Wishbones

by Virginia MacGregor

  ‘Just talk to your mum, Feather. It’s not for me to say.’

  ‘Not for you to say what?’

  She shakes her head.

  ‘Mum won’t talk, Steph. You know she won’t. Not about anything except who’s doing what on Strictly, which is like the least important thing in the world – and now that we’ve taken her TV away, she won’t even talk about that.’

  ‘It’s not up to you to fix your mum,’ Steph says.

  And that’s the end of our conversation.

  If Steph won’t tell me what happened, I’ll have to find out some other way. And then I’ll figure out a way to get them to be friends again. If I’m going to get Mum better, I’m going to need all the help I can get.

  9

  I push through the front door, drop my swim bag in the entrance and run down the hall.

  As I stand in the kitchen doorway, my hair dripping down my shoulders, I can’t believe what I’m seeing: Mitch is sitting at the kitchen table next to Mum, who’s sitting in her wheelchair.

  ‘You opened the door, Mum?’

  Mum laughs. ‘You’re looking at me like I let in an axe-murderer.’

  ‘But you never answer the door.’ I pause. ‘Ever.’

  The last time we had guests in the house was four years ago, for my birthday. And it didn’t end well. One of the boys took pictures of Mum on his mobile and sent them to my class. When I worked out what he’d done I punched him on the nose, grabbed his phone, dropped it into his glass of Coke and told him to leave. He ran home and told his parents and, within half an hour, all the kids at my party had been picked up.

  Apart from Jake, I haven’t had any friends round since. I don’t really mind – in some ways it’s easier, it means I don’t have to keep explaining about Mum or worrying how people will react. And anyway, I feel about Jake a bit like Mum feels about me: he’s worth a million friends.

  ‘It took a while for me to get to the front door,’ Mum says. ‘Mitch was already halfway down the drive. But I made it.’ Mum winks at me. ‘I thought you’d approve.’

  Every muscle in my body relaxes. So Mum’s finally decided to make an effort. Me ignoring her this morning and showing her that I’m not going to back down must have worked.

  I spin round to face Mitch.

  ‘So why did you come over?’

  ‘Feather, love, be polite. Mitch is our neighbour. He’s doing up Cuckoo Cottage.’

  ‘I know.’

  People from London and other posh places have been buying up the cottages on The Green as holiday houses. It’s pushed lots of the locals out of their homes and businesses. It’s why Mr Ding had to sell his restaurant space and get a takeaway van. Sometimes, I have dreams about how no one lives on The Green any more except for us, that it’s like a ghost town or a place after there’s been some kind of natural disaster and everyone’s moved out. Our cottage is too small for rich people to be interested in. And anyway, Dad wouldn’t sell, not in a million years.

  ‘I thought it couldn’t hurt to pop by and see how your mother was doing,’ Mitch says.

  ‘Mitch was telling me about the meeting you went to.’

  She’s going to kill me.

  ‘Mum, I’m sorry,’ I blurt out. ‘I didn’t mean to. Not without asking you first. I thought I’d just go and check it out—’

  Mum holds out her hand and I come over and kneel next to her chair on the kitchen tiles.

  ‘It’s okay, my darling, I know you meant well.’ Mum turns to Mitch Banks. ‘The group sounds interesting.’

  I feel my eyebrows shoot up. ‘It does?’

  I still can’t quite believe that Mum’s going along with all this. All Mum’s been talking about since she got back from hospital is that she wants things to go back to normal. And what she means by normal is before New Year’s Eve, when she would spend her days eating and watching TV.

  Sometimes I have the same wish: I love how easy things used to be, how we’d spend hours laughing and talking, snuggled up watching TV and eating Chunky Monkey ice cream straight from the tub, as if the rest of the world didn’t exist.

  Only I’m determined that Mum won’t slip back into the habits that made her sick.

  ‘So you don’t mind, Mum?’

  ‘No, I don’t mind.’

  Mum threads her fingers through my wet hair. She’s told me that when I was born my hair was blonde, not brown, and that when she held me in her arms for the first time, stroking my downy hair, she thought: Light as a feather with hair like washed-out sunshine.

  Mum leans over and kisses the top of my head.

  Mitch Banks clears his throat. ‘When you walked in, I was inviting your mother to join the group.’ He beams.

  ‘Seriously?’ I jump up and skip around the table. ‘Really, Mum?’

  Mum nods again.

  ‘We can go together. Steph could drive you—’

  ‘Let’s not bother Steph,’ Mum says.

  The only other option is Dad’s van, except Mum wouldn’t fit on the front bench. I get this picture of Mum sitting in the back, surrounded by sinks and toilet bowls and pipes and screws, the van leaning to one side, one of its tyres hissing because it’s collapsed from carrying so much weight.

  ‘Or you could walk,’ I suggest. ‘We could take it really slow.’

  It took hours for the swelling in Mum’s ankles to go down after the walk from the car to the lounge on the day she came home from hospital. Her feet had bulged out of her slippers, her tracksuits was drenched in sweat. But that just proved that she had to do it more, didn’t it?

  ‘We’ll see, my darling.’

  ‘Did you eat my bran muffins, Mum? Nurse Heidi said you have to eat regularly. Healthy things. Low GI. Slow-burning.’

  Mum licks her lips, in the way she does when she’s just had a packet of crisps. I really hope Dad hasn’t been feeding her again.

  ‘I did. They tasted like upholstery.’ Mum laughs.

  ‘Hey!’

  ‘I’m just saying it like it is, love. And anyway, Houdini enjoyed the leftovers.’

  Mum feeds Houdini things through the lounge window. ‘He didn’t look too impressed either.’ Mum turns to Mitch. ‘Is there anything I can eat that tastes like proper food?’

  ‘There sure is,’ says Mitch. ‘I’ll drop in some recipes.’

  My heart’s going to explode I’m so happy at how positive Mum’s being.

  Mitch stands up. ‘I’d better get going.’ He holds out his hand to Mum. ‘I’ll be in touch.’

  I get up too. ‘I’m sorry I was rude. We’ll see you on Tuesday, won’t we, Mum?’

  I put my arms around Mum’s neck and give her a hug.

  ‘We’re all going to help you get better.’

  And then I squeeze Mum tight and close my eyes and feel so grateful that she’s making an effort.

  Only, just as I’m holding her close, my face close up to hers, I can smell prawn cocktail crisps on her breath.

  10

  Although it’s the first day of school after the holidays and although I know that everyone’s going to be talking about New Year’s Eve and Mum being carried out of the house like a beached whale, I woke up feeling springy. Mum’s agreed to take part in a Slim Skills meeting and that’s a first step, right? And maybe, by the meeting on Tuesday, I’ll have found a way to get Mum and Steph to talk and then Steph can come too, for moral support. And maybe I’ll be able to persuade Mum to walk there, or at least walk part of the way, which would be a humungous step.

  I knock on Mum’s door.

  ‘Mum? It’s me.’

  When she doesn’t answer, I go in. I find her asleep, her feet poking out of the end of her duvet. Knots of spider veins circle her ankles and her toes are swollen like pale cocktail sausages. And she’s snoring.

  I go and kiss Mum’s cheek and whisper in her ear: ‘I’ve made you a yummy breakfast, Mum.’

  She stirs but doesn’t wake up, so I run downstairs to get the Bircher muesli I put together last night. I f
ound the recipe in Cook. Eat. Live. It’s this gloopy mix of yoghurt and nuts and dried fruit and oats and grated apple that melds together overnight. Swiss people eat it before they go zooming up mountains and it keeps them going for ages. My plan is to fill Mum up with food that keeps her going for longer, that way she won’t stuff herself with prawn cocktail crisps and Galaxy bars and pineapple syrup.

  Except, when I get to the kitchen, I smell frying.

  And then I see Dad emptying a pan of greasy sausages and buttery mushrooms and fried eggs onto a plate.

  ‘Dad!’

  He jumps. A mushroom slips off the side of the dish; it looks like a slug lying there on the kitchen tiles.

  ‘You scared the life out of me, Feather.’

  ‘I’ve made Mum’s breakfast already,’ I say.

  I go to the fridge and take out the muesli.

  ‘Your mum’s not going to eat that.’ Dad puts the serving dish on Mum’s tray. Then he tucks a wad of kitchen paper under the plate.

  ‘And she is going to eat crisps, right?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘I know you gave her crisps, Dad. You can’t keep doing this.’

  ‘We’ll put your breakfast on the tray too,’ Dad says. ‘Then she can choose.’

  I shake my head.

  ‘No, Dad. If you give Mum a choice, you know what she’s going to pick.’ I take a breath. ‘We have to make sure that Mum doesn’t take in more calories than she burns.’

  ‘It’s going to take more than salad and muesli to get your mum well, Feather.’

  ‘I know, Dad. But we have to start somewhere.’ I must be the only teenager on the planet who’s trying to convince her parents to eat healthily.

  Dad nods like he always does when he disagrees but doesn’t want a fight. I look at his tufty hair and at the wrinkles on his forehead and at the puffy baggy bits under his eyes because he’s been out on so many night shifts. And, for a second, I think he’s going to give in. But then he just comes over and takes my bowl of muesli and puts it on the tray and goes to Mum’s room.

  That’s another classic Dad move: when he doesn’t want to fight back, he goes quiet and does what he wants anyway.

  ‘It’s not right, Dad!’ I yell after him.

  But he doesn’t turn round.

  Maybe I can get Mitch to talk to Dad. Or Nurse Heidi. He needs facts and statistics, hard evidence. Like the fact that when people as big as Mum don’t get to a healthy weight, they could die.

  As I walk past the vicarage, I notice that the suitcase has disappeared from Rev Cootes’s front steps. I go and stand by the school minibus stop; it’s next to the row of graves where the little kids are buried. Rev Cootes fusses more over the flowers on those graves than over the old people ones. In the summer, they’re so full of roses and pansies and dahlias that you can hardly read the inscriptions any more.

  Looming over the children’s graves stands the stone statue of an angel with droopy wings and an inscription that reads:

  Our Little Angels. You’ll always be with us.

  A few of the gravestones have photographs of the children tucked behind glass frames, but mostly, there are just names and dates, especially on the really old ones. Some of the graves date back hundreds of years. Miss Pierce, my History teacher, explained that in the old days kids got more diseases than they do now and that it was harder to save them because medical science wasn’t as advanced.

  Although I’ve stood next to those small graves a million times waiting for the school minibus, the tight feeling across my chest never goes away. There’s something wrong about kids dying before they’ve had the chance to do anything with their lives. Plus, looking at the graves makes me think about Mum and how she nearly died, and that makes me even more determined to get her better – and to make sure Dad stops feeding her rubbish.

  ‘Morning, Feather!’

  I look up. It’s Mrs Zas standing on the doorstep of her fancy-dress shop, waving at me.

  I wave back.

  ‘Morning, Reverend Cootes!’ Mrs Zas says. She rolls her Rs like she’s about to burst into song.

  Reverend Cootes bows his head over one of the kids’ graves, pretending he hasn’t heard. I bet he disapproves of Mrs Zas, because she’s the exact opposite of him in her bright colours and noisy high heels and loud voice, but also because of the costumes in her shop. Mum told me that religious people believe witches and ghosts and monsters and werewolves are evil.

  The funny thing is that Rev Cootes ignoring Mrs Zas never stops Mrs Zas from being nice to him.

  ‘I think I might have a job for you, Feather,’ she calls over. ‘Come and see me soon.’

  ‘Thank you!’ I call back.

  A moment later, Jake’s at my side. He puts down his school bag and punches me on the arm. ‘Hey, Feather!’

  I give him a massive hug and hold onto him for a bit longer than usual. Jake’s the one constant, happy thing in my life right now.

  ‘I need you to help me get your mum and my mum back together,’ I whisper, still holding on.

  He stands back and holds up his hands.

  ‘I don’t get involved in girl stuff.’

  ‘It’s not girl stuff. It’s Mum needing her best friend because getting better’s going to be really hard.’

  The school minibus rattles down the road. It’s white and rusty and the N from NEWTON ACADEMY has faded away.

  ‘You have to find out what they rowed about and then we have to sort it out.’

  ‘You can’t solve the world’s problems, Feather.’

  ‘I’m not trying to solve the world’s problems. I’m trying to help my mum. And I need some support from you.’

  ‘Okay, okay. I’ll see what I can find out.’

  Jake looks past me – his eyes are so wide, I wonder whether a UFO has just landed in the middle of St Mary’s Cemetery.

  ‘Who’s that?’ Jake asks.

  I spin round.

  There’s a guy stomping through the cemetery. He’s got headphones, which makes him look like he’s lost in some other world, and his hair’s really light and even at this distance he looks so thin you wonder how his body stays pinned to the ground.

  Jake and I are the only teenagers in Willingdon: the school bus does a detour especially for us. Whoever this guy is, he’s not from around here. But this is the really weird thing: he looks as though he’s meant to be here; when I look at him I feel like I’m meant to know him.

  Just as the bus pulls in, the guy jumps on, gives the driver a note, then goes to sit at the back and takes out an old battered paperback. No one’s ever read a book on the school bus before, not unless it’s cramming before an exam.

  Everyone else on the bus fixes their eyes on him, like Jake and I did, but he doesn’t seem to notice – or to care. He just sinks into his seat and stares at his paperback.

  I keep wondering whether maybe he came here one summer with his parents, whether maybe they’re one of the rich families from London who bought a cottage on The Green and now leave it empty for most of the year.

  The guy looks a couple of years older than Jake and me. He’s so thin that his collarbones stick out. In fact, the whole of him looks hollow, like there’s something missing. I’m almost grateful that Mum’s the weight she is, it would be worse to have her look like this – like a ghost.

  ‘Weird, hey?’ I whisper. ‘Do you think he’s sick?’

  Jake shrugs.

  ‘He looks interesting though,’ I add.

  ‘Interesting?’ Jake pokes me in the ribs.

  I blush. ‘Not like that, I just mean that there’s something about him – he looks kind of familiar, don’t you think?’

  ‘I hope you’re not going to feed him that line,’ Jake grins.

  ‘What line?’

  ‘Haven’t we met before?’ Jake says in a voice that’s obviously meant to be mine but that sounds totally lame.

  ‘Just forget it.’

  Jake leans over and gives me a loud kiss on the cheek
. ‘Just teasing, Feather.’

  Sometimes it totally feels like Jake’s my brother.

  There’s another thing that’s different between me and Jake: I can’t ever remember him not being in a relationship; I’ve never even been out on a date. Or kissed anyone. Or received a Valentine’s card. On my birthday a year ago I asked Jake whether he would kiss me just so that I could stop worrying about it, but he got all embarrassed and then refused and said, It’s meant to be special. He paused. Plus, I’d be cheating on Amy. And I know he’s right, but it would still make me feel like less of freak to know that I’ve at least kissed one boy before I die.

  We have made a pact though: if we’re still living in Willingdon when we’re fifty (and if Jake hasn’t been an idiot and married someone like Amy), we’re going to buy a house and live there together and get old and wrinkly together. It’s kind of a relief to know that when Mum and Dad aren’t around any more, I’ll always have Jake.

  Jake looks back at the guy. ‘I know what you mean. He’s cool.’

  By which, Jake means that the guy’s way too cool to be seen hanging around with us. Or rather me. Which kind of sucks, because he does look interesting – more interesting than any other guy that’s stepped onto the Newton Academy minibus.

  It’s the longest Monday ever. I find it hard to concentrate in lessons because my brain keeps buzzing all over the place: I make up healthy recipes for Mum and think about the Slim Skills meeting on Tuesday and how Mum’s actually coming and about how Jake’s promised to sort things out between our mums and about how I have to work out a way to get Dad on board. Anyway, thinking about Mum makes quadratic equations and Mount Vesuvius and iambic pentameter seem pretty pointless. The only lesson that I feel remotely interested in is Miss Pierce’s History class.

  ‘I thought we’d do some poetry today,’ Miss Pierce says.

  The class groans.

  ‘Aren’t poems for English?’ Jake calls out.

  That’s another reason girls like Jake: he makes them laugh and he’s not afraid to stand up to teachers. Take Amy: for a second, she’s stopped drawing hearts on the back of her file and is looking at Jake like he’s some kind of hero.