‘Paul,’ I whisper. ‘It’s me, Hannah. It’s OK. They’ve all gone.’
He makes a low, whimpering sound that grips my heart.
I touch his hair, the red splotches that are dripping down on to the gravel. It’s sticky, but it doesn’t feel like blood. It’s more like… jam?
I look around and I can see an empty jam jar under the kitchen bins. There are other things scattered across the gravel too. An empty perfume bottle, a blusher brush, a pot of something green and glittery.
‘Paul,’ I whisper again. ‘Did they hurt you? Are you hurt?’
He shakes his head, still hiding behind his arms. ‘Do you want me to fetch a teacher? Miss Quinn?’
‘No!’ Paul’s voice chokes out. ‘I want you to go away!’
‘But I’m trying to help you!’ I cry, stricken. ‘I’m your friend! Paul, you have to tell me what they did.’
He jerks away from me, struggling into a sitting position, his face still hidden.
‘I can’t,’he says raggedly.
‘Paul…’
I pull at his hands, one at a time, dragging them away from his face. Murphy and his mates have painted Paul’s mouth with a wide, crimson gash of lipstick, smudged and smeared. His eyes are ringed with the green glitter stuff and his cheeks are painted with vivid pink circles of blusher, like a pantomime dame. His hair is dripping with jam, and someone has stuck a dark-red rose behind his ear.
I bite my lip, appalled.
I drag a handful of tissues out of my bag and try to dab at his face, but he snatches them away from me. ‘Please, Hannah,’ he gasps. ‘Let me do this. I want to be on my own. Please?’
Then I see the tears that have mixed in with the glitter and the lipstick and the jam, and I back off slowly.
‘Go home, Hannah,’ he says gruffly. ‘Go home.’
I go.
CHAPTER 20
‘You must have got it wrong, Hannah,’ says Joey. ‘Kit would never be a part of something so mean. He’s been trying to stop the bullies. He doesn’t like Paul, but he’d never do something like that.’
She perches on the window sill, her skinny legs in long, stripy socks hooked over the back of my computer chair. I lie stretched out on my bed, head propped in my hands. It feels like the end of the world.
‘I didn’t get it wrong, Joey,’ I tell her. ‘You know I didn’t.’
When I rang Beachcomber Cottage earlier, Paul was just back. ‘He can’t come to the phone,’ Joey told me. ‘He’s in the shower. Apparently he was messing about on that mad bike and fell into some rubbish bins up in town. He stinks. And he’s in a foul mood – nearly bit my head off.’
‘No,’ I explained. ‘No, Joey that’s not what happened. It was nothing to do with the bike.’
‘But Paul…’
‘Come over, Joey’ I said.
We sit in my room, waiting for Kit to come home.
‘I don’t get it,’ Joey says, frowning. ‘Where is he? It’s past nine o’clock. He said he had footy training after school, and then he wanted a night in to revise, because there’s some kind of S2 French test tomorrow.’
‘There was no footy training after school,’ I point out. ‘I bet there’s no French test, either.’
‘But why would Kit lie to me?’ Joey moans.
‘You know why’
‘I can’t believe it,’ she says, but she does believe it. I can see it in her eyes, dark blue and shining with unshed tears. I can see it in her pale face, the way she sits on the window sill, edgy, brittle, anxious.
‘Do you think he’s been lying to us all along?’ I ask. ‘Kit? Do you think he only pretended to get Murphy and the others to back off? Maybe he’s been hassling Paul the whole time.’
‘No way’ says Joey listlessly ‘No way Paul is my foster-brother.’
‘Look, Kit is way out of order on this,’ I point out. ‘I don’t know if he’s been involved all along, but trust me, he’s involved now. Murphy and the others have had a downer on Paul right from the start. What they did to him, Joey – it was awful. Just because he’s… well, different.’
‘What’s wrong with being different?’
‘Nothing,’ I shrug. ‘But there’s something about Paul that Kit and his mates just can’t handle.’
‘What?’ Joey demands. ‘I just don’t get it.’
I don’t want to get it, either, but I saw what Kit and Murphy did to Paul and I got the message, loud and clear.
‘They’re trying to make out that he’s gay,’ I say at last, putting into words the fear that’s been eating away at me for weeks. ‘He makes them nervous – they think he’s a threat.’
‘Idiots!’ Joey snorts. ‘Boys! They are so insecure, so paranoid. Paul isn’t gay. As if!’
I blink. ‘You… you don’t think he could be, then?’ I ask. ‘I mean, you can tell me if he is. It won’t make any difference. I’ll always be his mate.’
‘Hannah, sometimes I despair of you,’ Joey says. ‘Don’t you notice what’s going on around you? Can’t you see? Paul isn’t gay, whatever that bunch of neds thinks. I know he isn’t, OK?’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because he’s mad about you,’ Joey says. ‘That’s why.’
My heart thuds and my cheeks flame scarlet. Joey is wrong – she has to be. Paul is my friend, I know that, but not once has he given me the slightest sign that he’s looking for anything more than that.
‘No way,’ I whisper.
‘Way,’ Joey replies. ‘Trust me. Way.’
The door slams downstairs, and we hear Kit talking to Mum and Dad. An aroma of toasted cheese wafts gently up the stairs.
Joey sighs. ‘I’ve been a useless friend lately.’
‘No…’
‘Yes,’ she corrects me. ‘Don’t argue, Hannah. Nobody argues with Joey Donovan.’
We hear footsteps on the stairs, and Joey creeps out on to the landing, holding a finger to her lips. I sit on the bed, hugging my knees.
‘Hey,’ says Kit, a little warily. ‘Joey! I didn’t think you were coming over tonight, or I’d have been home sooner.’
‘To revise?’ Joey asks sweetly.
‘Revise? Oh, yeah,’ Kit bluffs. ‘It’s just that the footy went on a bit, and a few of us went back to Tom’s to discuss tactics for next week’s game. We kind of forgot the time.’
‘Drop the act, Kit, I know what happened,’ Joey says coldly. ‘I saw Paul.’
‘What a grass that loser is,’ Kit says in disgust. ‘Might have known he’d go bleating to you.’
‘He didn’t.’
‘Hannah, then,’ says Kit. ‘Look, you weren’t there, Joey, you didn’t see. He winds us up the whole time. He was asking for it.’
‘And you just happened to have lippy, perfume, blusher, eyeshadow and jam handy to teach him a lesson. Is that it?’
There’s a long silence, and I’m tempted to peek out on to the landing just in case Kit is weeping silent tears of shame, or trying to distract Joey with a quick snog. When I open the door a crack, though, he’s just eating cheese on toast and staring her out like he couldn’t care less.
‘You are so not the boy I thought you were,’Joey says at last.
Kit shrugs.
‘Just stay away from me and my family, Kit Murray.’
‘My pleasure,’ he says. ‘Bunch of weirdos.’
His door slams shut, and a blast of loud, jangly music erupts suddenly. Joey is still on the landing, trembling slightly. She looks round and catches my eye.
‘I hate my brother,’ I whisper to her. She smiles sadly and grabs up her coat from the banisters.
‘Me too,’ she says.
CHAPTER 21
The next day, Joey sits beside me on the school bus and Kit sits at the back, the way he used to. He’s in a mean mood today, scowling and snapping at everyone and shooting me poisonous looks like I’m the one who did something wrong.
Paul isn’t on the bus at all. Joey says he told Jed and Eva he felt ill, and st
ayed in bed. ‘I tried to talk to him last night, but he wouldn’t open the door,’ she tells me. ‘He told me to go away.’
‘He said that to me, when I found him.’
‘He must be feeling awful,’ Joey says. ‘Those losers have really dented his confidence. He’ll get over it, though. Give him a couple of days.’
I hope she’s right.
Joey has parcelled up the valentine CD Kit burned for her, the skull-and-crossbones silver ring and the swirly bracelet he bought her instead of chocolate for Easter. She gives the parcel to me, to leave in Kit’s room. She is wiping him out of her life.
Pity I don’t have that option.
Later, in art, Miss Quinn asks if Paul and I are coming in after school to finish the painting. ‘Monday is the last day for sending stuff in,’ she explains. ‘I’ve made a window-mount for it, and filled in the entry form. If he could just finish it off…’
‘Paul is ill,’ I say. ‘He’s not in school.’
‘Oh, dear,’ says Miss Quinn. Her shoulders droop with disappointment.
We look over at the painting, taped with brown gum strip to an A2 drawing board at the side of the classroom. It’s not like looking at me any more. The portrait has taken on an identity of its own. A brown-haired girl with startled, brown eyes looks back at you as though she’s seeing something nobody else can see. Only the neck and body remain unpainted, giving the picture an uneasy, lopsided look.
‘It’s good,’ Joey says, squinting at the picture. ‘Do you think it could get a prize?’
‘Perhaps,’ Miss Quinn says. ‘I’d certainly have liked to put it forward. Never mind.’
‘Paul would want it to be entered,’ Joey states firmly. ‘He’s ill, but it’s probably just one of those twenty-four-hour bug things. I’ll take the painting home, Miss. He can finish it there.’
‘Oh, d’you think so?’ Miss Quinn’s face lights up. ‘It might be worth a try! Paul’s folder is somewhere here…’
‘It’ll cheer him up,’ Joey whispers to me. ‘He loves painting, and you heard Miss Quinn – this might win a prize. That’d show those boneheads, wouldn’t it?’
After school, we trudge back to Beachcomber Cottage, Joey carrying Paul’s art folder and me carrying a bag of acrylic paints and some brand-new brushes from the stock cupboard. I feel shy about seeing Paul after what Joey said, but right now he needs a friend, and I’m not about to let him down.
Paul is alone, huddled at the kitchen table sipping a mug of miso soup. Miso soup is Eva’s remedy for all ills. It looks like warm, grey dishwater with strands of edible seaweed floating about in it, and tastes pretty much the same. I’m not sure if it can cure bullying.
‘We brought your portrait home,’ Joey announces. ‘Miss Quinn says it has to be finished by Monday’
Paul groans. Joey, I’m not in the mood,’ he mumbles.
‘C’mon, you’re not ill, are you?’ she asks brutally. ‘You can’t just mope around feeling sorry for yourself. You can’t just let them win.’
I sit down next to Paul and fall into the portrait pose, one hand at my collar, one hand in my lap. I pull a frantic, staring face, tongue lolling. Paul rolls his eyes and hides behind his soup, but his lips twitch with the hint of a smile. Krusty leaps up on to my shoulder and swishes her tail for a moment before stretching out round my neck.
‘Hey, Krusty,’ I tell her, dropping the gurny face. ‘You’re not in this picture. Stop trying to hog the limelight.’
Joey hands Paul the folder and I push the bag of acrylic paints towards him.
‘Give me a break,’ he says.
‘No!’ snaps Joey. ‘You don’t need a break. You need to get up, fix a smile on your face and get back to school, show those gimps you can’t be beaten. Hold your head up, Paul. Be yourself.’
‘I have been, Joey,’ he sighs. ‘That’s the bit they have a problem with.’
‘Yeah, but it’s their problem,’ I point out. ‘You can’t let them think it’s OK to treat you like this. It isn’t. You have to tell Jed and Eva, or Miss Quinn or even McKenzie. You can’t let them just get away with it.’
‘I’m not a grass,’ he says. ‘Back off. I’ll deal with it.’
‘Sure,’ I say.
‘Wise up,’ Joey rages. ‘Get mad. Fight back. Get your act together, Paul!’
Paul takes a deep breath and picks up the folder. He takes out the painting, chewing his lip, then checks through the bag of paints and brushes. ‘I’m doing it for Miss Quinn,’ he says sulkily. ‘Not you.’
‘I don’t care if you do it for world peace, just do it,’ Joey huffs.
‘I’ve said I will, haven’t I?’
‘School on Monday?’ she asks.
Paul walks over to the sink to get a jar of water and an old saucer to mix the paint. ‘Don’t push your luck,’ he says.
Joey grins, switches on her CD player at full volume and breaks open the biscuit tin.
‘Wow,’ says Miss Quinn, taking the portrait out of its folder on Monday morning. ‘Paul, this is… wonderful. Thank you.’
Paul is sitting on the table, watching Miss Quinn. He still looks kind of fragile, but he’s smiling, his cheeks faintly pink with pleasure. He’s pleased with the picture, I know. He decided to paint in Krusty as she slept, curled round my shoulders, and he’s captured the softness of her silky fur perfectly The whole painting looks sort of surreal now, unexpected, compelling.
‘The cat is brilliant,’ Miss Quinn says. ‘Exactly what it needed. Is it one of the kittens, Hannah?’
I nod. ‘She snuggles up round my neck the whole time,’ I explain.
‘She’s a star,’ says Miss Quinn. She fetches a scalpel from the desk drawer and cuts the painting off its drawing board, then turns it over and tapes it into a pre-cut window-mount, fixing the form with Paul’s name, age and school on to the back.
The painting is cool. A girl who looks a little like me stares out of the picture with wide, faraway eyes, one hand touching a tortoiseshell kitten curled round her neck. She looks beautiful and sad and dreamy, while behind her the wide grey ocean crashes and churns.
‘Not invisible,’ says Paul as we leave the classroom to head for registration.
‘No,’ I agree. ‘Not any more.’
CHAPTER 22
I sit on the beach with Paul, watching the tide lap in. The water slides forward like skeins of white silk, then falls back, swirling. It seeps into a sand message, rushes past a tiny cairn of stones, shells and feathers. The feathers are lifted on the tide, carried away.
Krusty, her whiskers quivering with excitement, is stalking a seagull four times her size. Her bottom wiggles a bit as she creeps forward, and her fur ruffles in the breeze.
‘I can’t do this any more,’ Paul says.
‘What? The beach magic?’
‘Not any of it,’ Paul replies. ‘I’m too tired. I’ve had enough.’
I look at him, hunched up against the sea wall with his head thrown back, eyes closed, lashes dark against pale skin.
I don’t know what to do. Even when things are bad, Paul always manages to shrug off his worries, convince me it’ll be OK. He can cheer me up with a swig of Cherryade or a scribbled drawing or a ride on the zebra-striped bike, fix anything with a message in the sand or a stone skimmed out across the water.
Since the incident by the kitchen bins, though, the fight has gone out of him. He looks fragile, and there are dark shadows under his eyes that I’ve never seen before.
He has stopped travelling on the school bus. Instead, he rides to the pool every morning oh the zebra-striped bike, swims for an hour and carries right on to school. He arrives early, too early for Murphy to be lying in wait. After school, he hangs out in the art room, waiting till everyone has gone before cycling home.
‘It’s school, isn’t it?’ I ask.
‘What do you think?’
‘They haven’t done anything – anything bad – again, though?’
Paul shakes his head. ‘It’s ju
st – it’s just knowing that they hate me,’ he says softly. ‘I can’t stand it. I really thought I could settle here. I thought I could have friends – you, Joey, maybe even Kit. It’s all gone pear-shaped, as usual. Nothing ever lasts.’
His hand closes round mine, clumsily, his palm dry and cool. I try not to faint with shock. Do friends hold hands?
‘I get stuff wrong,’ Paul is saying. ‘All the time. I try so hard, but I still mess up.’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ I say, giving his hand a squeeze. ‘Not to me.’
‘I know, Hannah, not to you. You believe in me. You always have. I wish – well, I wish things had been different.’
‘Me too,’ I whisper. ‘We can still fix it, Paul. We can still make it OK.’
‘Nah.’ He sighs. ‘Not now.’
Krusty skitters up beside us, dragging a huge strip of seaweed, the kind that looks like a giant’s dreadlocks. She settles down in Paul’s lap, and he lets go of my hand to stroke her. I feel like my heart is breaking.
‘Joey told me to get my act together,’ he says. ‘I’m trying, Hannah, but I’m scared. I’m sick of acting like I don’t care when they tell me I’m dirt. I’m sick of acting like it doesn’t hurt when they laugh at me, sneer at me, shove me, kick me. It hurts, OK?’
Paul is staring out at the ocean, his eyes filmed with tears. I have never seen a boy cry before, at least, not since junior school. It feels awful.
‘Don’t let them win, Paul,’ I tell him. ‘They don’t hate you, they just don’t… understand. Losers.’
‘How about Kit?’ he asks.
What can I say? Kit is the biggest loser of all.
It’s art, and Joey and I are dyeing batiks in a big bucket of turquoise dye that sits in one of the sinks. Joey pushes the fabric into the dye with rubber-gloved hands while I stir everything round with a big wooden spoon. It’s last period on a Friday, and I’m hoping to fish my batik out of the dye bucket before the bell goes.
‘Hey,’ says Joey, nodding down towards the courtyard below us. ‘What’s Paul doing out of class?’
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