Lucky Star

by Cathy Cassidy

  ‘Remember how the lion king tells Simba he’ll always be there with him?’ she says. ‘In the stars? Well, that’s kind of like what I believe too. That people who are special to you are always with you, even when you can’t see them any more. Like when someone’s dead …’

  ‘… or gone away,’ I finish for her.

  Cat is silent for a moment, sniffing a little in the darkness. ‘What I’m saying is, they never really leave you,’ she says softly. ‘They live on inside you, no matter what. You can forget the names those old astronomers gave to the stars, call them whatever you want … names that mean something to you.’

  ‘So I could call the Dog Star Lucky, not Sirius,’ I say.

  ‘That’s right. Each one of us can have our own unique star map, our own constellations and star names. That way, we’re never alone.’

  She looks so sad, so lost, that for a moment I want to hold her hands and tell her that she’ll never be alone, because she has me now. I just don’t know if that’s enough. Her green eyes are misty, and she wipes a hand across them, impatiently. ‘Stupid face paint,’ she says, smiling. ‘Gets in your eyes.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  I move up beside her so that my arm can curl right round her, and she turns her head so that her cheek rests against my fringe. ‘I wish I could grab you a bunch of real stars, Mouse. I would if I could.’

  Then we’re kissing, and I feel like I’m floating, way, way up in the night sky, a hunter called Orion with a belt made of stars and a dog at my heels. I could be anywhere, nowhere, and then suddenly I come hurtling back down to earth with a bang. Cat’s fingers trace along the line of my jaw, creeping higher.

  I grab her wrist and hold her still. ‘No,’ I whisper.

  My heart thuds. I’m not sure that Cat is ready to handle this: my secret, the darkest memory of all.

  ‘What is it with this fringe?’ she says, huffily. She pulls free of my grip and strokes my hair softly, blowing against it with warm, sweet breath. I close my eyes and wait, my heart thumping, and sure enough her fingers push up through my fringe, raking it back from my face. I feel her stop, I feel her freeze, and suddenly my chest is so tight I can barely breathe.

  ‘Oh, Mouse,’ she says.

  Her fingers touch my cheekbone, my temple, my ear, the stretched, puckered skin that nobody ever sees. She doesn’t flinch. It’s like the flutter of a bird’s wings, a butterfly kiss.

  ‘What happened?’ she asks.

  I shake my head, but Cat just rests her mouth against the ruined skin and her fingers slide down my face as the hair drops back down to hide the scars. After a while, I can breathe again, and finally I tell her about how it all happened, how that summer ended, long ago when I was seven.

  Dad went off to India, leaving me behind with an ache where my heart had been. Was I so unlovable? Finn and Dizzy didn’t think so. They believed in me, and in return I idolized them.

  The nightmare is still fresh – it always will be. Finn’s birthday, a bonfire party, my plan for a dramatic leap over the flames. I wanted to show him I could do it, and instead I wrecked his birthday, his life. When the branch caught in the wheel of the BMX, I fell down into the fire, and Finn ran into the flames to rescue me, getting burnt himself in the process.

  I’ll never forgive myself for that.

  We stayed together in the hospital for weeks afterward, Finn racing about the corridors in a wheelchair because his feet were burnt and bound up with cling-film stuff to help them heal. My burns took longer to fix. I’d been wearing a T-shirt and my arms, shoulder and neck were burnt, but the worst damage was on the right side of my face, my cheek, my temple, my ear.

  Nobody could see the hurt inside, but the scars on my face were clear enough. Luck? That’s when I stopped believing in it, end of story.

  I looked in the mirror six weeks after the accident and I saw the ridged skin, dark and angry as if it was burning still. When I was eleven they did some skin grafts – Fitz and Chan called me Frankenstein for a while, which was probably designed to toughen me up. It did, a bit.

  ‘There was me thinking you were dead vain because you wouldn’t let me mess with your fringe,’ Cat says.

  ‘Yeah, right,’ I tell her. ‘I was probably the first emo kid in London. I’ve had the fringe since I was eight years old, and I’ll still have it when I’m eighty.’

  ‘I like the fringe,’ Cat says. ‘But you don’t have to hide stuff from me.’

  I frown, because I’m pretty sure that Cat’s hiding something too. Her faraway eyes, the tears that have nothing to do with hay fever or face paint. How much do I really know about her? Not a whole lot.

  ‘I told you my secret,’ I say. ‘How about yours? You told me everyone has their bad memories, secrets hidden away. So tell me.’

  Cat laughs. ‘I don’t have a secret,’ she says.

  ‘No?’

  ‘No. Nothing dark and tragic, anyway. Maybe I said that, but …’

  ‘Cat, tell me,’ I say. ‘It helps to share things, I promise.’ This is something I’m only just starting to realize, but all the same, I know it’s true. Bringing those bad memories out of the dark takes away their power to hurt you somehow.

  Cat sighs and huffs and hugs her knees, silent for a long moment. Then, when I think there’s no way she’ll ever open up, her sad green eyes lock on to mine.

  ‘I have a brother,’ she says at last. ‘Josh. He’s – ten years old. And he’s been ill, very ill, for a long time. But – well, he’s better now, and he’ll be coming home really, really soon.’

  I open my eyes wide. ‘Cat,’ I say, honestly shocked. ‘I didn’t even know you had a brother. What’s wrong with him? How long has he been ill?’

  She just shakes her head, as if she can’t trust herself to speak. ‘Ages. Years, really. I don’t want to talk about it – I just wanted you to know, OK?’

  I put an arm round her shoulders, stroke her hair. ‘It’s not fair, Mouse,’ she whispers. ‘He’s just a little kid. Kids aren’t meant to get sick.’

  ‘No, they’re not,’ I say. ‘They’re really not.’ We sit for a while in silence. It feels like Cat has handed me something special, worth more than stolen chocolates or glow-in-the-dark stars. She’s given me a piece of herself. She’s not just a beautiful, daring, posh girl any more. She’s Cat, acting tough and putting on a brave face when inside she’s hurting for her little brother. She snuffles in the dark, wiping a sleeve across her eyes.

  ‘But it’s all going to be OK now,’ she says brightly. ‘Like I said, Josh will be home soon, and we can be a family again. Sorted!’

  ‘I hope so,’ I say.

  Cat jumps up suddenly, picking up the hot chocolate mugs. ‘It’s getting late,’ she says, suddenly anxious. ‘I don’t want Mum and Dad to find you here.’

  ‘I’ll say I was helping you with your homework,’ I grin.

  ‘No, no, you’d best just go. Seriously.’ We pad down the stairs together, and suddenly Cat grabs hold of my belt and untucks the forgotten devil’s tail, holding it up. ‘Sure you’re not a bad influence?’ she asks.

  ‘Certain,’ I tell her. ‘That’d be you.’

  We hug in the hallway while Lucky sniffs around at our feet.

  ‘Thanks for telling me your secrets,’ she whispers. ‘And thanks for listening to mine. It helps, y’know?’

  ‘I know,’ I say. ‘It can’t be easy for you, but you know I’ll always listen, if you want to talk. Thanks for telling me about the star maps too. You’re up there, on my star map. OK?’

  Cat laughs. ‘What am I, a fleck of light from a faraway galaxy?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  I can’t tell her the truth, can I? I can’t tell her that in my sky, she’s the brightest star.

  Going back to school after an exclusion was never going to be easy, but at least the October break has given people other stuff to think about. Most people, that is.

  ‘You’re a hero,’ Fitz tells m
e as we slouch into school. ‘A legend. They’ll be talking about your graffiti hit for years to come, man.’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ Chan says. ‘The spelling, the paint on your fingers, the mouse tag in the corner … crazy.’

  ‘Thanks, Chan,’ I tell him. ‘Don’t hold back now. Tell it like it is.’

  Chan shrugs. ‘Just saying.’

  The long wall where I painted my graffiti masterpiece has been repainted in flat grey paint, as if it never existed at all, but I had my moment of glory. I saw the kids’ faces as they clocked the explosion of colour, the swirls of pattern, the wild, wonderful, glad-to-be-alive graffiti. I smile just thinking about it, my heart singing inside of me. Mr Brown ambushes me as I slope along the corridor. He hauls me into his office and sits down behind a shiny wooden desk the size of a pool table.

  ‘Those are not school trousers,’ he growls, eyeing my skinny black jeans.

  ‘They’re my school trousers, Sir,’ I reply politely.

  Mr Brown sighs. ‘Kavanagh,’ he barks. ‘I’d like to believe that you’re sorry for the senseless destruction you caused to this school last term. Your letter led me to believe that you were ready to turn over a new leaf. Is that correct?’

  Hmmm. I have a feeling it might take more than a new leaf – more like a whole tree. ‘Yes, Sir,’ I say.

  ‘Good, good,’ he says. ‘You may not believe this, Kavanagh, but I’m on your side. I want to make Green Vale a better school, a place where teachers and students work together to achieve the very best they can … I can’t do that without your help.’

  I smile and nod and pretend I have a clue what he’s talking about.

  ‘I’ll be expecting a good report from your teachers on behaviour, attitude and effort,’ he goes on. ‘You haven’t had the best of starts in life, Kavanagh, but don’t throw your future away on vandalism and stupidity. Make something of yourself. Show us what you’re made of.’

  I look at my fingers, spreading them wide. Skin, bone and blood, or stardust?

  ‘You’ve been given a fresh start – I hope you realize just how lucky you are. Well?’ he concludes, narrowing his eyes. ‘Is there anything you’ve been thinking about? Anything you’d like to say to me, in the light of all that’s happened?’

  I feel like a rabbit caught in the headlights. There are lots of things I’d like to say to Mr Brown – I’m just not sure he’s ready to hear them.

  ‘Kavanagh?’ he prompts.

  ‘OK,’ I say brightly. ‘About the wall by the gym …’

  ‘Yes, yes?’

  ‘I think you were wrong, that’s all. That wall needs some colour. This school needs some colour, and that really shouldn’t be a crime. Sir.’

  Mr Brown’s face turns a startling shade of pink, and his eyes look as though they may pop out of his head. He runs a finger around his collar, as if it’s choking him, and his mouth opens and closes, a bit like a goldfish. I can tell he is not impressed by my speech. Slowly, it dawns on me that he wasn’t asking for my views and opinions at all. He was waiting for another apology, or for me to thank him for his lenient approach. Oops.

  ‘Well, Sir,’ I say, briskly. ‘I’d better be going. Don’t want to be late for class!’

  New leaf? Yeah, right.

  Once again, school swallows up my life. It’s just the same – sour-faced teachers, grey, crumbling classrooms, stodgy school dinners that lie in your belly like cold gruel.

  Then something weird happens. In art, Mr Lewis shows me a vast six foot canvas at the back of the classroom, behind the partition where the art books are. The rest of the class are drawing a still life of dusty wine bottles, in between hurling paper planes about and discussing last night’s Eastenders.

  ‘It’s for you,’ Mr Lewis says. ‘You like working large, don’t you? Let’s see what you can do with this.’

  I frown. ‘Why?’ I ask.

  ‘Not my idea,’ he grunts. ‘Mr Brown thinks you’ve got something to say, and he wants to see what it is. Brushes and paint, mind, none of that aerosol rubbish.’ He stalks away.

  I look at the paints and brushes arranged by the sink, then at the big, blank canvas. I don’t want to paint on a bright, white background. I am used to peeling bus shelters, pitted brickwork, bleak grey concrete. Mr Brown is wrong. Without those things, I have nothing to say.

  There’s an old armchair in the book corner, and I sink into it, out of sight behind the shelves. I take a bite of Mars bar and open a book on Van Gogh. I don’t read much, but the pictures in this book tell their own story. They’re all about colour, about being alive. I read a caption that says Van Gogh sold just one painting during his lifetime. He gave another to a friend, who used it to patch up a hole in his chicken shed.

  Maybe it’s not so weird for artists to be misunderstood.

  Mr Lewis peers round the partition to see what I’ve done, and looks smugly satisfied that I’m eating chocolate with my feet up on the bookshelf. ‘Hmphh,’ he says.

  Next art lesson, I drag the armchair round so that it sits in front of the big, white canvas. I stare at it all lesson, while the others draw wine bottles, wondering if I have anything to say, and if so, how to say it.

  In the third art lesson, I start to draw. I draw a boy, as tall as I am, with a sad face and a Green Vale uniform and a small pirate dog at his heels. Mr Lewis appears and tells me that the legs are too long and the hands are too small. He drags a full-length mirror over from the corner and props it against the bookshelf, and I look and check and fix things up.

  Then I start painting, and that takes weeks. I mix black and white acrylic to make a hundred shades of grey, and paint grey skin, grey lips, grey hair, grey clothes with grey folds and creases. Everything is dull and monochrome, like a black-and-white photo in a long-ago album. It takes a whole lesson just to paint one hand, to get the light and shadows just right, to make it look real.

  ‘Interesting,’ Mr Lewis says.

  When I start on the background, a clashing, crashing explosion of rainbow colour that drips and smudges and splatters over the black-and-white boy, Mr Lewis smiles. I’ve never seen him do that before. Ever.

  Fitz and Chan come up to the art room one lunchtime to check out the painting.

  ‘Spooky,’ Fitz says. ‘But good, man.’

  ‘You think?’

  ‘You’ve let all that red drip on to the figure,’ Chan points out. ‘And what about all those splodges and splatters?’

  ‘It’s meant to be like that,’ I say. ‘Can’t you tell?’

  Chan pulls a face. ‘I’m not really the arty type,’ he says.

  ‘I didn’t think I was,’ I admit. ‘Not like this, anyhow. But I want to do another one now – a colour figure with grey all around it, and broken glass and barbed wire and stuff.’ As I talk, I wonder if I can actually stick those things on to the painting, like a collage. Maybe graffiti art isn’t the only way to say stuff, after all?

  ‘You’ve gone all highbrow,’ Fitz says, thoughtfully. ‘It’s Cat’s influence. Has to be.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I say.

  ‘Still don’t know what she sees in you,’ Fitz says. ‘Pretty, posh girls don’t usually go for dates involving chip shops and dog-walking. Posh girls like class. You know – picnics, music, champagne, fireworks. I’ve seen it on the telly.’

  ‘Yeah?’ I grin. ‘Last week you were telling me to treat her mean to keep her keen.’

  ‘Well, yeah,’ Fitz admits. ‘You have to find a balance between the two.’

  ‘Cat’s different,’ I say. ‘She doesn’t care about that stuff.’

  She’s too busy worrying about Josh, for starters. He still isn’t home, and every time I ask about him she changes the subject. I have a feeling that maybe things aren’t going quite as well as she thinks.

  At least things are quiet on the Eden Estate – Scully hasn’t reappeared and a trial date has been set for January, which means that maybe he really will go down this time. Lucky isn’t missing him, that’s for sur
e – and even Mum has stopped reminding me that Lucky isn’t really our dog. It’s like he’s a part of the family now.

  ‘Romance,’ Fitz announces with a flourish, waving a withered old sunflower from the display on the bookshelf in front of my face. ‘That’s what you need, Mouse, mate. Posh girls like that sort of thing.’

  ‘All girls,’ Chan chips in. He has five sisters, so I guess he’d know. ‘They like moonlight, and flowers, and surprises.’

  Well, Cat likes surprises all right, I know that.

  ‘Where am I going to get picnics, music, champagne, fireworks?’ I ask.

  ‘You’ll think of something. You gotta make an effort,’ Fitz counsels. ‘Or …’

  ‘Or what?’

  ‘You’ll lose her,’ he says.

  So I plan my surprise, and Fitz and Chan roll their eyes and tell me it’s not classy enough, but they agree to help, all the same.

  ‘Wow,’ says Cat. ‘Wow.’

  We are having a picnic on the roof of the only bus shelter on the Eden Estate. A rickety ladder, twined with tinsel, was leaning up against the bus shelter when we arrived, but it’s gone now, so we’ll have to jump back down. I’ve spread a couple of old picnic rugs and some pillows across the corrugated steel and set up Fitz’s ghetto blaster in the corner. Already, Lucky has snuggled down between us, sighing, as if he lounges about on bus-shelter roofs every day.

  ‘When I was a kid, that summer in the country, there was a tree house,’ I tell Cat. ‘It was brilliant – you could lie out at night, watching the stars. There are no trees on the Eden Estate, though, so I got a bit of a thing about bus shelters.’

  ‘You’re crazy,’ Cat laughs.

  ‘You’re not?’

  I rummage around under the picnic rugs and bring out a bunch of red roses, only slightly wilted. Mr Lewis used them as his still life earlier today – I had to pick chewing gum off one of the roses,

  and shake pencil sharpenings out of the others.

  ‘Mouse, they’re lovely!’

  ‘You like it?’ I ask her. ‘All this?’

  ‘I love it. We can see everything … and nobody even knows we’re here!’