“Vicky was going to join your Friday club, the Fun Run,” I mumble.
“I saw both your names on the list, though they were crossed out. Well, you could always come on your own, Jade.”
“Me? I can't run for toffee.”
“It's not serious running. And—and sometimes when you're feeling really sad it's good to go for a run, work it out of your system. Sorry, that's a daft thing to say. There's no way you're going to get through this in a hurry, you poor kid.”
It's so weird. They're all being so kind, as if they're my friends. And in class and at break everyone treats me like I'm really really special, even the toughest girls like Rita and Yvonne, even the boys. Vicky's old boyfriend Ryan Harper, the only halfway decent boy in Year Nine, comes up to me at break, warning me to stay away from the fences because the photographers are still there, gawping and flashing. “If they start hassling you, Jade, just give me and my mates the word and we'll soon sort them out,” he says. Old Fatboy Sam doesn't get a look in now.
He tries to save me a seat next to him at lunchtime but Jenny and Madeleine and Vicky Two whisk me off to their table. I've always liked them but Jenny annoyed my Vicky because she went out with Ryan Harper too. Jenny's a bit boy-mad. Vicky Two is like a boy herself, cheeky and bouncy, but she's in floods of tears now. Vicky Two has always known she comes second to my Vicky. Jenny gives her a big hug, and Madeleine gives me a big hug, even though we've hardly said two words to each other before today. She's a big soft plump pink-and-white girl. It feels like I'm being hugged by a giant marshmallow.
I'm smothered by sweetness. It feels like people are wrapping me in duvets, more and more and more. I can't move. I can't breathe. I can't be. Not without Vicky.
I try going to school again on Tuesday but when I get near and see all the flowers on the Vicky spot, more and more of them, acarpet of roses and lilies and freesias, flickering candles, and a children's zoo of cuddly toys, it's all too much. I have to make a break for it. I run.
“I thought you hated running!”
Vicky jogs along beside me, little blue butterflies in her hair to match her tiny blue T-shirt. She's wearing snowy white jeans and sneakers and when she streaks ahead of me I see small white painted wings on the back of her T-shirt.
“Cute, eh? And dead appropriate. Just call me Vicky Angel.”
We saw someone else wearing one of those T-shirts last week and Vicky liked it then.
“And now I can wear anything I want,” she says, jogging on the spot. “While you're stuck in that stupid school uniform! Why don't you go home and get changed if we're bunking off school?”
“Dad might hear me. He doesn't always get to sleep till later.”
“Well, what if he does? He's not going to get mad at you now.”
Vicky's never understood what it's like with my dad. He can always get mad. I don't know if it's because he works nights. He usually leaves me alone but sometimes he can get really niggly, picking on me for the slightest thing. He can go crazy, yelling all sorts of stuff, waving his arms around, his fists clenched. He's never hit Mum or me but sometimes he hits the cushions or the sofa. One time he hit the kitchen wall and made the plaster flake. His knuckles bled but he didn't seem to notice.
Sometimes Mum says it's a shame and he never used to be like that in the old days before his other factory closed down. Other times she just says he's a pig and she can't stick him and she'd clear off tomorrow if she could.
I'd always much sooner be round at Vicky's than my home. Her dad never gets cross. He thinks the world of Vicky. She's always been his baby, his special girl. He's always fussing round her, laughing at all her jokes, ruffling her hair, whistling when she wears a new outfit, putting his arm round her and calling her his little Vicky Sunshine—
Only that's all stopped now.
“My dad,” Vicky mumbles, her face screwed up.
“I know,” I whisper.
“And my mum.”
“Yes. But we can still be together, Vicky.”
“OK, I'll haunt you permanently,” says Vicky. “Come on, let's go and have fun. I can't stand all this saddo stuff all the time. Let's—let's go up to London, eh?”
Vicky and I go to school together and down the park and we go round the local shops on Saturdays or go to the pictures or hang out down at McDonald's—but we're not allowed to go on a proper day out together. Especially not up to London.
“We can't!”
“Yes, we can,” says Vicky. “Go on. Please. If anyone finds out you can say it's all my idea.”
“Oh yes, like they'd believe me! They'd think I'd gone crazy.”
I think I have. I walk purposefully through the town to the station. I've got ten pounds in my school purse for some stupid school trip. I'd much sooner have a day trip with Vicky.
I buy a child's return fare, cheap rate.
“Even cheaper for me,” says Vicky. She jumps right over the ticket barrier and swoops down the stairs, just grazing the tips of her trainers on the steps. I rush after her and collide with a large lady on the platform reading a local paper.
“Careful, careful! Look where you're going. You kids!” she grumbles.
“Sorry. We were just—”
“Not ‘we’, loony,” Vicky whispers. She blows out her cheeks and struts about in a rude imitation of the large lady. I can't help giggling. The woman frowns at me. Then she looks at me again, shocked.
“Here! You're the girl in the paper!” she says, tapping a black-and-white photo.
For a moment I think she must be talking to Vicky. Then I see a blurry picture of me, my eyes squinting from the camera flash, and the caption underneath: JANE MARSHALL, VICKY'S BEST FRIEND, TOO DISTRAUGHT TO TALK.
“Jane!” Vicky snorts. “Trust them to get it wrong. It's a wonder they got my name right.”
“It's you, isn't it?” says the woman, flapping her paper. She sniffs. “You don't look distraught.”
“It's not me,” I say quickly.
“Yes it is! Look, you're wearing the same uniform.”
“I go to the same school but I'm in a different grade. I didn't know Vicky, honestly.”
She doesn't look like she believes me.
“Never mind that nosy old bag,” says Vicky, linking her transparent arm through mine. “Come on, walk up the platform. Forget her. We're going to have fun.”
So we walk away from the woman and the train comes soon. I take off my school tie and roll my sleeves up in the train to try to make my uniform less obvious. I'm scared, now we're speeding off to London. I don't really know my way round anywhere. Mum's always going on about these creepy guys who hang out round London railway stations and lure runaway teenage schoolgirls into a life of prostitution.
“Well, at least we'd make some money,” says Vicky. “It's obvious what we're going to do. Go shopping, right? Though you won't be able to buy much. I'll be fine, though. I can have my pick of anything. Hey, I can go seriously upmarket now. Where shall we go? Covent Garden? They've got designer clothes shops there, haven't they?”
“Don't ask me. Vic, do you know the way?”
“Easy peasy for me. Straight up in the sky, then swoop,” she giggles. “I can go anywhere, any speed. Hey, watch!”
She dives right through the train window, kicking out as if she's swimming; then she flies along beside the train, her hair streaming.
“See!” she yells, speeding along. She whirls around and around, even turning a cartwheel in midair.
“Get back in! You'll hurt yourself!”
Vicky laughs so much she bobs up and down.
“I can't hurt myself, you nutcase,” she shouts. “I'll show you.” She hurtles sideways at a rooftop, aiming at the chimneys and sharp television aerials. She doesn't impale herself, she simply glides through and out the other side.
I stare after her in awe. She waves and then shoots upward like a rocket, up and up until she's out of sight. I open the train window and crane my head out, desperate for a glimpse of
her. She's higher than the tallest poplar tree, higher than the church steeple, higher than the flock of birds. I'm terrified she'll carry on upward through the clouds and into another afterlife.
“Vicky! Vicky, come back!”
She darts through the open window in a rush, her hair in a wild tangle and her cheeks bright red.
“Did you see me fly all the way up?” she says. “Pretty cool, yeah?”
“Amazing.”
“Wish you could do it too?”
“You bet!”
“Well, it's easy. Just follow me.”
“What?”
“Open the door and leap out.”
“But I can't fly. I'd fall.”
“Sure, and then you'd fly, right?”
“You mean … kill myself?”
“It's no big deal, Jade, truly. Just one little leap. Then you'll be with me for ever. That's what you've always wanted, isn't it?”
“Yes, but—”
“Come on. I'll hold your hand and help you.”
“But I don't think I want to die. It's different for you. It was an accident.”
“Was it?” says Vicky, narrowing her eyes.
“Tickets, please!”
The ticket inspector opens the door of my carriage and then stops, staring at me. I feel my face. I've got tears running down my cheeks. I sniff, swallow, hunt for my ticket.
“Are you all right?” he asks, though I'm obviously not.
I nod anyway. What else can I do? I can't tell him the truth. The men in white with the strait-jacket would be waiting for me at Waterloo Station.
“I wouldn't have the window wide open like that. You'll be blown away.” He shuts it tight. Then he clips my ticket and walks off, leaving me alone.
Vicky's gone.
I sit there, crying. I'm scared she might never come back now. Or maybe I'm scared that she will.
I don't know what I'm doing here on the train. I'll go straight back once we get to London. But when I creep out of the carriage at Waterloo, still weeping, Vicky's there on the platform. She runs to me and gives me a big shadowy hug.
“There you are! Oh, don't cry, you dope. I didn't mean it. I don't really want you to top yourself. You're not mad at me, are you?” She puts her weightless arm round me and tries to wipe my tears with the back of her hand.
“I'm not mad,” I say. A woman getting off the train gives me a startled glance. She clearly thinks I'm barking mad.
Vicky giggles.
“Come on, Jade, let's have a good time. We'll find our way, easy peasy. We'll get the tube, right?”
We go to Piccadilly Circus because we're both sure that's the middle of London. We wander arm in arm round the Trocadero and then we find a Ben and Jerry's. I've got enough cash for a double cone of Cherry Garcia, our all-time favorite. We once ate a whole giant tub together when I was sleeping over at Vicky's. She licks at my cone appreciatively.
“Can you taste it?”
“Sort of. Well, I get the flavor.”
“But can you eat properly now?”
“Don't think so. I don't need to go to the loo either.” Vicky gives a twirl. “I am a truly ethereal being now, with no gross bodily needs whatsoever.” She giggles. “I don't know, though. I might try swooping up to Mr. Lorrimer and giving him a quick kiss just to see what it feels like.”
We wander up Regent Street and spot Hamleys.
“Remember when we went there that Christmas—when we were five? Six? We both got Barbie dolls. I called mine Barbara Ann.”
“And mine was Barbara Ella! I loved her. Only remember you made us play hairdressers? You said it would be great to give our Barbies short hair.”
“Oh yeah! And yours ended up with the Sinead O'Connor haircut. I thought she looked seriously cool.”
“I didn't. And it wasn't fair, you didn't cut your Barbie's hair after all.” I can still feel cross about it. Barbara Ella looked scarily ugly with her bright pink scalp inadequately dotted with gold stubble. I'd crocheted her a little cap but I could never feel the same about her. Vicky seemed to do nothing but comb Barbara Ann's long lavish curls.
“You're not still huffy about it, are you?” says Vicky. “Tell you what, I'll make amends. Whip your pencil case out.”
“What?”
“You've got scissors in there, haven't you?”
“You can't cut the dolls' hair in Hamleys!”
“I'm not going to, you nut. Get the scissors out. Now, cut my hair.”
“No!”
“Go on, get your own back. Cut it all off. It's OK, I've always wanted to see what I'd look like with really short hair.”
“I can't. Your hair's beautiful. You know I've always longed to have hair like yours instead of my old rats' tails.” I gesture with the scissors at my own hair. Two Japanese tourists stare at me in alarm as if I'm about to commit a British version of hara-kiri.
“You snip some of yours off too,” says Vicky, her eyes gleaming.
I know that gleam all too well. I don't want her to trick me again. And there are more people staring anxiously at the scissors.
“I'm putting them away,” I say, shoving them back in my schoolbag.
“I'll get my own then,” says Vicky. She reaches out and takes a shining pair of scissors out of thin air, as if she was just passing the haberdashery section in the Other Side Department Store. They flash as she flicks her hair forward and—
“No! Don't! Stop it!”
A woman jumps, and another clutches her bag protectively.
“Who is it? Has someone hurt you? What's the matter?”
I shake my head at them and dodge past. I can't think about them. I've got to stop Vicky. Her hair, her lovely long deep-red waves …
“You're crazy! Stop it!” I beg, but I've never been able to stop Vicky when she's got her mind set on something, and I've got even less control over her now.
She's screaming with laughter, hacking at huge hunks of her hair. Long shiny locks fall about her shoulders like feathers. Her scissors flash until she's got little clumps here and there sticking straight up from her scalp. She still looks beautiful—she's Vicky—but it's like some giant celestial sheep has been grazing on her head.
“What does it look like?”
“Vicky, you nut.”
“I want to see!” She peers in a big shop window. Peers in vain.
“Uh-oh. Ghosts don't have reflections!” she says, shivering. “I keep forgetting how weird it is being the Undead. Just don't get any big ideas about putting a stake through my heart, Jade.”
“That's vampires, not ghosts.”
“Vampires are kind of ghosts, aren't they? Hey, I've always fancied myself as a vampire.” She bares her teeth and pretends to bite my neck. “Shall I grow my teeth?”
“I think you'd better concentrate on growing your hair.”
“No problem,” says Vicky. She shakes her poor hairless head and suddenly her own beautiful auburn locks are flowing back over her shoulders and tumbling about her face.
“Wow! How did you do that?”
“I don't know! I just sort of imagined it back. Like when we were little and played fairies and witches and all that stupid stuff. You used to get so carried away, Jade. Remember that time I put a spell on you to say you couldn't move and you couldn't move, not even when your mum got really cross with you and gave you a shove.”
“I hope my mum doesn't find out we've bunked off school.”
“She won't know, will she? Stop worrying! Come on, let's go into Hamleys.”
So we play games with all the teddies and check out the new Barbies and it's just like we're six years old all over again. Then we go up to Oxford Street and spend ages in Top Shop and this time we're more like sixteen, choosing some really sexy stuff to try on in the changing rooms.
I look a bit of an idiot in all the low-cut tightly fitting tops because my chest is still as flat as a boy's but they look really great on Vicky. She doesn't exactly try them on. She just says, “Shall I see
what they look like on me?” and then there they are, on her.
“What happens to your other clothes? Are they crumpled up in a corner in space only I can't see them?”
“They're not there anymore because I'm not concentrating on them being there,” says Vicky. “It's all down to me.” She smiles proudly.
“Yes, but how does it work?”
“Search me,” says Vicky, shrugging. “You know I'm hopeless at science. Maybe you could have a little chat with Miss Robson?”
She takes us for science and she's OK, I suppose. I like some of the stuff she tells us about space. I like the way her own eyes shine like stars when she talks about it. But when she gets on to the big bang theory and black holes my brain goes bang and implodes into a black hole and I haven't got a clue what she's on about. Besides, I can't really explain to her why I need to know all this stuff about other dimensions. If I start mumbling about ghosts she'll hand me over to Mrs. Dewhurst, sharpish.
Mrs. Dewhurst takes us for religious instruction. I ponder talking to Mrs. D. She's not young and hip like Miss Robson. She's old and she wears Evans Outsize and she stuffs her fat little feet into dinky court shoes but she can't keep them on so she has elastic over the front like little kids have on their slippers. Mrs. Dewhurst has less of a grip on life after death than her shoes have on her feet. She never gives you a straight answer. It's always, “Some people believe,” and, “Of course other people think it's a beautiful myth.” She's quite clued up about worldwide religions but Vicky's not a Hindu or a Buddhist so she's unlikely to follow their teachings.
“I'm not following anyone's teachings,” she says. “I'm a law unto myself.”
“You always have been,” I say fondly. “How come you knew I was thinking that? Can you read my thoughts?”
“Sure,” says Vicky. “I always could.”
That's true. We've always been so close it was like we had our own secret corridor in and out of each other's head.
“So what am I thinking?” says Vicky, trying on an even sexier black lace see-through top with the tightest black satin jeans that show the outline of absolutely everything.
I look at her.
Vicky Angel Page 4
