The Taming of Lilah May

by Vanessa Curtis

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Text copyright © Vanessa Curtis 2011 The right of Vanessa Curtis to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 (United Kingdom).

  First published in Great Britain in 2011 and the USA in 2012 by Frances Lincoln Children’s Books, 4 Torriano Mews, Torriano Avenue, London NW5 2RZ www.franceslincoln.com

  All rights reserved

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electrical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying. In the United Kingdom such licences are issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS.

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

  ISBN 978-1-84780-149-4

  eBook ISBN 978-1-90766-672-8

  Set in Palatino

  Printed in Croydon, Surrey, UK by CPI Bookmarque Ltd. in March 2011

  1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

  For Susan, in memory of Sarah.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Uh-oh.

  I’ve done it now.

  And I don’t even really care.

  I step over Amelie Warner where she’s lying stunned on the floor and I sit back down at my desk, heart pounding and hands clenched.

  Miss Gorman is bearing down on me like a swirling tornado of wrath, all flapping grey cardigan and flopping pearl necklace. I catch a whiff of the revolting perfume that she insists on wearing and I begin to feel like a bowl of instant whip being whisked up into a stiff peak, except that instead of being pink and sweet, I’m angry and red as if somebody’s bled into the bowl.

  ‘May!’ she says. ‘Get to the front of the class. NOW.’

  I get up and drag my feet towards the blackboard and make vile faces while my back is turned to the rest of the class.

  ‘Copy the first page of this book onto the blackboard,’ she says. ‘And make it quick.’

  She hands me a Natural History book and I start writing up some rubbish about frogs and ponds with a piece of chalk that makes the hair on my arms stand to attention every time I scratch it across the board. I can’t be bothered, so I just chalk up the words ‘I can’t be bothered’, over and over, until the class starts sniggering and she turns around.

  Next, I write the word ‘Groo’. No, even that word isn’t strong enough for me today.

  I woke up in the blackest, foulest mood you can imagine.

  The wind was howling up and down our street and the sky looked as if somebody had switched the lights off for good.

  My mother forced me to eat lumpy porridge while she applied her weird make-up at the kitchen table, and my father left for work with a dart gun over his shoulder. I was left staring at the picture of that boy on our fridge, and asking myself for about the zillionth time, Why?

  And as usual, there was a silence only filled by the hum of the fridge, and the kitchen threatened to swallow me up with my own thoughts, so in the end I slung my bag over my shoulder and headed here to school to try and drown out my anger.

  And now the Gorman has stormed up to the blackboard and is hanging over me like a grey boulder rocking out of balance on the edge of a craggy cliff – one more push from me and she’ll tumble down, crushing all life out of my weary body.

  Go on, says the angry voice in my head. Just do it.

  I drop the chalk on the floor and slowly grind it to a white, powdery mess under my black school shoes.

  There’s an audible gasp from the more sensitive members of the class.

  Out of the corner of my eye I see my best mate, Bindi, bury her dark head in her arms and shake it slowly from side to side.

  Miss Gorman gets a dustpan and brush and sweeps up the chalk with short, abrupt gestures.

  Then she grabs me by the shoulders, propels me out of the door, down the corridor with its lines of lockers and smell of old cabbage, and onto the bench outside the headmistress’s office.

  ‘I don’t know what’s got into you, May,’ she says. The anger has gone out of her now, and she’s kind of sunk into a pile of grey clothes next to me. Her warm shoulder presses up against mine. I don’t move, even though I kind of want to.

  ‘I mean – we know about your situation at home. But surely you must be ready to try and get on with your life by now? Was there really any need to push another pupil off their chair?’

  An image of Amelie Warner lying stunned on the floor, her eyes wide with fear, flashes through my head and I feel the first wave of horrid guilt wash over me.

  ‘She was teasing me about my parents,’ I say. ‘She said that it’s no wonder I’ve turned out to be a freak.’

  Miss Gorman sighs and shakes her head.

  ‘Oh, Lilah,’ she says. ‘Striking out is not the answer. You do know that, don’t you?’

  For a moment I catch her eye and she looks concerned, like a real person and not just a teacher. I feel bad for about a nano-second. It’s not her fault that I’m angry. She carries on with her firm gaze and it’s tempting to tell her everything.

  But I’m too tired. How can I explain that I’m sick of my parents being obsessed with their jobs, and that there is a huge great vacuum in our house that just won’t fill up?

  The light outside the headmistress’s office changes from red to green.

  That’s my cue to go inside.

  I get up and let Miss Gorman open the door for me.

  ‘Lilah May, Miss Hendricks,’ she says with a weary smile. ‘Again.’

  Then she pushes me inside and disappears.

  I hear her heels clicking back down the shiny corridor and the faint bang of the classroom door.

  Then I sit down in the black leather chair to await my fate.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I got another detention. The headmistress told me that if I get one more, I’ll be expelled. I felt kind of excited when she said that ‘cos I hate school. Then I felt guilty thinking about Mum and Dad, and how they save and budget so that they can afford to send me there.

  Then the guilt and the excitement just got drowned in another big wave of red rage, so I skived off the last lesson of the day and sat on the swings in the park, kicking at the gravel until the black leather on the toe of my shoe was all streaked with white dust.

  Adam Carter, the hottest boy in the entire world, was sitting on the swings when I got there. He was bunking off Chemistry, so we got talking, and now I’ve agreed to meet up with him later on. Mum will go mental if I tell her about it so I’m going to have to rope Bindi in to do some covering up for me.

  Bindi texted me to find out where I was. She came and sat on the swing next to me and asked me what my anger feels like. But I couldn’t explain it while she was looking at me with her big, serious eyes, so I’ve saved it to write in my diary instead.


  This is what my anger feels like:

  Kicking a door really hard when I’ve forgotten to put my trainers on.

  Someone’s nails digging into my palm until my eyes water and the blood rushes around my ears.

  A screw stuck into my chest and being tightened with a screwdriver.

  A barbecue set alight in my stomach, and little spits and hisses of heat shooting up around my soft guts.

  Burning hot rain falling from a dark red sky.

  I’ve been angry for two years.

  I’m angry most of the time.

  No.

  Not most.

  Make that all.

  So I’m home from school, and I’m trapped in the kitchen like a ball of fire that wants to spread through the house but can’t.

  I want to get ready to see Adam Carter, but Mum’s gearing up to ask me That Question.

  I can tell it’s coming, because she has just turned around from the sink and given me an intense, scowling sort of frown.

  The frown doesn’t match her outfit.

  She’s wearing black and white baggy checked trousers, a matching long-sleeved top with a huge white frilly ruff around the neck, giant red shiny lace-up shoes and a small, black bowler hat.

  In case you think my mother is some kind of demented nutcase with no fashion sense, I ought to point out that actually she’s a clown.

  No, really, she is. She runs a business that organises clowns for children’s parties.

  There’s something dead weird about watching somebody in a clown’s outfit doing the washing-up just like a normal mother.

  Dad’s not much better. He’s wearing boring clothes but it’s a certain bet that his mind is only full of one thing. Lions.

  My dad’s a lion tamer.

  Yeah. That tends to kill quite a lot of conversations stone dead, at least for a moment or so. Most people think that lion tamers are some Victorian thing, involving circus big tops and crowds of women in long stripy dresses fainting as the brave lion man does some sort of freak show, perhaps accompanied by a dwarf or two, and a man with a big handlebar moustache.

  Well, maybe it was like that in the Olden Days.

  But now ‘lion tamer’ is just a name for somebody who looks after the lions and tigers in a zoo, which is what my father does. To give him his full title, he’s Head of Big Cats at Morley Zoo.

  He’s a solid bloke, my dad, all hair shaved to a number one and hard muscles. He’s got a tattoo of a green mermaid with long red hair all the way down one arm and my mum’s name, Rachel, written in black inside a red heart on the other. I reckon the big cats know when they’re beaten.

  Don’t ask me how he went from serving as a chef in Her Majesty’s Army to confronting lions, leopards and cheetahs on a daily basis, but somehow his career path took an unexpected turn and chucked him towards the jaws of the big cats.

  He’s standing in the kitchen doorway with his shirtsleeves rolled up and his hands on his hips. His body language screams I-don’t-know-what-to-do-with-my-mental-teenage-daughter.

  ‘Groo,’ I say. That’s a Lilah-ism. I’ve invented loads of these words for when I can’t find real ones that explain what I’m feeling inside. I’ve got a whole list of Lilah-isms for various different occasions. I can select them just like I choose an outfit every day.

  ‘Make it quick,’ I say. ‘I’m going out again soon.’

  Both of them are now looking at me as if I am a breed apart. Or an alien daughter, beamed down from Planet Zarg to replace the apple-cheeked violin-playing prodigy they’d have liked to bring home from the hospital fifteen years ago. Hah! That’s kind of rich, them looking at ME like I’m the weird one!

  My cheeks are pale as goat’s cheese and I don’t play the violin. My sort of music needs to be played loud and is the source of much arguing between The Old Dudes and me.

  I live on Planet Rock. It’s a radio station. It’s also my spiritual home.

  My mother dries her hands on a scrunched-up tea towel with a picture of Windsor Castle on it, and sits down at the kitchen table. She pulls out a small mirror and starts to remove the big white circles around her eyes.

  ‘I had twenty of the little buggers earlier,’ she says. ‘I suppose I shouldn’t complain, but sometimes I wonder why their parents can’t just take them to McDonalds and have done with it, and then I could stay home and watch Emmerdale instead.’

  I know.

  Sad.

  It’s not surprising I’ve turned out so twisted.

  Mum and Dad are now doing that thing parents do, where they start raising their eyebrows at one another and looking towards their troublesome offspring.

  ‘Erm, Lilah,’ begins Mum. She stops for a moment to pull a false eyelash off, and then has to fish it out of her wine glass and run to the sink to rinse it clean.

  Oh, the ‘Lilah’ thing. Yes, that’s my strange name. It’s short for Delilah, but obviously I can’t go around using that. Not unless I want to spend my final few years at school as a total social outcast. My parents have this obsessive love of names from the Bible, which is a bit weird, as neither of them are exactly church-going types. My brother’s called Jacob but he was quick to shorten it to Jay, which, if you ask me, probably saved his reputation at school too and even made him sound quite cool.

  Jay May.

  Not that there’s much point asking me any questions about Jay.

  I get up from the kitchen table, where I’ve been hacking my name into the wood with a pencil.

  ‘Gotta go, programme’s starting,’ I mutter. Then I make for a quick exit, but Dad’s all fired up today. His reaction times are impressive. One minute he’s sitting at the table, the next he’s blocking the doorway. I almost forgot that he works with large, dangerous animals for a living and is ex-Army to boot, all darting eyes and big rippling muscles.

  ‘Not so fast, hotshot,’ he says. I have no idea where these nicknames come from. But they’re, like, so yesterday. Hotshot?

  I slump down back at the table. Defeated – for now. I’ll get my revenge with the new Slipknot album later on.

  ‘The thing is, Lilah,’ says Mum, ‘we want to ask you something. We don’t want you to get offended. We’re just trying to help.’

  Oh no. My soul starts to slide towards my black Uggs like thawing clumps of snow.

  I wish they wouldn’t start trying to HELP me. I mean – that’s what I’ve got a best friend for, isn’t it? Parents are just there to make dinner and tell you off.

  ‘Yeah?’ I say. ‘What?’

  Mum reaches out and holds my hand. Hers is slimy with greasepaint and make-up. Yuk. Now I’m itching to get away.

  ‘Lilah,’ she says. ‘How ARE you? You seem so angry all the time. It’s been two years.’

  I feel the prickles of anger starting up in my gut again.

  I really, really hate it when people ask me this question. How ARE you? It’s mainly adults who come out with it. They always have this kind of soppy look on their faces when they ask it, and they say it in a sort of hushed, low voice that reminds me of something on an American chat show.

  It’s the worst question in the world, because I just can’t answer it in any way that is honest, and it makes my eyes sting and my heart thump and my teeth clamp together and my arms fold tight across my chest.

  ‘Fine,’ I say. That’s what I always say. It’s a complete lie, of course, but I can’t tell Mum how I’m really feeling inside without the risk of shouting at her that of course I’m not fine, I’m probably never going to be fine again and I’ve never felt less fine in my whole life. So I just stick to that one word and I try to keep all my churning feelings of rage inside.

  A silence greets my answer. It fills our heads with moving pictures from old home videos. Seeing them is torture. It’s like a knife twisting deep in my guts.

  I know that we’re all seeing different pictures. Mine are full of childhood and light and sand and laughter. I don’t know what Mum is seeing, but I’m guessing that it’s babies and nur
sery and school uniform with nametags sewn inside. Dad has turned away so that I can’t see what he is thinking, but it’s probably football matches and homework and trips to the zoo.

  I can feel the prickles of anger starting up in my gut again.

  My eyes fill up with hot water.

  The tears never fall down my cheeks. It’s like they’ve got to stop just short of my bottom eyelids or else I’ll go to pieces.

  I haven’t done proper crying for over two years.

  I scrape my chair back and leave the room.

  I pass Jay’s bedroom door as I go upstairs.

  Closed, as usual.

  I aim a swift kick at the wood with the toe of my boot and then curse when it hurts.

  I go into my bedroom and take a good look at myself in the mirror.

  I want to see whether all the crap I’m feeling on the inside is visible on the outside, but I still look like the same old Lilah May. Glossy shoulder-length black hair, sallow complexion the colour of onion skin, glaring dark blue eyes, and a defiant look in them, too.

  I sink onto the bed with a sigh.

  My parents are right. Not that I’d give them the satisfaction of telling them so.

  I’m still angry.

  Too angry.

  I just about keep it under wraps when I’m with Bindi, but something about being at home makes me into this seething ball of wrath.

  I pick up my mobile and dial Bindi. Even the thought of tapping in a text message makes me feel cross, and I hate predictive texting, so I just dial her number and wait until her slightly breathless voice answers. Bindi always sounds as if she’s expecting some major adventure to happen. She’s kind of the opposite of me – hopeful, wide-eyed, like she can’t wait to grow up and live her life and make her mark on the big world.

  Innocent. That’s the word I’d use for Bindi. But then, she seems to have the perfect home life, and I don’t.

  I’d stay in bed every day if I could, with a duvet pulled right over my head to block out any chink of light.

  ‘Yes, who is it, hello?’ says Bindi’s voice.

  She hasn’t worked out that you can save numbers on your phone so that you can see who’s calling you. I’ve given up trying to make Bindi move into the twenty-first century.