Indigo Blue

by Cathy Cassidy

  Indigo Blue

  Cathy Cassidy

  Puffin (2005)

  Rating: ★★★★☆

  * * *

  * * *

  Indigo's mum has had it with her boyfriend, and has moved her girls out of their cozy home and into "the flat from hell." Indie is not about to show anyone how it really feels, especially not her best friend, Jo. But the truth is, the neighborhood is bad, the heat's useless, and there's little to eat. It's hard for Indie to ignore such a drastic change—but with a little sister who's too small to understand and a mum who's feeling desperate, Indie is the one who's got to take charge.

  From School Library Journal

  Grade 4-7–Indigo, 11, is a super-responsible kid with a weak, unstable mother. She tries to take care of her toddler sister and to ignore the fights between Mum and her abusive, live-in boyfriend. She attempts to fit in with her more conventional classmates, cope with a strict teacher, and enjoy time with her friend Jo. Life is bearable until Max's bad temper turns physical and Mum flees with the children to a dilapidated basement flat with a dour and suspicious landlady. Things get even more complicated when Jo turns temperamental and tryouts for the school play add a competitive aspect to many of the kids' relationships. For a story filled with problems, this is a surprisingly bright book, with a sympathetic main character and an absorbing plot. The first-person, present-tense narration grounds events with a straightforward immediacy, as does the emphasis on physical details, from nail polish to foods to the smell of mold in the apartment. Yes, Indigo learns to face her feelings rather than hide from them. She also learns the meaning of true friendship. Cassidy seems more committed to telling Indigo's story than hitting readers over the head with a message. A British import with a refreshingly light touch.–Lauralyn Persson, Wilmette Public Library, IL

  Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  From Booklist

  Gr. 5-8. Eleven-year-old Indigo doesn't know what to think when her mother moves her and her baby sister, Misti, out of their cozy home and into an old, dirty flat. She knows it has something to do with the sometimes-violent fights between Mom and her boyfriend, Max, but what is she supposed to say at school? What with leaving Max and trying to pull herself together, Indigo's mother seems about to break, and Indigo knows she has to help, even though she has problems of her own: the starring role in the school play, a boy with a crush, and a friend turned jealous and mean seemingly overnight. This British story of domestic abuse is firmly child-centered, and Indigo's confusion and fear, as well as her divided loyalty between Max and her mother, are sensitively portrayed. Cassidy makes Indigo's school troubles as important as her personal ones, and Indigo's simple, direct voice keeps the story from becoming message-driven and sentimental. The hopeful ending rings true. Krista Hutley

  Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

  Hi there!

  It’s a typical Scottish summer day here – grey clouds, drizzle, midgies and just a sliver of sunshine peeping through. It’s not exactly the Costa del Sol, but who cares?

  It’s a perfect daydreaming day – and for me, dreaming is just a step away from writing. Indigo Blue is my second book, all about a girl called Indie who loves to daydream. When one thing in Indie’s life goes pear-shaped, a whole raft of other stuff follows – and no amount of dreaming can fix it all up.

  I hope you enjoy Indigo Blue. Here’s to daydreams, friendship, strawberry laces and hot chocolate with melted marshmallows, which can help you through the worst of times – promise!

  Best wishes,

  Cathy Cassidy

  xxxx

  cathycassidy.com

  Books by Cathy Cassidy

  DIZZY

  DRIFTWOOD

  INDIGO BLUE

  SCARLETT

  SUNDAE GIRL

  LUCKY STAR

  PUFFIN

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

  Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand

  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  puffinbooks.com

  First published 2005

  17

  Copyright © Cathy Cassidy, 2005

  All rights reserved

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN: 978-0-14-192603-2

  Thanks!

  To Liam, for endless encouragement, patience and healthy dinners, and to Cal and Caitlin for their inspiration, enthusiasm and ability to survive on cheese butties and loud music when things get seriously busy. Thanks to Catriona, fab first-reader, and to Mum, Dad, Andy, Lori, Joan, Mary-Jane, Fiona, Helen, Sheena, Martyn, Zarah and all my wonderful friends for the support, the pep-talks, the shopping trips and the chocolate. Also to Paul, for creating such a cool website for me.

  Thanks to Tallulah and Roxanne, Indigo Blue’s first ‘real’ readers, and to the best ever agent, Darley Anderson, for believing in it all. Big hugs all round to Rebecca, Francesca, Adele, Nick, Shannon and the whole Puffin team for making it happen, and to Julia and Lucie at the agency. Who says dreams don’t come true?

  I’m never late for school.

  I leave home around eight o’clock on a school-day morning, even though it only takes five minutes on the bus, fifteen if I’m walking. And that’s if I’m walking slowly, maybe stopping at Singhs for a penny chew or a look at the comics.

  I’m almost always the first person to get here, even before Billy, the janitor, who comes at half eight to open up. Sometimes he lets me in for a warm by the big old-fashioned radiators, but mostly I just sit on the little wall at the edge of the playground and dream.

  My friend Jo goes to gymnastics and swimming club. She reads teen magazines and scary books and collects beanie animals and she’s learning to play the violin. She has loads of hobbies. I don’t do all that stuff – my only real hobby is daydreaming. It’s something that never lets you down, because it’s free and it’s easy and I’m in charge of what happens.

  Sometimes I sit on the wall and imagine that this is the day the circus will come to town, right into the school playground. Acrobats, trapeze artistes and clowns will cartwheel and strut across the footy pitch. We’ll all learn to paint our faces, ride a unicycle and balance on one leg on a galloping horse – better than fractions, spelling tests and getting picked last for the n
etball team.

  Sometimes I dream that school is cancelled due to freak floods or blizzards, or that we all get stranded in class for weeks on end and have to be rescued by soldiers in boats or helicopters or dog sleds. Sometimes I imagine I’ve won a national competition for painting or acting or inventing a car that runs on orange juice and recycled sweet wrappers, and even Miss McDougall thinks I’m sussed and cool and dripping with talent.

  My favourite daydream is about my dad. He comes driving into the playground in an indigo-blue Ferrari and squeals to a halt right in front of me. He leans over to open the passenger door and I can see him clearly – sometimes he’s a cooler, fairer version of Robbie Williams, and other times he looks just like Mr Lennon, our head teacher, only not so podgy.

  He smiles at me and it makes up for the whole of the last eleven years. I get into the passenger seat and we speed right out of that playground while everyone stands and stares, and I remember to send postcards to them all from New York, Cairo, Mexico City and our lush private villa in the Bahamas.

  Well, maybe.

  After half eight, kids start arriving at school, a few at a time. Some come with mums and pushchairs and squirmy baby brothers and sisters. Some come by car, some come by bus, some come on bikes, and Shane Taggart comes on his skateboard, every day, except when it snows.

  Jo gets here at five to nine most days. She’s been my best mate since we met on the very first day of school. She never laughed at my hair, which was all blonde dreadlocks and multi-coloured beads and feathers. She never asked why I was wearing an ancient turquoise felted jumper and tie-dyed leggings instead of a blue polo top and navy pinafore dress. She just raised her eyebrows, giggled and dragged me off to the sandpit.

  I’m eleven now, and I know way more about fitting in. I got my mum to chop out all the dreadlocks when I was in Year Two – she still has them in a wooden box, along with her photos and her hippy jewellery and a yellowed ticket for Glastonbury Festival from hundreds of years ago.

  I looked like a scarecrow for a whole year while my hair grew out, and ever since then I’ve looked after it myself – one hundred brush-strokes every night, conditioner every time I wash it, cute hair-clips and tiny plaits and zigzag partings and little twisty buns with the ends sticking out, the way they do it in Jo’s magazines.

  I’m pretty much in charge of my own clothes too. Gran gets me basic uniform stuff every August and Mum lets me choose a few cool tops, some clumpy shoes or a little skirt to liven it all up. Sometimes they come from the charity shop, but I don’t care about that as long as nobody at school catches on.

  I look like the other kids, and that’s what matters.

  I’ve changed, and not just the way I look but the way I feel inside too. It might be something to do with growing up, but it’s probably more to do with Mum and Max and Misti and all that stuff.

  At least Jo never changes.

  When things have been bad at home, she pretends not to notice. Jo doesn’t ask awkward questions or try to get deep and meaningful. She doesn’t do slushy and she doesn’t do sad. She just rolls her eyes, digs me in the ribs and tells me silly stories and corny jokes, and we link arms and laugh and talk and the bad thoughts go away.

  Last night was bad.

  Mum and Max were shouting downstairs for hours and hours, and then they moved up to their room and the shouting got louder so that hiding under the covers and turning my CD player up to full volume didn’t help any more.

  Misti, who has the box room next to me, started crying around midnight and nobody came to see to her. I wrapped myself in the duvet and crept across the landing, and even in the dark I could see she was standing up in her cot, her face streaked with tears.

  I scooped her up in my arms, my little sister who’s only just two, and I tried not to hear the things that Max was screaming at my mum because you’re not meant to know words like that when you’re only eleven.

  I climbed back into bed with my arms round Misti, singing corny pop songs into her hair and wiping her eyes with the duvet cover.

  After a while everything went quiet – I suppose Mum and Max were making up. They usually do, kind of. It’s just that it never lasts for long.

  And, after that, Misti stopped snuffling and drifted off to sleep, her breath a soft whisper on my neck.

  I heard footsteps on the landing, water running in the bathroom, stairs creaking. Someone was moving around downstairs, but quietly.

  I don’t remember falling asleep, but I wake up dead on half seven, like I always do. There might as well be an invisible alarm clock inside my head.

  I leave Misti cocooned in the duvet and roll out of bed. The house is silent as I wash and brush my teeth. I dress in yesterday’s skirt with a fresh top, clean undies and black tights with a darn that hardly shows just behind the knee.

  I tiptoe down the stairs and past the living-room door. It’s ajar, and inside I see Mum curled up on the sofa asleep, her Chinese robe wrapped round her instead of a blanket. There are bulging bin bags all around the room, and a few things don’t look right.

  The fringed Indian hanging with all the tiny mirrors is gone from the wall, and so are the framed photos of Misti and me. The stripy rug has disappeared, and the bookshelves look half empty.

  Spring-cleaning in the middle of the night is not a good plan. I hope Mum susses that when she wakes up.

  I make toast and drink the last of the orange juice from the fridge. I do it silently because I don’t want to wake Mum.

  I brush my hair, push in some glittery clips and grab my school bag from behind the door. I pull on my fleece and root around for a hat because it’s raining hard outside, and I haven’t any money for bus fare today.

  I’m almost out of the door when Max comes down.

  He’s tall and fair and rumpled-looking with big sad eyes, and when Mum first met him three years ago she said he was the best-looking man she’d ever seen. He was kind and funny and generous then, and we had lots of laughs, the three of us.

  Max isn’t laughing now.

  He’s wearing jeans but his feet and chest are bare, and his blond hair is sticking up like he’s been sleeping in a hedge. He comes closer and I can smell the drink on him: stale beer, sweat, sadness.

  He doesn’t look like a man who’s been shouting, screaming and swearing all night, he just looks crushed, lost, hopeless.

  ‘Indie,’ he says. ‘Indie, you have to talk to your mum.’

  I pull on a blue fleece hat with long tassels and refuse to look at him.

  ‘She’s going to leave me,’ Max says. ‘She doesn’t love me any more. You have to stop her, Indie. Tell her she can’t do it.’

  ‘I’ll try,’ I mutter, dragging open the front door. I step out into the rain, but he’s following me, and I can see tears in his eyes.

  I’ve never seen a man cry before.

  ‘Indie, please,’ he says raggedly. ‘Please. Talk to her.’

  He catches hold of my arm and holds me tight. I can’t tell whether it’s rain or tears on my face.

  ‘We’ve been happy, haven’t we?’ Max asks. ‘We’ve had good times. Tell her I’m sorry, Indie. I love her. I do. You have to make her see!’

  His fingers dig into my arm, but he doesn’t mean to hurt me. It’s because he’s upset.

  ‘Max…’

  ‘Let her go.’

  It’s Mum, standing in the doorway, her Chinese silk wrap pulled tight round her, fair hair falling loose across her face.

  ‘Take – your – hands – off – my – daughter.’

  Her voice is hard and slow and fierce and determined. Max lets his hand fall away from my arm, and suddenly he looks lost and alone, standing in the rain without his shirt, without his shoes, on the path of the little house we’ve all called home for three years.

  ‘Indie, I’m sorry…’

  ‘Get away from her,’ Mum says, and Max slinks back inside like a naughty schoolboy.

  I turn away, put my hand on the gate.

 
; ‘Indie, babe.’ Mum is next to me now, but I daren’t look up.

  ‘It’s going to be all right from now on. I’m going to fix it, sort things out, get us out of here.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t worry, love, I’ll put things right. We’ll be OK, just the three of us: me, you, Misti. Wait for me after school, Indie. I’ll fetch you. Wait for me. Only don’t come back here, d’you understand?’

  ‘I understand.’

  For a long, long moment our eyes lock, and although I try not to notice I can’t help but see the blue-black bruises on Mum’s face. The bruises that weren’t there yesterday.

  By the time I get to school I’m drenched, and I stand in the porch for ages before Billy arrives and opens up. He lets me in and I arrange my hat and fleece on the big cast-iron radiator, steaming.

  I sit cross-legged with my back against the radiator to dry out, my hair hanging in rat’s tails on my shoulders.

  Billy slips me a snack-sized Mars bar, shaking his head.

  I need a seriously brilliant daydream today, one that can blot out the memory of Mum’s face and Max’s tears, and the sick sense that something weird and scary is going on. I just can’t do it, though, so I hug my legs and press my face into my knees and blank it all out – the drumming of the rain outside, the swish of the door and the giggles and shouts as kids start arriving, the off-tune whistling from down the corridor where Billy is doing something complicated to the broken door latch on Class Six.

  ‘OK, Indie?’

  Jo scuffs a toe against my soggy trainers, grinning.

  I jump up and we link arms, and it’s OK again. All the home stuff fades out and I’m safe and sure and happy. Pretty much.

  We mooch off together to watch out for Shane Taggart, Jo’s latest crush. Just before nine, he skids into the playground on his skateboard and rolls to a halt in front of the doors, flicking his board upright and winking at us. Jo goes pink and pretends to be looking somewhere else completely. I stifle a yawn.