Unspeakable

by Abbie Rushton

  Luke’s got basketball tonight so he won’t be catching the bus. I still sit in the aisle seat because it’s my seat. It wouldn’t feel right to sit in the window seat.

  I watch everyone file on. Lindsay has tied her shirt in a knot above her belly button. The bra is turquoise today, even though everyone knows that the head, Mr Finnigan, has had words.

  Josh, who is sporting a black eye from a football match, barges past Callum, grunting, ‘Out of the way, gay-boy.’ He’s about twice the size of Callum, who silently steps aside, a slight flush to his cheeks. My stomach squeezes. I almost shift across so he can sit next to me, but he quickly finds somewhere else.

  Sadie and the new girl are amongst the last to get on. A kid loiters in the aisle, chatting to his friend about some collectible card he wants to swap. He’s oblivious to the fact he’s in Queen Sadie’s way. She huffs, then snaps, ‘For God’s sake!’ and shoves him in the back. The kid lurches forward and ends up sprawled across his friend’s lap with his feet poking comically off the end of the seat.

  The new girl’s jaw drops. She’s standing behind Sadie and shoots her a disgusted look. Then she glances round. Unusually for me, I’m slow off the mark and she catches my eye, throwing me a look that says, ‘Can you believe she just did that?’

  I freeze, floundering in her gaze. I wish I could raise my eyes as if to say, That’s nothing. That’s tame for her.

  Don’t you dare!

  I whip back and stare at the seat in front, heart pulsing a wild beat.

  Further towards the back of the bus, Sadie is yelling at one of the boringly average girls. ‘Move, Smelly Ellie. Jasmine doesn’t want to share a seat with you. You might contaminate her.’

  Jasmine. The new girl’s name. Grandpa used to grow jasmine. I close my eyes and can almost smell it drifting through the bus door. I imagine him pottering in his garden on a summer afternoon, coming in late to dinner and being gently nagged by Gran about his dirty hands. I remember those hands so clearly: the tiny crescents of soil nestled beneath his nails, the lines of dirt that wound through the creases of his palms.

  My eyes snap open when I realise Jasmine is talking. Her voice is deep and smooth as honey, the edges of her words neat and rounded. Her English is good, but by the way she pronounces some things, I’d guess she wasn’t brought up in the UK, or that she speaks more than one language. ‘It’s fine, Sadie, really,’ she’s saying. ‘I’ll just sit somewhere else.’

  ‘No, you won’t,’ Sadie snaps, unwilling to relinquish her prize. ‘Move your fat arse, Ellie.’

  Ellie scowls and mutters something about being there first, but gathers her things and starts to shift.

  Jasmine casts an apologetic look in Ellie’s direction. ‘It’s honestly fine.’

  Sadie’s eyes bulge as she hisses, ‘If you want to hang around with us, you need to sit with us. Got it?’

  Jasmine’s response is amazing. Just stunning. Without blinking, she says, ‘Got it,’ and turns away from Sadie to look for another seat.

  If this were a film, there would be a collective gasp of horror. No one treats Sadie like that. For a few seconds, Sadie can’t seem to find the words. How satisfying. She stares at Jasmine in disbelief, then her eyes narrow until they’re nothing but two seething slits.

  ‘Fine,’ she yells. ‘Go and sit where you belong: with the rest of the losers.’ Her tone is scathing, but even the heavy layer of make-up can’t conceal the blush spreading over her skin. Sadie’s embarrassed. And she’ll make Jasmine pay for that.

  CHAPTER SIX

  ‘Scooch over, will you?’ Jasmine says as she stands beside my seat. I jump. I actually jump. How embarrassing. I fumble with my bag and coat, then shuffle across to the window seat. Jasmine drops down beside me. I get a waft of something sweet and smoky – incense, perhaps.

  ‘I’m supposed to be keeping my head down and not getting into trouble, but she’s definitely trouble, right? What a nutter!’

  Damn right, I reply in my head. But my mouth says nothing.

  This doesn’t seem to bother Jasmine, who launches into a blow-by-blow account of her first day. Barely stopping to breathe, she tells me how she almost ended up in the boys’ changing room when she was looking for the IT suite (‘I was lost – honest!’), that she made her whole History class crack up when she accidentally called Ms Dilby ‘Sir’ (an easy mistake to make), and how the vegetarian lasagne here is much better than the ‘minging’ stuff they served at her old school.

  As Jasmine talks, I stare out of the window. I know it’s rude. I hate it. I just can’t help it. She must think I’m bored. But I’m not – I’m captivated. Clinging to each of her words like they’re monkey bars and I’m leaping from one to the next, terrified that she’ll just stop and leave me dangling. There’s a brief pause, and I hold my breath, but Jasmine just takes a sip of water and continues.

  ‘My mum’s Cypriot but my dad’s English so I grew up over there but we moved to Portsmouth last summer because Dad lost his job. Isn’t the New Forest ace? Mum and I went for a walk at the weekend and it’s gorgeous. Anyway, Mum’s got this admin job in a solicitor’s in Ringwood. She says it’s really dull, but we need the money because Dad hasn’t had a permanent job in, like, eight months. He used to be a sales manager in Cyprus but he’s really struggled to find anything out here.’

  There’s a two-second silence, then: ‘You don’t talk much, do you?’

  My eyes remain locked on the hedgerow whizzing past outside. I shake my head.

  ‘I mean, I know I talk a lot but you don’t seem to talk at all.’

  I fight to swallow the lump in my throat, try to stop my nails from piercing the soft skin of my palm. I nod, bracing myself for the inevitable. She’ll either find an excuse to move seats, or ask one of the usual stupid questions, like: ‘Why don’t you speak?’, ‘Can you just say one word to me?’, or, my personal favourite, ‘If you had to speak or eat puke, which would you do?’

  But Jasmine just smiles and carries on. ‘My sister Lily started at the primary school today. I hope she’s been OK. She’s quite shy. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking: Jasmine and Lily. My mum has a thing for flowers. Well, you’d be kind of right. She has more of a thing for smells. It sounds strange, but you’ll know what I mean when you come round. You will come round some time this week, won’t you?’

  What? She doesn’t even know me!

  Jasmine spots my surprise and her face drops. ‘Sorry. I’m being too full-on. I do that.’ There’s a pause. Jasmine nibbles on her lower lip. Then she suddenly says, ‘It’s just … the thing is … I think it’s cool that you don’t hang around with Sadie the sadist. What’s your name?’

  I stare at her helplessly. My name. I can’t even answer a simple question!

  Jasmine doesn’t wait for me to find something to write on, but leans over the back of our seat. ‘Hey,’ she calls out, ‘what’s this girl’s name?’

  I blush and wriggle down, willing my body to liquefy into a puddle on the floor. A head pops up behind me.

  Niall Lewis grunts, ‘I dunno.’

  He doesn’t know? He’s been sitting on the same bus as me for years! Am I invisible?

  His mate, Andy, pipes up with, ‘That’s Megan Thomas. She’s the one who doesn’t speak.’

  Jasmine twists to face me. ‘Nice to meet you, Megan-who-doesn’t-speak.’ She grabs my hand and gives it a firm, business-like shake. Her skin is soft and smooth and cool.

  Andy’s head pops round the side of our seat. ‘How come you moved schools just before exams?’ he asks Jasmine. ‘You get excluded from your last place?’

  Jasmine looks away. ‘No, I just … Well, I … It doesn’t matter.’

  Andy gives her a long look and is about to say something else when Niall distracts him with a video on his phone of a camel farting. As Jasmine looks at me, I quickly wipe any trace of curiosity from my face. There must be a reason for her changing schools just before GCSEs, but she obviously doesn’t want to talk about it
.

  Jasmine begins to describe the weird stuff they found in the loft when they moved in. I shoot little glances at her. She’s curvy without being overweight, pretty without being knockout gorgeous. Her eyes are wide and she has very dark lashes. Delicate laughter lines frame her lips.

  Jasmine easily fills the rest of the journey with chatter. By the time the bus stops at Brookby, I’m breathless, dizzy, and completely dazzled.

  Jasmine lives in Willingham Road. Scrater’s is on the way so we walk home together, her voice burbling and gushing like a river. She sometimes slows down or speeds up, stumbles over things, changes course. I’m just happy to be caught up in it all, bobbing along with her, trying to keep my head above the current.

  We turn a corner and almost collide with someone on a bike. Owen Morris – seventeen, recently in trouble with the police, and my next-door neighbour – swears, executes a quick turn, and eyes us angrily. ‘Watch it!’ he says.

  But his expression changes when he notices Jasmine. He gives her a sleazy smile. ‘Haven’t seen you before. You new?’

  ‘Yes,’ Jasmine replies.

  We carry on walking. Uninvited, Owen rides beside us. His blond hair is gelled into neat little spikes and he has these intense blue eyes that are so clear you’d never think he’d do anything wrong. He’s ripped, too. I can see the shape of a six-pack through his tight T-shirt, which stretches over his sculpted upper arms. Half the girls in the village fancy him. Owen doesn’t do much for me, but then he is one of Sadie’s cast-offs.

  ‘Where you from?’ he asks Jasmine.

  ‘Cyprus, originally. We moved to England last summer.’

  He thinks for a moment. ‘Cyprus. Is that like Greece?’

  Jasmine smiles. I can tell he’s blown away by her. ‘Sort of. It’s not far from Greece.’

  Another boy whistles past on a battered bike, his shirt billowing in the wind.

  Owen’s face darkens. ‘Oi!’ he bellows. ‘You owe me a tenner!’

  The other boy slows, but doesn’t stop. ‘What for?’

  ‘Them fags I bought you the other day.’

  The boy is almost at the end of the road now. ‘You smoked half of ’em!’

  ‘All right, you owe me a fiver then.’

  But the boy is already gone. Owen snorts and crams a cigarette in his mouth, never taking his eyes from Jasmine. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Jasmine,’ she replies with a shy smile, her cheeks glowing.

  I shoot her a horrified look. Please don’t tell me she’s fallen for the bad boy thing!

  ‘See you around, Jasmine.’

  I hate the way he says her name, like he’s tasting it.

  Owen takes off, making sure he leaves an impression by doing a wheelie. Jasmine says, ‘Well, that was … interesting.’ I can hear the smile in her voice.

  Please don’t go there, Jasmine. Don’t give Sadie another reason to hate you.

  We carry on down Scrater’s. Jasmine starts to describe an argument she had with her mum over school shoes, but I have to cut her short when we reach my house.

  There’s an awkward silence. I bet she can’t wait to get away. She’s just talked at me for over half an hour and I haven’t responded once.

  Because you have nothing to say!

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Jasmine mumbles. ‘I know I’ve been rabbiting on. I just really want to make new friends. You’ve probably been thinking, For God’s sake, shut up!’

  No. Please don’t ever shut up.

  Jasmine scuffs her shoe against a weed poking out of a cracked pavement slab. ‘Shall I call for you tomorrow? If you don’t want me to, you can let me know. I mean, you can be honest if you just want me to get lost.’

  My eyes widen. I wish Jasmine could see them, but my head is lowered. Is she joking? Is she really asking to be my friend?

  Who’d want to be your friend?

  I flinch, then shake my head to unstick the words. Jasmine thinks I’m saying no. ‘OK. That’s fine. I guess I’ll see you around.’ Her voice is so sad. She’s turning to leave.

  Don’t let her go, idiot! Stop her! I reach out and tap Jasmine on the arm. She looks back and I try to meet her eyes. I get as far as her mouth before my nerve fails. When I nod, her lips curve into a hesitant smile. ‘Is that a yes? You want me to call for you tomorrow?’

  Another nod. She can’t see, but I’m smiling too: a proper, wide smile. It’s been so long, the muscles in my jaw seem to yawn and stretch.

  ‘Cool. Great. See you tomorrow!’

  I’ll see you tomorrow. Wow. I really will see you tomorrow!

  By the next morning, I’ve convinced myself that she’s not going to come. Why would she? Why would someone like her want to spend time with me? She was just being polite. It was sweet of her, but that’s all it was.

  I’m halfway through a bowl of cereal when the doorbell rings. Seconds later, the letter box flies open and a voice dances into my house. ‘Hello?’ it calls. ‘Megan? I didn’t know what time you left so I stopped by early. Hello?’

  Oh my God. My spoon drops, clattering against the side of the bowl. She’s here! She’s really here! My grin is so wide it almost splits my face in two.

  I scramble around, grabbing the sandwiches I’ve just made and ramming them into my bag. I scoop a pile of books from the table and throw them in, probably squashing the sandwiches.

  The bathroom door creaks open and Mum’s footsteps tip-tap across the landing. If she finds out Jasmine’s here, she’ll get all excited and want to meet her. I can’t bear the embarrassment. I sprint out of the kitchen and down the hallway. I open the door just in time to see Jasmine’s retreating back.

  She turns and smiles. ‘Oh, hi. Sorry, I know I’m early. What time do you normally leave?’

  I can’t answer that. ‘Yes’ or ‘no’ questions only, please. I expect her to be mortified by her mistake, but Jasmine just laughs. ‘God, Megan. I completely forgot. Duh! You ready? Shall we make a move?’

  My eyes flit to the clock. Fifty-six minutes and eleven seconds past seven – way too early. I hover in the doorway. Jasmine tilts her head, puzzled. She must think I’m deranged, just standing here like this.

  ‘Megan?’ Mum yells from the top of the stairs. ‘Is someone there? Thought I heard the bell.’

  That’s enough to propel me across the threshold, slamming the door behind me.

  As we walk, I run my fingers along the splintery slats of our fence, slowing my breathing as I concentrate on their familiar shape.

  Not long after we’ve passed the Morris residence, someone opens an upstairs window and wolf-whistles. Jasmine spins round, blushing and giggling. Something falls from her pocket: a piece of lined notepaper with her name on it. I touch her arm and hand it back. Jasmine’s smile evaporates. ‘Thanks,’ she says, crumpling it up and muttering something about moving here to get away from all this crap.

  I frown, but don’t push any further. I couldn’t, even if I wanted to. It’s not like I can just open my mouth and ask her.

  You’ll say nothing.

  ‘Oh, I didn’t tell you, Mum’s going to enrol me on a Drama course over the summer. How cool is that? I’ll be performing in the West End before you know it! I can’t wait to go to the theatre. There aren’t many in Cyprus. There’s no West End. But there’s nothing like the West End anywhere. I suppose there’s Broadway in New York. One day I’m going to go there.’

  She stops suddenly, right next to a cut-through we call Dog Poo Alley. ‘Is this a short cut to the bus stop?’

  I pause for a moment, before nodding. I never go down there. It’s disgusting.

  ‘C’mon then. We might as well.’

  I don’t move.

  Jasmine smiles and grabs my hand. I stare for a moment, mesmerised by the way her tanned fingers interweave with mine, so pale in comparison. She does it as if it’s the most natural thing in the world, as if we’ve been friends for years. I don’t want her to let go, so I follow.

  About halfway down th
e alley, Jasmine stops. Someone has crudely sprayed the words, ‘JASMIN IS WELL FIT’ across the fence. Like the dogs who mark their territory along the alley, Owen Morris is telling others that Jasmine is his.

  Jasmine is silent for a moment, then she says, ‘I actually think that’s pretty cool.’

  I don’t. It’s creepy.

  How can I warn her away from Owen? If it hadn’t been for him and his stupid … A memory almost surfaces, but I push it down. Not now. I can’t think about that now, or I’ll lose it in front of Jasmine. And that can never happen.

  Sadie’s waiting for us at the bus stop. ‘You,’ she jabs a manicured finger at Jasmine, ‘have made a very bad choice.’ She looks me up and down. ‘Her? Seriously?’

  Jasmine’s about to reply when the bus thunders up. We stand back to let everyone pass.

  ‘What a bitch!’ Jasmine’s arms are locked by her sides, hands clenched so tightly her fingers are going red. ‘Who does she think she is, talking about you like that? I’m going to …’ She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath. ‘I’m going to do absolutely nothing,’ she says quietly, almost to herself, ‘because I need to focus on my exams.’

  Luke is looking out for me on the bus with a hopeful expression on his face. I give him an apologetic wave and point to Jasmine’s back. His smile fades, though he shrugs, as if it’s all fine.

  I slip into the seat next to Jasmine, feeling a bit unnerved about the new location two rows closer to the back. She shoots me an approving look. ‘He’s nice-looking.’

  Is he?

  ‘Yeah. Come on, Megan, you can’t tell me you haven’t noticed!’

  Why haven’t I noticed?

  ‘Do you want to go and sit with him? I don’t mind.’

  I shake my head.

  ‘He looked gutted when you walked past. I don’t want to steal you away.’

  I shake my head again.

  Jasmine springs out of her chair. ‘Let’s go and sit over there.’ She points to the seat across the aisle from Luke. ‘I want to ask him about some revision.’