Broken Heart Club

by Cathy Cassidy

  ‘We’ll never be like them,’ Hasmita said as she watched her mum leading a flash mob dance to something painful called ‘The Birdie Song’, which can’t have been easy in a sari. ‘We’ll be cool and wild and awesome, not dodgy. Right?’

  ‘I might be a bit dodgy,’ Ryan confessed.

  ‘No “might” about it,’ I’d teased, then felt my ears go pink as he gave me one of his big lopsided grins.

  Tasha was grinning too, but her cheeks were wet with tears.

  ‘I am going to miss you guys so, so much,’ she said. ‘I’ll never forget you, not ever. I promise!’

  I believed her at the time, but then I believed a lot of things back then. Promises – they’re more easily broken than you think.

  I emailed Tasha a few times after the move, but I never once heard back. I don’t exactly blame her, because things had got so crazy by then that I wished I could run away from it, too. I’d have gone to a desert island and never come back, or turned hermit and hidden away in a cave in a forest with just birds and mice for company.

  I wanted the world to go away, but still, I was missing Tasha. She was one of the few people I knew who might understand, even if she was miles away in France.

  edenb@zippmail.com

  to tashatoocool@moremail.co.uk

  I think this week has been the hardest week of my whole life. I can’t make sense of any of it, and I can’t believe you’ve gone to France – I keep thinking that if I walk down to Baskerville Avenue you’ll be there, the same as always. You’re not, though. You’re hundreds of miles away in France, just when I need you most. It can’t be easy for you either, Tash – are you OK? Are you coping? What’s the new house like? Please ask your mum to give in and buy you a mobile, because then we could actually text and phone. Miss you like mad.

  Eden xxx

  edenb@zippmail.com

  to tashatoocool@moremail.co.uk

  I expect you’ve been very busy with the move and everything, and Mum says you might not even have the Internet connected yet, but please, please reply, Tash. I really, really need someone to talk to, someone away from all this mess. School starts tomorrow and I am dreading it. Please reply, Tash. Missing you. Eden xxx

  edenb@zippmail.com

  to tashatoocool@moremail.co.uk

  It’s been six weeks, Tasha, and not a word. School sucks big time, in case you’re wondering. I don’t suppose you are. I guess you’ve moved on, made a fresh start, left the past behind. I wish I could do that. I don’t blame you and I wish you well, but don’t worry – I get the message. I won’t be emailing again. Eden xxx

  I didn’t think anything could make me hurt more than I was already hurting, but I was wrong. I’d lost Andie, I’d lost Ryan, I’d lost Hasmita and Tasha. Friends fell through my fingers like sand, the summer after Year Six, until one by one they were all gone.

  11

  Ryan

  I slip my key into the lock on Thursday evening, home from playing footy in the park with Buzz, Chris and the others, and step into a nightmare. Mr Khan is sitting right there in my living room, sipping tea and talking to Mum and Dad.

  Anger floods my body, hot and dangerous. Mum and Dad must have known about this, surely? Teachers don’t just turn up at your house at random to dunk chocolate chip biscuits and discuss the weather. It’s a set-up.

  ‘Ah, Ryan,’ Mr Khan says. ‘You’re back! I just popped over to have a chat with your parents, make sure we’re all on the same page with this …’

  I clench my fists. ‘Get out,’ I say in a small voice. ‘Please. I can’t do this; I don’t want you here!’

  Mum is on her feet, face anxious. ‘Ryan, Mr Khan is worried about you – we all are! The incident with the javelin … well, I don’t think we realized just how angry you were feeling. Apparently there’s a special kind of counselling you can do to help you manage your moods …’

  ‘Anger management,’ Mr Khan says. ‘We discussed it last session, didn’t we, Ryan?’

  I take in a ragged breath. ‘I don’t need anger management,’ I say gruffly. ‘I just need people to stop bugging me. Like you, Mr Khan, and your stupid, do-gooding plans to turn me into a model citizen. Just go, OK? Get out of my house!’

  ‘Ryan!’ Dad says. ‘Watch your manners! Mr Khan is trying to help you. God knows, we’ve done our best, but this latest thing – attacking old ladies – it’s too much. I’m at the end of my tether, son. This temper of yours … unless you sort it out, it’s going to land you in big trouble!’

  Dad’s words are like a knife in my gut, but it’s Mum who really twists that knife.

  ‘The school is trying to help you, Ryan,’ she says, her eyes brimming with tears. ‘We’re trying to help you, but you won’t let us! Why do you push everyone away? Why can’t you just be the way you used to be?’

  Why can’t I be the way I used to be? I can’t, I can’t, I can’t. Why don’t they understand?

  Rocket pushes his damp nose against my hand, whimpering, and suddenly the fight goes out of me. What’s the point in kicking the furniture, punching a wall, shouting and swearing at the injustice of it all? That will only upset Mum and Dad more.

  Self-loathing floods me and I sink to my knees, put my arms round Rocket, kid myself that he understands. What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I get my act together? Why does every single thing I do go so badly wrong?

  Mr Khan approaches gingerly, leans down to put a hand on my shoulder. I want to shake him off, but I take a deep breath and bury my face in Rocket’s fur, and I manage to endure it.

  ‘It doesn’t have to be this way,’ Mr Khan says. ‘All this anger. We can help you get to the bottom of it, find safer ways to express your feelings. We can help you, I promise.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk to you,’ I grind out. ‘I can’t, OK?’

  ‘Fine,’ Mr Khan says, seemingly unconcerned. ‘We’re probably not the greatest match, therapy-wise. I can find you somebody you feel more comfortable with, Ryan; someone you can talk to. Will you think about it?’

  I say nothing, and that silence takes all the strength and courage I have. Mr Khan retreats. I hear my parents ushering him to the door, apologizing over and over.

  I head to my room and fling myself on the bed, fists clenched.

  I don’t need anyone’s help. I’ll show them.

  12

  Eden

  After school, I head into town to swap my library books, picking out three new titles to start the holidays with. There is only one more day of lessons and I seriously cannot wait because school is a total waste of time right now. The teachers have switched off, dreaming of sunny holidays in Corfu or Gran Canaria, keeping order in class (almost) by handing out quizzes, word searches and sweets.

  I’m looking forward to some lazy days and long lie-ins, but a part of me can’t help remembering the way summers used to be, back in the Heart Club days. We’d spend ages making plans … organizing picnics, bike rides, sleepovers, projects. Once we made cupcakes and gave them away to random people in the park. Once, when Andie was having a vegetarian phase, we dressed up in animal onesies and handed out home-made flyers about endangered species in the street.

  Summers always used to be so busy, so much fun. I miss those days.

  I’m walking towards the railway station with my armful of books when three girls in St Bernadette’s uniform come out and start heading towards me. I always panic when I see that uniform – the distinctive green blazers with gold trim, the knee-length tartan skirts – but the truth is I hardly ever bump in
to Hasmita now. Her mum drives her in most days, I think, but today I am unlucky because the girl in the middle, laughing with her friends, is unmistakable.

  Her long dark hair is parted into two neat fishtail plaits, and her dark eyes are shining. My heart lurches. I’d run away, cross the road, turn round and walk the other way, but it’s too late.

  Hasmita looks at me, and I watch the smile slide off her face.

  They’re walking towards me, closer and closer, and I’m unable to summon a smile, a word. What has happened to me? How can I let the girl who was once one of my best friends just walk past?

  I peer out through my fringe, twist my mouth into something that’s almost a grin.

  ‘Hello, Hasmita,’ I say, but my voice sounds gritty, dry, like sand and ashes.

  Hasmita’s eyes widen, horrified, and then she’s past me, gone.

  ‘Who was that?’ one of her friends asks.

  ‘Nobody,’ Hasmita says. ‘Just some girl I used to know.’

  It’s like a slap.

  I keep walking, head down, cheeks flaming. I am a nobody, a girl whose old friends pretend they never knew her. My breath feels jagged, painful, and my heart aches for what has been lost. What would Andie have said if she could see the way we’ve fallen apart? She’d have known what to do, how to fix things, but Andie’s not around any more. She can’t help. I wish she could.

  I tilt my chin and adjust my route home to take a trip down memory lane, walking along Castle Street, Andie’s old street, once as familiar as my own.

  These are the pavements we raced our scooters along, the doors we knocked on patiently hoping to sell hand-drawn programmes for a circus extravaganza we planned to put on in Andie’s back garden. We only sold one, and that was to Ryan’s mum, who probably just felt sorry for us. We were six years old, full of hopes and dreams and impossible plans that seemed entirely possible at the time. In the end, the show was cancelled because we couldn’t get Andie’s cat to jump through a hoop, or perfect our cartwheels, or learn how to tightrope walk on the washing line or turn Andie’s swing into a trapeze.

  Six years old. We had no clue, back then, how things would turn out. I guess that was just as well.

  I turn the corner and my heart lurches as I catch sight of two small girls sitting on the low wall in front of Andie’s house. Just for a moment, it feels like I’ve stepped back into my own memories, but of course a new family live in Andie’s old house now, a family with small children. As I draw nearer I can see that the two little girls are selling lemonade in paper cups for 20p a shot; they’ve painted a sign that flutters in the breeze, anchored to the wall by two stones.

  We made lemonade too, once, Andie and me, but it was at my house, not here. We squeezed lemons and boiled up water with sugar and stirred everything together. Mum showed us how to smoosh up a bowlful of strawberries to make the lemonade pink, and although we were disappointed that it wasn’t fizzy, it tasted great once it was cooled and served with lots of ice.

  The lemonade on offer here is the shop-bought kind; I can see a plastic bottle partly concealed in a flower bed.

  ‘It’s for charity,’ the older girl calls out as I try to mooch past. ‘Probably. The dogs’ home, or maybe orphans or something.’

  ‘Or sweets,’ the younger one pipes up, and her sister jabs her swiftly with an elbow.

  ‘Please buy one,’ she implores. ‘For the sake of those poor, orphaned … um … dogs!’

  I roll my eyes and fish 20p from a pocket.

  ‘Only 10p extra for pink lemonade!’ she declares, unleashing a syrupy dribble of red food colouring into one of the drinks and stirring it briskly with a teaspoon. ‘Specially for you!’

  Grudgingly, I find an extra coin and exchange it for the lemonade, which now looks like a cross between fizzing tomato soup and something a vampire might drink. Still, they’re only kids.

  ‘Lovely,’ I say. ‘Good luck with your fund-raising!’

  As I walk away, I hear them giggling.

  ‘If they’re all as stupid as she is,’ the older girl says, ‘We’ll make a fortune!’

  I tip my lemonade into the gutter and stuff the paper cup into the litter bin on the corner, then head for home.

  13

  Ryan

  It’s the last day of school, but I seriously do not need another day of detentions. What I do need is to clear my name, to show Mum and Dad I am not someone who terrorizes old ladies for fun. Anger management? No thanks. Counselling? Not a chance. I don’t need a bunch of shrinks on my case. I’ve got by without all that for two years, and I plan on keeping things that way.

  I give school a swerve and head to the garden centre. This is not my natural habitat, and it costs me an unbelievable £20 of my savings to buy the supplies I need. A few poxy plants – who knew they could cost so much?

  I trudge towards school carrying boxes of greenery; walking past the school gates and round the corner gives me great pleasure. I know exactly which house I’m looking for … Miss Smith lives in number forty-one, a 1930s semi with peeling paintwork and an overgrown garden. If I’d been unsure, the newly built fence would have given it away; the school’s solution to the hazard of low-flying javelins. It looks stark and ugly, badly constructed from rough orange planks.

  I glance towards the house, but there’s no sign of life. I don’t want to get caught poking around in Miss Smith’s garden, even though I’m planning to fix it up a bit. Knowing my luck, I’d be accused of vandalism. Luckily, the coast is clear.

  I push open the rickety gate. The pond where the javelin landed is silted up with reeds and duckweed, an empty beer can floating where once goldfish might have swum. There’s an ugly old dead tree in the middle of the grass – no leaves, no buds, nothing. It’s like a giant bunch of jaggedy twigs sticking up out of the ground, with an empty, rusted bird feeder swinging from one branch, squeaking slightly in the breeze. The whole place is a mess, with nettles and brambles where the flower beds should be and dandelions sprouting between the paving stones. The grass is knee high and there are Coke cans and crisp packets everywhere, blown in from the street.

  Miss Smith is probably too old to do much gardening, but I can see she might have liked all that stuff once. There are straggly old rose bushes in among the nettles and a couple of shrubs that have turned triffid and tried to take over.

  I’m not sure where to start, but clearing the nettles and brambles seems the logical place. I pull out an old trowel I’ve found and start work. It takes longer than I imagine – every time I get one corner tidy, I spot something else that needs sorting, but the work is strangely calming. It reminds me of long ago, learning to grow beans and sunflowers in Gran and Grandad’s garden.

  An hour in, I think I see curtains twitch in the house, but no outraged old lady appears, so I decide I’m probably imagining it.

  At one point, the woman from next door wanders out and pauses at the gate to watch me filling the wheelie bin with litter, nettles and brambles.

  ‘Who are you, then?’ she asks with a frown. ‘Did the community council send you? Because that garden is a bloomin’ disgrace. An eyesore, it is.’

  ‘I’m a family friend,’ I say.

  ‘Oh?’ the woman says, sceptical. ‘Didn’t know she had any family, being a spinster and all that. There is a nephew somewhere, but he never bothers himself. Poor old dear shouldn’t be living on her own at her age. Did you hear about those louts from the school, threatening her with javelins?’

  ‘No,’ I say shortly. ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘Well, they did,’ she informs me. �
�Hooligans, the lot of them. Kids today; no discipline! Who did you say you were again? Shouldn’t you be at school?’

  ‘My school broke up last week,’ I lie.

  ‘Hmmph. Well, it’s high time someone gave the old dear a hand with that garden. Like a jungle, it is. You’d think one of the neighbours would lend a hand …’

  ‘You’re one of the neighbours,’ I point out.

  ‘Well, yes,’ she admits. ‘But I’ve got a bad back. And Miss Smith isn’t what you’d call friendly; thinks she’s too good for the likes of me, she does. And lately she’s gone a bit doolally. Alzheimer’s, I expect. She wants putting in one of those homes, if you ask me.’

  I grit my teeth. ‘Nobody did ask you,’ I snap. ‘Luckily.’

  The woman pulls an outraged face and bustles off next door again, and I get planting. I shove in loads of little purple and yellow flowers that look like they have smiley faces and a couple of clumps of flashy daisy-type things. I dig a big hole next to the ugly orange fence and plant a climber that the man in the garden centre said was as tough as old boots, guaranteed to scramble all over a fence and flower like crazy. I am just brushing down my jeans when the back door of the house creaks open.

  Miss Smith is there, leaning on a metal walking stick, clutching a chipped blue mug. Embarrassment washes over me like a wave; the only thing worse than chucking an accidental javelin into her garden is being caught in the act of trying to put things right. My bad boy image is slipping.

  I walk towards her, planning an apology and a hasty retreat, but her face is all smiles and wrinkles. She looks about a hundred and three, seriously.

  ‘Peter?’ she says, her voice all wispy like dry leaves in winter. ‘I made you hot chocolate. Your favourite!’

  She thinks I am someone else. Someone helpful and heroic, perhaps a long-lost relative or a do-gooding neighbour from years gone by. Someone who likes hot chocolate and weeding, not a juvenile delinquent, a javelin-wielding maniac. It’s probably just as well.