CHAPTER TWO
I love Anna’s bedroom, because it’s not mine, so the mess doesn’t feel so messy. And she’s much better at lining up her posters and she doesn’t have a dressing table that looks like an explosion in a nail-varnish factory. And she didn’t carve the names of JLS on her mirror when she was nine, so she doesn’t have to live with the reminder every time she puts on eyeliner that she used to be in love with a crap boy band. Saying that, she does have One Direction stuck on the back of the bedroom door. I know, because when the door closes her dressing gown swings sideways and Harry Styles peeks out from under the sleeve.
‘What about leggings and denim shorts?’
I pick them up from the tangle of clothes on the bed, and wave them at her hopefully.
‘Too short.’
We’re only invited to Charlotte Regan’s party because Anna’s mum works in the health centre with Charlotte’s mum, and they’re friends. They still haven’t quite grasped the idea that just ’cause we were friends at nursery doesn’t mean we’re going to hang out ten years later. But, anyway, whatever Charlotte’s mum said (something along the lines of ‘You’re only having a party if Anna and Grace come because they’re so completely über dorky, particularly Grace, that there is NO CHANCE of anything even vaguely scandalous happening’) we’re invited to the Party of the Year.
Charlotte’s family live in a farmhouse three miles out of town and her sixteenth birthday party is taking place in the barn. It’s going to be all sitting-around-on-straw-bales and like something out of a film. Or so everyone says. It’s been all anyone’s talked about since we got over Tom Higginson falling off his brother’s motorbike and breaking both ankles.
‘Grace?’
I look up, realizing Anna’s been talking for at least a minute. She’s wearing a pair of ripped black jeans and a skinny purple T-shirt with a kitten-fluffy black cardigan, which makes her red hair look like flames on her shoulders. (She doesn’t mind red, hates ginger, prefers auburn – but she’s totally living in fantasy land because it’s orange and it is AMAZING and I would love orange hair.) Anyway, she looks like she’d fit in perfectly with the super-cool gang and I feel a horrible pang of something in my stomach. For a second I don’t say anything, because I always, always, always feel like I’m panting to keep up with her and I always have been, ever since we made friends when she helped me wash the paintbrushes at Little Acorns when we were three.
‘It’s perfect.’ I say the words brightly. Then I do a sort of half frown because I’m not sure that it didn’t sound a bit sharp.
Anna gathers her orange hair in a bunch and sort of balls it in her fist, frowning, like she’s not sure where it all came from. ‘You think?’
I nod. And Anna flashes a really sweet smile. It’s a smile that says thank you for being my friend and thank you for saying I look nice and I know that I got it right. It’s not that I don’t want to get it right, it’s just . . . God, it’s hard work being a person sometimes. I floomp down sideways on to the fluffy pillows at the head of her bed and breathe in the fake plastic smell of them, which reminds me of inflatable toys and a trip to Singapore we made when I was seven.
‘Grace?’
I take my head back out of Singapore.
‘What about you?’
Argh. If I’m honest I want to wear my favourite black jeans and my mum’s ancient, slightly holey Pixies T-shirt she had when she was seventeen. And my grey hoody, and my Vans-with-a-hole-in-the-toe. But I’m guessing that’s not in the rules. I might just pack the T-shirt in my bag in case I need a comfort sniff of it at the party when it all gets a bit . . . well, people-y. Parties are a bit like that, even if they don’t have Pass the Parcel and organized fun.
Anna holds out a bright red T-shirt with a My Little Pony on the front.
‘It’s ironic,’ she points out helpfully, ‘and I’ve got to face the fact that I can’t wear red and must stop buying it.’ She thrusts it at me, waving it in my face.
‘If I wear it, it’s not going to look ironic. I’ll just look like a complete loser with a My Little Pony obsession.’
I giggle and she throws the T-shirt at my head so I can’t see. I feel her landing on the bed beside me with a thump and a snort of laughter, which doesn’t quite mask the splintery noise of bed slats cracking in half.
‘Thing one,’ says my friend, removing the T-shirt from my head and throwing it, so it hurtles towards the wall. It slides out of sight behind the chest of drawers where it’ll be eaten by a million lost hair bands or move in with a family of dust bunnies. ‘You are a complete loser with a My Little Pony fetish – that’s why we’re friends. How many do you own?’
I hide my face behind a cushion so all she can see are my eyes peeping over the top.
‘And thing two: slightly more urgent. We just broke the bed.’
I can already hear Anna’s mum making her way upstairs, and they’re not the footsteps of a happy parent.
‘You can talk.’ I point to the row of dusty Barbie dolls that balance, their legs swinging back and forth like a line of retired Mean Girls, on top of Anna’s wardrobe. ‘At least my ponies are in a box under the bed. I keep my weird habits private.’ I stick my tongue out at Anna just as the door bangs open so hard that Harry Styles smacks against the edge of the bookcase and Anna’s dressing gown falls off the hook.
‘Oops, sorry. Pushed it with my foot. Do you girls want some cake?’ Anna’s mum doesn’t seem to be cross at all, weirdly. In fact, she’s wielding a plate with two fat slices of gingerbread with thick white icing on top.
‘Do you need to ask?’ Anna shuffles carefully forward, clearly trying not to give away the fact that the mattress underneath her is now sagging in the middle.
‘Darling, are you all right?’ Anna’s mum cocks her head to one side, looking at me for confirmation. ‘Grace, is she going mad? Is there something I should know about?’
I shake my head, feeling the laughter threatening to escape, lips tightly clamped together. Sometimes when I start it’s so hard to stop and then Anna joins in and we just laugh and laugh until we’re almost sick. We got sent out of English last week for snortling with laughter over ‘Thou cream-faced loon’ in Shakespeare.
I can feel it boiling up inside me, and any second now I’m going to start. Anna’s shoulders are beginning to shake.
‘It’s just –’ Anna grasps the failsafe method of shutting up all adults, at all times – ‘women’s problems.’
‘Ohhh,’ says Anna’s mum, with a knowing nod. ‘Definitely time for cake then, darling. D’you want some paracetamol or something?’
‘NoI’mfine,’ says Anna in a rush, as the bed gives another warning creak.
‘All right. Let me know if you want anything.’
And she pulls the door closed as she backs out of the room, brow wrinkled in an expression of bemusement, half shaking her head at the weirdness of us, and we fall over on our sides and laugh and laugh until the bed finally gives way underneath us and Anna’s legs shoot upwards as her bum sinks to the floor.
It’s a couple of hours later. I’m hovering in Anna’s kitchen, staring out of the window and talking to her cat, Michael. Anna is upstairs with her mum, who apparently has psychic powers or something because she returned half an hour later, this time without cake, but with a toolbox. She made us move the mattress into the hall whilst she fixed the broken slats in the bed frame. We were too weak with laughter to argue and we tried to make up for it by getting her a cup of tea and offering to hold pieces of equipment, but she just rolled her eyes at us and told us to sod off.
I wonder if that’s why Anna and I are friends: because we both have the sort of mothers who just get on with stuff. Because Dad’s always worked away – he spends months balancing behind his lens waiting for the perfect photograph of an antelope doing a cartwheel (or something like that) – Mum’s always been the one who does all the stuff. She bosses us around and organizes everything and remembers appointments and buys stuff for cookery class on the way to school when I forget. Thing is, when Dad is around he’s on another planet too, holed up in his study editing hours of footage and collecting coffee cups and crisp packets. And Anna’s dad is the same – lovely, but not exactly practical. He’s an engineer, so he ought to be, really. He spends a lot of time in his office looking at very complicated pictures of stuff on his computers, which we’re not allowed to touch.
And we both have cats with cool names, so there’s another reason why we’re friends. And then there’s our mutual interest in the mysterious Gabe Kowalski. He arrived halfway through the summer term from one of the other schools in town. Someone said he’s got A Reputation but I’m not really sure what that means. He seemed perfectly nice when he picked up Anna’s trainer – it fell out of her bag last term – and he smiled and said, ‘There you are,’ reeeeeally nicely in his lovely accent.
Friendship is a weird sort of thing when you think about it.
I look at the calendar on the wall above the kitchen sink, scanning the details that Anna’s mum has written in her neat, spidery black writing.
It’d be useful for their parents if Anna and Charlotte were friends, really. ‘Lunch with Adam and Gillian,’ it says for tomorrow. They’re Charlotte’s parents. Anna hasn’t mentioned it. I know that’s not because she’s keeping it as a special secret and she’s planning on running off to be best friends with Charlotte, because Anna is one of my safe places. She’s one of the things that doesn’t move and doesn’t change. That’s a good thing.
What’s not a good thing is standing here in the kitchen feeling faintly worried that I’m going to be in trouble because Anna broke the bed. Even though Anna’s mum’s mouth said it was fine, her face said, ‘Oh, for God’s sake, I’ve got better things to do than fix this bloody bed.’
I recognize the look. My mum gets exactly the same one on her face when we break stuff.
‘All sorted.’ Anna’s mum comes back into the kitchen, putting the toolbox down on the table with a thump, all the tools inside banging together in a metallic, teeth-on-edge crash. It makes me jump and another wave of anxiety rushes through my body, sending me cold from my toes to my head in a whoosh of panic.
‘You all right, my love?’ Anna’s mum makes her way across the wooden floor towards me, and puts her hand on my arm. I stiffen up. I don’t mean to – it’s just I’m reaching the point where everything’s just a bit too much everything and I’d like to magically be back home in bed with a heap of blankets. I shiver, even though the room is warm. I just need to get home now. Now. But I don’t say that.
I say: ‘I’m fine.’
I realize I’m drumming my fingers against the worktop and it probably looks like I’m impatient. It’s not that; I’m just tapping the rhythm of an ancient Beyoncé song for some reason that makes no sense, but I can’t stop it because it’s weirdly soothing. Taptaptaptap break tap tap break taptaptap.
‘Do you need a lift home?’ She gives my fingers a fleeting glance for the tiniest second and I notice it and hold them still. The rhythm shifts to my toes and now each one of them is beating their turn (but she can’t see that bit).
She turns to look for Anna, who is nowhere to be seen – probably putting the bed back together. I feel super awkward all of a sudden, like my arms and legs are too big for my body and they’re going to keep growing like the magic porridge pot until they take over the whole kitchen.
‘Oh no, my mum’s just coming,’ I reply after a moment, realizing that I’d forgotten to say the words out loud. ‘She’s on her way back from town, said she’d pick me up on the way past.’
The doorbell rings and Anna comes hurtling down the stairs, shouting that she’ll get it.
‘Graciemoo, your mum is here.’ She does a cartwheel in the hall, which makes her mum pull the sort of face I imagine mother dragons pull when their children are naughty. Her nostrils go all snorty.
‘Anna, will you keep that behaviour outside. For goodness sake, you’re fifteen, not five.’
Anna flashes a grin at her mum then catches my eye as she swings on to the kitchen table, picking up an apple from the fruit bowl.
‘Make your mind up, Mother.’ She spoke through a mouthful of apple. ‘Yesterday you were all full of woe that I’m growing up too fast. Now you’re telling me off for being youthfully exuberant.’
‘You’ve broken a bed and now you’re doing acrobatics in the hall,’ she said pointedly. ‘I think under the circumstances I’m allowed to be a bit narked.’
Her mum looks at mine and shakes her head.
‘These two.’ She half moves towards the kettle. ‘Got time for a cuppa before you go?’
Mum wavers for a second.
‘Go on, then.’ She pulls her phone out of the back pocket of her jeans. ‘I’ll text Leah, tell her we’ll be half an hour. Thanks, Lisa.’
She sits down at the big wooden table while Lisa clatters around with coffee cups.
‘Have you girls been behaving?’
Mum says this to me, but looks at Anna’s mum with that look mothers reserve for each other. I feel about seven.
‘They’ve been perfect angels.’ I feel a wave of love for Anna’s mum and her kind voice and her not minding that we bounced the bed in half after all. My mum snorts with laughter.
Anna, who has been teasing Michael the cat with a feather, looks up at me, motioning towards the door with her head. We can escape.
‘So how long’s he gone for this time?’ Lisa slides a coffee across the table towards my mum.
As we leave, I hear my mum telling Lisa it’ll be almost Christmas before my dad is back. She sounds distinctly unimpressed.
‘Come on, you,’ says Mum, an hour later.
‘You’ve been ages.’ I hoist myself out of the gigantic squashy sofa, plonking Michael on Anna’s lap.
‘And now it’s time to go. Leah’s been texting, asking where we are.’
‘I’ll message you,’ says Anna, waving Michael’s paw at me in farewell.
And then we’re home. And I’ve done enough everything for today. I’ve been enough. I have literally no Graceness left to offer anyone or anything. I’m wrapped up in my fleece blanket like a burrito and it’s safe and warm and I’m watching Walking with Dinosaurs on Netflix for the fifty billionth time. I just want to sit here all evening, because then my brain might just stop whirring around. It’s like a million shooting stars flying out in different directions and I can’t make them stop and then I can’t sleep. The dinosaurs help. The beanie hat I’ve got on helps too. It sort of stops the thoughts from shooting around
I can’t sleep. It’s after midnight, and I’ve read the whole internet and I’ve had a shower and watched so many trashy American TV shows that my brain is beginning to melt, and I’m starving.
As I’m creeping down the stairs, trying not to wake anyone up, I realize there’s a noise coming from the sitting room. I open the door to find Mum. She’s sitting on the couch in her pyjamas, and Nirvana is on old-people-MTV, and there’s a bottle of red wine three-quarters drunk by her side. She looks up, head cocked to hold her mobile phone in place under her ear and beams at me, fuzzily.
‘Hello, darling. I’m just rediscovering my lost youth.’
She giggles as presumably someone on the end of the phone says something. ‘Shh,’ she says to them, waving a hand pointlessly.
‘You OK?’ She looks at me, quizzically.
‘Fine.’ Withnail is curled up on a fluffy tartan blanket at Mum’s feet and the fire is still glowing from earlier. I like it when the fire’s lit – it makes the house feel alive somehow, like it’s got a personality. ‘Just getting food.’
She nods, and turns back to the television and her phone as I withdraw.
I had no idea she could get Dad on the phone from Greenland, but I can’t think who else she’d be talking to at this time of night. The floor’s freezing, so I sit on the kitchen worktop as I wait for the toast, shoving over a heap of Mum’s paperwork as I do so. She doesn’t work, but the voluntary stuff she does with the local autism support group takes over her entire life. Maybe she was talking to one of her cronies from there.
The toaster pops, and I stop thinking about anything else apart from melty butter deliciousness.
I’ll clear the mess up in the morning.