In Sarah's Shadow

by Karen McCombie

  “Don’t know if it’s something you’d be interested in doing, Sarah, but I think it’s worth considering – you’ve definitely got the talent for it.”

  I feel myself flushing at the compliment. Behind me, I can hear Sal and Cherish arguing about band names, and I’m glad because that means no one else can hear what’s going on. I don’t think Mr Fisher’s given anyone else in the band this info: I feel privileged and shy and very, very flattered.

  “But they’re all pretty far away,” I suddenly frown, skimming through the pages.

  “So? What’s to keep you hanging around here? The world’s your oyster and all that, Sarah!” Mr Fisher grins at me.

  What’s to keep me? My family, my friends…Well, I don’t know about my family at the moment. I think my parents will eventually forgive me for what happened; it might just take a decade or two…

  Speak of the devil – a member of my family has just walked into the hall right now, an aura of self-importance around Meg now she’s got that stupid clipboard under her arm.

  “Um, thanks…” I nod in Mr Fisher’s direction, then stand up quickly and walk over to my bag to stuff the brochures inside.

  And then I see Angel, coming from the backstage area with a cup of water in her hand. Now’s my chance.

  “Angel!” I whisper, looking back over my shoulder to check that none of the rest of the band can hear me.

  God, I hate all this subterfuge. Cherish has to pretend she knows nothing about Angel’s situation, even though we talked about it in depth late on Sunday night, when she finally got back to me. Not that Cherish was much help – all she did was get upset and suggest we pay someone to slash the tyres on Joel’s mountain bike, but I didn’t see how that was going to solve anything.

  And today, Tuesday, was the first time I’d managed to get Angel almost alone – she’d stayed off school yesterday and the only way I knew she was OK (ie, she hadn’t chucked herself off the bridge over the bypass) was when I called her house at night and got told by her mum that she had a migraine and was sleeping. Earlier today, I caught a glimpse of her going into her art class – looking pale and gaunt – but never managed to catch up with her between then and the rehearsal after school today.

  “Are you all right?” I ask her, aware from her taut, tense face that she’s anything but.

  “I don’t want to talk about it right now,” she shakes her head at me and takes a sip of her water.

  Great, someone else who doesn’t want to speak to me. Conor has done an excellent job of blanking me since the start of rehearsals today. He seemed to prefer to gaze at every square foot of the stage and auditorium than look anywhere in my direction. I feel like a leper…

  “But, Angel, what’s happening with you? Did you go and see the doctor yesterday?” I whisper anxiously, remembering the remark she’d made about the morning-after pill in her e-mail.

  “I just don’t want to talk about it, OK?!” she replies and I can see she might be about to cry.

  It’s then that Salman shouts at me to chuck over a new set of sticks to him, and by the time I turn back to Angel, she’s gone. We all wait, and wait some more, presuming she’s gone to the loo, but time stretches on. Or maybe it just feels that way to me because of this void of silent weirdness between me and Conor.

  “Hey, folks – let’s just try a run-through without Angel this once, eh?” Mr Fisher suggests, sitting himself down in a row of chairs directly in front of the stage.

  I don’t know whether he’s suggested it to her or not, but I see Megan scuttle off to switch off the main auditorium lights. I suppose it makes sense – this is our last rehearsal before the contest on Friday afternoon and staring out into the darkness does make the whole thing feel more real.

  Unfortunately for a dress rehearsal, we are all rubbish.

  “He is so bugging me,” Cherish whispers, casting a dirty look at Sal as we all clatter uncomfortably to a standstill.

  Sal obviously feels the same way about Cher, and in five seconds flat they are having a full-scale row about band names that I couldn’t be more disinterested in if I tried. Too much else is skewed and bizarre at the moment and I don’t care if we end up calling ourselves Hopeless.

  I take my guitar off and park myself down on my amp till the fighting blows over. It doesn’t. Out in the auditorium, I can just about make out Mr Fisher and Megan talking, and then Meg is off; off to do something very self-important from the way she goes stomping out.

  I don’t have the energy for any of this. Once upon a time (ie, right up till last week) I couldn’t wait for this competition, and now part of me can’t wait till it’s over, if it means I don’t have to have anything to do with Conor ever again.

  Oops.

  What a liar I am.

  All I really want is for Conor to tell me this has all been some stupid, tragic mistake and that everything’s all right. Then we’ll kiss and laugh about it and then kiss some more…

  “You complete cow, Sarah Collins!” I suddenly hear Angel curse as she comes hurtling through the hall’s double doors “You think it’s funny telling my business to the world? Like my life’s some big joke?!”

  I’m frozen, too paralysed with shock to move. But I’ve heard her right; it is me that my best friend Angel is yelling at, shooting me looks to kill as she thunders up the short flight of steps flanking the stage.

  “Hey, everyone!” Angel bellows at the top of her voice, turning and throwing her arms out wide to an imaginary audience. “I LOST my VIRGINITY on Saturday!! Did everyone in town HEAR that? Or did you all get an E-MAIL about it from Sarah ALREADY?!”

  I don’t need the ground to open up and swallow me; I need a direct portal to drop me to the Earth’s core. This is awful. How did she find out? Has Cherish said something and Angel’s taken it the wrong way? But when would that have happened? When I tried to speak to her five minutes ago, Angel had been upset, but not with me, I didn’t think. Whereas now – now I think I’m in danger of having a mike stand chucked at my head.

  Where’s Mr Fisher when I need him?

  And why is Megan staring up at the stage as if she’s enjoying some West End play?

  Ah, wait a minute…

  “You mailed her message to other people? Not just me?!” Cherish turns on me next, before I get a chance to mull over my suspicions about Megan.

  “No! No, I didn’t! I only sent it to you, Cher! Honestly!” I shake my head hard.

  “It doesn’t matter how many people you told, Sarah!” Angel starts to sob, sending shivers of guilt through me. “Don’t you get it? I asked you, I begged you not to tell anyone else!”

  “She’s right! If she didn’t want anyone else to know, then you shouldn’t have told me!” Cherish snarls in my direction, before going over and wrapping her arms around Angel.

  Excuse me, but has the whole world gone mad and someone’s forgotten to tell me? And it’s getting crazier. Salman has just come out from behind his drum kit and walked round to stand supportively close to Angel and Cherish, which would be pretty funny – if this situation wasn’t so horrible – considering Sal and Cherish were bickering like crazy up till about thirty seconds ago. Conor…he’s taken a few steps closer to Angel and co; he’s obviously trying to let me know where his loyalties lie, without the dirty job of having to talk to me.

  “I was only trying to help, Angel!” I hear the words tumble from my mouth. “I didn’t know what to say to you! I thought Cherish might…”

  And then I stop when I see four pairs of accusing eyes staring at me like I’m scum. There’s no point in this, no point at all…I let the guitar go without a second thought and hear it let out an unhappy groan of notes as it hits the floor.

  “Fine. Believe what you want to believe,” I mutter in a shaky voice. “I quit.”

  “Oh, great!” I can hear Mr Fisher’s voice boom from somewhere up in the balcony as I push my way through the black-out curtains at the side of the stage. “And what are we supposed to do now?”
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  I hate walking out on Mr Fisher – he’s probably the only person I know who doesn’t dislike me or isn’t disappointed in me in some way. Then again, now that I’ve messed up his pet project, I’m probably not his number one favourite person either.

  Well, I think, wiping the tears from eyes as I hurry towards the exit, welcome to the club, Mr Fisher. The ‘I Hate Sarah Collins’ club – it’s got a growing membership…

  Chapter 9

  Too much, too little, too late…

  “I have to say I’m very disappointed in you, Sarah.”

  Tell me something I don’t know.

  “I really thought you, out of everyone, would be more professional,” Mr Fisher shakes his head and stares hard at me.

  It’s funny, isn’t it? Not so long ago I felt terrible for Mr Fisher; I was mortified that he’d been emotionally blackmailed by my lying little sister. And even though he didn’t know anything about that – the helpless sympathy I felt for him (just like I was helplessly sorry for myself) – I can’t help resenting the fact that he’s angry with me now. I just can’t take the way his eyes are boring more guilt into my head. There’s enough guilt and confusion and unhappiness stuffed in here to last me until I’m an old lady; I don’t need another load of it from my so-called favourite teacher. I turn my head and gaze out of the window, only semi-aware of the ice-tipped grass of the school lawn directly outside.

  “Are you sure you won’t reconsider? It’s not too late…”

  Friday morning at break, just twenty minutes before the minibus takes Mr Fisher and the rest of the band off to the Forestdean Arena to rehearse for the Battle of the Bands competition this afternoon.

  I can’t help a wry smile.

  “I don’t think the others would be exactly thrilled to see me climb in the front seat with you,” I tell him, and then immediately see I’ve made a mistake – he thinks I’m making light of it all; being petty and flippant, instead of stating a truth. The whole week, my former best friends Angel and Cherish have blanked me entirely (it’s as if it’s easier to hate me than hate Joel, who’s the actual cause of Angel’s misery). And Sal and Conor? Thankfully, I haven’t bumped into them once, for which I count my blessings. (Not that it takes too long, since I haven’t got many of them at the moment.)

  “Please yourself,” Mr Fisher shrugs, gazing down at the floor and signalling that this meeting is over.

  I bet he regrets sending for me now. I bet he regrets getting me those brochures for music college, since I’m so juvenile and ungrateful in his eyes.

  “Good luck this afternoon,” I mutter as I make my way out of the classroom.

  “Thanks, Sarah,” I hear him mumble flatly behind me.

  Those music college brochures, they’re still at the bottom of my other bag. I’m going to go home at lunchtime and tear them into tiny pieces. And poor Mum and Dad: they forked out so much money to repair my guitar and I’m never going to play it again. What a waste.

  “Sarah!” a voice pants along the crowded corridor. “Wait a minute!”

  I flip my head around to look for the source of the voice, one that I don’t recognise straight away.

  “I just wanted to ask you something…” Pamela says to me breathlessly, appearing by my side.

  A very cute, shy-looking Asian boy with enormous, doll-like eyes is with her.

  “What’s up?” I ask.

  “Is it true you’re not in the school band any more?”

  They’re both staring at me intently.

  “Yes. I mean, no, I’m not in the band any more.”

  “It’s got something to do with Megan, hasn’t it?” asks Pamela bluntly.

  “Why do you say that?” I frown at her.

  “She likes to spoil things. She tried to break up me and Tariq,” she babbles, pointing her thumb in the direction of the boy. “She said she’d gone to ask him out for me, but she didn’t – she told him I didn’t like him any more. We only found out yesterday, when Tariq’s best mate told me what had happened, didn’t we?”

  Tariq nods enthusiastically. “She’s just, like, really jealous or something.”

  “Or a lying bitch,” Pamela corrects him.

  Not so long ago, I’d have snapped at Pamela for saying that, but not any more.

  “Yeah, but just because she tried to split up you and…and…”

  What weird sense of loyalty was making me automatically stick up for my sister, when I knew I was wasting my time?

  “Tariq,” says Tariq helpfully.

  “—thanks. Just ‘cause she tried to split you two up doesn’t mean she had anything to do with me quitting the band,” I say warily to Pamela, although I know deep down that somehow it does. It’s just that gullible old me hasn’t figured it out yet.

  “But she fancies Conor! She told me weeks ago, when you were first going out with him. If she can try and come between me and Tariq, then she could try and split you and Conor up too. And when I heard you’d left the band, I thought she must have said or done something, so you guys wouldn’t be together so much.”

  “Well, she made sure of that all right,” I mumble in shock. “I’m sorry, Pamela – I’ve got to go, I’m in a hurry…”

  A hurry to get out of here before I’m sick.

  “Nice to meet you!” Tariq’s voice calls self-consciously after me.

  He seems a nice lad – I hope he’s a better friend to Pamela than my sister’s ever been.

  And with that thought in my mind, just as the end-of-break bell shrills, I push the side door open and run straight out of school.

  “All right, love?”

  It’s Mrs Harrison, popping out from behind a withered, leafless rose bush with a set of pruning shears in her hand.

  “No,” I answer her honestly.

  “Here,” she says, quickly stuffing her shears in her pocket and holding her hands out towards me. At first, I don’t understand what she means and then I realise she wants me to give her my hands.

  I don’t know why, but I do as I’m told.

  She turns them palm up, so that the backs are resting on the bristling hedge that borders her garden.

  “It’ll be all right in time, sweetheart. But it will take some time…then you’ll know real freedom. In the mean time, you’ve got to start looking out for number one. Do you hear me?”

  I do, but I don’t know that I understand. Still, with the jumble my head’s in, that isn’t exactly a surprise.

  “I don’t mean that you should be selfish,” Mrs Harrison continues, her peach face powder looking an even odder shade now she’s out in daylight. “After all, there’s plenty of people good at that without a speck of conscience to bother them – but that’s not you, dear. It’s not often I’ll say this to someone, but you’ve got to stop always trying to please everyone else and start pleasing yourself. It’s the only way you’ll get the happiness you deserve…”

  I don’t know why, but suddenly I want to cry. And suddenly the one person I really want to talk to is my mum. I know it’s been hard, that she hasn’t had much time for me ‘cause she’s been so wound up and worried about Megan since last summer (or make that since Megan’s been born), but right now I don’t feel too self-sufficient. Right now I need her to feel sorry for me and tell me she’ll make everything all right.

  “Thank you – but I’ve got to go,” I whisper and turn on my heel and run down our street.

  I can see the living room light’s on – it’s a cold, overcast day and the sky’s colour is more like a wintry four o’clock than the mid-morning brightness it should be. But at least the light being on means Mum’s home, thank goodness.

  “Hello? Sweetpea?! What are you doing home, what’s wrong?” she panicks as soon as she sees me hurry through the front door.

  How lovely! How I’ve missed being called that stupid nickname this last week. I’m Sweetpea again, not the prodigal daughter. With one simple use of my goofy nickname, it feels like the slate is wiped clean. All is forgiven and I could k
iss her.

  And then Mum spoils it.

  “Is it Megan? Is there something wrong with Megan? It’s Megan, isn’t it? Tell me!”

  And then I know I’m wasting my time. Whatever accusation I throw my sister’s way, however I try and explain what she’s said and done against me, Mum will always take her side. She’ll bat back everything I tell her with a get-out clause to excuse my sister’s every fault: “You must have taken it the wrong way, Sarah”; “Megan’s been through a lot, remember”; “I know she can be difficult, but you’ve got to make allowances for her”; “You know what the doctor said – she’s still quite fragile, she needs our support and understanding”; “My God, how can you say things like that, Sarah? Don’t you remember your sister nearly died?”

  Oh, yes, I remember the night it looked like my sister might die. Die of jealousy, because for once, Mum and Dad gave me the full glare of their attention. For one night only, they stopped their habit of always trying to include a reluctant Megan in their every conversation. “Well, sixteen is a very special age, so let’s make it special, eh, Sarah?” Dad had smiled when he pushed open the door to the poshest restaurant I’d ever been to. Not too posh to make me a birthday cake though, and I practically started blubbing when the lights went down and the entire place sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to me as the waiter weaved towards me with a cake twinkling with candles. Of course, the only one not singing was Megan, who grunted about going to the loo the second my surprise appeared out of the kitchen doorway.

  One night.

  One measly night.

  Megan couldn’t even let me have that one single, solitary night of feeling special. She had to hijack my birthday and turn it into her own drama once we got home.

  Thanks, little sis – thanks very much.

  “Mum, Megan’s fine. There’s nothing wrong!” I assure my frantic mother, feeling irritated instead of sorry for her for the first time ever. Maybe if Mum hadn’t been such a walkover for Megan all these years, we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re all in now. Maybe if she’d listened to Gran’s advice all those years ago…