by Ben Chambers
“Sure thing,” Liam said and left.
“Are you sure you don’t mind?” Lily asked me again.
“It’s fine.” And it really was fine. I was actually kind of glad. For some reason, I really didn’t feel like playing tennis any more. But then I said, “Is it okay if I don’t come down and be the referee?”
It’s very embarrassing to admit, especially because I played tennis for so many years when I was younger, but I’m not too sure if I know all the rules. Sometimes, when the referee would say I lost a point, I wouldn’t understand why, but I didn’t want to ask and sound stupid, so I’d just keep playing.
“Of course,” Lily said very quickly. “You don’t have to come down if you don’t want.” I think she secretly wanted to be alone down there with just Liam.
“Can I just watch from up here? On one of the tables?”
“Yeah that’s okay. I’ll come back up as soon as we’re done.” She turned and started to leave, but then stopped. “Oh, Franny,” she said. “Can you look after this for me?” She took off her necklace and handed to me. I don’t know why she even wore it to play tennis. It looked like something she should have worn to a ball. “Protect it with your life,” she said. Then she put her hand over one side of her mouth, and leaned in toward me, as if to whisper. “It’s only worth about two grand,” she said, not in a whisper.
I sat on one of the tables. Not near the windows though. I wasn’t in the mood to watch them play tennis. I was feeling quite upset all of a sudden. I started thinking about my dad, and that he was dead. I didn’t tell you it before, but he killed himself. It was very horrible. I didn’t even understand why he did it. It made me feel very upset.
But then I started wondering. I maybe wondered if it was actually a good thing. I mean, he wouldn’t have done it if he didn’t want to die. So maybe it was good that he got what he wanted. It’s probably quite selfish of me if I wanted him to be alive even though he didn’t want to live. It’s his life, so maybe he should get to do whatever he wants with it. I was thinking about all that. I wasn’t too sure though. It was all very confusing.
Then I heard this whistling from across the room. It was quite strange to hear, since all the other noises were just tennis balls being hit, and some people making some very strange grunting noises when they were playing. But I heard this whistling, and it sounded very nice. I saw this little girl across the room. She was lying on her back on one of those wooden benches. The ones with no backrests or anything, only a long seat. Her arms were hanging down, and she was swinging them. She was whistling, too. I think she only just started whistling, because I didn’t hear it before. What I thought was odd, though, was that she didn’t have any shoes on. She was only wearing these nice green socks. They were light green. Kind of like lime green but not too bright. They were quite cool. But the strange thing was that I couldn’t see her shoes around anywhere. I thought maybe she would have taken them off, and they’d be under the bench beneath her or something. But they weren’t. It’s almost like she came to the tennis club without wearing any shoes at all.
I think I was feeling quite lonely, because I hardly didn’t even notice myself getting up and walking over to her. I just left my tennis gear on the other side of the room, then went and sat down on the bench next to her. Her eyes were closed, and she just kept swinging her arms and whistling. She didn’t see me, because her eyes were shut, but she must have heard me. I guess she just wasn’t bothered.
“Hello,” I said to her. It’s funny, because I almost never talk to anyone. Sometimes people will come up and talk to me, so I have to talk to them. But normally, I don’t like starting conversations. I just felt like talking to her, though. She opened one of her eyes and looked at me. She kind of peeped at me. Then she closed it again.
“Hello,” she said to me. “Who are you?”
“I’m Franny.”
Then she opened both of her eyes and looked at me. “Oh,” she said. “I thought you might have been my new tennis coach.” She sat up then, so she was sitting on the bench with one little leg hanging on each side. She was so small, her legs didn’t even touch the ground. She was wearing some tennis clothes. A little red skirt and a white shirt. Underneath, I could see that see was even wearing a white sports bra as well. Which was interesting, because she was so young, and looked like she didn’t need to be wearing one at all. Then she said, “Darren is meant to be coaching me today, but he isn’t here yet.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. I didn’t know why I was apologizing. I had no idea what to talk to that little girl about. I didn’t even know why I came up to her at all. “I’m sure he’ll be here soon.”
The little girl only stared at me for a moment, kind of squinting her eyes at me. She looked quite suspicious. I think maybe she was trying to figure out if I was crazy or not. But then her face lightened up, and she hopped off the bench. She was standing then, and she shuffled closer to me. She was quite short, kind of like me. But I was still taller than her, even though I was sitting down. Probably because I was so much older. She leaned in close to me and said, “Can I tell you a secret?”
I nodded at her. I actually kind of wanted to know what the secret was. I was even a little bit excited to hear it.
She said, “I hope Darren doesn’t show up today. I don’t even like playing tennis.”
I was a little disappointed. It wasn’t a very good secret. But I thought it was quite nice of her to tell me about it anyway. If I met a stranger, especially one that was so much bigger than me, I wouldn’t tell them a single one of my secrets. I smiled at her. She seemed like a very friendly person. “I don’t like tennis either,” I said. But she just went and lay back down on the bench. She didn’t really look like she was even listening to me. I thought that maybe if it was a different person, and not that little girl, it might have irritated me a little bit. But she seemed so nice and little, I just felt quite happy talking to her. She closed her eyes and started swinging her arms again, but she wasn’t whistling any more. I didn’t know what to say, so I just sat there for a while.
I looked around the club, and everyone was pretty much gone. They must have all gone outside to play tennis. There was an old man and woman sitting at one of the tables, drinking some water from their bottles. They didn’t really seem to be talking to each other much. Mostly just taking sips of water. And there was still some person at the front desk. They probably had to stay there though, since I think they worked there. It would probably be quite boring having to let people into the club all day to play tennis and not even get to play yourself. But I guess it wouldn’t be too bad if you didn’t even like tennis. Then you wouldn’t care whether you got to play or not. I wondered if I could maybe work at a front desk like that somewhere. I bet there are places all over the world that need people to work at the desk. I could probably be quite good at that. You mostly just have to say hello to people and tell them which direction to go. I’m very good with directions, so I could probably do that very well. But I’m not so good at saying hello to people. I probably couldn’t do that part too well.
Then I remembered I was still holding onto Lily’s necklace. I held it in my palm and looked at it a little bit. It looked like a very expensive necklace. I know that people think you’re very shallow if you care a lot about gold necklaces and jewellery. But to be honest with you, I think I’d quite like to have a lot of nice jewellery and expensive things. I know it makes me very shallow. But I just quite like that stuff. I just think about how cool I would be if I wore lots of rings with diamonds and sapphires in them. And necklaces like that one. I would be very beautiful. There would be so many people coming up to me and wanting to talk to me and know all about my life and how I got so many pretty things. They’d wonder how they could get necklaces like mine. But they wouldn’t be able to. Because I’d be the only one in the whole world with beautiful things.
I was thinking about all that stupid stuff when the little girl said, “What’s that?”
I didn’t notice she was watching me at the time. She was looking at the necklace. She had even sat up to get a better look. She seemed quite interested.
“This?” I said. I held the necklace up and looked at it.
She stretched her arm out towards the necklace and pointed very close at it. “That,” she said. She touched it with the tip of her finger, then quickly pulled her hand back, as if it had been boiling hot or something. I thought that was quite funny.
“It’s a necklace,” I said. Then I said, “My father gave it to me for my birthday.” I don’t know why I said that. It was a lie. My dad never gave me a single necklace in my entire life. But I said it anyway. She didn’t say anything; she just kept looking at it. She was very quiet and very still, and it suddenly made me think of something very upsetting. It made me think of when I found my dad hanging in that closet. I just stared at him for a while. He was so still, just hanging there by his neck. For a second, I thought it was a joke or something. I didn’t know it was his real body.
I was still holding the necklace. Suddenly, I wanted to get the horrible thing out of my hand. I was thinking about how Lily told me how much it cost her to buy, and I felt very disgusted all of a sudden. I started hating Lily too, just by thinking about it.
“Do you want it?” I said.
This time, the little girl just said, “Huh?”
“Come on. You can have it. I don’t want it anymore.”
She kind of took a step away from me and looked very uncertain. Almost a little bit scared. I got very impatient and reached out and grabbed her arm and pulled her towards me. Thinking about it now, I was probably quite rough with her. I’m a very nasty person. Sometimes I hate myself. She didn’t cry out or anything, though. She just went very quiet. I pulled her towards me and turned her around, so her back was facing me. I put the necklace around her neck and linked it up around the back like you’re meant to. Her neck was so small. I could almost wrap all the way around it with one hand, if I wanted to.
I finished tying the necklace, and she slowly turned around to face me. She didn’t look too scared anymore; she was just looking at me.
All of a sudden, I felt much better when I saw her wearing it. She looked very beautiful with that necklace around her little neck. It made me feel so happy. I smiled at her and told her how nice she looked. She started looking down at the necklace, or tried to, at least. It’s quite hard to do that, because your chin gets in the way. Then she looked up at me with a big smile.
“Can I really keep it?”
“Of course. It looks much better on you.”
Just then, she looked over to the entrance of the clubroom, and she waved crazily in that direction. I looked over, and there was a man in tennis gear there, waving at her. I guess it was her coach, Darren.
She was suddenly all energy. She hopped around, sliding on her socks. “I have to go now,” she said. “Darren makes me carry the balls if I’m late.”
I thought that was quite funny, because he was the one who was late. She didn’t say goodbye; she only turned and ran off to him. I moved over to the bench she had been sitting on and sat there for a while. I was trying to feel something. Anything. But I couldn’t. So I just got up and left. I had to finish my essay.
Chapter Six
It took me about half an hour to find a bus that would take me to university. When I got on, I sat by myself on one of the seats. It was quite a relief to be able to just sit down and rest for a while. I was feeling quite exhausted. I used to be quite fit, but I’m not anymore. I get tired very easily. I just sort of closed my eyes and relaxed for a while.
I was actually kind of enjoying myself there on that bus, but then two stops later, this thing happened. We pulled up to the bus stop. I could see there was this man sitting there, waiting for the bus. And I knew straight away. I knew exactly what was going to happen. I knew because I am very unlucky, and I can sense bad things. Sometimes, I can even see the future. The man stood up, and he was extremely overweight. I’m not trying to be mean, but he was. He got on, and I could feel the whole bus tip to the side. Practically the whole bus was empty; there were only three or four other people on there with me. There were empty seats all over the place. But the man walked up the aisle, towards the back of the bus, where I was. I was sitting just a couple of rows from the very back, up against the window. Then he came and sat down right next to me. There was an empty seat in front of me and behind me, but he sat next to me anyway. People always seem to sit next to me on the bus. I have the worst luck. He was wearing this big grimy jacket and smelled very bad. I think he might have even been homeless. And he was so large that his big belly was sort of pressed up against my side. I was trapped between the window and his tummy. I was squished in, and I started to feel very frightened. Then when the bus started moving, he kept looking at me. I didn’t want to look up at him, but I could see him keep turning his neck and looking down at me. I was just sort of crouching in the corner a bit, trying to get away from him. I felt very worried. It was very light outside, and people are usually okay in the day, but I felt very scared anyway. I only lasted like that for less than a minute, and then I pressed the stop button. It was way before the stop that I wanted, but I had to get away from him. Then when the bus did stop, the man didn’t even stand up to let me past. He just kind of leaned to the side a little bit and wanted me to walk past him. Even though there was no room to fit at all! I just scrambled past as quickly as I could, trying to get off the bus. But I had to rub all over his big stupid belly and his giant smelly jacket. He smelled so bad. And then when I did get off the bus, I realised I smelled like him then, too. His stink had rubbed all over my clothes, and it made me feel sick.
I was breathing quite a lot then, and I had to sit on the footpath for a while to calm down. There wasn’t anyone around, not even a car came past. But that was good, because I didn’t want to see anyone just then. I just wanted to be by myself. Then I realised I had to walk a very long way to university, because I had pressed the stop button so early. It started making me very angry, actually. I didn’t know why all these stupid bad things had to happen to me! I’ve always been unlucky, and it’s never changed one bit. Bad things seem to happen that I can’t even do anything about. Like on Thursday night, when I was sleeping at my flat. I was feeling very upset about my dad, and I was crying in my room. I guess Tom, my flat mate, heard me crying, because he knocked on my door and asked me if I was feeling okay. I told him all about my dad. He started hugging me and telling me everything was okay and trying to make me feel better. I was crying all over him a lot. He was saying nice things to me and hugging me. For a second it felt sort of nice, because I missed my dad’s hugs a lot. My dad used to give me these very big warm hugs. I especially loved it first thing in the morning, when he was wearing his brown fluffy dressing gown. He was like a big bear giving me a gigantic hug. It made me feel very happy and loved. But Tom was hugging me and trying to make me feel better. Then, and I don’t know how it happened, I wish it hadn’t happened, but we started kissing. I don’t even know why. I suppose I was just feeling very emotional, and he was hugging me a lot and trying to be a very caring person. I guess for a moment I thought he was very nice for coming in and asking if I was feeling alright. And somehow, we started kissing. We only kissed for a moment, then he started putting his hands all over everywhere on me. I told him to stop. I had stopped crying and I didn’t feel like kissing him anymore. But he wouldn’t listen to me. He kept touching me even more and I got very upset and tried to push him away. But I’m quite a weak person. He sort of ended up doing a lot of stuff to me that I didn’t like very much at all. I don’t really want to talk about it. It wasn’t very nice.
By the time I got to university, I was exhausted. I was kind of sweating quite a bit. I know it’s very gross to be all sweaty, but I was. I felt quite disgusting. But I had made up a very important decision while I was walking. I was going to drop out of my last paper at university, so then I wouldn’t have to w
orry about my essay any more. I don’t know why I was even studying that silly paper. It was called Barbarians: Antiquity to Vikings. I didn’t even know what antiquity meant! I know that’s very stupid, since I was studying it, but I really didn’t. I’m not even a little bit interested in it. That’s probably why I can’t focus on my essay. I have no motivation because I’m not really too intrigued by the whole subject. I decided I would change my paper. Then I would have to go back to university next semester, but it was okay, because I would be starting brand new and fresh with a new paper that I enjoyed. Then I could really do well in my studies. And I wouldn’t have to write that stupid last essay. It was just wasting my time, really. I was all set with my decision.
So instead of going to the library to write my essay like I had planned, I started going straight for the student advice building. It was this little building on the other side of campus. There were quite a lot of people at university even though it was the weekend. They were there to study for exams, I guess. I walked the long way around the campus, instead of straight through the middle, so that I could avoid most of the people. I didn’t feel like running into anyone I knew while I was feeling so gross.
But, of course, then I walked right into this girl I knew called Grace. I used to hang around with her quite a lot, but we’re not really friends any more. It’s quite strange, though. For some reason, every time I bump into her, she always sort of pretends like we’re still very good friends.
“Franny!” she said and started running over to me. She’s a very loud person. One of the loudest people I know, actually. She has this voice that you can always hear over everyone else, even in a room full of people talking. She gave me this very big hug. She even almost lifted me off the ground. She was quite muscular, for a girl. I think it was because she was on a rowing team. She even occasionally went to the gym to lift weights. She said it made her row faster, I think. To be honest, I wouldn’t want to be very muscular, even if it did make me very good at sports. But people are interested in different things, I guess.
