All the Fun of the Fair: A hilarious, brilliantly original coming-of-age story that will capture your heart

by Caroline Hulse

  I looked down. Even if she did really want to know, where could I even start? It was like one of those puzzles where there are lots of different threads, all tangled up, and you have to follow the right thread through the mess and not get distracted to get free.

  And I was pretty sure, this time, there was no right thread to get free.

  ‘Lewis doesn’t want to be my friend, no matter how much I make him.’

  Mum stroked my knee. ‘He puts up with a lot.’

  ‘He thinks I’m the reason his dad’s left home.’

  ‘Well, that’s just ridiculous.’ She paused. ‘Geoff’s left home?’

  ‘Lewis says his mum and dad rowed because I said Lewis was my boyfriend.’

  Mum stopped stroking.

  ‘It’s not even true, I just made it up. But Lewis’s dad was happy, though he’s never liked me and he calls me girlie. And Lewis’s mum was upset he was happy. So, Lewis blames me.’ I took a breath. ‘And my other friends have started a new group.’

  ‘Is Geoff coming back?’

  ‘I don’t know, Mum.’

  Mum nodded. ‘OK. So, there’s a new group.’ Mum straightened my skirt pleats again. ‘Can you join this new group?’

  I scratched one fingernail with another so I didn’t have to look in her eyes. ‘The whole point of the new group is it’s the same as the old group.’ My voice was so quiet now. ‘Just without me in it.’

  ‘Oh.’ Mum smoothed the pleats some more. ‘I remember how hard this stuff can be.’

  ‘I’ve got nowhere to go at lunchtime. And they said I can’t be in the group even though I’ve got a ph—’

  I stopped myself. Not that thread.

  I had no friends, no fair, I was going to get expelled from school.

  That phone was all I had.

  ‘A ph—?’ Mum prompted.

  I licked my lips. ‘A ph-riendship with Jodie.’

  ‘Could Jodie start a new group with you?’

  ‘She’s got a group. You can’t be in two groups at once, it doesn’t work like that.’

  ‘And if I spoke to Jodie’s mum?’

  ‘NO!’ I jumped up. ‘You said you remember being a kid and then you say things like that! You don’t remember at all!’

  ‘OK, OK,’ Mum put her hands up, palms out. ‘I’m just thinking aloud.’

  ‘Speak to Jodie’s mum!’ I shook my head.

  ‘It will get better.’ Mum stroked my knee. ‘But you still can’t leave school in the daytime, however hard it gets. Can’t you go to the computer room at lunchtime anyway? Even without Lewis?’

  ‘The computer room’s closed. They’re putting extra wires in for something. It’s going to be closed till the end of term.’

  ‘But, still. Fiona, you can’t just leave school in the daytime. It’s a criminal offence.’

  I waved a hand.

  ‘Fiona. People go to prison for criminal offences.’

  I finally stopped crying. ‘I won’t go to prison for missing school.’

  Mum sighed. ‘This was all so much easier when you were five.’

  I shuffled forward so my knees were touching Mum’s again.

  Mum’s voice was gentle. ‘It’s going to be OK, you know.’

  I wiped my noise, sliming a trail up my shirt sleeve.

  We sat there in silence, knees touching. With my feet bent beneath me, my knee looked hard, like a fist. A fist, with tiny hairs on top.

  ‘Before we finish.’ Mum took both my hands in hers. ‘Have you told me everything about school?’

  Mayfair.

  I shook my head.

  ‘I think it’s best you tell me everything today. In one go. One day. And I won’t get angry.’

  I kept shaking my head. Though I’d need to find a way to tell her before the morning, I realised. Because – Dr Sharma. The New Head.

  That thought made me cry again. So hard.

  ‘Fiona?’

  I stared at the carpet. ‘I sold some – magazines. Porn mags. I found them in the park. I sold them to older boys at school. That’s how I made so much money at the car boot sale.’

  I risked looking up. I looked straight back down again.

  ‘The teachers know. Dr Sharma. Mrs Vernal,’ I whispered. ‘The – New Head.’

  Mum said nothing for ages.

  ‘This is a lot to take in.’

  I nodded.

  ‘When I said I wouldn’t get angry, I didn’t realise that you’d be telling me something like this.’

  We sat in silence for quite a bit longer.

  Mum took another deep nose-breath. ‘Now – can’t believe I’m asking this – but is there anything else? Apart from the bunking school, the spying, the investigating your sister’s death, the selling pornos from your father’s car boot?’ Mum squeezed my hand until I looked into her eyes. ‘Because we need to get everything out, lady. If you tell me now, I’ll forgive you anything. I think. I’ll really try.’

  I looked at my feet again.

  ‘Fiona?’

  ‘You won’t get cross?’

  ‘Fiona?’

  I reached for my coat. I opened it up, and she saw my pocket.

  She sat up straighter. ‘Is that Eileen’s curtain fabric? The one that ended up being too short and I had to buy again?’

  I opened my secret pocket and got out the cigarette.

  Mum’s chest rose. ‘What the—’

  I put it on the table. ‘I bought it using fake ID. Someone else’s. Not mine.’

  ‘BUT YOU’VE GOT ASTHMA!’

  She’d said she wouldn’t shout, but I couldn’t blame her. Because she didn’t know I was going to tell her that, did she? Mum’s always been really funny about health stuff.

  She pressed her lips together.

  ‘Where are the rest?’

  ‘I only bought a single.’

  ‘But . . .’ She stopped. ‘Not important. Why?’

  ‘I thought my friends would like me if I helped them grow up.’ I wiped one eye with my sleeve. ‘But they don’t.’

  Mum’s eyebrows moved a little towards each other. ‘It’s not grown up to smoke.’

  I wiped my other eye. ‘Course it is.’

  ‘It isn’t, and you can’t just bring things to people to make them be your friends.’

  I pressed my knees more tightly into hers.

  ‘You weren’t really going to smoke it?’ She frowned. ‘You couldn’t have been, not with your asthma. You wouldn’t be that stupid. Besides, you had nothing to light it with.’

  I looked at her. At how she didn’t look angry now, just tired.

  I reached in my rucksack. I got out the grill lighter and placed it on the table.

  ‘But you promised!’ Mum’s voice was uneven as she tried not to shout. ‘You promised you wouldn’t take risks with your health! You’re our only one!’

  ‘But that’s not my fault, is it?’ I leaned forward. ‘You should have had extra kids if you were that worried.’

  ‘WE COULDN’T HAVE MORE KIDS, FIONA. Don’t you realise that? That’s why Danielle was an only one in the first place. You were a miracle. A special, wonderful, unexpected’ – she sounded so angry – ‘miracle.’

  You can say miracle like bowl of shit. In case you’re wondering.

  I saw my coat was open, showing my secret pocket. No!

  I gripped my coat closed immediately. I edged it towards me.

  Mum looked at the coat and back at my face.

  ‘Fiona.’ Her voice was hard. A warning. ‘What else is in there, please?’

  I hugged the coat.

  ‘If there’s anything – anything – you’ve not told me, and you don’t tell me right now, while you’ve got the chance and I’m being so patient and nice, so help me, Fiona, I don’t kno
w what I’ll—’

  I unhugged the coat and opened the secret pocket.

  I pulled out the mobile phone and placed it on the table.

  Mum stared at it.

  I rushed the words out. ‘I didn’t steal it.’

  She raised her gaze. She looked so old.

  ‘This time, it’s true. Someone gave it to me.’

  ‘Like the time Candy gave you her favourite pen topper?’

  I looked down. ‘No,’ I whispered. ‘Not like that.’

  ‘But why would anyone give you a mobile phone? If you knew what was going through my head right now—’

  ‘I didn’t steal it! And I didn’t ask for it, either! He just gave it to me.’

  ‘He? Why do you do this?’ Mum rubbed her eyes with her fists. ‘All the lying! No one would ever give you—’

  ‘Carl did!’ I jumped off the stool. ‘I didn’t ask for the phone, Carl just gave it to me!’

  Mum went still.

  ‘Carl!’ The room’s air had gone weird but I was too angry to stop. ‘You lie to me all the time. You said Carl’s a strange man but he’s not and this proves it. He’s never flashed me, he’s never got it out to show me – not even just the end – and he even helped me with my fake puncture. Carl’s kind, and this proves it, because he gave me a mobile phone!’

  I grabbed my phone and ran upstairs.

  I slammed my bedroom door and sat behind it. I listened.

  There was no sound of keys, no opening door sounds from downstairs. Just silence.

  I got under my duvet and arranged it over me so no tiny bit of body was peeking out. Trying – trying as hard as I could – to make myself safe.

  Half an hour later, I was still under the duvet cover, body completely covered, sweaty from my breath bouncing back onto my face. I heard the scratch and clink of Dad’s key in the front door.

  I heard him go into the kitchen. The up and down of voices.

  Mum would tell him right away, of course. They had a united front when it came to me. Whatever the row was about, it always ended two against one. In our family isosceles triangle, it was always me on my own at the pointy end.

  I pushed back the duvet. I sat up on my bed and waited.

  The kitchen door opened.

  ‘Going to the pub for a quick one, Fi!’ Dad shouted up the stairs. ‘Mum says not to disturb you doing your homework. See you when I’m back!’

  I heard the front door go.

  A minute later, Mum came into my bedroom, carrying a hammer and a hand towel.

  I put the duvet over my head again.

  She shut the door behind her. ‘Give me the phone.’

  No! I jumped out of the bed.

  She held out her non-hammer hand. ‘The phone.’

  I widened my eyes. ‘Mum! No!’

  ‘Give me the phone now.’

  I scrambled across the room till I was on top of my coat, protecting it with my body.

  ‘Don’t make me peel you off.’ Mum’s jaw was hard. ‘You must never accept gifts from strangers. Never.’

  ‘No! No please!’ My voice went up to a squeak. ‘I’m sorry! He helped me fix a puncture!’

  ‘He’s never fixed a puncture in his life. He’s a parasite. And I can’t let you keep that phone.’

  ‘I’ll never speak to strangers again. Just let me keep the phone. It’s the only thing I have. It’s the only way I can make friends. Please!’

  Mum put the hammer and hand towel on the dressing table.

  I pressed my back up against my coat. ‘I won’t even use the phone, I promise, I’ll just hold it. I’ve never even used it anyway. Mum!’

  She wrestled me away from the coat.

  ‘I just hold it and pretend to talk to people! That’s all I do!’

  She opened the secret pocket, batting away my grasping hands. She took out the phone and placed it on the towel on my dressing table. She picked up the hammer.

  She threw her non-hammer arm out in a barrier. ‘Stand back.’

  I screamed.

  Mum lifted the hammer and smashed the screen. She did it again. And again.

  The phone screen cracked. Bits of plastic flaked off, then keys and metal. Bits of green from inside the phone now.

  I kept screaming. Mum kept swinging. The clip fell out of her hair and onto the carpet. Hair flew in front of her face as she hammered.

  The phone skittered across the table, bouncing into the mirror. Mum mis-hit, dinging a yellow semicircle into the white wood of the dressing table.

  Mum stopped hitting. She dropped her hammer against her thigh. She was panting. Bits of hair stuck to her red face.

  I looked where she was looking. At the broken plastic and twisted metal on the towel.

  She dropped the hammer onto the bed. She took a step back.

  I ran over to the dressing table. I picked up the towel gently at the corners, holding the pieces of phone in a hammock.

  Mum didn’t stop me.

  I carried the towel hammock back to my bed and placed it on my lap. I cradled it all.

  Mum reached towards me. I cringed to the side, but she just reached past me and picked the hammer up off the bed.

  She saw me flinch. ‘Fi, don’t. I’d never—’

  She held the hammer against her thigh. She turned and left the room.

  I lay folded over so I was covering my broken phone, protecting it too late.

  I cried into my skirt, mouth open, my body folded over.

  I stayed there for a long time.

  39

  People talk about something being ‘too rich for my blood’, but they are more often talking about taking some kind of risk, rather than making a comment about a haematological disorder.

  Fiona Larson, 7E’s Blood Project

  Four days to the fair

  I lifted myself up. I’d left a dark mess on the pleats of my skirt. A circle of snot and tears.

  I’d been sad and scared.

  But now, as I stared at the dark circle, I stopped crying. Another feeling was building in me. I was crunching my jaws so tightly together, I’d made my cheeks hurt.

  How could she do this to me?

  I jumped up.

  It wasn’t even my stuff she destroyed. It was Carl’s.

  She couldn’t just do things like that to other adults, could she? She wasn’t allowed.

  Let him see me like this. Let him see what she’s done. I’m going to knock for him, then I’m going to show him my broken phone, then. . .

  I folded my arms, imagining banging on that door. Imagining Carl’s face as I told him. Your mum did what? That’s terrible. Poor you, Fiona. Mums aren’t meant to do things like that. I’ll go round and give her a piece of my mind, right now.

  The thought of Mum getting told off calmed me down a little. Just enough so I could control my movements and be quieter.

  With baby steps, I headed down the stairs and listened at the kitchen door. I heard Mum moving around. I stayed silent.

  After a few minutes. I heard the back door open. The clink of bottles and cans – Mum taking the bin bag into the garden.

  And I hurried out of the front door, out of there.

  I didn’t go straight to Carl’s. I needed to be calmer, so I could explain properly. I needed to let off steam.

  I walked loops of the park, trying to stop shaking. Past the second-biggest bush. Past the tennis courts. Past the wasps’ nest. I walked like one of those old people who walk for exercise, arms pumping, my legs moving as fast as they would go.

  But the shaking in my body wouldn’t stop. It was like there were little explosions everywhere. Pow, pow, pow.

  I sat on a bench and rubbed my hands up my arms, my skin pricking up in goose pimples. My thoughts were going too fast now. I was feeling everyt
hing.

  And, suddenly, my anger turned off like a tap. A few drips left, then nothing.

  Because I realised. This was nobody’s fault but mine.

  I’d done this. I’d done this to myself.

  Lewis was right. I’d never been a good enough friend to him. He kept trying, and I let him down.

  I was bad. Really bad. Everyone knew it. My family did. My teachers did. The girls did. Lewis did.

  It was all my fault.

  I deserved punishment.

  I looked up. I imagined the satellites and planets, all held up by nothing, all hurtling towards me.

  I looked over at the park’s biggest bush. The one with the wasps’ nest.

  I walked over slowly, feeling empty, like I wasn’t really there. Like I, the real Fiona, was somewhere at a distance, watching this Fiona walk.

  I put my hand to the floor and lowered myself down onto my knees, a metre away from the moving sea of wasps. I watched the crawling lump of black and yellow bodies, antennae twitching.

  Because I didn’t deserve to feel OK.

  I leaned closer.

  The buzzing from the nest was soft, a radio that wasn’t properly tuned in.

  I watched the wasps crawl over the nest. Their tiny wings fluttered against their pointy bodies.

  My head was full. Full of thoughts I didn’t want. But if I pushed on this nest, right now, something would change.

  I raised my finger.

  I watched my finger to see what it did. I watched it move towards the nest.

  I got into a high kneel and shuffled closer.

  A wasp jumped off the nest and onto my finger. Another wasp jumped onto my shoulder.

  One wasp landed on my cheek. I put my hand to my cheek and – owowow! – there was a flash, inside my head.

  And my finger went on fire.

  I pulled my hand away. I stumbled backwards.

  And it worked.

  Like I’d wanted – like I think I wanted – wasps followed.

  I opened the back gate and ran dizzily through the garden. I staggered over the grass towards rockery.

  Mum saw me through the kitchen window.

  I made a shape as best I could with fat lips. ‘Wasps.’