I join the queue at the ice-cream van and order two 99s with strawberry sauce, Andie’s favourite. As I turn to head back to the playground, though, I frown. There’s nobody around except for a couple of mums with toddlers and little kids, fooling around on the seesaw and the roundabout.
The swings are empty, swaying a little in the spring sunshine.
17
Ryan
After two circuits of the park I’m on top of the world. The anger is long gone, replaced by a euphoria that only ever comes from running. I feel the way I used to feel before everything turned to dust in my hands.
I throw sticks for Rocket and he finds a tennis ball in the bushes and we play footy with that for a while, and then I hear the chimes of the ice-cream van on the other side of the park and decide to treat myself.
I don’t actually get there though, because standing on the path just next to the playground is Eden Banks, holding two ice-cream cones that are dripping on to her hands.
‘Lost someone?’ I wisecrack. ‘Or did you just count wrong? I thought you were good at maths?’
‘Yes. No …’ Her cheeks flame pink and she looks around her, as if the owner of the extra 99 ice-cream cone might be watching from behind a tree or hiding behind the ladder of the playground slide.
‘I thought I saw someone I knew,’ she explains, frowning. ‘Looks like they’ve gone, though. D’you want an ice cream? Free to a good home?’
‘Happy to help out,’ I say, taking the offered ice cream carefully.
We stand in silence for a while, tidying up the drips, biting into the chocolate flakes. Eden looks brighter, happier than I have seen her in a while.
‘Still the best ice cream in the world,’ I say. ‘Ages since I’ve had a 99.’
Rocket nudges Eden with his nose, hoping for ice cream, and she laughs. I haven’t heard that laugh in a very long time.
‘Rocket, no!’ I scold. ‘Just ignore him. He’d do anything for ice cream. A bit like me …’
She bites her lip. ‘You have a dog called Rocket,’ she says. ‘Really? Finally?’
When we were kids I used to ask for a dog every birthday and Christmas.
‘A dog is for life, not just for Christmas,’ Andie always teased me, parroting some advert she’d seen about unwanted pets, and I’d set out to prove that my imaginary dog would be the most loved mutt in the world. I used to draw endless pictures of the dog at school, an untidy, dishevelled black and white mongrel. I named my imaginary companion Rocket.
‘He’ll be the fastest dog you ever saw,’ I told the others. ‘And the naughtiest!’
‘So is he?’ Eden is asking now. ‘Is he the fastest dog in the world?’
‘Just the naughtiest,’ I admit, and Rocket pushes his head against Eden’s leg, content, asking to be petted.
‘You’ve made a new friend,’ I say.
‘I never thought your parents would cave in,’ she whispers, ducking down to stroke Rocket. ‘They were always so against it! How did you persuade them?’
‘They changed,’ I shrug. ‘I’ve changed. You’ve changed. It happens.’
She raises an eyebrow. ‘Really? Who knew?’
I see a trace of the girl I used to know back in the old days, before the Heart Club fell to pieces and us along with it. She feeds Rocket the last of her ice-cream cone, and he guzzles it and rolls over to have his tummy scratched, like she’s his new best friend.
We never talk any more, Eden and I, but we have so much shared history. Paper cranes, 99s with strawberry sauce and so much more.
‘Have you ever thought of letting your hair go back to its natural colour?’ I ask, and Eden’s face shuts down, closes off.
‘Have you ever thought of minding your own business?’
‘It was just an idea. I liked it that way.’
‘I didn’t.’
She’s walking away from me now, and I run alongside her, Rocket galloping on ahead as if it’s a game. Maybe it is?
‘We should talk one day, Eden,’ I say, and she curls her lip in disgust as if I’ve just suggested we take drugs and go out murdering squirrels. ‘Seriously. I mean it. We should.’
‘Why now?’ Eden flings at me. ‘Why now, after almost two years?’
I want to say that there is nobody else who knows why I wake up angry almost every day of my life, who remembers what I remember. I want to say that it’s because I miss her, every bit as much as I miss Andie, Hasmita and Tasha. More, maybe.
OK, more, definitely.
I don’t say any of this, though.
‘Are you going to Lara’s party?’ I ask, as she walks away. ‘Everybody says it will be cool. I’ll see you there, maybe?’
‘Don’t hold your breath, Ryan Kelly,’ she says.
18
Eden
I have a paper-crane production line. By Wednesday morning there are more than fifty of them lined up along the living-room windowsill, all made from the bright patterned paper I bought in town.
I’d almost forgotten how restful folding cranes can be – the delicate, precise folding, the way you have to focus to get it right, to remember the sequence. I wonder if I would ever have the patience to fold a thousand of them, like in the school library book Andie found and read to us when we were ten. Our teacher had given the book to Andie when she first got into making paper cranes, because the story was all about a girl who made them.
I remember Andie dragging us off down the school playing fields one sunny lunchtime so she could share the story with us. It was the story of a Japanese girl called Sadako who got ill with leukaemia after the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima when she was a child. Japanese legend says that anyone who folds a thousand paper cranes will be granted a special wish. Sadako began to fold paper cranes, but she died before she reached her goal of a thousand, and her friends completed the task so that the cranes could be buried with her.
It was a very sad story … and a true one. I think it made us all cry, except possibly Ryan, though even he was wiping his eyes. He said it was just hay fever, but we didn’t believe him.
I’d thought back then that a thousand paper cranes was an impossible number, but it probably isn’t. I bet I could make that many and then some in all the time I spend not going to parties and not hanging out with friends.
The summer stretches ahead of me, vast and empty. Who am I kidding? I could probably make a million paper cranes. Would that grant me a special wish?
The doorbell rings, and I jump up, startled; it’s a bit late for the postman. I wander into the hall and open the front door a crack, and there on the landing outside the flat is Andie, her face lit up like it has its own source of sunshine.
‘Hey!’ she says, pushing the door open wide. ‘I’m sorry I had to run yesterday … Something came up, but obviously, we have a lot of catching up to do. C’mon, Eden, don’t look so surprised!’
I want to be gruff and cool, but I have never managed to be frosty with Andie, not for long – not even yesterday when I was numb with shock. I want to argue, to tell Andie she can’t just turn up again after almost two years and expect me to drop everything for her, but there is no argument at all. Of course I’ll drop everything for her. I always did; I always will.
‘You going to invite me in, then?’ she teases.
‘No point,’ I say. ‘When did you ever wait for an invitation? You’re going to come in anyway. You always do. At least, you used to!’
Andie is inside now, scoping out the hall. ‘Your mum decorated,’ she observes. ‘Nice. How is she? Still working at t
he medical centre?’
‘No … no, she’s based at the drop-in centre in town, now,’ I say. ‘It’s a better job – more money, but she works long hours. But yeah … we decorated the flat. Got rid of the red wine stain, y’know?’
‘Do you hear much from your dad?’ she asks, and I laugh and shake my head.
‘A card on my birthday; cash at Christmas,’ I tell her. ‘I went down to London for a week last summer holidays, but it was all kind of awkward …’
Andie looks sad. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘Sorry I haven’t been here for you. I wish we’d kept in touch, Eden, really I do. Shall we go through to your room?’
It’s like the last two years have never happened … me and Andie, holed up in my room, drinking orange juice with ice and talking about everything under the sun. She tries out my eyeliner, picks up a red scarf from my dressing table and ties it in her hair. There are no awkward silences – Andie wants to know everything.
‘How’s Ryan? What’s he like these days?’ she demands. ‘Don’t tell me … I bet he’s got all the girls falling for him.’
‘Not so much,’ I say. ‘He’s turned bad boy, kind of. He’s always in trouble.’
Andie frowns. ‘Seriously? I can’t imagine that. What happened?’
The Heart Club turned into the Broken Heart Club, that’s what happened. We fell apart when Andie went away, and nothing has ever been the same again.
I don’t say this, of course.
‘I blame hormones,’ I quip. ‘Boys have them too, y’know …’
‘Suppose,’ Andie says with a grin. ‘Hey, remember when we fell out over Ryan? What on earth was that all about?’
Nausea rises up inside me. What is Andie trying to do? She knows why we fell out over Ryan, knows how much trouble it caused. Surely she knows this is one topic we can’t open up and talk about; it has the power to pull us apart all over again.
And of course I remember. I don’t think I’ll ever forget …
I close my eyes, trying to blot out the memories of Andie’s eleventh birthday party, the night of the fall-out that broke us all apart. I try to push the memories away, but they’re there in my head as fresh as if it were yesterday.
Andie, ice cold with fury, handing me her mobile to call home, my voice shaking as I told Mum I’d hurt my ankle and didn’t want to stay at the sleepover. Tasha and Hasmita wiping the tears from Andie’s eyes, torn between comforting the birthday girl and defending me. Ryan shaking his head and telling Andie she was out of order, that he thought better of her than this.
‘It didn’t mean anything, Andie,’ I’d sobbed. ‘I’d never, ever do anything to hurt you, you know that! You’re my best friend!’
‘You used to be,’ she’d spat back at me. ‘You’ve destroyed all that, now. I hate you, Eden, I hate you! I never want to see you again!’
My eyes snap open, my heart racing. The past slides away and I’m back in my bedroom again, Andie sitting cross-legged on the end of my bed the way she has so many times before.
‘Hey, dreamer!’ she says, nudging me gently. ‘Aren’t you listening? I was talking about that time we fell out over Ryan.’
I force a laugh. ‘That? Old news, Andie,’ I say. ‘Water under the bridge. Ryan really isn’t the person we thought he was. Bit of a loser. I never see him any more, and I can’t say I miss him.’
Andie looks surprised at that.
‘That’s a shame,’ she says. ‘We were all so close, once – but stuff changes, I know. Oh well! No boyfriends now, then? No secret crushes?’
I shake my head, pushing back the bad memories.
‘No … I’ve sworn off boys,’ I tell her. ‘I am so not interested …’
Andie’s eyes widen, and I can feel my cheeks begin to burn. She has always been able to see right through me, suss how I feel even when I don’t know myself. How can that be, after all this time? And how can a chance encounter with Ryan have me dreaming of a time when I thought he was the coolest, cutest boy in the world? I was so, so hurt that first day at Moreton Park, when he blanked me in the corridor. How can I push that hurt aside just because he has bothered to speak to me for once in two years? Am I that weak, that pathetic? It’s bizarre.
‘Hey – there is someone, isn’t there?’ Andie says, softly. ‘I can tell … you’re blushing! Oh, Eden! Who is it? Anyone I know?’
I hope she can’t sense my panic and I really, really hope she can’t read my mind.
‘No! There’s nobody, Andie. Or just movie stars and characters in books, anyhow! Do they count? I’m way too busy for real-life boys. I have school work, and … stuff. Y’know. Friends.’
‘OK, OK, stop digging, I believe you,’ Andie says. ‘I was going to ask about friends; how’s Hasmita getting on at that fancy new school? And Tasha – is she fluent in French yet? Has she settled?’
My throat aches suddenly, as if I’m trying to swallow a slice of glass.
‘Eden?’
‘I don’t see Hasmita much, these days,’ I admit. ‘Actually, I don’t really see her at all. And Tasha … I emailed her a few times, at the beginning, but she never replied. We’ve sort of lost touch. How about you?’
Andie’s face is sad now, her blue eyes shadowed. ‘I haven’t kept in touch either,’ she says sadly. ‘I wish I had. So … the Heart Club fell apart. That sucks. Who d’you hang out with now?’
I think about naming Chloe, Flick and Ima, but I have never lied to Andie and I am not about to start now.
‘I don’t, much,’ I tell her. ‘Friendship is overrated.’
Andie’s eyes flash with anger, and then her arms are round me, hauling me in for a long, warm hug that smells of vanilla. That shard of glass is stuck in my throat again.
‘What are we going to do with you, Eden?’ she says at last, holding me at arm’s length. ‘Looks like I came back just in time!’
‘Oh, I’ve missed you, Andie,’ I whisper. ‘So much!’
‘Well, obviously!’ she says. ‘Who wouldn’t? But I hate that you don’t see the others any more and I hate that you’ve gone all loner on me. Not good, Eden, not good. Time we changed all that. Deal?’
‘It’s not that easy …’
‘Easy?’ Andie echoes. ‘Who said it would be easy? Who cares? You need friends, Eden, and if I’m not around you’ll have to find some others … Hey! What’s this?’
She picks up the invitation to Lara’s party, thrown down on my dressing table among a muddle of notebooks, pens and pencils. I grab it, but it’s too late, Andie’s eyes are sparkling.
‘A party!’ she declares. ‘Lara’s party? She’s cool … and she has a cute elder brother, too, if I remember. Are you going? Eden, you have to!’
I try to argue. I explain that I can’t go, that I don’t do parties, have nobody to go with. I tell her I have nothing to wear, wouldn’t know what to say, but Andie isn’t in the mood for excuses. She jumps to her feet, rifles through my wardrobe, pulling a face at the black tops and jeans, the shapeless hoodies.
‘I see what you mean,’ she says, mock-outraged. ‘What’s with all this monochrome? I’m not against the Goth look, Eden, you know I’m not, but all this black … it’s just not you, is it? Not the you I used to know and love, anyhow. Doesn’t it make you feel drab and dull? Doesn’t it make you feel sad? Doesn’t it drain the life right out of you?’
I chew my lip, unable to meet her eyes. ‘It’s how I feel, these days, that’s all …’
Andie looks stern. ‘Why is the most beautiful girl I know hid
ing away in baggy, shapeless monochrome stuff?’ she demands, sorting the hoodies and baggy jeans into a towering pile. ‘These clothes are crimes against fashion! Where’s the colour, where’s the style? I guess some of these are OK …’
She puts my red skinny jeans in a separate pile, then adds a couple of little T-shirts, a short black skating skirt, frayed summer shorts and some striped fingerless mittens.
‘These have potential,’ she says. ‘A bit of personality. But really – seriously – the rest has to go, Eden. I’m not joking. Bin the lot!’
‘I like my clothes,’ I argue, although I’m not sure I actually do, not really. They are chosen for their ordinariness, their dullness, and right now that seems a little bit sad. ‘At least I used to …’
Andie flops down beside me on the bed.
‘Maybe it’s time things changed around here,’ she declares. ‘We’ll sort it out, all of it. We’ll go shopping, get you something to wear … it’ll be fun!’
I smile, in spite of myself.
‘Will you come with me? Not just shopping, but to the party?’
Andie rolls her eyes.
‘Oh, go on then,’ she says.
19
Ryan
The next time I go running, I head out past the school. It’s not as satisfying to lope past the gates now that the place is shut up for summer, but I stifle a smile as I turn along the street to Miss Smith’s place, Rocket at my side.
As I enter through the broken gate, I can see that last week’s work is looking good. Rocket has a quick explore and then settles on the grass in a patch of sun. It’s very long grass, almost knee high and full of weeds. Rocket looks like he is in a jungle, and I find myself wondering if I can borrow a strimmer to get it cut, because that would make the whole garden about a million times neater.
Then there’s the pond, which is a project in itself. I notice Miss Smith standing at the window, her hand raised shakily against the glass, and I wave back, grinning.
Broken Heart Club Page 7
