Undone(8)

‘Ah, Fernando thinks the boys will be knocking at your door before you know it,’ he said as he brushed the hairs from my neck.

‘What makes you think they weren’t already?’

‘Ha! You’re funny. I like you. You can come back anytime!’

How rude.

Everyone was back by the time I got home. Mum was unpacking the shopping, Dad was chopping onions and Noah was stretched out on the sofa. The scene was so perfectly normal that it stopped me in my tracks. I’d been so wrapped up in my own world that I hadn’t given them a second thought. Even when I’d been thinking about them – imagining them finding my body, reading the note – I hadn’t really been thinking about them. I’d been thinking about me.

Noah didn’t even look up when I passed right in front of him; he was in full-on slack-jawed-zombie TV mode. Dad had his back to me. His shirt was looking especially rumpled that day. Mum froze in the middle of whatever she was saying. She had a pack of bacon in one hand and a head of broccoli in the other.

‘Oh!’ Her eyes were wide and the corners or her mouth twitched, as if they couldn’t quite make up their mind what to do next.

Dad whirled round with a huge knife in his hand. ‘Oh my!’

I said nothing. Just tugged nervously at the ends of my hair.

Mum put down the shopping, rushed over and cupped my face in her hands. ‘Oh, Jem! We were so worried when you weren’t here when we got home. Didn’t you get my messages?’ She didn’t pause to let me answer. ‘But now I see why! My beautiful, beautiful girl. What brought this on, eh? Feeling a bit brighter, are you?’ She smoothed my hair down (not that it needed any smoothing . . . Fernando really was some kind of magical hair-transforming wizard).

The truth is, Mum’s comments deserved some kind of snarky response, but I couldn’t even think of one. And I didn’t want to. I settled for blushing instead.

Dad nudged Mum and said, ‘Eh, Cath, doesn’t she look like you when you were that age?!’ Which was just massively creepy.

Mum giggled and bumped him with her hip. ‘I wish I’d looked half as good! No, she gets that bone structure from you.’

I wanted to escape before they started snogging (or worse). ‘I’m going to . . . yeah . . . tidy my room or something.’

Mum tried to hide her delight at this little announcement. ‘Would you like a hand, sweetie?’

I shook my head. ‘No. Thank you. And . . . er . . . I might go back to school tomorrow.’ I hadn’t planned to say those words. I hadn’t even thought about going back to school until the words tumbled out.

Mum and Dad shared a look, then Mum squeezed my arm. There were tears in her eyes, but we both pretended not to notice. ‘Good girl.’ I nodded and left the kitchen before I started bawling too.

Noah did look up on the return journey. His reaction? ‘YEEEEEEEEEUUURGH! What have you done?! You look all fake and . . . weird.’ That made me smile. I wouldn’t have expected anything less from the little smart-arse.

The sight of my bedroom was almost as big a shock as my new hair, but not in a good way. It was disgusting. I couldn’t remember the last time the sheets had been changed. There were clothes all over the carpet, four mugs, three plates and seven crisp packets. And the smell was something else.

Every time Mum had come in to try and sort it out I’d shouted at her to leave me alone. And every time, instead of telling me what a snotty little bitch I was, she nodded and left without a word. Thinking about it made me cringe with shame. Things were going to change. I had a year left. I could be a better daughter for that long, at least.

I’d take one day at a time. There were thirty days to get through before Kai’s next letter.





chapter five


My life had started to come undone at the start of the school year, and I didn’t even know it. There was no big flashing neon sign, saying: THIS IS THE YEAR THAT WILL CHANGE EVERYTHING. Nothing seemed different after the summer; the popular kids were still popular (and somehow more tanned and healthy-looking than the rest of us), the unpopular kids were still unpopular. The Ignored were still well and truly ignored. This was my category. I wasn’t geeky enough to be a target. Sure, I got the occasional ‘goth’ or ‘emo loser’, but it was nothing I couldn’t handle.

There was only one new boy. Max. Whenever anyone new arrives you check them out and you try to figure out where they’re going to fit in. Are they someone you might want to talk to? Do you fancy them? Are they one of Them? I had Max pegged from the start. Artfully messy black hair, lazy smile, tall and lean. Good-looking in a generic sort of way. He was one of Them, for sure. As predicted, Max was sucked into the popular crowd with Dyson-like speed.

Team Popular was the name I’d (unimaginatively) given to our year’s so-called in-crowd. There were six of them, seven including Max. I was always watching them, talking about them, analysing them. Kai joined in for the most part, but he drew the line at me talking about Louise; hard as it was to believe, she was well and truly part of the in-crowd.

At the end of Year 10 I’d come up with a new theory: Allander Park was a zoo and everyone in it corresponded to a member of the animal kingdom. I’d taken great care in categorizing each member of Team Popular. (Kai said I had way too much time on my hands, but he still chipped in with his own opinions on the matter.)