“We are here, on the spot. I will ask him — right now.”
“Quark — no!”
“Daisy, I will only say what you were going to before I interrupted you. There he is: over by the gates. If we hurry, we can catch him.”
“Yes, but —”
“Except, I will do it much better.” My body is now pushing through the crowd of laughing, chattering kids who are full of the near combustible energy that comes after release from being penned into classrooms all day.
“What? No! You don’t understand!”
“Ah, but I do understand.” He breaks off and calls ahead, “Connor!” His internal monologue returns to me, “you forget, I’m inside your head, Daisy.”
“Believe me, I never forget that!”
“I know what you think. What you really think,” he says.
“What I think and what I say are two different things. The way you spoke to Mum last week, the way you spoke to Amy and upset her, the rude way you treated Mr Ford today in Maths — all were wrong.”
“But that was me, not you. Now I’ll be you. Only better!”
I don’t like the sound of this at all! Post-Quark-Daisy has so far had a few detentions, totally messed up my grades, all but cost me my best friend, over-eaten, attempted to come out, eaten meat, insulted Mum … and who knows what else. But PQD is positively not going to mess with my so-called love life! “You must filter what you say, what I say, Quark. You can’t go around speaking your mind to a boy.” But what can I do to stop him? That’s the question. I have zero control over the mess Quark’s making of my life.
“It is so much easier if you speak your mind. Especially with my help! Then everyone will know where they stand.”
“Quark, no don’t —”
“Connor! Can I walk with you?” Too late; now I can’t stop him. PQD squeezes my body between Connor and one of his football buddies and — oh, god no! — takes his arm. To everyone else it looks as though Daisy Jacobs has just run across the playground calling Connor’s name and then linked arms with him. His buddy, Steve, gets the message and slopes rapidly away with raised eyebrows and a knowing smirk. And I bet, I just bet that PQD is gurning a smile up into Connor’s face right now. Connor looks surprised and flustered enough for that to be the case.
“Hi Daisy, long time no speak.” He dimples that smile at me and I admit, if I had a tummy of my own right now, there’s no doubt it would flutter like crazy!
“You are correct, Connor,” says PQD, leaning my body closer into Connor’s, “and I thought we should remedy that right now by having a proper talk.” Quark looks deeply into Connor’s vibrant blue eyes and my view of him blurs and clears rapidly several times within a few seconds as if … oh, so cringey! — I’m batting my eyes at Connor!
A flush appears on Connor’s chiselled cheeks, but he speaks normally, as if girls throwing themselves into his arms is an everyday occurrence. “We used to chat all the time, but you’ve been a bit … strange? No, maybe a little distant recently.”
“I am very sorry if you think that is the case, Connor,” PQD simpers.
“Yeah, you’ve been acting differently, Daisy. Not yourself. I’m worried about you.”
He’s worried? He thinks about me? Now this is interesting. This is something to explore delicately; to finesse.
“Well, believe me, Connor, it is not personal — to you, I mean. I do not mean to appear distant to you. But … well, we are all going through a lot of changes at the moment.” Quark presses my body closer to Connor once more. Just for a moment I got carried away and forgot that PDQ does not do finesse. For Quark, subtle comes wrapped around a sledgehammer!
“You know, Connor, with what is happening to me now, it is like all the bits of my body are in the wrong place or are the wrong size. I would like some bits to be different … you know: prettier. And other bits to be, well … bigger.”
Connor’s eyes widen and he swallows visibly. But, bless him, he tries to carry on as if this totally random conversation is the most natural development from our previously amicable but distant relationship. “Daisy, we’re adolescents. We’d all like some bits to be a bit … bigger.” His blush deepens, but still he continues. “But we’re all still growing and we have lots of time.”
Quark is steaming right ahead now. He’s on a roll. For him, this is a new pinnacle in conversational hyper-drive. “Actually, I think my whole body is just … kind of wrong. I would like a new model. In fact, I’ll take Icky’s body: those hips and boo—”
I fling open the door to my safe room without a care for my own — and so your (sorry!) safety — and I positively scream in my loudest think-speak: “Do NOT have me say ‘boobs’ out loud to Connor, Quark! Just don’t ever! I won’t survive it — I’m not that easy-going kind of girl!”
Quark’s so wrapped up in the moment, that he misses this open goal, this opportunity to get me and end it once and for all. He continues without skipping a beat, “— curves are in just the right place and just the right proportion.”
“Icky?” Connor looks confused.
“Yeah — Icky Ellie.”
Connor guffaws. “That’s so perfect!”
Quark shrugs. “So, yeah: her bod, but I wanna keep my brain — with the added confidence and self-assurance that comes with great boo— a great body, of course.” He is totally off on one now. He’s abbreviating words again, just like a real person. Well, almost.
“You don’t need Ellie’s boo—” Connor stops himself abruptly.
“Quark!” I interject, “you’ve got Connor at it now!”
“—body.” Connor continues, his recovery almost as seamless as Quark’s “You’re great just as you are: brains and body ... “
“Yes, but Ellie —”
“Ellie nothing!”
What?!! ‘Ellie nothing’! What does that mean?
This time, Quark’s listening to me. “Connor, what do you mean, ‘Ellie nothing’?” I’m still out in the open! I slink back behind my door, relieved that Quark hasn’t noticed what I did and pleased I can watch on my TV from a position of security once more. As I shut my door, I hiss at him, “Quark, don’t put everything I think into words! Remember: there is such a thing as a filter!” I’m stunned at how seamless my link with Quark sometimes is and, I confess, I’m on tenterhooks for Connor’s answer.
“I mean, Ellie is a pretty girl,” Connor says. “And if she calmed down a bit, she’d be really nice. I can’t say I agree with everything you’ve done in the past few weeks — I really don’t think you’ve been yourself. But … well, you’ve got the looks and the personality, Daisy. You’re the full package.”
“Really? But what about my tiny, little boo—”
“Quark!” I bark at him from inside my room, but with loud and unmistakable authority, “for the last time: if you say that out loud to Connor, I swear I will haunt you from now until the very end of time!”
But Connor laughs. “I thought it was boys who obsessed about boo— bodies,” he rejoins, blushing still deeper.
“See what you’ve done to him, Quark — he’s got a one-track mind, thanks to you!” I could curl up and die of embarrassment, but, rendered motionless — and wordless — I have no choice but to listen, cringe inwardly (well, where else?), and wish myself a long, long way away from the inside of my own head, where I am being afforded a ringside seat for this stratospherically embarrassing conversation. I wish I was anywhere else right now — like the other side of the galaxy. Suddenly, Quark’s threat to break me into my constituent parts and distribute me throughout the universe doesn’t seem so bad!
I don’t know what on earth (excuse the pun) Quark’s doing here, but I am lost; just totally all at sea and adrift on a blushing sea of self-doubt. My head tilts down again, my eyes focus low, and I just know that Quark’s now glancing up at Connor through the curtained fringe of my cinnamon hair. And … OMG! He’s going all demure and flirty with Connor again!
“Thanks — it’s been lovely talking to you too, Daisy,” I hear Connor say. Oh, thank goodness! I thought I’d missed ‘myself’ voice love for Connor, but apparently I only love talking to him. Phew! It’s such a relief that Quark hasn’t, for once, put his foot in my mouth and blurted that out. If I ever use the “L” word, I want to say it from the heart. From my heart. Not to have it flung out into the unknown by an uncomprehending entity.
“I’ve really missed talking to you,” I hear Connor say. “But, Daisy …”
My head turns to face him and my eyes look deeply into his; my goodness, how blue they are! I’ve never been this close to Connor before, virtually breathing the same air as him — although, technically, I’m not actually breathing.
Connor’s generous lips curve into a smile that doesn’t reach his subdued eyes, “lose the act, huh?”
“What act?” My voice betrays Quark’s confusion.
“This bad-girl thing you’ve got going on. Clever-girl, that’s you. Funny-girl too.” This time the smile is the full, knock-out works — even as the blush deepens again. “Yeah — and pretty-girl. But there’s no need to play to the crowd like you have in the last few weeks. It doesn’t suit you at all. It’s like you’re trying to be someone you’re really not.”
His deep blue eyes plant themselves on ‘me’, as if he’s looking deeply into me — the real Daisy — buried deep within the fake that he’s so gently reproached.
I thought Quark’s behaviour as ‘Daisy’ was … not passing without notice, because I’ve had detentions and failed tests and been told off and all that, but was just being put down as abhorrent teenage behaviour and nothing more. Apparently not. Both Amy, who knows me really well, and Connor, who seems to know me way better than I thought (and intriguingly seems to take way more notice of me than I thought), have gotten right to the point and have seen that I have genuinely not been myself recently. Of course, they’d never guess that I have actively been someone else!
“It’s like …” Connor struggles to put into words how he’s feeling. “Yeah. Not since —” He pauses, “I wondered if maybe you blamed me.”
“Blamed you? What for?” I get it immediately and can’t believe that Connor should be so sweet as to think I’d blame him, but Connor’s words baffle Quark.
“I mean, blame me for what happened to you,” Connor explains.
“What happened to me?” Quark’s still confused, but then he is what happened to me, so it’s understandable that he’s slow on the uptake.
“Well, you know: the fainting, the bump on the head, the … personality change,” Connor’s abashed at this last statement.
“I have changed?” My voice has lost the obsequiousness it had when Quark spoke to me the other day; this stupefies him like Hermione Granger’s finest spell — as if he’s stunned anyone could think he’s been anything other than the ultimate teenager recently.
“Yeah, you’ve changed. This is the first time we’ve talked properly since then and … it’s good. It’s really is good to talk to you again. You’re always good to talk to; well —” his smile widens, crinkling the corners of his eyes, “I guess listen to, really. But you’re still not like you were before the bang on the head, and I wondered if you blamed me for that.”
“No, not at all. You did nothing at all. I think I am just learning what it is to be a teenager. I am … trying things on for size, if you understand what I mean.” Quark’s not usually quick on the uptake, but he understands he must let Connor off lightly, and for that I’m grateful.
“I do, Daisy, but remember some bits of you … quite a lot actually, doesn’t need to change. You’re just per—”
“Connor! Hi!” Aaagh, it’s Ellie Watson, with particularly ‘Icky’ timing! “Oh, hello, Daisy,” she adds in grudging acknowledgement of my presence. “Sorry, didn’t see you down there.” She sighs deeply, expanding what she has in abundance and what I sadly lack. Despite Quark’s attempts at snuggling up, Connor can’t have missed the absence of anything much to press up against him, just as he can’t miss what nature has seen fit to bestow upon Ellie.
“Remember, Connor we’re all meeting up, aren’t we?” She indicates over her shoulder to Sue and Claire, plus Steve and a few other members of the football team. “Our little group.” She emphasises this as clearly not including me. “And now here you are.” She grasps his arm and pulls Connor towards her. “And, er … there you are,” she adds, emphasising the distance between me and ‘her’ group — now including Connor. “Really good to see you again, though Daisy,” and her smile does have a teeny bit of warmth. Not enough to invite me to join ‘her’ group, but it’s there nonetheless.
“Yeah … great to speak to you again, Daisy,” Connor’s intense gaze focuses on me. “Let’s talk soon.” He continues to look back at me as he’s all but dragged away by Ellie and her crew.
“He likes us.” Quark speaks inwardly, just to me. “I think he always did, Daisy. And you should stop obsessing about bits of you being too big or too small. It’s you he’s interested in — you the person. The full package, that’s what he said.”
“Yes, but —”
“No buts.”
“Quark … ”
“Yes?”
“That did not go as disastrously badly as 99% of the rest of your interference in my life.”
“Is that a compliment?”
“No.”
“Well, I think it went very well, and Connor is right about one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“I clearly have not gone far enough yet. There is much more teenage life to explore. He thinks I have not been myself enough just recently.”
“Wait, Quark — no! That’s not what he said!”
“So we will progress to the next stage: Total Teen.”
“QUARK!”
Chapter 44
YOU CAN’T ALWAYS GET WHAT YOU WANT
Quark’s angry. Everyone’s sticking their oar into Daisy’s — HIS! — life. He felt in his soul, well not soul, obviously he doesn’t have a soul, but he felt deep inside — and this was difficult to admit — they were right. Daisy’s mum and dad, Amy, Connor, even Ellie and Mrs Griffin all knew, not what had happened to Daisy, obviously, but they knew she wasn’t herself. Something was seriously wrong with her. Quark is sure his plan to take Daisy to the next level of angsty teen will settle things once and for all: everyone would realise this was a new Post-Daisy era. Her body seemed to recognise the fact — it reverberated with a new chemical balance he didn’t understand. He felt slightly nauseous and yet positively buzzing with energy. Energy he’d use to make sure New Daisy was here to stay!
He’d arrived on Earth and entered Daisy’s mind and body with absolute textbook perfection, thinking the connection to her would end almost before it had begun. Every single becoming had been instantaneous. But this time the union had continued for hours and days and was now stretching into weeks! And while this was barely the blink of an eye on his timescale, it was significant to Daisy — and was increasingly so to Quark himself. The ancient, primal Quark was weakening. Hence h
is sudden haste to make a real mark; his reasoning being that if Daisy became more Quark-like, she’d soon become Quark.
The connection to her was so intense that he lived in a state of perpetual discomfort. With other beings, there’d never been time to emerge into consciousness, experience life or lay down memories. Now though, recollection of recent incidents rose vividly in his mind. Yet he struggled to come to terms with the fact that these were memories he shared with Daisy, or at least memories he was imprinting on her mind. He’s no longer sure where he ends and Daisy Jacobs begins …
“Everyone’s confused about who they really are. But trying to figure out who I am, where I am — or what I am — and what currently inhabits my body is really extreme!”
Quark’s so surprised by Daisy’s statement that he doesn’t realise she’s somehow eavesdropped on his private musings. “Everyone is also someone else?” He’s confused. “But there is only one Quark; there are no others like me to be within everyone.”
“Yet,” Daisy takes his statement to Quark’s ideal ultimate conclusion. “But, in a way, everyone already has many people in them.”
“How can that be? You are just one person. Amy Porter is one person. Your mother and father, your brother. Each of them is a separate person. One person in each body.”
“I am literally one person,” Daisy replies. “And until you came along and really messed me up, I was physically one person. But I’m a different person at school to the one I am at home. And I’m not the same with Amy as I am with Ellie. I behave differently with Mrs Griffin and the other teachers at school than I would if I met … the Prime Minister, for example.”
“So, you are the same, but different?” From deep within her head, Daisy signalled agreement. Quark pressed his point, “is that not confusing?”
“Not really.” Daisy pauses. “Knowing this is part of growing up, part of being human. When you’re a kid, you’re always the same, always open, always ‘on’. You might tell complete strangers about really personal things. But as you get a bit older, you learn what’s acceptable or desirable with certain people, or in certain situations.”
Daisy Jacobs Saves the World Page 18
