Dizzy

by Unknown

  Mouse tries to look defiant, but a huge tear rolls down his grimy cheek. His lip quivers.

  ‘Zak, what chance has he had to learn right from wrong?’ Storm argues. ‘Poor little mite, he never had a hope. We can help him forget the past, learn new ways.’

  ‘How can we help him when he’s never here?’ Zak bursts out. ‘The kid’s half wild, isn’t he? Well, you stay around me from now on, Mouse. You do as you’re told. You eat here, sleep here, help out. Is that clear?’

  Mouse nods, mutely.

  ‘Dizzy, you’ll look out for him, won’t you, babe?’ Storm says. ‘Keep him right, check he’s in at night, keep him out of trouble? Keep him out of our hair?’

  I swallow. This sounds like a full-time job, with overtime.

  ‘Well, you might as well do something to earn your keep,’ Zak snarls. ‘What are we, a bloody orphanage? A holiday camp?’

  I freeze. Zak glowers at me, and suddenly I suss that as far as he’s concerned, I’m about as welcome here as an outbreak of the plague.

  ‘Zak, honey,’ Storm says sweetly, stroking his cheek, his hair. ‘Dizzy’s a good girl. She’ll keep an eye on Mouse. And I can claim money for looking after her. We’ll be one big, happy family.’

  Zak laughs out loud, but there’s no warmth in his laugh. I decide that I don’t like him, not one little bit.

  ‘It’s not for long,’ I say in a small voice. ‘Dad’s coming next week, isn’t he? I could always ring him now and explain…’

  ‘Nah, don’t bother,’ Zak says coldly. ‘He’ll come and get you, won’t he? Or maybe he’ll join the big, happy family, too. The more the merrier, eh, Storm?’

  Mouse edges closer to me. He’s still scowling, his brow knotted, but he slips his hand into mine. It feels small and light, like you could snap the bones with a single squeeze.

  ‘Your dad’ll be here next week or the week after,’ Storm says to me. ‘No need to ring him, worry him. We want you here, don’t we, Zak? We need you here. Don’t run out on us just yet, please, babe?’

  Zak sits down against a bank of velvet cushions, and the anger seems to drain away from him. Storm stays close, smoothing his hair.

  ‘Look, I didn’t mean to shout, Dizzy,’ Zak says. ‘It’s just been a well-stressful day, yeah? Storm’s right, we need you. Just help us get Mouse back on track, OK? Stay another week or two. More if you like. Really.’

  I nod, feeling numb.

  ‘It’s OK,’ Storm says softly. ‘It’s OK. We can be a family.’

  Mouse looks at me, his eyes wide. For the first time since I came here, I begin to understand. He’s like me, Mouse. He never had a family, not a proper one. Not the mum, dad and 2.4 children kind. It’s like we both got given a jigsaw with half the bits missing, and had to make a picture anyway.

  His mum let him down, big-style, just like Storm did me. We may not like each other, Mouse and I. Not yet. But we both know that playing at families is not a game.

  Storm scrapes stale breadcrusts with the last of the peanut butter, and we sit together round the tepee fire and eat. It tastes awful and it’s not even filling, but we’re not about to complain. Zak and Storm sit up smoking and talking, and in the distance I can hear Finn playing the penny whistle and, later, an owl hooting in the darkness.

  When I’m woken by Mouse’s whimpering cries, I know it’s very, very late. I struggle up on to my elbows, peering out across the tepee.

  ‘Not again! Can’t you shut him up?’ Zak growls.

  Leggit barks raggedly, then subsides to a whine.

  ‘For God’s sake!’

  I reach out into the darkness and touch the rough blanket Mouse has rolled around himself. I shake him gently. ‘Mouse, wake up!’ I hiss.

  There’s a long shudder, and the whimpering stops.

  ‘It’s OK,’ I whisper. ‘Just a nightmare.’

  Mouse squirms, crawling closer in the dark. I let my arm fall round him, pulling him near. Leggit snuffles round and curls against his shoulder, her raggedy tail tickling my face.

  Mouse smells of chocolate and peanut butter and fear. Sometimes, in the dark, I hear him sniff. I don’t have to touch his face to know it’s damp with tears.

  Mouse is scared. I know it, I feel it and I understand.

  I’m scared too.

  We spend all day taking down the tent and the tepee, packing stuff away, rolling canvas, carefully lowering the huge larch poles and lashing them on to the roof rack of the patchwork van. The festival field looks sad and scruffy, covered in yellow and brown blotches where tents and tepees once were. There are only a handful of tents left, a few stragglers too lazy or too chilled to pack up and go.

  Storm asks Tess to drive Mouse and Leggit and me to the next festival. Zak’s going to drive the patchwork van at night, so it’ll be less noticeable, less likely to be stopped by police. He ties a huge tie-dye rag on to the jutting larch poles, just to make sure the van definitely qualifies as Weirdest Vehicle in the Entire Universe. If I was a police patrol, I wouldn’t stop it. I’d report it to the FBI as an alien spaceship.

  Everyone hugs, and Storm asks Tess to save them a good space at the Tree People Festival. Tess promises. Then the first big drops of rain start falling, and we sprint for the car. Storm and Zak stand in the car-park field getting soaked to the skin, waving. Then the car judders round a bend in the track and they’re gone.

  The wipers swish across the windscreen and Tess peers out over the road, frowning, scooshing through puddles and swerving to avoid the occasional frog. Finn is in the front seat, fighting with a fold-out map that’s threatening to take over the whole car. Mouse and Leggit and I are squashed in the back, bags and bedding wedged in around us.

  After a while, we stop in a grey, drizzly town to invade the launderette. Tess hauls out bin bags of dirty washing and we pack four machines to bursting point. It’s not just Tess and Finn’s stuff – I spot Zak’s tie-dye shirts, Storm’s stripy trousers, a few mud-caked T-shirts that have to belong to Mouse, and loads of my jeans and tops and undies. Clean clothes!

  Tess winks at me, pours in washing powder, sets the machines and checks her watch. ‘Shopping,’ she says. ‘OK?’

  We find a supermarket and Tess fills a trolley to overflowing, not just bread and rice and cheese and beans, but hot chocolate and fresh pineapple and strawberries and cheesecake and Hi-Juice apple squash. Then we go back to the launderette to drag the washing into the driers.

  I bought a postcard in the supermarket, so I scribble a quick message while we wait.

  Dear Dad,

  I’m writing this in a launderette in the Scottish borders – never thought I’d miss our washing machine or the iron, but I do! We’ll be at the Tree People Festival by nightfall. Storm says you’ll be joining us there soon – I can’t wait! Missing you like mad,

  Dizzy xxxx

  PS Tess, Finn and Mouse say hi. And Leggit the lurcher!

  Tess offers to post the card, but I remember what Storm said and stick it in my pocket to show her first. She might want to add a few directions to the festival for Dad.

  By the time we’ve folded the clean, dry clothes, packed them back into bin bags and stuffed them into an already bulging car, everyone’s starving. It’s way past teatime. We head for the chippy, because Tess says we deserve it, and anyway, she won’t want to be bothered cooking once we get to the Tree People place.

  Tess and Finn have fish ’n’ chips, I have curry and chips and Mouse has chips with fish, potato scallops, a battered sausage, a mini pizza, a pineapple fritter, beans, bread rolls and every kind of ketchup. His hand sneaks out to nick a Twix while the assistant’s back is turned, but Tess slaps his knuckles sharply.

  ‘I’d have bought it for you if you’d asked,’ she says briskly. ‘Too bad. You don’t steal while you’re with us, Mouse. You just have to ask. We don’t rip each other off, and we don’t rip off others either. Got it?’

  Mouse nods, staring at his boots.

  ‘Sorry,’ he mumbles after a m
inute, and Tess grins like she’s just won the Lotto, then ruffles his hair.

  We dodge through the rain and pile back into the car, where Leggit waits on the driver’s seat with her head out of the partly open window, dripping wet. When we get in, she ricochets around the car with delight, snuffling at our faces, sitting on our chips.

  Tess heads out of the town and on along the little, twisty lanes. The car reeks of vinegar and curry sauce. Mouse gives the battered sausage to Leggit, plus a good quarter of his chips. He wraps the leftovers carefully and stashes them away for later.

  Finn drips tomato ketchup all over the map, Leggit puts a paw through the centre of East Kilbride and Mouse falls asleep, his head against my shoulder. We drive on through the rain.

  It’s almost dark by the time we arrive. We drive under a vast white banner that says ‘Tree People Festival’ in fancy letters, on to a huge field dotted sparsely with tents and edged with a fast-running river. We’re early, Tess says. The festival doesn’t start properly until the weekend.

  Our headlamps rake across Amber, trailing across the field in an orange cagoule and a pointy Peruvian hat, carrying water. She tells us she’s camped down by the river with Carl, the neon twins and their mum and a whole raft of others I’ve never even heard of. Tess parks up a little way back from the semi-circle of tents, headlights blazing.

  Pitching a tent at night in the pouring rain is no joke. Amber and Tess wrestle with the inner tent while Finn slots together the curving framework. Mouse and I hang on to the flapping corners of the waterproof shell, while the others hammer in tent-pegs, trip over guy-ropes and tug at knots. The rain streams down my face and drips inside my collar.

  By the time I’ve hauled the bedding from car to tent, I’m drenched to the skin. Finn and Mouse are off walking Leggit and checking out the toilet block, which is rumoured to have a hot shower. Tess throws me a towel and tells me to get changed and into my sleeping bag. I do as she says, feeling soggy, exhausted, too tired to care.

  Mouse and Leggit explode into the tent, dripping. Leggit shakes herself all over me, then stretches out, making a wet patch on my sleeping bag. Mouse shrugs off his anorak and rolls a quilt round himself, fully dressed. His hair is plastered flat against his head, and I dry it gently with the towel.

  Finn arrives with water and Tess fires up the Calor gas, handing out mugs of hot apple juice. We sip our drinks by torchlight, except for Mouse, who’s asleep already.

  It’s more of a sardine can than a four-man tent, but we’re so tired nobody cares. I wake briefly, deep in the night, to the low, rumbling rattle of what has to be the patchwork van and the bright sweep of its headlights. Then the engine stutters into silence and the headlamps die, and although I listen out hard for Storm and Zak, there’s only silence in the dark blue night. I roll over and sleep.

  The rumours are true. There are showers in the Portakabin toilet block. I beg 10p pieces from Tess and stand under the hot streams of water to wash away a week of grime. The water runs grey as I scrub at the shadows of Cara’s latest felt-pen tattoos, shampoo my hair twice and slather on conditioner. Every few minutes the water fizzles out, but I feed more money into the slot until someone banging on the shower door drags me down from heaven.

  Outside the Portakabin, Finn is waiting, his own hair damp from the men’s shower, his feet bare on the rain-wet grass. ‘Thought you’d washed yourself away,’ he grins. ‘So that’s what you look like, clean. I’d just about forgotten.’

  I flick him with my towel and he runs away, dodging through the tents and cars and battered-looking vans that are scattered across the site. Some of them make the patchwork van look almost smart. Almost, but not quite.

  There’s no sign of life inside Storm and Zak’s van, but Tess is up, setting out cereal and strawberries and milk. Mouse, who prefers a healthy breakfast, is halfway through the chocolate spread, and Leggit has snaffled last night’s leftover chips, including the paper.

  ‘I like it here,’ I announce.

  ‘Because?’ Finn prompts.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ I say. ‘The river, the trees, the mountains in the distance. But mainly it’s because we’ve got hot showers, bin bags full of clean clothes and loads of food. Plus, I know some of the people this time. I’m getting the hang of it, y’know? And Dad’s coming soon!’

  ‘Not that you’re sick of us or anything!’ Finn laughs.

  ‘No way! But Dad’ll stick around for a bit, maybe. That’s what Storm says.’

  ‘I didn’t know your dad was coming,’ Tess says. ‘It’s years since I’ve seen Pete. When’s he due, then?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I admit. ‘But he’s definitely coming, Storm said. Soon.’

  ‘Right. Funny she never mentioned it – I thought it was just you. Still, it’ll be great to see Pete. Like old times!’

  Tess attacks the chocolate smeared around Mouse’s face with a wet flannel, managing to clear some of it before he ducks away.

  I’ll have to pin down Storm about exactly when Dad’s coming. I’ll have to make sure he knows where we are, and how to get here. I know he’s going to love it, seeing old friends like Tess and Finn, meeting Mouse and Leggit and Zak. Well, maybe not Zak.

  I hope Dad comes soon. I miss him like mad.

  Dear Dad,

  There’s loads going on here! I’ve done workshops in paper-making and felt-making and drumming! I’ve eaten falafel in pitta bread and deep-fried tofu fritters and sushi rolls with sour pickled vegetables and seaweed. I’ve had my hands painted with henna, helped to carve a giant totem pole and learnt to weave friendship bracelets. Come soon or you’ll miss all the fun!

  Big hugs,

  Dizzy xxxx

  It’s a great festival.

  There are stalls selling hats from Nepal, itchy jumpers from Peru, tin mirrors from Tunisia. You can buy wind chimes made of seashells and bracelets made from old silver forks, the prongs curled round in little spirals. There’s soap made from dandelions and shampoo brewed from boiled-up twigs.

  Everyone’s doing something.

  Storm puts a sign on the patchwork van, advertising tarot readings. A steady stream of hippies drift by each day and part with cash to hear her tell the future. She tells them about tall, dark strangers, travel overseas, a new baby, a new career, a dream come true. One day, I hear her telling Amber that she’s at a crossroads in her life, that she’ll take the path that’s least expected.

  ‘The tarot never lie,’ she tells Amber.

  I frown, trying to remember the things she told me.

  ‘Can Storm see into the future?’ I ask Tess later. ‘Is it real, the stuff she says? Do the tarot ever lie?’

  Tess laughs.

  ‘The tarot’s a great way to make money,’ she says. ‘Everyone wants to know the future. Will we be happy or sad, rich or poor, loved or lonely? I don’t know, pet, I’m the wrong person to ask. I gave up on fairy-tale endings a long time ago. You have to make your own luck in this life.’

  ‘Does Storm believe it?’ I ask.

  Tess shrugs. ‘Hard to tell, with Storm. Mostly, she tells you what you want to hear. She doesn’t mean any harm – it’s just the way she is.’

  ‘Just a way to make money,’ I repeat.

  ‘Pretty much,’ Tess says.

  Did Storm really see adventure and travel in my cards, or did she just say it because it suited her plans? I have to trust her, don’t I? Like Amber does, and all the others who queue up to part from their fivers in return for a little bit of future.

  Anyone foolish enough to hand over their cash to Zak, however, deserves everything they get – and what they get, in my opinion, is fleeced. The tepee is out of bounds between midday and four each day, when Zak has his crystal-healing sessions. Big deal. I mean, it’s not like we’d want to watch, is it?

  Every night there’s music and dancing and drinking. Every night the tepee is crammed with crusties, thick with smoke, awash with cider.

  Mouse and Leggit and I start sleeping in the
patchwork van. It’s quieter, it’s got mattresses and you don’t get drunken revellers stumbling over you in the middle of the night. Every night, Mouse and I crash out on separate bunks, formal and polite. Every night, when it’s still and dark and quiet, Mouse burrows in under my quilt and we snuggle up. He’s so small and skinny you hardly notice him. After a while, I get so I can’t sleep properly unless I know he’s there.

  Is this what it feels like to have a brother?

  Mouse doesn’t scowl so much these days, and Finn drags him into the shower occasionally, so it’s possible to see his tanned, freckly skin beneath the grime. He smells faintly of chocolate, which can’t be bad.

  If you walk up past the main festival field, cross the lane and follow the river into the hills, you come to a place where a long, white ribbon of waterfall crashes down into a deep, silver-blue pool. The water roars and foams and the pool is icy cold, even on days when the sun is hot.

  An old horse chestnut tree hangs over the water, and you can climb right up into its branches and disappear into a cool, green world where the leaves brush your skin like dry fingers.

  It’s our special place, Finn and Mouse and Leggit and me. We come here when we want some peace, away from the festival noise and hassle. Sometimes, Cara and Kai hang out here, too, and occasionally Tess and Storm come up to swim, but mostly it’s just us. When we’ve had enough of music and juggling and bonfires and boozed-up hippies, we come here.

  Mouse can’t swim. Finn and I stand for ages in the icy pool beneath the waterfall, towing him about with a hand beneath his chin, getting him to relax and float or kick his legs like a frog. His body is stiff, one spindly leg always trailing the bottom as a safety net. He’s not a natural. Without the hand under the chin, he would sink like a stone, but he won’t give up.

  When he’s had enough of the water, Mouse crawls out and sits on a rock to dry out. He practises his juggling with three velvet beanbags Tess made for him, and he’s getting really good.

  He throws sticks for Leggit to fetch, skims stones, builds dams. He climbs up beside the roaring waterfall, clinging to rocks that are slippy and green with slime. He makes a rope-swing in the horse chestnut tree and swoops across the pool, his feet skimming the surface.