Angels Next Door

by Karen McCombie

  Contents

  Before everything changed …

  How to be only me

  Please, Miss … help!

  The recipe for Awkward Shy Jelly

  Hello, trouble

  Do I look like a dog?

  The small thing that blew my mind

  Come inside …?

  Sort ofs and shocks

  Unless … what if?

  They like me, they like me not

  Floating, flying, free

  The opposite of wonderful

  With a rustle and a flutter

  After everything changed …

  Acknowledgements

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Bestselling author Karen McCombie trained as a magazine journalist in her native Scotland before moving to London. After several years working on teen favourites Just 17 and Sugar, she turned to fiction, with her first series, Ally’s World, becoming an instant success. In total she’s had more than seventy books published and translated around the world, and more than a million books sold.

  Karen lives in north London with her very Scottish husband, Tom, her sunshiny daughter, Milly, a demented cat called Dizzy, and Biscuit, the button-obsessed hamster.

  For Milly, my wee angel …

  I have the strangest feeling.

  If I was at home I’d think Dot was standing over me, trying not to giggle while she sprinkled glitter on my face, after telling me to lie down and shut my eyes.

  But I’m not at home.

  Dot’s nowhere in sight – she’s gone for a playdate this afternoon with her little friend Coco.

  And as I brush my face I realize there’s nothing on it – no glitter, no nothing – except warm September sunshine.

  So what was that all about? Who knows? Though what I do know is that I’m sometimes very good at imagining things … I give myself a small shuddery shake and get back to what’s real.

  And right now I’m in my favourite place, with my favourite person: my forever friend, Tia.

  Me and Tia are doing what we do best.

  Lying on our backs at the top of Folly Hill, right by the Angel.

  Feeling the soft green grass on our bare legs and arms.

  Staring at the blue, blue sky and the skimming white clouds.

  Talking about everything.

  Talking about nothing.

  It’s been the same since we were little kids of six. Back then we used to curtsy to the stone angel, perched prettily on her plinth. Obviously, we don’t do that any more. I mean, as Tia once pointed out, what’s cute when you’re six can look slightly insane to passing strollers and dog-walkers when you’re nearly twelve.

  And, funnily enough, today we’re talking about birthdays, since mine isn’t all that far away.

  ‘Hey, I know what I want!’ I say, having thought about it right before I felt that non-existent sprinkle of glitter.

  Me and Tia – up till now our heads have been touching, the fingertips of my right hand brushing the fingertips of Tia’s left hand. But as I wait for my friend to respond I flip round on to my tummy, wriggle my camera out from my coat pocket and point it at Tia.

  SNAP!

  ‘Yeah? What’s that, then?’ Tia mutters.

  Her eyes are closed against the late-afternoon light, spiralling dark curls spread round her head like a halo. She’ll have heard the click of the camera, but it won’t have bothered her; she’s used to me and my habit of taking pictures of her, of us, of what we get up to. I only use the camera when it’s just me and Tia – it was an eighth-birthday present from Dad and is now way too pink and plastic and rubbish to be seen out in public.

  ‘You want to know? Well, I’m going to tell you!’ I say excitably.

  By the way, I’m only ever excitable with Tia. In my old school reports from Beechwood Primary, they always wrote that I was shy and never very good at joining in. We haven’t had any reports from Hillcrest Academy yet – we’re only a couple of weeks into our very first term – but I’m betting the teachers there will say exactly the same thing.

  And I guess those descriptions of me are pretty accurate. I know that’s how people see me, and I don’t mean just teachers. It’s the other kids as well, and sometimes my family too.

  Not Dot, though. Dot – like Tia – sees a different side of me.

  Tia knows me inside out, upside down, cos she’s been my best friend since we were six, when she bounced into school with a smile a mile wide, directed – amazingly – straight at shy-girl me.

  And Dot … well, she’s five, and five-year-olds don’t let you get away with not joining in, whether it’s playing I Spy or having a how-many-Hula-Hoops-can-you-cram-in-your-mouth-at-once competition (sixteen, if you were wondering).

  ‘OK, so here’s what I want for my birthday,’ I continue brightly. One hand lets go of the camera, and I begin to reel off my pressie wish list on my fingers. ‘Eyes the colour of the sky …’

  The corners of Tia’s mouth twitch in a smile.

  ‘Hair as sheeny and shiny as silk, and long, long, long – all the way to my waist.’

  Tia smiles some more, but her eyes are still shut.

  ‘Skin smooth as the white marble of the Angel.’ Scratching the couple of spots that have pinged on to my chin in the last week, I gaze up at the Angel. When I was little I used to pretend she was my mother, switched to stone by an evil witch. Ha!

  SNAP! goes the camera, capturing the pale stone against the pastel sky.

  ‘Oh, and maybe a birthmark in the shape of a heart,’ I finish with.

  One of Tia’s eyes flips open at that. ‘Why?’ she asks, squinting at me and grinning at my ramblings.

  ‘Just because it would be nice if I could magically change on my twelfth birthday,’ I say, flopping back on to the grass. ‘I’m a bit fed up of being me.’

  SNAP! to the sky, and the scudding clouds.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ Tia mumbles, but not unkindly. Though it’s easy for her to say.

  Out of the two of us, she’s the Confident One, the Gorgeous One. If I had to describe what she looks like, I’d use delicious words. Hair the colour of treacle; skin the colour of caramel; eyes shiny as golden syrup.

  I’m the Quiet One. Ask anyone to describe what I look like and they’d probably say, ‘Who?’

  With my pale, mousy hair and eyes the colour of a muddy puddle, I’m so ordinary I’m practically invisible …

  It would be nice to be as interesting, as pretty, as 3-D as Tia. But I have the next best thing, I suppose. I have Tia. Always there, always looking out for me.

  ‘At least my actual birthday will be fun,’ I natter on, my eyes on the skipping drifts of clouds in the viewfinder. ‘I can’t believe we’re going on the school trip on the same day. How lucky is that?’

  Tia says nothing. She’s daydreaming, imagining us at the Wildwoods Theme Park, trying to decide which of the amazing rides we’ll go on, I bet.

  ‘So are you planning to sing “Happy Birthday” to me from the top of the Sky Coaster?’ I suggest. ‘Or will you be too busy screaming?’

  I hear Tia make a noise like a sigh. A happy sigh, I guess. A sigh that probably says, I can’t wait …

  ‘Maybe I could take a cake along! Wouldn’t that be funny?’ I chit-chat. ‘Mrs Sharma could look after it; it’s not as if she’ll be able to go on any of the rides, is it?’

  Our form teacher was already pretty pregnant when we were introduced to her at the start of term. In another few weeks, she’ll be huge.

  Tia doesn’t say anything to that.

  Which suddenly seems a bit odd.

  My dad calls her Little Miss Chatterbox. Her own dad’s nickname for her is Bunny, since she never stops rabbiting on. And Mrs Sharma’s already had to have a word with her abo
ut yakking in class.

  Y’know, Tia not jumping in with a comment, a question, a joke … it doesn’t seem right, somehow.

  ‘So what do you think?’ I press her. ‘Should I write a list of Things I Want to Change? I could leave it under my pillow the night before my birthday, like you do with the tooth fairy. And maybe, magically –’

  ‘The thing is, Riley,’ Tia suddenly interrupts, ‘everything’s going to change …’

  For a long, silent second, it’s like the whole world’s stalled, as still as the stone angel behind us.

  I have no idea what my best friend means. All I know is that it feels like someone has just placed a granite block on my chest. It’s heavy, it hurts and it’s made of pure dread.

  Everything’s going to change, I repeat to myself silently.

  The dread catches hold of me again and I’m too scared to ask Tia what she means. What if she tells me something I don’t want to hear? Instead, I stare up at the wispy white clouds trailing across the blue sky, my camera hiding eyes stinging so much it’s as if real glitter had landed in them.

  SNAP!

  What exactly is fate blowing my way? I fret to myself.

  I suddenly badly want to change my stupid wish.

  Can everything stay the same?

  Please?

  I squeeze my eyes tight shut and try listening out for a voice – a certain far-away, comforting voice – that might make everything all right.

  Instead, Tia starts talking again. ‘It’s like this, Riley,’ she begins.

  And, as she begins, my world ends …

  ‘It’s going to be all right, Riley.’

  No, it’s not.

  My eyes are squeezed tight shut.

  So tight I can see spangles of bright light dancing against the darkness of my eyelids.

  The eyes-squeezed-tight thing – I guess I do it whenever I’m stressed or angry. (Like now.)

  And I really, really shouldn’t, cos that’s when I seem to hear her voice … soft and kind, but far-away and scratchy too, as if I’m listening to a badly tuned-in radio in a different room.

  ‘It’s going to be all right, Riley.’

  Ping! My eyes open wide. Not because I’ve relaxed, suddenly believing what the breathy, dreamy voice has just told me. Oh no. It’s because I’m reminding myself that it’s dumb to take advice from someone:

  a) who isn’t really there, and

  b) who’s actually dead.

  (Sorry, Mum, but it’s true …)

  And so it’s back to the watery lemon of this bright October morning and the view that I hate.

  I’m not talking about Chestnut Crescent, where I live with Dad, Hazel and Dot. I mean, it’s just an ordinary street with a bunch of ordinary modern houses in it. Some small-ish trees, cars in drives, chucked-aside kids’ scooters.

  I’m not talking about Folly Hill, rising up behind our sleepy suburb, the Angel at the top, watching us all with her carved, kind eyes.

  And I’m not talking about the view of the town stretching out in front of us like a patchwork map of streets and buildings.

  I’m talking about the view from my front steps. Our crescent, just like you’d expect from the name, curves round. And that means that from where I’m sitting (top step) I get a clear, nearly right-angle view of the house next door.

  It’s the house next door that I’m staring at, hating it.

  Hating it because it’s empty.

  Hating it because its two large front windows – minus curtains – look like sad, empty eyes on either side of the cheery cherry-red front door.

  Hating it, because Tia doesn’t live at number thirty-three any more. Which means nothing can ever be all right again, no matter what those half-heard murmurs try to tell me.

  ‘Riley! RILEY!’

  The high voice buzzes like a mosquito. I try to block it out, hunching lower on the cool front step, hoping Dot doesn’t realize I’m still out here.

  ‘Riley! RILEY! RILEY!!’ My sort-of-stepsister’s voice shrills closer as skippetty footsteps kerplunk along the hallway behind me.

  Sigh …

  I wrap my fingers round the bottom of the slightly ajar front door and try to pull it closed to hide myself, but it’s too late.

  ‘Riley!’ yelps Dot, yanking the door fully open and spilling out on to the top step. ‘Look! Look, Riley! LOOK!!’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ I say vaguely as she twirls in a whirl of pleated grey school skirt and nearly treads on my fingers with her shiny school shoes.

  Hanging out with Dot can be fun but I definitely don’t have the patience for her today. I’ve been crying so much that my head is thumping and my heart is splitting, in that order. I don’t know how I’ll get the energy to hoist myself up and gather my school stuff together.

  And I certainly don’t have the energy for one over-excited five-year-old.

  ‘But look! Riley – see? SEE what happens when I do this?’ Dot giggles, grabbing the bottom edges of her cardigan and holding them up behind her. ‘It makes it seem like I’ve got wings, doesn’t it? HA, HA, HA!’ With that, she gallops around, flapping madly.

  I sigh to myself again, wondering if there’s anything wrong with Dot’s eyesight. Hasn’t she noticed how deeply navy blue I am? Didn’t she see Dad hugging me before he left, while I sobbed a large wet patch on his neatly ironed work shirt? (‘Hey, I know it’s tough, Riley,’ he’d said, trying to soothe me, ‘but it won’t always hurt this badly, I promise.’ Yeah, right.)

  Though maybe Dot isn’t being thoughtless. Maybe she’s trying to distract me, to take my mind off the fact that my best – my forever and always – friend has finally, really and truly moved away.

  Moved far away, miles away, half a world away, to New Zealand.

  Home of fault-lines and earthquakes and seismic strangeness, as I pointed out to Tia when she first broke the news – that sunny September afternoon on Folly Hill only a few weeks ago – that her family was emigrating.

  ‘And where they filmed Lord of the Rings, don’t forget,’ she’d said, laughing at me and showing off the cute gap in her front teeth. ‘Hey, I’ve got to show you the latest photo of the house Mum and Dad want to check out. Get this – the swimming pool is kidney-shaped!’

  I’ve always loved Tia’s confidence and enthusiasm. Whenever I’ve been too scared or too shy to do something, she’s been right beside me, telling me why I can jump from the top board, why I am better than the bullies at school, why it is a good idea to try on the fun wigs in Claire’s Accessories and take pictures of each other, even if people are staring at us like we’re mad. For as long as I can remember, just because she is who she is, Tia’s made me braver than I could ever be on my own. But, for some reason, her enthusiasm for the stupid kidney-shaped swimming pool really hurt. Like some dumb swimming pool would make up for leaving me behind …

  Of course, Tia won’t be swimming in her fancy kidney-shaped pool quite yet. She won’t even be three quarters of the way to the airport. She and her parents only drove off ten minutes ago, following the giant lumbering removal van.

  As she waved madly out of the back window, I saw the glint of a tear on her light-brown cheek. (OK, so if I didn’t know it already, that proved the stupid swimming pool didn’t really mean that much to her.)

  All Tia will have seen of me was a big pink marshmallow face, swollen and soggy from sobbing. What a great memory to carry away with her …

  Blue, blue, navy blue.

  Life from now on is going to be empty and lonely and I might as well trudge back upstairs to my bedroom, slither under my squashy duvet and never bother coming out …

  ‘Dot – I already told you to stop doing that. You’ll stretch your new cardigan!’ comes Hazel’s voice now. It’s slightly muffled as my dad’s girlfriend busily stuffs her white nurses’ shoes in her bag and wriggles herself into her jacket, ready for her shift at the hospital. ‘We have to go, or we’re going to be late. Say bye to Alastair quickly …’

  Dot gives a squ
eak and skittles back inside to pat her pet, while I use the cuff of my jumper to rub away some sparkly fingerprints Dot’s left on the door (or she’ll get into trouble for mucking around with glitter too).

  ‘Hey, here’s your gym kit, Riley,’ Hazel says, passing me a green nylon bag as well as my school backpack.

  My thanks are drowned out as Dot clatters and sing-songs along the hall, her pet patted and her lunchbox grabbed.

  ‘So new term, new start, eh, Riley?’ Hazel says in that matter-of-fact nurse voice that she probably uses on her patients. Her patients and me. (Never Dad or Dot, funnily enough – they get the sugar-coated voice.)

  Well, technically, it’s the second half of the autumn term, but I don’t bother saying so, since I’m pretty sure that was a rhetorical question. Hazel’s busily rummaging in her bag for her keys, as if her mind’s already switched off from me and the least fun school holidays ever.

  I mean, I usually love being off school, spending long, lazy days hanging out in Tia’s super-cool bedroom in the loft. We’d lounge in front of her very own telly, play the Wii, dance along to music vids on MTV, with the metallic-pink patterned wallpaper making us feel like we were in a club. But this half-term week all I did was help Tia pack her stuff into boxes, as if I was helping her to leave me.

  ‘See you later,’ I mumble, pushing myself upright and leaving Hazel and Dot to bustle their way out of the house and into the car.

  Hoisting my bag and gym kit over my shoulder, I begin to follow the steady stream of black-blazered kids laughing, joking, trudging or fooling their way along the road together to our big, blocky secondary school that’s just round the corner and across the manic whizz of Meadow Lane.

  ‘Ah, such a peaceful country road!’ I remember Tia once saying with a knowing smirk. She took a deep breath of non-existent flowers and hedgerows as we stood at the teeming junction, cars and lorries hurtling by in a fug of fumes.

  I smile a wobbly smile at the memory, and then the tears prick my eyes again as I realize with a punch to the chest that there’ll be no more strolls to school with chats and giggles and hey-listen-to-this gossip. I’ll only have a Tia-shaped space for company.