait, fourteen missed calls and eight text messages?”
I pulled out my phone. “Sofia … and Mattias?” I had three missed calls and a handful of texts from them too.
“And Antonio,” Luca added. He swiped at the screen, and I watched his face go pale. “My grandparents are visiting. They arrived this morning… Sofia’s been trying to get hold of us ever since.”
“Your … grandparents?” I didn’t know he even had any family that might visit. And if he had grandparents, why wasn’t he living with them?
But Luca wasn’t listening – he was banging on the bus doors, until the driver – yelling more words Rosa definitely hadn’t taught me – opened them, and Luca raced out on to the road.
“Luca!” I ran after him.
He was waving his arms at the pigs, shouting at them in Italian. I could guess his meaning, though. The animals stared back at him, completely unaffected.
“We’ve got to get them to move, Willa.” He sounded desperate. “I’ve got to get back.”
“We’ll miss our bus back to Tusello,” I realized.
“And then we’ll really be in for it.”
Luca’s miserable expression made my mind up for me. He’d come all this way to help me find a waterfall. The least I could do was shift two pigs to help him get home again.
“Maybe if we do it together.”
We both started shouting and waving at them, but the pigs just looked more confused than ever.
I took a deep breath, got behind the biggest one and started pushing. “Come on, you stupid, stinking, overweight, ridiculous, stubborn pig!” The last word came out as a bit of a shriek as the animal suddenly chose that moment to finally move – sending me sprawling across the road, straight into something so disgusting it could only be pig poo.
I pushed myself up to my hands and knees as the other pig casually followed its friend out of the road, for all the world like they’d just been taking a break. The bus driver beeped the horn again – presumably to hurry us back on to the bus, and it was only then that I looked up at Luca, who had his hand over his mouth, trying (unsuccessfully) to stifle his laughter. I rubbed my filthy hands on my jeans and waited for the familiar heat of embarrassment to flood my body – but for the first time ever, it didn’t come.
Instead, a bubble of laughter started in my throat and burst out of my mouth. Which set Luca off, until we were both giggling uncontrollably.
Because it was funny. It was hilarious.
The bus driver beeped the horn again, and Luca held out a hand to pull me up, still laughing.
“Come on. We need to get back. We can think of an excuse as to why you’re covered in pig poo on the way. I don’t think Sofia and Mattias will believe we got held up by pigs on the main road between Lunice and Tusello.”
“Probably not,” I agreed, between giggles.
“I’m so sorry I’ve been so taken up with work this week.” Mabel cast me an apologetic look in the mirror by the front door as she threaded her earrings in. “I hope tonight will make up for it. You look lovely, by the way.”
Standing behind her, I shrugged myself into Alice’s best cardigan, and looked down at my outfit.
It could be worse. At least it wasn’t the five-year-old’s party dress.
Mabel had been pretty happy to leave me to my own devices for most of the week. Every night I
’d given her a recap of science camp – as told to me by Hal on the train home – and that seemed to satisfy her. But tonight she had plans for us – theatre plans. And apparently that required dressing up.
I’d actually opened my mouth to tell her that people didn’t dress up for the theatre any more. Then I’d shut it again and gone to dig out a respectable skirt and top to wear for the evening, just like Alice would have done.
Sometimes being Alice was no fun at all. At least at the theatre I got to be Willa.
“I should take a photo to send to your dad.” Mabel rummaged in her bag for her phone, while my heart started a panicked thumping beat.
“No time for that,” I said, yanking open the door. “We don’t want to be late, do we?”
“Of course not!” Mabel’s eyes were wide at the very idea. “Remind me to take one later though, will you?”
“Absolutely.”
Mabel had picked a play I’d never heard of, but it apparently had got a great review in the Sunday papers. Mabel obviously wasn’t a theatre fan, exactly, but ‘a night at the theatre’ was right there on her ‘things Alice might like to do in London’ list, and so we had to go.
Weirdly, though, it was nice to spend an evening with Mabel. She was nice, even if I didn’t talk much to Alice about that. Mabel was totally unlike my mum, and I had no way of knowing how she measured up to Alice’s. But as a room mate for the summer, she was OK.
We had dinner together in Covent Garden, then walked across Leicester Square to the theatre. Of course everyone else within a decade of my age was wearing jeans, and I rolled my eyes and glared at Alice’s boring beige skirt. But I got that Mabel had wanted this to be a special evening. And at least the red strapless top I’d bought on our shopping trip had brightened things up a bit. (With the cardigan on, Mabel didn’t even seem worried about what my dad would think of it.)