by Mel Darbon
I don’t like under-the-ground trains. When I came to London with Grandma we went on lots of them. She said she didn’t like them either. They’re dirty and smelly and they scream at you.
At the bottom of the stairs a loud voice talks into the air.
“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, DUE TO AN INCIDENT AT BAYSWATER, THE DISTRICT AND CIRCLE LINE IS SUSPENDED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. PASSENGERS ARE ADVISED TO SEEK ALTERNATIVE ROUTES.”
District and Circle line. Is that mine? District and Circle line. Yellow line. Seven stops. Going west. My stomach turns upside down.
I sit on a bench. I need to get to the big map on the wall, but lots and lots of people are covering it up. I get my little pocket map of London out of my coat. You can go on different trains. So I can work it out.
The coloured lines tangle up in my eyes. I tell myself off in my head. Don’t be silly, Rose. Take a deep breath and trace the lines with your finger.
I get a pen from my bag. A fat, fat, FAT boy sits next to me. He’s squashing me out the way. Drops of water run down his head. He uses the end of his scarf to wipe them away.
His chin shakes. “What are you gawping at?”
I look down at my map. I make believe I can find a new train. It’s a mess now. I’m going wrong already. A tear falls from my eye and splashes on the paper, spreading over the red line on to the yellow.
The fat boy nudges my leg. “You okay?”
I can’t speak. My words would fall over each other. I shake my head.
He sticks his big face into mine. “Where are you going?” He gives me a tissue. It’s not a nose tissue cos it smells of tomato sauce and has writing on it.
“District. C…Circle line.”
“That’s it?”
“Yellow l…line. Vic…toria Station.”
“Right, so you need to find another way. Here, let’s look at your map. By the way, I’m Lawrence.”
“Okayyes. I’m Rose Tremayne.”
“Nice to meet you, Rose Tremayne.”
He holds out his hand. It’s hot and sticky. I wipe my hand on my coat. Lawrence copies me.
“Sorry I was such a grouch just now, but I hate coming down to London. I can’t stand crowds.”
I nod cos I know what he means. “They swallow you up.”
He laughs. “Yeah – that’s just what they do.” He pretends to gobble people up. His chins jelly wobble as he opens and shuts his mouth. I laugh at them. “They’d have a problem swallowing me up though, wouldn’t they?”
“Yes. They’d need a very big mouth.” I look at him all over.
Lawrence’s face smiles but his eyes look wrong. He clears his throat.
“You have a couple of options here to get to Victoria, Rose Tremayne. One means a few changes onto different lines, the other is simpler but will take longer…simpler but longer, d’you think?”
“Okaythankyou.”
“Right you are. Anyway, I’m going to King’s Cross, so we can go together if you like? We have to take the Hammersmith and City line, that’s pink and all you do from there is take the light blue Victoria line straight down to Victoria Station. It’s a few more stops but better than lots of changes.”
He smiles at me. A real smile. His cheeks make his eyes go away. “Ready? I’ll write it down for you when we get to King’s Cross.”
“Yesplease.”
He makes a lot of noise getting up. “Pink line first…Hammersmith…and City. Phew! Can I take your bag for you?”
“No!” I clutch my bag tight. “It has all my Jack in it.”
“That’s a bit scary; you’re not some axe-wielding maniac who carries round bits of their victims in their bag, are you?” He laughs, making his belly jiggle up and down.
“Did you make a joke?”
“Well, no, just ignore me. You ready?”
“Yesthankyou.”
I follow Lawrence back out into the light. He looks older than me and a bit older than Jess who is eighteen and a half. He doesn’t walk fast. He rolls from side to side. People move out of his way. They don’t do that for me. When we get to our tube entrance he has to stop. His breath wheezes in and out.
“Areyouokay?”
He nods and stands up properly. “Got your ticket?” He holds a bit of black plastic over a big yellow button. He squeezes through the gate.
I look at my ticket and put it on the button. Nothing happens. “I’mstuck.”
“Put it in the ticket slot. Take it back…and walk through. Mine’s an Oyster card.”
“My mum likes oysters but Dad says they’re yucky.”
“I wouldn’t know, but I wouldn’t want to munch on something that was still alive, gross. Right, we’re going down there. Where are you going from Victoria then?”
“Brighton.”
“Nice, I haven’t been there for years. You can get the best candyfloss by the entrance to the pier and the biggest portion of fish and chips under the arches. Careful, mind your bag doesn’t get caught on the escalator – it’s quite hairy, isn’t it? A bit like a sheepdog. Cool badges though.”
There are pictures of a boy jumping high in the air in every picture on the wall going down. I wonder who he is. And why all the pictures are the same.
The tube platform is very hot. It smells oily and dusty. There are a lot of people and it’s hard to move. I don’t like it down here.
A group of school boys are laughing and pointing at us. I want them to stop.
“Oi! Shrek! What you doing away from your swamp?”
“Come on,” Lawrence says, “let’s move further up the platform.”
I look up at him. His face is full of hurt.
“Don’t worry, I’m used to it, Rose.”
But his eyes are watery. He looks away. And I understand. I pull on his sleeve.
“Mum says to ignore people. They don’t understand. They haven’t been brought up pro-perly.”
“It’s hard to ignore me and they’re right, I’m Shrek.”
“You’re not a Shrek, you’re a Lawrence.”
“Thank you.”
He trumpet-blows his nose into a hanky.
A warm wind blows on my face. I can hear a rumble. It gets louder and louder. Then a train shrieks out of the tunnel. The wheels spark lightning onto the walls. I’m not so scared with Lawrence next to me. He pulls me forwards when the train stops and I follow him. Someone shouts, “MIND THE GAP!” as he helps me towards the doors.
“THIS IS PADDINGTON. THIS IS A HAMMERSMITH AND CITY LINE TRAIN TO BARKING. CHANGE HERE FOR THE BAKERLOO AND DISTRICT AND CIRCLE LINES.”
“Quick, the disabled seat is free – you can sit there, Rose.”
I sit on the seat next to it. “Why don’t you sit there, Lawrence?”
He looks at his feet. “I’m fine standing.”
Nobody speaks. We’re all squashed together. The clackety-clack, clackety-clack fills my ears. No one else notices. They just keep reading. Or yawning. Or looking at their phones.
“THE NEXT STATION IS EDGWARE ROAD.”
Lawrence sways backwards and forwards with all the standing people. “Four more stops until King’s Cross.”
“THIS STATION IS EDGWARE ROAD. THIS TRAIN TERMINATES AT BARKING.”
Lawrence rubs his eyes. I get a Jack card out of my bag.
The words mix up. Then I can’t see them at all cos my eyes are full of sad.
“What’s up, Rose?”
I don’t want to share Jack here.
The train starts screeching. Lawrence stumbles forwards. We all fall sideways as the train pulls us with it. My heart clackety-clacks with the train as it screams to a stop. It goes dark.
The lights start winking on and off. The next door lady says, “Not again!”
People moan and sigh.
Lawrence’s face appears and disappears. “You all right?”
“Whyhavewestopped?”
“Don’t know. Take a deep breath, that’s better, we’ve probably stopped to let another train get out the way.�
��
The lights keep winking. Then they come to stay.
Lawrence’s eyes are full of worried. “You’re very white, Rose.”
“I don’t like tube trains. They’re too deep in the ground. What if we stay here for ever and I never get to Victoria Station?”
“We won’t be here for ever; we’ll be off soon and at Victoria in no time.”
“Howdoyouknow?”
“This happens all the time.”
“SORRY FOR THE DELAY. WE ARE CURRENTLY BEING HELD AT A RED SIGNAL. WE SHOULD BE MOVING AGAIN SHORTLY.”
“There you are, we’ve stopped at a signal, that’s like a red traffic light.”
“Iknowthankyou.”
The woman next door to me unwraps the scarf from her neck and puts her hat on her lap. “It’ll start getting very hot in here soon.” She smiles at me. Her eyes are green. Just like mine. “Why don’t you take your hat off? You’ll feel the benefit more when you get outside.”
“That’s grandma talk.”
“I’m not a grandma quite yet, thank you very much. My son has left home and is on the dreaded gap year, but my daughter is still at university.”
“Jess who comes in to help us at college is going on a gap year today. My dad says it’s just a holiday so you don’t have to work.”
The lady laughs out loud and nods her head. “I don’t think my son would like that explanation.”
The lights flicker on and off again. I want the train to get a move on. Bird wings are flapping in my tummy.
Lawrence’s fringe has gone dark and is stuck to his forehead. He undoes the toggles on his jacket. It looks just like our picnic blanket.
A baby cries. Some people are talking in words I can’t understand. They talk very fast. Lawrence pulls a packet of biscuits out of his bag and holds it out to me.
“Custard cream?”
“They have lots of sugar. You should snack on fruit,” I tell him.
He looks at the floor. “Won’t make any difference.”
“Yesitwill! I have to watch my weight all the time.”
Two girls with big round earrings and ponies’ tails on top of their heads keep staring at me and Lawrence. And pointing. It’s not nice. Lots of thoughts mix up in my head.
Lawrence opens his mouth to bite his biscuit and then puts it in his pocket. “So, tell me why you’re going to Brighton, Rose.”
“To see my boyfriend, Jack.”
One of the girls with the hoop earrings snorts her fizzy drink out of her nose. It sprays over Lawrence.
“Christ! Can’t you watch what you’re doing?”
The blonde girl copies his words in a silly voice. The lady next door to me frowns at them. Everyone else looks at the floor.
Lawrence stands in front of me, so I can’t see the girls any more. When he speaks his voice is quieter. “That’s nice you’re seeing your boyfriend, Rose. How long have you been going out with him?”
“Seven months, one week and five days.”
Lawrence whistles. “Nice one, the longest I’ve ever been out with anyone was a month, give or take a couple of days.”
“Jack and I are going to get married and have babies.”
I hear the two girls shriek. “You gotta be kidding? That’s mental.”
Lawrence clenches his hands in fists. He takes a deep, deep breath. “How many are you going to have?”
“Two. A boy and a girl.”
“I think you’ll make a great mum, Rose.”
“My dad doesn’t think so.”
“He doesn’t want you to grow up; my mum’s the same about me. I’ll probably be looking after her until I die…or she does.”
“Dad lets my brother Ben go to parties, go to Reading and do lots of things on his own with his girlfriend and he’s only fifteen and two months. I wasn’t allowed to do that when I was fifteen. That’s not fair.”
The lady next door pats my arm. “It’s because you’re a girl, parents always worry about their daughters more.”
“No. It’s cos I’m different. Mum calls it being special. I hate being special. So does Jamie. He goes to my Henley College. Jamie has Down’s syndrome too. Jamie wants to be one of the lads and go to the pub by himself and get married. I told him we can get married. Paula Knight’s mum has Down’s syndrome. We’re all different, just like you. They said that at Henley College. Some of us can be in-de-pen-dent and some of us can’t. Emma Wilson won’t ever be. She’s very muddled up in her head. She has to go to Bishopswood School in Sonning Common, not my mixed-up college.”
Lawrence scratches his cheek, which is all shiny. “I get what you’re saying but my dad, when he was alive, was much stricter with my sister.”
“I hate that my dad makes me different to Ben. Cos Mum says I have way more sense than him. And do you know my dad left me in Tesco once? All by myself. Jack and I would never leave our little girl by herself in a shop. We’d make the best mum and dad. I know we would. And we wouldn’t hurt our baby. Not like the real man on the television who burned his children in a fire. I saw his picture in the newspaper. We’d never do that. We’d love our baby and keep her safe and teach her to play Doctor Who.”
I fold my arms and look at Lawrence in his eyes.
“That was some speech, Rose. You go for it.” Lawrence high fives me.
The lady next door pats my arm. “I hope you get your Jack, I really do.”
Lawrence beams at me. “I love Doctor Who, it’s my favourite programme. Who d’you want to play?”
“Doctor Who of course. Cos she’s brave and cool.”
“I’d like to be a Dalek…exterminate, exterminate.”
“Daleks aren’t real. You can’t be a Dalek.”
Lawrence doesn’t hear me cos the train groans, stumbles forwards and starts to move. Someone cheers.
Lawrence yawns such a big yawn I can see all the silver in his teeth. “Thank God, we’re moving again.”
“THE NEXT STOP IS BAKER STREET. CHANGE HERE FOR THE METROPOLITAN AND BAKERLOO LINES.”
The lady next door to me stands up and puts her hat back onto her head.
The train squeals to a stop.
“THIS IS BAKER STREET. STAND CLEAR OF THE DOORS, PLEASE.”
As the lady gets off the train, the two girls who were staring at me and Lawrence push past her. She says something to them but they just laugh and one girl says a very rude word.
I feel cross and unhappy at the same time. I put Jack in my head to make the feelings go away. All he brings is a sad memory. When Jack and me went shopping together. At The Oracle in Reading. You can shop, eat and go to the cinema there.
Two girls and two boys followed us round the shops. They tried to trip Jack up and pull my hair. They shouted rude words at us. We went to McDonald’s by the river and got a cheeseburger and fillet-of-fish for me. Cos I don’t like meat. The mean boys and girls sat at the table behind us and threw their chips at our heads. With BBQ sauce on. They got stuck in my hair. No one stopped them. Jack got angry but I wouldn’t let him be. I just wanted to go home. I cried. They laughed and laughed and made cry noises like me. We had to leave our food behind. And I always clear my plate up.
We went back to Henley-on-Thames early. Mum was surprised to see us. She got angry when we told her what happened. Then she got sad. She told us to ignore them. Cos then they’d get bored. It’s hard to ignore people when they hurt your feelings. And it makes you scared. I cried myself to sleep.
Lawrence pats my arm. “Only three stops now.”
King’s Cross Station is beautiful.
I’m standing in a floating spider’s web. It changes from pink to purple to blue. In the middle is a Christmas tree, standing on a white box. It nearly touches the ceiling. It’s covered in lights, like hundreds of raindrops. When I go closer I see the tree is made of green Lego bricks. I just stare and stare.
“Are you coming?” Lawrence calls over to me from his place by the wall. “You need to get a move on and so do I.”
; I’m too busy staring. The roof is a bubble. It’s snowing all over it. Snow is like magic. It makes the world go quiet. It covers all the dirt and makes it clean and white. When the sun shines it makes a million diamonds twinkle on the ground. Then you can walk over stars.
Lawrence drags me over to the wall. There’s half a bag trolley sticking out of the bricks with half a suitcase and half a cage on it. On the wall it says Platform 9 with a number three over a number four next to it.
I squeak at Lawrence, “It’s Harry Potter’s platform! I love Harry Potter the same as Doctor Who. Look!”
Lawrence takes my arm. He has a stern dad-face on. “You need to get a move on, Rose, and start focusing on your journey as the weather’s getting worse. Have you got a pen? Because I need to write down your route to Victoria.”
I nod.
“Rose! Pen?”
“Okaythankyou.”
Lawrence frowns at me. “Are you going to be all right getting to Victoria?”
“Yeahsure. Circle line to Victoria. Yellow line. Seven stops. Going west.”
“No, that’s what you were going to do, remember? You have to concentrate, Rose, and stop looking at the tree; stop looking at the Harry Potter trolley and just stop doing anything except pay attention to me. Right, that’s better, you have to get the Victoria line, which is the light blue one, then it’s five stops to Victoria Station, SOUTHbound. Okay?”
I get a pen from my bag and hand it to Lawrence. He’s right. I have to be grown up. I have to get to Jack now.
He writes down my route and gives me back the piece of paper. I make him say the words three times so I can keep them in my head.
Lawrence is frowning and pulling at a fluffy bit on his chin. “I’m worried about you, Rose. Who’s meeting you at Victoria?”
I stand up as tall as I can. “Thankyou for helping me, Lawrence. I have to get my train now.”
“You might get lost. It takes ages to get to know the underground system. I really think—”
I put my hands on my hips. “Lawrence, I can get a train all by myself. No problem.”
Lawrence smiles. “I’m not saying you can’t, but it’s chaos because of the weather. Anyone could get stranded in all the confusion and cancellations.”
