Will’s words fall to the ground like autumn leaves. Slowly. Leaving emptiness behind them. Will grips me tighter, cradles me close – it’s the closest we’ve ever been BUT still not in a love way . . . I feel sick and ill and terrible and realize Will is the only thing holding me up. I’m not sure if it’s my battle wounds or my heart that is hurting more. Will says something right into my ear but I can’t hear it. I don’t hear it. I don’t hear anything. I don’t hear anything at all.
Chapter Thirteen
I throw my writing book down. It’s been Friday all day and I’ve not been to school because we were all suspended and are not allowed to go back until Monday.
Except Will. He goes back to school NEVER.
It feels like a sick day or a no-day. Just an empty weird pillow day. I am devastated. Ill. Sick. What will I do without Will? He is my kind, my species, my same, and now he is going, going, gone. Without even a warning, a proper goodbye, a send-off. I can’t even properly speak to anybody about it because I’m just a naughty suspended girl who had a food fight, and what’s worse is that Mum and Dad won’t even shout at me or tell me off properly. I mean, who is going to shout at their daughter who got injured by a vegetable? Pathetic.
I had wanted to call Will all day but Mum and Dad were strict about that one. I kept seeing myself waving goodbye to Will as Annie’s car threw itself down the street, and I was puffed out like a cloud from the exhaust pipe. Distant and left behind. That was it.
All day I’ve been feeling so sorry for myself and upset. Slumping and flumping around the house in my home clothes. I look like a man with a stubbly unshaved chin, who gets fired from his job and divorced, like the ones on TV who walk around in their pants and dressing gowns drinking milk from the carton without even taking the time to look for a glass. Even when they find a glass they are all dirty. Or smashed. That’s me.
Looking in the fridge only to find nothing for me to eat because everything is reserved ‘for Poppy’s mates’, because it’s the night of her sleepover – yes, the one that PORK THE CAT ARRANGED.
I feel sooo drained and slobby, like Pork who is lazing on the armchair. We have an awkward moment of eye contact. We both don’t blink. This will be my first-ever staring competition with an animal; then again there is a first time for everything. Mum suggested rainchecking the sleepover but Dad said he would rather ‘get the stupid thing out the way’. Besides, it’s always raining.
It’s later on and I’m back up in my prison cell of a bedroom. I’m livid now instead of sad. I am cross at Will for not warning me he was leaving and for telling me at the same time as everybody else. I’m not even technically allowed to enjoy the sleepover either because realistically I am in punishment period until Monday. All I can hear is giggle giggle giggle. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. OOOOOOO.
Why does Poppy have to be so popular? One of her stupid friends is allergic to cats too – she can be in the same house as a cat, but can’t touch one apparently – well, suits me as I am officially allergic to happiness. I can be in the same house as it, I just can’t touch it. Apparently. Anyway. So I have to be stuck with Pork in my bedroom to make sure he doesn’t escape because Poppy and her mates have taken over THE WHOLE ENTIRE HOUSE. Lamb-Beth is clearly fuming. I can’t stop looking at the future house plans that Will and I made for our house in the back of my maths book. Tears blubber in my eyes. Big fat inconvenient ones. I want to scribble all over the plans and just throw them in the bin but I know that I’ll really regret that. So I quickly get a pen and write in massive letters next to the plans:
And then I just let myself cry. I cry and cry and cry and cry. My body releases like a huge humungous tap. I outdo Koala Nicola a million times over as I let my face become a waterfall and I just sob. Hard. I find a rhythm in the crying, a rocking, heavy, breathy one. Ouch ouch ouch. My heart. My heart.
Lamb-Beth is lying with her back to Pork, trying to soothe me and comfort me and Pork is doing that annoying thing that cats do when they try to get comfy and press their paws into every single space a matrillion times, like they are rolling out pizza dough. Has he no social awareness? Can’t he see I’m a mess?
Pork then begins to cough/choke, retching and spluttering. Lamb-Beth throws him daggers and pokes out her tongue as he sicks up a huge hairball. It globber slobbers onto my carpet. GROSS. Lamb-Beth rolls her eyes and burrows deeply into her body. Pork has tipped her over the edge. Me too. That monstrous horrible creation has annoyed me enough this week! I’ve had enough. Everything has gone wrong since stupid Pork entered our life. Everything!
‘Pork, this is why you shouldn’t lick your own skin all day, you stupid doormat tongue, because look at you!’ I shout through the tears. Pork ignores me and stretches onto his back and farts some more. ‘You don’t even care, do you?’ I shout at Pork, and I am absolutely right – Pork just Does. Not. Care. ‘I am sick of you, Pork!’ I continue. ‘You are NOT a good friend to Lamb-Beth, just like how Will is NOT a good friend to me and because of that you can go!’
I want to boot him out of my bedroom, but that stupid weakling friend of Poppy’s with the cat allergy means I can’t. Just looking at the furball sick on the floor is making me madder and madderer. So I pick Pork up and I carry him downstairs and into the kitchen, and I don’t think once or twice or at all as I just throw him into the garden. ‘Be sick out THERE!’ I mutter under my breath. He is a cat not a prince. For some reason he hadn’t been let outside yet because he needed to acclimatize, but he is an animal, so he needs fresh air like Lamb-Beth. I’ll let him back inside in half an hour anyway, once I’ve calmed down.
I get a sponge off the sink and some cleaning spray that Mum uses to clean the sides and march back upstairs. Mum catches me as I am going up. She pops her head out of the living room where all of Poppy’s fun is taking place.
‘You going to come down?’ she asks.
‘I’m not allowed, am I? I’m grounded,’ I snub.
Mum can see I’ve been crying. To be honest, you’d have to not know what crying was to think I hadn’t been.
‘You’re still technically on the premises,’ she reminds me, smiling. She’s trying to cheer me up. Obviously she doesn’t know that I am immune to joy.
‘You’re not a police officer, so stop it,’ I say back smartly.
‘Watch your attitude, please.’ Mum gets firm.
I drop my head to the floor. ‘Sorry.’
Mum looks at me and softens. ‘Come down? Poppy’s friends are dying to meet you. Timothy has bigged you up like you’re an A-List celeb!’
‘Yeah, maybe. Once I’ve cleaned up Pork’s annoying vomit.’
Mum bites her lip, trying not to laugh, and I elephant-step myself up the stairs.
After cleaning the sick I come back downstairs to talk to Mum and see what leftover snacks I can scavenge from Poppy’s sleepover. Why is she having a sleepover anyway? What? Because Pork demanded one? If Pork told her to jump off a bridge, would she do it? Pork isn’t even allowed to go to his own sleepover anyway. Ridiculous.
I let my eyes flit to Hector; he is always doing something weird to cheer me up. Today he is a bit ‘under the weather’ so he gets Calpol. I am livid with jealousy as Calpol is liquid sweeties that make you better and you’re only actually allowed it when you are ill. I am not allowed that any more, either. When I’m sick now I have to drink this wretched cough mixture that tastes like lizard and buffalo blood.
‘Can I have some?’ I ask Mum, and point at the Calpol.
‘No. You’re not sick,’ Mum says.
‘I feel like I am.’ I bang my head on the table, sad mixed with anger mixed in with frustration.
‘Let’s talk,’ Mum says, and fills the teapot, which is her symbol of settling down for talking.
‘I don’t want to,’ I grumble.
‘OK.’ Mum puts the silly tea cosy on top of the pot to keep the pot all warm. It’s really old-fashioned but so cute I just can’t take it. ‘I saved some biscuits for you before the Gremlins got to t
hem.’ She pulls out a plate of cookies and the shrill of Poppy and her mates seems to get a pitch louder.
‘Well, I GUESS I could talk,’ I start. ‘I don’t think I have any friends and Will’s left now . . . I didn’t even get to say goodbye properly and why didn’t he warn me sooner . . . and now that he’s gone . . . I don’t want to have to be best friends with Mavis the receptionist.’
Mum laughs. ‘Don’t be silly. Firstly, you have lots of friends – Will’s just closest to you.’ Mum pulls me in tight and it makes me cry again, though I’m quite surprised I even have any tears left.
‘Not any more. He might start doing that weird thing again where he pretends he doesn’t know me.’ I pick at the dried blood around my nostril, it’s quite calming.
‘Don’t do that, that’s vile.’ Mum taps my wrist.
‘It’s blocking my breathing passage,’ I say. It isn’t really. I stare at the little pile of enjoyable noseblood crust. ‘He could have called me all day or popped round but he hasn’t!’
‘He’s not allowed, your school said so, that Scottish lady at Reception called us all and gave us strict instructions.’
‘THAT’S MAVIS!’ I yell.
‘Oh, she’s your new best friend, is she? Wow, I don’t know what she will make of us!’
‘Don’t!’ I manage to squeeze a smile out through the crying. ‘Annie isn’t strict like you and Dad.’
‘I’m hardly strict, monkey – some parents would have been really cross. Dad and I let you off because we knew you were hurt and the house has been hectic with . . . everything.’
‘Pork.’ I help her out.
‘Yeah, Pork.’
‘What I mean is, Will would have called. If he wanted to speak to me, he would have found a way, or got on his bike and come.’ I pick at a biscuit with the same hand I used to scratch the blood, remember before it meets my mouth and stop. Mum breathes out loud in a deep sigh because she knows that’s what Will would have done. I a bit cry.
‘He pushes you away because he wants to make it easier for you both, like tearing off a plaster, quick and effective. He is trying to wean you off him so it isn’t as hard.’
‘Like a werewolf,’ Hector butts in.
‘No, not like a werewolf – this has nothing what to do, whatsoever, with werewolves,’ I snuffle. ‘What are you drunk on? Calpol?’
‘He has a point actually, Darcy.’ Mum considers. ‘You see how werewolves are human in the day, then in the night, when the moon comes out, they turn into wolves?’
‘Yes . . .?’ My family make no sense.
‘Well, you know how often they might be with a friend or meet somebody nice, somebody they don’t want to hurt and before they turn into a wolf, once they see the moon, they tell that person to RUN, to run before it’s too late and they get gobbled up?’
‘Yes . . .?’ Oh no. Where is this going?
‘And the person never understands because they aren’t to know that they are in the company of a secret werewolf. They get upset and confused, and they don’t see that the wolf is telling them to run away as fast as they can, to save themselves from getting hurt. Well, that’s what Will is doing with you. Will’s trying to push you away so you won’t get hurt.’
‘Will is a werewolf?’
‘No!’ Mum laughs and pours the tea.
‘Yes.’ Hector nods. ‘I always knew he was cool.’
‘You should write a story for Will, Darcy – something for him to take with him. Turn the negatives into a positive. Write something about him being a strong wolf! A strong wolf that protects you no matter what!’
And that doesn’t seem like such a bad idea.
I close my writing book. I like to think of Will as a wolf, sending wolves to protect me from far away, wherever I might be. Feeling a little better for now, I peep my head round the door of the living room where Poppy’s sleepover is in full swing. I should say hello to my audience. I feel like I am skulking around my house at the moment. A grounded punished rebel feral child who got a detention and a bleeding nose, like one of those problem kids off TV, although they probably don’t get their war wounds and battle scars from flailing baked potatoes.
‘Hi,’ I say.
It is mayhem. Poppy and Timothy are dressed in matching leotards and are standing on the sofa holding candlesticks as microphones. All of Poppy’s mates are in sunglasses, clapping and dancing. There are clothes and sweets and biscuits and dolls and teddy bears and toys and books and wigs and feather boas and stuff EVERYWHERE.
‘DARCY! You’re HERE!’ Timothy squeals. ‘Come and play, we’re having a talent competition, and you can be the judge!’
‘I don’t think so . . .’ I say politely.
‘Come on, it will be fun!’ Timothy pleads. ‘But first clean the scabs off your nose, babe – this isn’t a midlife-crisis TV show!’ It is impossible to be cross with Timothy. ‘Come on, honey!’ he shouts, and then all of Poppy’s friends start chanting, ‘DARCY! DARCY! DARCY! DARCY!’ and you know what . . . for a second I consider it. Then Lamb-Beth skids into the living room and starts nudging at my leg. A lot.
‘What is it?’ I say to her, as if I can understand. Lamb-Beth begins tugging at my sleeve with her teeth.
‘Turn the music off, Timothy!’ Poppy orders. ‘Everybody be quiet.’ Lamb-Beth never does anything like this.
‘What’s wrong?’ I ask, and then Lamb-Beth does the weirdest thing. She bleats. She bleats, ‘Merrrr. Merrrrr. Meerrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.’ Over and over and over again. ‘MERRRRRR. MERRRRRRR. MEERRRRR.’
‘She’s bleating!’ Timothy says. ‘She’s trying to tell us something!’
Lamb-Beth pulls at my sleeve again, wanting me to follow her. ‘Come on, then . . .’ I let her lead the way. We walk into the kitchen and Mum frowns as she sees the trail of us, all of us, including Poppy’s mates, dressed up.
‘What’s all this?’ she asks, hugging her mug close.
‘Lamb-Beth is trying to show us something outside.’
And then we hear the howling from outside and we open up the back door and Henrietta-from-next-door throws her head over the fence and says, out of breath, ‘I’m so sorry! Kevin . . . it’s Kevin. My dog. He attacked your cat.’
Chapter Fourteen
You couldn’t make the scene up. Pork is sprawled out on the sofa dressed in Hector’s pyjamas, looking TOO comfortable and feeling TOO sorry for himself, being pampered by all six of Poppy’s friends and having the time of his absolute life. If there was a cat heaven, it was here right now. Being stroked and petted and fed milk, and sheet after sheet of ham, and fork after fork of tinned tuna. Yes, Pork did have the odd scratch and his tail was a little bent out of place, but other than that we could find nothing more than a broken whisker. To be honest he looked better than ever – the fright seemed to give some kind of flush to his cheeks, which made him look more sparky than his usual drowsy state.
Lamb-Beth was the most frazzled as she lay shaking from the shock next to Pork, getting an equal amount of cuddles and attention, but mostly a bit put out that she had shown some emotion towards the furry dumpling that is Pork. Their relationship started to remind me of my own relationship with Hector and Poppy, how you can row with them and be mean and nasty but you still don’t want them to get hurt. You still care. Pork’s purr was so loud it was like a car alarm that nobody could switch off.
Poppy’s friends were over the moon to be invited to our ‘mad house’ where cats wear pyjamas.
‘We should charge an entrance fee for the next sleepover, Darcy; you get the full works here! The entertainment is five stars, it truly is an all-round experience!’ Timothy cackles. ‘This is such a wild house, you guys are the hostesses with mostesses!’
This makes Mum laugh. A lot. Mum piles pizzas into the oven and I think about how Will loves pizza and I want to just ring him up and break the rules and scream at him for making me have to be best friends with Mavis.
While the pizzas heat, Poppy’s friends, having had too much
over-excitement and drama mixed with fizzy drinks, chocolate and sugary sweets, are going hyper mad. They are dancing and climbing up the curtains and squealing like miniature pigs.
Hector, of course, has sneakily eaten his own body weight in chewy sweets and is the maddest one of all, and because he is actually a FEARLESS CHILD they don’t mind swinging him around the air like those ropes that cowboys have, wrestling him to the ground and tickling him to pieces. I go to help Mum with the food and she is looking flustered.
‘Wish I didn’t tell your dad he could go to that gig now! Could really do with his help.’
‘I’ll help you, what can I do?’
‘It’s all really hot, but thank you . . . I thought I was the lucky one, I said to him, yes, course go out and listen to four blokes screaming with guitars, I’d rather sit here with seven well-behaved children and eat pizza . . . and what happens? Pork gets attacked, you’ve got a bleeding nose and Hector – who is supposed to be sick, may I remind you – is running around like a lunatic.’
I think back to when I used to be ‘sick’ just so I could get some Calpol medicine. Those good old days.
‘I know. I’ll calm them down. Will that help?’
‘Actually, yes, just so I can get my head together.’
I think about reading one of my stories to them, but they are all too wild and crazy and I can’t imagine them sitting listening to me open up, and if they don’t listen properly, I’ll take it really personally and hate my writing, won’t I? I have a rummage around my room trying to find something to share with them that will calm them down for Mum. And then I see my maths book.
I enter the CHAMBER OF MONSTERS, which is basically what the living room has evolved into. Hector has his bum out and is making it talk in an alien voice and everybody is laughing hysterically. It is more bonkers than monkeys in a zoo and the friend of Poppy’s with the cat allergy (completely forgot about that) is covered in hives. I take a deep breath.
Darcy Burdock Book 3 Page 9
