by Polly Young
“Proving my point. That not many of you are brave enough to experiment.”
There’s shuffling and snuffling and swearing and yawning and I wait ‘til the hoodies are off and the bags are down and I have fifty eight eyes facing me.
And I take off my coat.
Some people would say it’s not big or clever to shock sixteen year olds into submission, but that’s what I do.
“Wow, Miss.”
It’s Kai and it’s worked. ‘Cos under my trench coat I’m wearing a rainbow.
By that, I mean each one of Miss Mint’s most amazing clothes. The maroon skinny jeans and a burnt yellow vest, with the bronze top and a royal blue silk shirt and an emerald shrug. My boots are the beautiful pale cream calfskin and hanging from my neck’s a pendant, horn-shaped. And I’ve got one of Taff’s medals on a multicoloured ribbon round my neck. And I talk about hope and acceptance. And I write the word rainbow up and we go round the class and you know what? Each kid has something to say.
At the end, when they’re starting to sniff freedom and break, there’s a lot of writing on Alicia’s page. She hangs back and asks me to mark what she’s done. And as I read through, her cape brushes the page.
And I notice its pattern’s blue roses.
* * *
Sixteen seconds after Alicia is gone, Miss Mint’s in my face and my classroom, panting like Tao would after a run.
“It’s Josh ...” she sweats, ‘cos she’s run down from art, and I lock up while trying to unsqueeze my heart that’s gone tight.
“... and your mum.”
The trouble with school is there’s nowhere to hide. Not if you’re year 7, not in year 8; not if you’re sneaking in ‘cos you’ve run late. And not if you want to tell someone something so big it might squash them. Which, by the looks of things, Miss Mint needs to do.
“Let’s just sit down here.”
She slips onto a Mint plastic chair and I drop in across, right in the middle of canteen rush hour.
It’s like there’s a famine, the way kids swarm in and buy chunky chip cookies, and meet at the bin. And gossip and squabble and eat crispy chips, all swigging from smoothies and licking their lips. And I watch Jenny flirting with Jimmy, all coy. I see Erin making a face at a boy in year 8 as he swings his bag into her leg. I want to be part of it. So much I’d beg to swap back and I think now I’d go to the ends of the earth to be Lisi Reynolds. This better be worth it.
There’s a hole in me, just a small one, ‘cos breakfast consisted of one piece of toast, but Miss Mint’s words leap out of my mouth and she starts filling me in.
She’d been rushing to school ‘cos Mum needed to talk. Miss Mint hadn’t seen her last night — late night Thursday, you see, she says like I don’t know — so they’d woken up early and made omelettes together. My hole gets a little bit bigger.
“Together?”
She nods.
“And you ate it?”
She snaps off the head of a plastic drinks stirrer and says nothing. ‘Cos she knows that I know she can’t lie. But that’s not the point. She says,
“Your mum’s in debt.”
And it’s not like it’s news, ‘cos I knew this before. But I still flinch and swallow and look at the floor.
“But that’s not the point,” she says sharply. “We’ll come to that later.”
So then she’s all, “tights snagged,” and “bus late,” and “Rach texted” and although she’s obviously building suspense or whatever, I say,
“Just get on with it, please.” ‘Cos I know what I’m like when I waffle.
She looks a bit boot-faced but laces her hands and says, “’kay.” Which the real Miss Mint never would.
“So on my way in, I saw Josh’s parka lying on the ground near the gate.”
“Which gate?” I say, ‘cos there’s two. It’s the one to the field, where year 11s have
Kickabouts.
“Right,” I say. “Go on.”
“So I pick it up but can’t see him. He doesn’t play football, I mean I don’t think he does, and I put the note in the front pocket. And I’m looking around but all I can see is ...” she pauses.
“Go on.”
“Kai ..”
I blink twice. She means all she can look at is Kai ...
“... and the others.”
What with wanting to know about Mum and now Kai, with nine minutes left ‘til year 9’s sugar high, it’s all quite intense.
“And was Felix there?”
“No.”
And she scans the canteen like we’re being overheard and Alicia Payne smiles at me. This is absurd.
“He was with Josh.”
She leans forward. I steel myself.
“They were ...”
I knew it and I tell her to stop, ‘cos I know what comes next. It’s that Felix got Josh, he cornered him, check-mate. And I shut my eyes, ‘cos I don’t want to think. I just hope it’s not too bad, that’ Josh’s ok; not all battered and bruised. ‘Cos Felix’s been evil, he’s scum, they’ve been ...
“ ... kissing.”
* * *
Right after that, Olly comes bowling along; a suppurating sphere of teenage flesh. He parks himself down next to me and starts tapping a can.
“Get out of her face, Olly,” Miss Mint says, as Coke spurts over my skirt. And I silently clap her, ‘cos that’s what I would have said if I was Lisi Reynolds.
* * *
After a day of being a rainbow, I’m ready to fade out at four. I’m packing and cleaning and wiping the board off and then there’s a knock at the door. Miss Mint.
“I’m off now, unless you want to go somewhere to talk.” And even though by now I’m massively tired, I say yes and we start to walk.
“I’ve always thought Josh liked Kai,” are my first words as we stroll down past maths, and she looks at me like I’m crazy or something.
Her hair, my hair’s not Mint any more.
“How can you think that? It’s obviously always been Felix,” she says, like she’s telling me one plus one. “Rach thought it too.” She’s not being Miss Mint any more.
“So, your Mum.”
We’re caught in the midst of year 7 locker rage: home time on Friday means high-pitched, loud squeals and hair toggle wobble; Mint and white dominos: one push from year 10 and they’re down. Joe Brannigan runs away, laughing and I turn all the toppled kids, lying on their backs like giant crabs, right side up.
“She’s been buying for Britain.”
“What do you mean?”
Miss Mint makes me nervous. The power she has at the mo feels immense: Josh’s my friend, but she knows more than me. Rach is my friend: she and Phoebs are cliquey. Kai’s not my boyfriend, but are he and she ..? And what will she say about Mum?
“We sat down this morning and went through some French.”
“The pluperfect?”
She looks blank. “I don’t know that yet, no.”
That’s something, I s’pose.
She says they did tenses though; past, present, future.
Conditional.
Most of the time, I don’t help Mum out. It sounds like Miss Mint spent, like, ages this morning but she gets up well early. So does Mum. Maybe she’s better off as me, I think, feeling my starting-to-heal stomach stretch.
“Your mum’s got a problem.”
I think, but she’s yours now.
Turns out Mum’s spent all her money on things for the house. She showed Miss Mint cross-stitched wall hangings and Miss Mint went mad.
“How come?”
“They were awful.”
Mum does have a knack for tack. Bric-a-brac fills our lounge.
Though Miss Mint would say ‘sitting room.’
“So I told her the sitting room’s full of detritus ...”
Where I would say ‘crap.’
“ ... and she cried.”
I can see Mum there, standing with hair in her face and her nightshirt all creased and her French text book next to a parcel o
f tat.
“She doesn’t even sew; she can’t even ...” Miss Mint stops, looking puzzled and cross, “ ... stitch.”
But she can. Oh, mum can. She sewed up the ulcers of students in uni, she told me. She sewed all our curtains without Dad or money. When she was happy, she sewed Em and me Christmas dresses. And I want to hit Phoebe. I want to hit her so hard she tumbles and tears my school skirt on a locker. But then Mum would have to sew it up.
We pause at the stairwell ‘cos Mr Morlis comes out of his room as we pass.
“Ah, my girls,” he cries, tugging on his ski jacket. “Nothing to report?”
He means pain, like a doctor would ask.
Miss Mint shakes her head. “No, and this is fifth night.” And he says,
“Great. OK. So what I’ve discovered is rather obscure. I’ve read, calculated and I’m pretty sure that if you’re both honest, your lives will, in time be harmonious; rhythmic. They may even rhyme to be honest, if things turn out just as they should. So here’s hoping, eh, girls? Be great if they could.”
I don’t know what he’s talking about, sounds like crap to me, like some rubbish horoscope and Miss Mint looks sceptical too, like Mr Morlis is insane, but maybe she’s just thinking, hmm. ‘Rhythmic’. A word with nearly no vowels. Actually, she looks like she wants to be somewhere else — keeps gazing off, down the stairs — and I wonder where and then I know in a flash ‘cos of her look at break, she’s going to find Kai. We wave ‘bye to Mr Morlis and I’m watching her back as she leaves me as well, thinking Josh, Mum, Kai, they’re all part of my life but they’re not in my life ‘cos she’s moved them all on in what seems like a legendary way.
And I’m not certain I could have done it.
* * *
So I’m thinking of ways to avoid cleaning up and Miss Mint with Kai and Josh with Felix and Taff coming back when the pain starts. It’s bad. Stabbing through soft layers of merino Gap roll neck, it burns through my camisole, rips at my bra and plunges into my chest. Posy supports me as I lie in her arms, yelling.
Then it stops.
Then it continues again, tumble-drying my heart. I reach for the phone.
“Where are you?”
She can hear me, I know. I can hear him; his low voice says, “shall I get popcorn?”
It’s Kai. With Miss Mint.
“Can’t talk,” she sounds strained.
“Does Mum know you’re out?” She stays quiet. Then,
“Yes.” But she has to be lying, ‘cos the pain in my chest’s getting worse.
“Have to go.”
“Well, don’t eat all the popcorn,” I snarl, ‘cos not bringing up what I know to be true is practically killing me.
Chapter 14: Saturday, sixth night
I wake up and Miss Mint’s texted angrily, saying my period’s like being hugged by an elephant and I think maybe the date went mouldy ‘cos she was cramping. And I only feel a tiny bit sorry for her. Anyway, today’s lovely and Saturday-ey so everything’s going to be good. ‘Cos I get to see Mum.
Bill Dolphin’s a dentist who cares, Mum says, and she reckons they’re quite an unusual breed. Mum’s relatively new to the practice. I’ve only been three times: a check-up, my whitening tray mould fit and another check-up. I’ve got teeth like tombstones, Mum says.
The air smells amazing: all tingly fresh mint with, like, condoms mixed in, ‘cos I s’pose if you’re flogging teeth hygiene all day, then you’d want to feel sexy.
The blonde girl who takes my name thinks she’s the best. Millions of beanie toys crowd round her desk, like they’re part of her crew and I recognise her from somewhere.
“Miss Mint?”
And I just raise my eyebrows and fiddle with bangles, ‘cos I’m still not sure if it’s lying to say that I am.
“Debbie’s just setting up.”
I sit down; flick through a mag. There’s a feature on looking ten years younger; how rain’s good for the skin, and I think what if they knew whose I’m really in. My mum’s ready now.
And I go up the stairs
And all over my skin
I feel little hairs
Lifting up.
Her back’s hard to turn. I say three things:
Hello
How are you?
Shall I sit?
Then it does. And all the pressed down stuff I’ve had in my head when I’ve wanted to talk to her — mainly in bed — rises up in my throat and my eyes start to throb. But it’s short-lived ‘cos Mum’s really good at her job.
“Any problems?” she says, slipping on gloves that are tough-see-through; grape skin, like membrane. She checks my gums; cool fingers squeezing, easing sore bits. And I realise there are lots.
“You’re quite inflamed.”
“Aye heath hur,” I admit and she nods.
“Not surprised.” She looks grim. “They’re eroding.”
Like geography: cliffs, we’ve done. Beaches. Long shore drift. Groynes. I grin and it hurts. She snaps me back upright and I’m kind of cross, ‘cos I’m used to being told that I just need to floss a bit more. She takes her time before speaking.
“Miss Mint, I won’t do the full clean today. I think it would aggravate what’s already a delicate mouth.”
I think Taff and of my dog, Tao, who had a soft mouth too. And I wonder if she is as well.
“You have acid erosion and we probably both know what from.” She peels off one of the membranes.
I wait to hear more.
“It’s not good,” she says sadly, “ and unlikely to improve ...”
“... if its cause continues.” I say. “Yes, I know.”
We agree with our eyes. There’s relief.
“If you know what to do and you can, then I’m glad.”
And I wish I could understand why she’s so sad.
Mum cleans up while I take in the clinical room she spends half her life in. There’s no bits and bobs, ‘cept a coffee cup she bought for herself in France when we went for my birthday four years ago. Dad saw it and swiped it next day, saying he loved it; he’d ‘buy you another one, Debs.’ And they’d laughed. But he never did, so she took it back when he left, to remember him by.
I miss Dad quite a lot. We speak a fair bit; we Skype and all that, but Sri Lanka’s a long way to go just for tea. So I’m going to visit at Christmas. Mum said, ‘you but not me.’
Oh my god. I’ve just realised. If we don’t switch back, Miss Mint will go, won’t she?
My flight’s the first day of holidays. I’m going for a fortnight, including my birthday. What if we don’t switch our lives back in time? Does that mean Miss Mint gets to go? What if she stays with Dad in his big house that I’ve never seen in Colombo? The thought’s just obscene. But this is sixth night.
And I ache to see Josh. Miss Mint’s wrapped up in Christmas present shopping with Kai, so he might need an ear and who’ll be there? I wonder if he’s read the note yet. He always went quiet if I’d talk about Dad and he’d listen like I wasn’t completely mad. And I’d do the same for him, but I don’t know if she would. Mum’s done.
I pick up my bag but a glint on the windowsill snares me
Dangles me.
Dares me to say, “who’s that girl?”
“It’s my daughter. My youngest.” She smiles, then sighs. “She’s an angel. I love her too much, to be honest, but she lies.”
And I think, no she doesn’t. She used to; not now. But there’s something else in the deep cleft of her brow.
“I’m not sure why,” she laughs. “You might know her, in fact. Lisi Reynolds?”
I say I don’t know about that.
“She’s lovely,” she says, then her face gets all tense, “and I’m terribly worried you might take offence, but your teeth — the erosion — the fact you’re not well; um, the thing that you do that must make your breath smell ...”
She’s embarrassed. It’s cringey. But somehow it’s right. And her eyes get all misty; her fists are clenched tight.
&n
bsp; “I think Lisi’s got it. An eating disorder, I mean.”
And the floor slips away and the walls start to lean
In. “No, she hasn’t,” I say, ‘cos it’s true. But it’s close to a lie, so I’m really confused. ‘Cos to Mum it’s her daughter she’s panicked about. And nothing I say will get rid of her doubt.
So what I do’s this: I’m really relaxed. I go to the sink and I turn on the taps and I say, ‘wash your face, Mrs Reynolds. It’s fine. Lisi Reynolds ... I know her ... she used to be in mine for English. She swapped.” I don’t have to say what. “It depends, you see, on the grade that she got in year 9. The exam set they’re put in.”
She’s wiping her face. She can see she’s crossed boundaries: a time and a place and all that. But she’s grateful.
“She’s mentioned you, yes. I think she said last week she loves how you dress.”
It was two weeks ago, I think; one and a half. So much has happened that I start to laugh helplessly. And she looks shocked, then joins in as well.
“I’m sorry; the last thing you need’s more school hell. How annoying it must be to have people who try to get you to solve all their kids’ problems. Oh my. That nice Mr Morlis, the one with no hair. I’ve told him some things when he’s been in this chair. I’m sorry. Forget I said anything. Really; you must.” I think, Mum if only I thought I could trust in you not to freak out if I told you my name.
But I’m still not sure of the rules of this game.
* * *
Oh Em Gee is what Rach used to say when a fit boy walked by. I’m swinging along past the park and I think it like reflex or something, ‘cos right in the middle’s a man and his dog.
And it’s fit. Not the man, but the dog. ‘Cos the longer I look, the more I realise for me that it’s actually more like Oh Em Dee Oh Gee.
‘Cos the dog’s just like Tao.
When I say that, I only mean looks-wise. He’s dark, and he streaks down the length of the silvery park, with a ball in his mouth. The man spins. The dog barks.
The ball sails
Through the air ...
... like escaping from sharks ...
But the dog clamps its jaws down and runs and pumps; runs and pumps, back to its owner
I decide to go through the park, to watch the dog more. He’s stocky like Tao, with the same nose and paws but I only mean looks-wise; he’s not Tao, of course. ‘Cos my dog was nearly the size of a horse
