I help Sarah manoeuvre the pram and the tartan shopping trolley into the kitchen, returning her warm hug and answering her typically babbling questions about my summer and car journey. Both were crap, but I embroider them wildly to show willing. Sarah, like Will, hasn’t changed a bit. Her gingery brown hair falls in the same style as always, loose with a few front strands pinned back, dressed in a pristine cream-coloured trouser suit. I don’t know what I was expecting. Just because life as I know it has twisted on its head, doesn’t mean the same for the rest of the world. Reality is setting in, cold and razor-sharp.



























An unexpected blast of childlike colour hugs me round the waist, getting my brand new outfit sticky with flip knows what. I’ll have to get used to it, living with a toddler who might tear my homework to shreds. If I bother doing any. I can always say the niece ate it. This will actually be true.






















Angel gazes up at me, melted brown eyes as round as Christmas baubles. “Hi, Seth!” she says, mispronouncing my name with effortless charm and all but dragging me back into the living room, where a curious Claire is observing her.


















“Daddy, this is Seth,” she says proudly, like she drove me here herself.










“Yeah, I know,” Will says, taking it all in good humour. He ruffles her startlingly gold curls, looking thankful he doesn’t have to make polite conversation with Claire any longer. I don’t blame him. I had to do the same for three weeks.




















Even my tactless social worker seems to realise family life is settling in, and she should, to put it bluntly, beat it. She stands up, smoothing down her creased skirt, looking suddenly out of place, even though she’s been pretty much my only contact with the outside world of late. Even I have to take pity on her.




























“See you on your next visit,” I say in airily civilised tones.













“Well. I’m be on my way, if you’re alright here?” she scrambles in her leather skin handbag for something, emerging a heartbeat later with a messily scribbled phone number. “Remember you can call me anytime,” she says, clumsily patting my shoulder.













“Mmm,” I say, shaking off her arm in annoyance and looking down at the cushiony woolly rug. Definitely Sarah’s choice.






















With a last infuriating show of her teeth, she finally leaves, being shown out by Will in a last-ditch attempt at hospitality. I crumple the number and stuff it in my combat trousers, where I don’t have to think about it. What makes her think I’ll need to call her? What makes her think she has the right to act like a substitute guardian?






















After I’ve helped unpack the shopping, Sarah directs me to my room – second bedroom on the left – and leaves me and my suitcase to it. I glance without animation at the prettily whitewashed walls, waiting to be filled with memories. My eye falls heavily on the thick blue curtains that cloud the room; on the white chest of drawers, the matching wardrobe, the glass Cinderella shoe on the windowsill. I curl up on my new bed, breathing in the scent of just-washed covers. It doesn’t smell of home, of anything. It hasn’t got a smell yet, hasn’t been consumed by the essence of its new owner. Delicate stitching draws up the strawberry-themed duvet, the only suggestion it belongs to me. I take one of Claire’s deep breaths, staring up at the pale, perfect ceiling and trying not to cry.































This new home holds promise, laughter, youth, maybe even happiness. Already a baby seed of hope nestles inside my chest, stupidly daring to imagine a life of strawberries and schoolwork and fun.


























You can pack up your life into a worn, wasted brown suitcase, but I have a funny feeling it isn’t that easy to leave the past behind.

I WAKE TO THE STEADY STREAM OF LIGHT SUNSHINE, BLINKING IN THE



sudden brightness that glows through the room. I sit up, a little dazed, and peer around the clean, pretty room. Yesterday may as well have been a dream, but I seem not to have woken up yet. I yawn loudly and stretch my arms, sliding my feet onto the velvety pink carpet. My pocket-sized Mini Mouse alarm clock reads 8:15 a.m., much earlier than I’d usually get up on a Sunday, if I stirred at all before one in the afternoon.
























I rummage in my still unpacked suitcase, pulling out a monochrome top and leggings and seizing a pair of black, rebel-style boots that make a satisfying stomp sound as I thunder down the stairs. While I’m waiting for Will and Sarah to make the eggs, I brush fiercely through the night’s tangles and scoop my hair into a high ponytail, flattening my fringe hastily with my fingers. I’m never going to walk the catwalk, let’s face it, but I’ll do.
































“Stupid Barbie doll, why won’t your hair plait?” I hear a small voice say from the direction of the staircase. A second later, something comes crashing down the steps, making a deafening thunk as it makes contact with the ground. My eyes narrow, and I follow the sound outside the living room, looking down at the huge, now bald doll head that stares up at me, its eyes huge and glassy. For some reason, the sight of it disturbs me. I remind myself to focus, like damn Claire’s always advising, but I can’t stop a shudder gripping my body, statue-like, in place.























Angel looks down on me from the top of the stairs, hair arranged in little ponytails, her face cherubic. “Hi, Seth,” she says, showcasing her gleaming white smile. “Play hairdressers please?”


























No way in actual hell.



























“Not if your rejects get their heads pulled off,” I say, but my niece just giggles, not taking me seriously. I sigh and tramp back up the stairs, taking her hand and leading her into the sweet-smelling kitchen, where my brother is shovelling bacon onto egg-laden plates.



“Are you sure that’s safe, Sarah?” I say, wrinkling my nose doubtfully. “I mean, if Will’s been near it, I think I’ll pass...”





















“What a cheek!” he says, flicking a burnt piece at me, which I cleverly dodge. “I happen to be an excellent cook now. A lot’s changed since I set off for uni only knowing how to make toast, you know.”
























“Yeah, fair enough,” I say, taking the plate he offers me and sitting at the table, moodily scanning through the news app on my phone. Earthquake this, conflict that...why is the world so depressing?


























Fifteen minutes later, weighed down by umbrellas, we’re ready to go...to buy my brilliant-sounding uniform. Astoundingly, without even consulting my opinion, Claire has steamrolled on ahead and chosen a school for me. What is it with these people, thinking they know best all the time? This school sounds really lame, too – some sort of day private school called Cloverfield High, excellent reputation, good grade percentiles, ‘Outstanding’ Ofsted report, blah blah blah...




















I mean, who cares that 86% of their students scored A*-C grades in their Maths and English GCSEs? I feel a stab of evilness at the thought I might just rock up and dent that impressive record. Maybe they’ll kick me out and destroy my envelope of results in the shredder. It’s just as well, really, because I haven’t had time to concentrate much on schoolwork. I scraped through my year ten exams, but year eleven’s the final GCSE year, and I have loads of catching up to do. In fact, that’s another thing my social worker lumped me with – doing extra work to make sure I’m ‘fully prepared to begin an exciting routine at my new school’. What a laugh I’ve had these summer holidays, eh?













And the fun will clearly continue at Cloverfield. What can I say, the future looks bright.




Eventually, I’m kitted out in a smart pearly blouse, a grey pleated skirt deliberately a size too small (because the school rules say knee-length only) and a hideous matching blazer, probably made of tweed. Gross. I hate it already. If that wasn’t enough, allegedly I’m to wear a pair of cloppy black patent shoes straight out of an Enid Blyton novel. With the small clicking noise they make, I may as well be little Noddy. Great. Now I’ll be bullied. That’s just what I need. Oh well. Nothing I haven’t dealt with before. I didn’t even have any friends at my last school, not really. There was this one girl – Eugenia or something – I struck up a brief, pair-work themed friendship with, but that doesn’t count. We were just thrown together out of social necessity. The only personal question she ever asked me was about my mum, to which my answer was ‘bitch’. You can guess the question.





























“It looks great,” Sarah says encouragingly. “Really...neat.”














“It’s disgusting,” I say flatly. The shop assistant chances a glance at me, looking harassed. “But we’ll have to take it, if it’s school policy.”















“Cheer up, it isn’t all bad,” Will says as Sarah stops Angel from pulling off a button on a school shirt. “At least you’re only in uniform for another year – less, really, since the year elevens are off when the exams finish in mid-June.”















“Yes, whoopee,” I say quietly, with just the amount of falsity Will’s statement deserves.





When we’ve bought the – thing – and marched out of the shop, ‘we’ decide to head to this old American-esque milkshake bar, owing to Angel’s whining about being hungry, thirsty, and on the point of sleepdom.




















Will pushes the menu towards me, and reluctantly I order my favourite strawberry milkshake, as well as a medium-size steak burger hastily stuffed with bits of salad and grilled cheese. I’m just getting stuck in when Angel decides to sick up her vanilla milkshake. I told them she’d only chuck it up again, what with all the milk and the busy excitement of the day. My stomach turns over, and to get away from the stench of reeking orange bile, I volunteer to fetch a wad of napkins, slowly breathing through my nose. It’s fine, fine, just a bit of vomit, I tell myself sternly. Don’t be such a baby. I can’t help it. I’ve never been able to stand the sight of someone throwing up. It’s right up there with my fear of heights and poisonous spiders, seriously.















To my intense irritation, I find the way to the napkins blocked by a group of seven teenagers, all looking about my age. Four girls and three boys. The first is a pretty mixed-race girl with blonde-brown curls, tutting at a laughing boy with dazzling ginger hair, who has a milkshake straw stuck up his nose. Next to him, a boy with tousled, wavy black hair sits close to a stunning girl with waist-length blonde hair, while the pink-cheeked girl next to her lets out a long sigh and runs her eyes down her silver phone. The two last teenagers stare at me as I clear my throat, one a girl with light-brown skin and freckles, the other a dark-skinned boy with chiselled cheekbones. A bout of nervousness steals over my skin as gradually, they all stop what they’re doing to gaze at me. It’s been a while since I’ve been near the company of kids my age, to tell you the truth.





























“You guys are kind of blocking my way to the napkins,” I say quickly, before the silence can drag on. The ginger-haired boy chokes on the milkshake and spits out the crazy straw, while I stare, partially revolted, partially fascinated.















“Sorry, but our table’s right in front of it, and we can’t exactly shift it,” the gorgeous blonde girl says, her model-like pink lips curved into a cold smirk. An instant feeling of dislike ripples through me.
























“Well you could just pass me a napkin,” I say icily, and the black-haired boy next to her grins at the snappy tone to my voice.




















“Gee, why didn’t we think of that?” he says, stretching an arm lazily across the chair of the bitchy girl. “C’mon, Maisy, don’t be mean.”

















The girl just huffs and shakes off his arm irritably. “Whatever. I didn’t mean to be rude, but you could just use the toilets rather than bothering our table.”













My eyes flash as I glare at her, my jaw tight. “If you’d just passed me some damn napkins in the first place, I wouldn’t even still be here, you stupid bimbo.”













There’s a shocked gasp as I lean right over her to snatch some napkins, not troubling to stop my arm from elbowing her in my haste. The others titter, aside from the girl, Maisy, and her pink-cheeked friend, who give me glowering looks. To my horror, my stupid new Cloverfield badge spills out of my pocket and lands with a dramatic splat in the ginger boy’s ice-cream float.























“Hey, do you go to our school?” he says, perking up with interest. “Haven’t seen you before.”





























“Schools are pretty big,” I say stonily. “I’m sure there’re several people you haven’t seen before.” Idiot, I think to myself.






















To my surprise, the mixed-race girl next to him sniggers at this. “Actually, we have about fifteen people to a year group, literally,” she says, stirring her milkshake with her straw. “I actually think we would have seen you.”

















“Really?” I say, raising my eyebrows. What kind of freak school am I starting at? “Well, you’re right, as it happens,” I add to the flame-haired boy. “I’m starting next week. Year eleven.”





























Great. Trust me to start animosity among my brand-new group of classmates in a year group with fifteen people. I knew it. I am going to have no friends. I mean, these people are most of my new class.























“I knew it!” says the ginger boy excitedly, ignoring the rolled eyes of his curly-haired companion. “I’m Ollie, by the way. Welcome to class 11A.”













“Can’t wait,” I say sarcastically, my eyes travelling over Maisy, who returns my cool look with a dark stare.

























“We’re not so bad, really,” the black-haired boy says, laughing at my incredulous expression. “Sit down, I’ll introduce you to everyone.”














“I’m actually meant to be cleaning up that mess,” I say, nodding towards the table where Will and Sarah sit – already being assisted by one of the staff. Whoops. I must have taken too long, thanks to these guys.




















I have no option but to slide in beside the mixed-race girl, who introduces herself as Mi-Mi. I prefer being on the end. I don’t think I could resist scratching out Maisy’s eyeballs otherwise.



























“Well, you know me, Ollie and Maisy’s names,” Mi-Mi says, smiling at me. “And that’s all the names worth knowing really – hey!” she ducks as the dark-haired boy chucks a – get this – napkin at her.

























“You absolute bastards,” I say, trying not to look as shocked as I feel. “You had bloody napkins of your own the whole time.”






















There’s a long silence – then we all burst out laughing.















“It’s not funny,” I say, even though it kind of is. “I hate you all.”











“Well, you’re stuck with us now,” Mi-Mi says fairly. “Anyway, you know me, Ollie and Maisy, so-” She gestures to the pink-cheeked girl. “Introduce yourself, then,” she says commandingly. I can’t repress a smile.

















“I’m Hannah,” the girl all but spits out.





















“Wait a minute, you completely left me out,” the black-haired boy says in an annoyed voice.






























Mi-Mi and I exchange conspiratorial looks. “Oh, I meant to,” she says unkindly.




“Well, I’m Smith – Damien Smith,” he says, looking offended.













“I’m sorry, but who do you think you are, agent 007?” I say scathingly. “The name’s Bond – James Bond.”


























Vengeance is sweet, I think as the group chuckle at his expense. Serves him right for withholding the napkins.

























The last two members of the group announce their names at last – Rihanne and Zac – and there’s an uncalled for fuss as everyone realises they don’t even know my name. See what I mean? Idiots.
























“It’s Steph,” I say, disappointed I couldn’t make up a really strange one on the spot. “Short for Stephanie, as you might have gue-”

















We all look up to see Sarah and Will coming over at last, holding hands with a pale-looking Angel. Double whoops. They must be wondering what the hell I’m doing. I’m wondering, actually.



























“We really need to get home,” Sarah says apologetically. “It’s not just the milkshake – I think she’s got a tummy bug.”
























While everyone’s busy cooing over my niece, I stand up, grabbing my dripping badge back from Ollie, who is now attempting to force two milkshake straws up one nostril. Delightful.



























“Wait a sec,” Mi-Mi says as I start to follow Will and Sarah out. “Phone.”








“What?” I say.



























“Give me your phone,” she says, seeming to lose patience and seizing it from my pocket. “I’m giving you our numbers, stupid,” she adds, seeing my startled face.








“Right,” I say, catching the phone when she thrusts it at me. “See you next week, then.”




I’m greeted by a chorus of ‘byes’ as I finally depart, excluding Maisy and Hannah, who give me nice friendly scowls. I scowl back and flounce out of the milkshake bar, head held so high I knock into a cross-looking middle-aged man in a suit.









“Sorry,” I say, making it clear I’m not sorry at all. Distantly, I hear the dark-haired boy, Damien or whatever, laughing at me. I ignore him and let the door whip shut behind me.































Well, today I’ve managed to make five new friends and two enemies. I think I’d call that a successful initiation into Cloverfield’s elite.

Weird.

*



“Steph, hurry up, we’re going to be late!”





















Dismissing my brother’s hurried tones, I continue brushing down my fringe, deciding to leave my hair loose this time. I peer at my face critically, wishing I’d got more sleep. Shadows under eyes – check. Pale skin – check. Brilliant. I hesitate over my make-up bag. I don’t usually go in for all that. Somehow, it makes me look even younger than I do in my more natural state, like a little kid dressing up. I huff at myself and settle for a slicked-on glimmer of strawberry-flavoured lip gloss, leaving the rest of me au natural. I don’t need to go round like some drag act like that Maisy does, anyway, I say spitefully to myself, even though she’s miles ahead from me in the pretty stakes. Who needs looks, anyway? I will be a successful career woman, eternally single and rich, and they’ll call me...






























“Steph, get your lazy arse downstairs! Do you want to make a bad first impression or what?”






























“Alright, alright, keep your pants on,” I say, slinging my reindeer rucksack across one shoulder and stepping into my ugly black shoes. “I’m coming.”












I trip down the stairs, humming faintly, to see Will already ready to leave, a sleepy-looking Angel with him.



























“I’ve taken the day off work,” Will says, seeing my stare. “Since Sarah’s only just started her new job, and Angel has this tummy bug thing...”














“I hope she doesn’t throw up on my head teacher,” I say, alarmed, as my niece rubs her eyes with a tiny yawn.
























“You’re all heart, you,” Will says, unlocking the door. After a pause he reaches into his pocket and tosses me a spare set of keys. ”I forgot to give it to you on Saturday. You’ll need your own now, obviously.”





















I catch the silver key, zipping it up with my spare change, phone, oyster card (free travel on the bus) and lip gloss, the four things I can’t live without. Well, OK, that’s a lie, but excluding food and water and all that.



















“Technically, I’m not actually starting today, am I?” I say anxiously as I hurry after them to get to the garage.
























“No,” Will says shortly, pressing a button. The door to the garage falls down as if in slow motion, and I watch it, transfixed. “It’s just a quick meeting with Ms Tavern so she can give you a customary welcoming speech and your new timetable. I expect you’ll be starting tomorrow, though, so don’t get too comfy.”















I’m not even listening. I’m pointing, horrified, at the monstrous object in front of me. I can see it with my very eyes, but I don’t believe it, not yet. Standing in front of me is a bright, shiny red sports car that gleams a sinister silver as it catches the early morning light.






























“What is that?” I say in a choked voice.


















“My sports car,” Will says in exaggerated tones. “What else?”













“You’re not taking me to school in that monster!” The bird-like screech that tumbles out of my mouth doesn’t even sound like me. I’m sure even the old man in No.6’s shed can hear me.






























“Yes I am,” Will says jovially. “A problem?”

















“A problem?” I repeat squeakily. “A problem? Only that you’re about to cause the most embarrassing scene at my new school ever.”

















“Grow up, no one will care what I drive,” my brother says ignorantly, patting the car like it has feelings. He doesn’t get it at all.


















“Angel can’t go in that, it’s too fast,” I try again, gesturing to their much more friendly-looking black family car in the corner. I jerk my thumb desperately. “Let’s go in that instead.”





























“No way, this baby’s begging for a spin,” Will says, opening the car door. “Get in. We’re late.”
































I give a whimper and scuttle into the back of the car with Angel, strapping her into her booster seat. “If we die, it’s Daddy’s fault,” I say in a hiss as the engine roars to life.



In a whoosh, we’re up and away, breezing through the suburban lanes in terrifying speed and silence, my heart thudding wildly the entire time. After an age, the car comes to a halt, parking in front of what has to be the greyest, smallest, flattest school on the planet. Peering out, I can even see bars on their windows. I knew it. It’s a prison.







I get out, legs shaking, and take Angel’s hand to steady myself lest any milling students notice. There’re only a few early birds here, since it’s a Monday morning and registration isn’t until 8.45 a.m., or so I’m told.




















We step into the main building and are promptly told to wait outside by the headmistress’ haughty-looking secretary, Miss Green or something boring like that. Will raps his fingers annoyingly on the coffee table while I listlessly flick through pages of a crappy school magazine, looking pitifully down at my fellow students’ pathetic efforts at professionalism. I mean, my baby niece could draw better, no offence.









I’m just about to look around for a radiator to burn the magazine at the stake on when I hear an amused cough in front of me. I look up, arching my eyebrows, to see Damien Smith, the idiot from the cafe, choosing a seat on my right. Probably best. Seated to the left, Will gives him daggers for daring to talk to me. Honestly. He thinks he’s so modern with all his high-tech stuff, but he is really backwards sometimes. He probably believes in arranged marriages and everything.



















“Got bored and decided to do some spying?” I say snippily.













“Actually, I have an official appointment,” he says. “Why else would I be here so early?”






























“I don’t know, maybe you’re a model student.”

















“Maybe I am, without the student bit.”





















My eyebrows practically shoot into my fringe. “Well, I can see modesty’s one of your virtues.”






























The boy grins at me, green eyes glittering with self-confidence. “Yep, you’ve found me out,” he says buoyantly, not seeming irked by my sulky tone. How annoying.







“Don’t you have something else to do, besides get on my nerves?” I say, smacking the magazine back on the pile and selecting another – dated about two years ago, but who cares?






























“I told you, I have an appointment. Are you starting today?”












“No.”
































I turn a page in the magazine, landing on, to my chagrin, ‘Fifty Shades of Sex Toys’.





“What are you reading?” he says inquisitively, looking over my shoulder. OK, now I want to die. “Nice taste,” he tells me with a trademark smirk. “Didn’t know you were into-”





























I hit his arm. “Shut up now. Older brother, remember?” I whisper.










“Sorry, sorry,” he says, but he doesn’t lose the knowing grin. I don’t believe in murder as a rule, but just sometimes...























The door to the office opens, sparing me a criminal record, and Miss Green calls in a prim little voice: “Stephanie Collins and co., Ms Tavern will see you now.”







How mysterious. Is Ms Tavern, like, some slitheen who’ll zip open her forehead to reveal a fat, slimy creature who farts spontaneously...?















Maybe.






























“Wish me luck,” I say heavily, getting up.


















“Break a leg, princess,” he says with a low laugh at my half stressed, half hostile face.










“Call me that again and I’ll get Will’s old pocket knife and slice off your-”






















“Come on, Steph,” Will says impatiently, face unusually stern. “We don’t want to keep Ms Tavern waiting, do we?”






















“No,” I say, shooting the boy a dirty look and storming after my brother.








I take a moment to look around the surprisingly small office, at the gold-lined photo frames that present nerdy, perfect students with their 1st place trophies and straight, teeth-baring smiles. Show-offs.


























Ms Tavern herself is sitting gravely in a massive, The Apprentice-type chair, her painfully tight black hair scraped back into a high bun, her small eyes piercingly black and hawk-like. I stumble over an abandoned, fist-sized piece of paper on the otherwise immaculate carpet – something she probably threw down in a temper or something. Ms Tavern’s eyes sweep over me, apparently unimpressed at my attempts to journey my way to my seat. Oops.





























Angel looks at the strange, icy woman, wide-eyed, thumb in her mouth. I give her a reassuring squeeze on her sticky hand (she’s just had a lollipop to keep her quiet in the waiting room, even though she’s supposedly ill) just as my new headmistress starts to speak.
































“Well, Stephanie,” she says in a serious, pointed voice. “Welcome to Cloverfield High. I hope you will-”




























It’s at this moment that I begin to drown out her completely false speech. If she can’t even be bothered to sound sincere, then why should I be obliged to listen?








Exactly.





























And I seem to remember Will asking them to add ‘Steph’ along with my full name on the register, so teachers know how to refer to me. Witch. She may as well call me by my surname – Collins, if you’re interested.


















“So, any questions?” she says brusquely, looking like the first person to ask her one will be struck down with her secret staff. (The one she keeps hidden under the desk, obviously).




























“No,” I say loudly, cutting across Will’s ‘yes’.
















“Well,” my headmistress snaps. “Is there a question or not?”













“No?” I say meekly, glancing at my brother, who shrugs, defeated.









“Here you are then,” she hands me a plastic-bound planner with my Week One and Week Two timetable helpfully stuck in by her secretary, presumably. I take it, thanking her with about as much sincerity as she showed me, and stick it in my bag, deliberately placing it next to my slightly open water bottle.
















“I expect to see you on the school grounds before 8.45 tomorrow,” she says, giving me the full power of her eagle-eyes.




















I squirm uncomfortably, hatching a sneaky plan to turn up at 8.45 at night, and then say confusedly the next day: “Sorry, Ms, I must’ve mixed up the time.”








The trouble is, I value my life too much.



















I say goodbye to the Wicked Bitch of the Cloverfield West, banging the door ‘accidentally’ on my way out. Instinct tells me I am not going to get on with that woman. Oh well. She was hardly Claire the Care, despairingly labelling herself my friend, was she? In fact, I think she almost wants to hate me. Snobby vulture-faced cow.




“Wish me luck,” Damien says as I’m about to leave, and a villainous feeling crawls up my spine. You have no idea how monumental this is. I’ve been dying for someone to say that to me ever since I watched The Devil Wears Prada, just so I can respond:






“Shan’t,” I say loftily, and turn on my heel, the main door skimming my thick shoes as it shuts.






























I am so embarrassing sometimes.

I UNFOLD MY PRISSILY ARRANGED TIMETABLE WITH SLIGHTLY





trembling fingers, ignoring the fierce hammering of my heart against my ribs. It’s only a school, for goodness’ sake. I mean, I’ve been institutionalised basically my whole life, so what am I so afraid of? Besides, the school’s tiny, and I already know about half of my classmates, and they seem...OK, aside from Maisy and her pig-cheeked lapdog. I grind my teeth at the thought of them. I’m not the brightest spark at keeping the peace, but if I’m going to be forced to be in their humble company should I want to hang onto my new friends, I’ll have to find some way to get along with them. This is precisely what I had to do with Claire, and she’s pretty fooled I’m not a total headcase. I know better.









My eyes run despairingly down ‘Week One – Tuesday’. History, first period, followed by science, then drama, then double maths. Can you imagine? Why do I have such rotten luck? Double maths at the end of the day. I knew the universe was on my side. I knew it.


“Hey, it’s the porn star!”























I look up coldly to see Damien sauntering towards me, accompanied by Mi-Mi and Ollie, to my relief. I check the time on my phone – 8.30 exactly. Most students seem to arrive around this time. I internally (if savagely) send a wish to the world to break down Maisy’s bus, smudge her make-up and make her late, just so I can see her face when she gets detention. Since, you know, apparently tardiness is the equivalent of genocide at Cloverfield. I wouldn’t know.























“Stop calling me that,” I say, glaring into his laughing green eyes.










“Technically, I called you it once, so you can hardly tell me to ‘stop’,” he says, unperturbed by my rudeness. “Not my fault yoau’re into hard porn, but whatever floats your moat, I suppose.”
























Does criticism fly over his big stupid head, or what?























I turn to Mi-Mi and Ollie, deciding it best not to respond and hence fuel his idiocy further. “I’m guessing with fifteen people in the year, we have the same timetable?” I say, fingering the one still clutched in my hand.













“Sixteen, now you’re here,” Mi-Mi says automatically, like corrections are natural to her. Probably are. I didn’t get a good look to see if she was one of the stars of Ms Tavern’s Hall of Nerds, but she seems the type, in the best possible way.







“Double maths?” Ollie says tragically. “If I were you, I’d bunk the first day.”









Mi-Mi shoots him a look that could kill poison. “Oliver Evans, this is her first day here,” she says bossily.



























“So?” he says uncomprehendingly.




















“So fifty percent of the company here are complete jerks,” she says, tossing a shiny curl over one shoulder.

























“Bad luck, Steph,” Damien says, winking at me. “But, hey, I’m sure she’ll get used to you in the end...”




























“I meant you,” Mi-Mi says nastily, hooking an arm through mine. “C’mon, let’s get away from these losers.”
























“No, don’t goooooo,” Ollie says, clutching his chest as if it can’t bear the strain. “I’ll do better next time Ms Tavern, I promise...”

















Firmly, Mi-Mi tugs me away, leading me to an ominously far edge of the school grounds, still not losing the irritable expression.

















“Um, if you’ve lured me here to murder me, can you save it for double maths?” I say wearily.





























“Are you blind or something?” Mi-Mi says, digging my side. “Look up.”








I do as she says (hey, the effect is catching) – and take a step back, staggered. Rihanne and Zac are sitting casually in the tree branches, crunching on apples. Identically, they smile at the shocked face I wear.





















“Hey, Steph. Happy first morning?” Zac says flippantly.














“Slow down a second,” I say, calming my racing breaths. “Let me get this straight. You want to have a normal conversation with me – up a tree?”













“Yeah, what’s the problem?” he says, dark eyes lighting with amusement. “This is standard protocol. You’ll get used to it.”


















“When you fall and die, don’t come crying to me,” I say weakly.










Mi-Mi laughs at this, looking at them reprovingly. “I’ve tried telling them,” she says. “But they don’t listen. You won’t catch me up there, though, don’t worry.”








“Well, you wouldn’t want to ruin your head-girl-ship, would you?” Zac says sardonically, taking another bite out of his pale green apple.














“Wait, you’re Head Girl?” I say, taken aback.





















Mi-Mi nods. “’Fraid so. If you want to get into Cambridge, you have to make personal sacrifices.”





























I blink.






























“Want a leg-up?” Rihanne says cheerily, curly ponytails held up with thick red hair bobbles, a perfect girlish contrast with her light, dotted freckles.










“The bell’s about to ring,” Mi-Mi tells her with a roll of her eyes. “Honestly. Is it Corrupt the New Girl day or something?”



















I’m beginning to think so.






















Nonetheless, I allow myself to be hoisted up through the autumn leaves, looking around in wonderment as though I’ve just discovered the Faraway Tree. I bloody loved the Faraway Tree growing up.


























“This is so weird,” I say, finding to my astonishment that the soft moss and roomy space make it quite comfortable living. As I speak, a branch crackles, and I give the smallest of small starts. Maybe not that small.






















“Jumpy or what?” Zac says, entertained. “It’s alright, you’re not about to fall.”





“How would you know?” I say with a note of challenge.














He gives a nonchalant quirk of the eyebrows. “’Cos I spend every school morning up here, that’s why,” he says. “And look down – it isn’t even that far.”











“I can’t look down,” I say quickly. “In films, they always say ‘don’t look down’.” I give him an accusing stare. “Are you trying to kill me?”















“Not another crackpot murder theory,” Mi-Mi says, her voice slightly distant above the chirping of our neighbouring birds. “I swear, Steph, you watch too much Sherlock.” (This affronts me a little – what’s wrong with watching too much Sherlock?)



















Unwittingly, I look down to answer her, gulping. We are several feet in the air. Zac is a liar. If I fall, I die. This is hardly fair. I’m not even sixteen yet. There’s a rulebook, surely, about how much misfortune one person can suffer?














Or not, in my sorry case.


























“I’ll have you know it’s not crackpot,” I say with dignity. “For all I knew...in fact, for all I know...I was led to a quiet corner of the school, lured up a tree...and kidnapped!”




They just snigger at me, refusing to answer, which only confirms what I know.







“I’m getting down,” I say unsteadily.




















“Er, can you get down?” says Rihanne with a stifled giggle.













“Point taken,” I say, folding my arms stubbornly. “Well, you two got me into this mess – you’ll just have to get me out.”





















“How do you propose that we do that?” Zac says idly. “Push you or what?”







At that moment, the bell begins to ring, as shrill and harpy as Ms Tavern herself. I have a little giggle myself at the thought of my headmistress’ face if she could see me now.




Lateness must be a serious issue here, though, because Zac and Rihanne begin giving me quickfire instructions on how to slowly slide myself to safety, and mercifully, I manage to do it with shut eyes. And that’s it. I’m back on solid ground. I’m free.








Mi-Mi gives me a quizzical look as the four of us are striding into the gloomy building. “If you’re scared on heights, why on earth did you agree to be hauled up?”







“I have no idea,” I say honestly. “I just do things sometimes, think later, you know.”




My form tutor turns out to be far removed from the towering nightmare of my imagination. She’s small and softly spoken, with long, lank hair and rosy cheeks, whether from inbred heartiness or stress, I can’t tell.














“So...Steph,” she says, just about recalling my name. Brownie points for not using my full one. “Welcome to class 11A!”























“I already used that line,” comes a jolly-sounding voice.














We whirl round to see Ollie stomping in, raising his eyebrows at our form tutor. “You want to get more original,” he adds helpfully.


















“Right,” she says, flustered, looking all of a sudden like one of those young, desperately keen teachers on Educating Yorkshire. “Well, I see you’ve already met some of your classmates, Steph.”

























“Looks like it,” I say pityingly. “Um...Miss...”


















“Preacher,” she says breathlessly. “Miss Preacher.”















“Yes,” I say, leaving a deliberate pause. “Well...where should I sit?”








‘Miss Preacher’ looks round, considering. Honestly – this isn’t Deal or No Deal. “Next to Damien,” she says at last, and I groan.






























“Really, Miss? I think it’s better if I sit elsewhere...” I flounder slightly as the oddity himself strolls in, maddeningly still smiling. Is he made of freaking rubber or what?
















“Come on, Steph, don’t be like that,” he says mockingly. “I can be your tour buddy and everything.”



























“What an excellent idea,” Miss Preacher says, beaming.













I look at Mi-Mi, appealing for support.



















“Miss, I think it’s better if the new girl’s taken into my hands,” she says. “Er – as Head Girl, I’m clearly better experienced.” She looks hard at Damien, daring him to disagree. I have the feeling she’d make a killer lawyer.















“What’s all this fuss about?”























I turn and groan again at the sickening sight that greets my eyes. Maisy Dawn a.k.a. The Bimbo, is wandering in, dressed in a dangerously short skirt and tacky (if I say so myself) fishnet tights, somehow managing to pull off sexy in school uniform. Her crisp blue eyes gleam as she takes in the arguments in front of her. They seem to diminish in my mind as she curls her lip, reducing the debate to silly and immature, a preschool feat. If Damien’s rubber, she’s a hoover, I think rather lamely. Hatred courses through my veins, and that’s saying something, because I am a very forgiving person. Very forgiving.








“Seriously, Stephanie, it’s just a form seat,” she says maliciously, her tone charmingly light. “You’ll be in here twice for what – ten, fifteen minutes? In a twenty-four hour day, that’s half an hour or less.” She exchanges a catty look with her friend Hannah, who has her hair in lumpy pigtails, and is once again poring over her phone. What’s so interesting, I wonder randomly.
























There’s a silence. I look to my lawyer for a suitable comeback, conveying a death stare to Maisy at the same time. Everyone knows wise clients look to their lawyers to defend them, not cheaply argue like hoodrats themselves. Any other time, though, I’d tear her down, from her stupid blonde hair to her tottery black heels. But seeing as I’ve just met my form tutor, it would probably be best not to kick up a riot. I don’t think her nerves can stand another shattering, to be honest. Call it my good deed.














“No one asked for your opinion, Dawn,” Mi-Mi says bluntly, burning a hole in the girl’s made-up face. “So kindly shut up your cheap little gob. Anyway, Miss Preacher, it seems obvious Steph shouldn’t be left to the incompetent hands of Damien Smith and his sad little sidekick.” She grins at me, satisfied. I guess Maisy gets under her skin, too, even though they go round in the same group. This is good news if I’m to stage an uprising. Excellent news, in fact.

























During this battle, Damien keeps darting quick, amused looks at me, as if to say: All this fuss over us? I’m flattered! He actually does mouth this at one point, and I suppress a smile with difficulty. Determinedly, I black him out from my line of vision as much as I can, but as this means examining Maisy’s white-tipped pink nails, it turns out to be a grim, grim task.


























“Well, all this arguing has clearly been very productive, children-” Miss Preacher begins to say, but I cut her off swiftly.






















“How?” I say.


























“What?” my teacher says, seeming flabbergasted.
















I look round at the others. “How in the world has this mess been productive?”




“Well – I – ” she turns a curious shade of puce. “Well – I –”











Across the room, Damien shakes his head at me, eyes twinkling.










“Oh, is that the time?” I say abruptly, looking at the big green clock. “Sorry, Miss, got to go – I don’t want to be late for my first lesson, after all.”














“Of – of course,” she says, and a prickle of guilt pierces my skin. “Well...um...who wants to show Steph to History class?”





















“I’ll do it,” Mi-Mi and Damien say at the same time.














“Either one of you!” our form tutor says hysterically. “Anyone, I don’t care, just get to class!”































We scurry out. I’m half expecting her to say ‘please’.














“Steph, hold up,” Damien I-can’t-seem-to-get-the-message Smith says brightly, falling into step beside me. “Don’t you want to know the room number?”










“From you? No thanks,” I say scornfully, skipping to catch up with Mi-Mi and Ollie and blowing my fringe out of eyelash-range.

















“So, what’s the room number?” I say as they take in my flushed, I-just-escaped-from-the-madhouse face.



























“Er – room 112,” Mi-Mi says heavily. “It’s Tuesday morning, but it feels like Friday afternoon, already...”





























“Tell me about it,” I say moodily. “And it’s my first day.”












They give me sympathetic looks, and somehow I feel a tiny bit better. OK, so I got off to a dodgy start, but maybe it won’t be so bad, I delude myself into thinking. I don’t think I could get through my first lesson with any other mindset, to tell the truth.


-

*
By break time, my resolve is starting to crumble to dust. My right hand aches from writing, my throat’s sore from answering unexpected questions, and my head’s whirring madly with new information. So this is what school feels like. I’d forgotten, having had the long, secluded summer break.





















In a resigned sort of way, I pull out a Nature Valley cereal bar, my taste buds coming to life as I bite into the oats and honey. I was too keyed up this morning to eat, and my stomach churns with gnawing hunger and anticipation.















“So, how’ve your first lessons been?” Mi-Mi says with a kind of forced breeziness. The tired shadows under her alert hazel eyes pretty much shape up how I feel.









“Lousy,” I say, immediately regretting my words when her and Ollie look slightly crestfallen. “But...apart from that...great.”


















Neither looks convinced. I open my mouth to try again, but am thoughtlessly interrupted by the mistimed arrival of Maisy and Damien, who are holding hands. The image of them makes me want to vomit twice over, and you know how I feel about vomiting.




























“A lousy day just got worse,” I say tersely, not troubling to keep my voice down. Mi-Mi smirks at my boldness.


























“Do any of you guys have a protractor?” Maisy says, fanning her face with her maths book.






























“Buy one,” I say testily. “Reception desk’s over there.” I throw her a what-they-say and what-they-mean look: as in, get lost.





















She stops fanning herself, her eyes contracting. “Excuse me?”











I give a long, inflated exhale of breath. “The reception desk,” I say patiently, pointing like I’m talking to a small child. “Right over there. You see the sign spelling out ‘Reception Desk’ in big black letters? That building.”

















Mi-Mi, Ollie and Damien chortle with laughter.
















“Well, thank you for that help,” Maisy says curtly, whipping her head round to address Damien. “Let’s go, then.”


























As they start walking away, I dig in my bag for something, then call out: “Wait – I think I have one after all.”


























They turn back disbelievingly.























“Here you are,” I say in a sing-song voice, slinging it into her confounded hands. “Enjoy.”





























The three of us fall about laughing as they traipse away, Damien pausing long enough to look right into my vengeful eyes. Then they’re gone.















“You’re still not over those napkins, are you?” Ollie says, wiping his eyes.







My left shoulder rises casually. “What do you think?”














By the time I get home, I’m exhausted. I spent the entire double maths session sandwiched awkwardly between Maisy and Damien, who kept murmuring unrepeatable nothings to each other. The maths teacher, a stern, upright man straight out of the ’40s, insisted there was nowhere else to sit (like I believed that) – and besides, I could separate the bad influence of my canoodling peers. Lovely. Another thing I’d forgotten – algebra will be the death of me, seriously. Everyone knows letters are for English lessons – why introduce them to maths too? It’s something I’ve never understood. I know my times table, I know how to add and subtract and multiply and divide, so what else do I need? I don’t want be a flipping mathematician.



















“Be that as it may, Miss Collins,” Mr Rogers had said without a flicker of humour. “But unless you want to be a homeless nobody, I suggest you get your maths GCSE.”




I had just gulped. Point taken. Make that point annihilated.









“Cheer up,” Damien had said. “You can’t win them all.”














The memory of it still sends a blaze of fury through my head.












Using words even I shouldn’t know, I catch my damn black shoes on something heavy as I’m shutting the door. Over my fit of pique, I glance without interest at the thick white envelope. No Hogwarts logo. I knew that.



















I’m about to throw it down with the rest of the dreary old bills when something catches my eye. The writing. It looks like...























No. No. That shaky, curled writing could be anybody’s. Then I see something else that weakens my thought process. A small, almost indistinguishable daisy chain has been linked up the corner of the crumpled envelope, delicately painted with rose pink and yellow and white.


























It is. It is her.

I GAZE FIXEDLY DOWN AT THE CHIRPY, FANCY WRITING, TENTATIVE,




maybe even a little bit scared. Do I read it, or toss it straight in the bin, where it belongs?












I bite my lip. It couldn’t hurt to just see...could it? I don’t know.











The very glimpse of it, the glimpse of her, is enough to make it all come flooding back. The hazy nights spent sitting at the windowsill, waiting, a book in hand, a stone cold mug of hot chocolate in the other. The way she would be perched on the ruined green sofa when I came home from school, staring into nothingness, into a void I couldn’t see. I had to sit with her, hold her hand, talk her back to the present, and eventually her dead eyes would light with life, and she would smile and shake back her beautiful hair...














“I just dozed off for a moments,” she’d say, and ever the dutiful daughter, I’d believe her. “What’s the time, sweetie?”






























I’d have done anything for her back then. Anything at all. With dad gone, it was the two of us, against everything, against everyone. I had no friends, no life outside her, but that didn’t matter.



























She wasn’t crazy all the time. Some days we’d lie down for the whole day in our matching gingham pyjamas, trawling through our vast collection of DVDs, licking strawberry and peanut ice cream. Looking back, she was bloody obsessed with DVDs. They had to be ordered by preference – her preference – and if we had an odd number, she’d grab her woolly scarlet coat, still in her pyjamas, and rush out to buy another. Occasionally it was a good investment, so I tried not to mind, even when her mascara cascaded in spidery lines down her cheeks, even when her mouth was set in a grave, thin line and she didn’t want to smile anymore.



















And then our bubble smashed to glass. They took me away, they took her away, and I was so angry...



























My fingers reach for the envelope and tear down a corner, destroying the pretty chain of daises. A small parcel and a letter. Which do I open first?












The letter.





























Impassive, immobile, I start to read:
Steph,
They’ve shut me up in the madhouse, like I told you they would. Not much happens, except the little daily pills and the incessant screaming. It’s like a jail sentence. I’m not exactly mad, am I? Not like them.






























Colourful, your father used to say. What’s wrong with that? Why can’t they appreciate my artistic genius? Anyway, I didn’t write to complain. I wrote to see how you are.












Firstly, sorry you got made to stay with Will and that girlfriend of his. The child must keep you up half the night. Not like you. You were this tiny, quiet baby, more grown-up than I was even then. It seems incredible my tuft-haired, beautiful little angel is this strong, capable teenager now. I know school’s a drag, but I hope you’re settling in OK and making friends etc.
























I’ve just had a brilliant idea. I know I’m ‘in isolation’ (so that bitch-faced nurse keeps telling me) but you have to come to see me. I know I’m meant to be going not-crazy here, but I’m more mental now than I was before, shut up in this place. You have to get me out.
Please?


Love Mum xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.
I stare at the xs until the letters run with my blurred tears. I wipe them away, furious.




I can see now that if I thought I’d steeled myself against everything, against her, I was wrong.






























She wants to see me. The question is, do I want to see her? I could just bury this under my floorboards, tell Will and Sarah nothing about it, carry on as normal...




But something stops me. The real question is, what am I doing here? Making friends, making enemies, settling into a school routine...it...none of it makes sense. An old, long dead feeling rises inside me. I should be with her. That’s where I should be. Not here.

I must’ve been as crazy as her to think I could build up a new life here. What was I thinking?





























My eyes go as wide as saucers as I see the scribbled P.S.: Address on back. Mum has a plan – and it seems pretty clear. She wants me to rescue her. So I will.
*

Packing again doesn’t take long. Most of my clothes, all my things, are still shut in the suitcase I set off in. I look for a moment at my ragged, one-eyed teddy bear, torn. Am I really doing this? Am I really just going to take off and leave Sarah and Will in the lurch?


My fingers scrape into my wooden desk as I think. Inspiration strikes like wildfire. I’ll leave them a note, explaining everything. They’ll understand...they have to.
Got to go, I’m sorry, I write in my biro-driven scrawl, will explain if you call later. Don’t worry, I’m not in trouble. I look at it. It hardly seems sufficient, not for what I’m about to do. Please don’t tell Claire, I add after a breath’s hesitation. I promise I’m coming back...with Mum.
It’s the best plan I’ve got. I know Mum and Will don’t get on nowadays, but he’s not so heartless as to see her on the streets, is he? Or if he is, he’ll take her in for my sake, surely? Well, he won’t have much choice. I won’t come back if she doesn’t. Yeah, I’m angry, just like Will is, but it would be cruel, inhumane even, to leave her locked up in that hellhole. She sounded desperate, and I know that feeling all too well. We can work out the rest later. I nod to myself, validated. It’s four o’clock. Will’s working until five, and Sarah’s taking Angel to see her parents, like they do every week, since they live fairly nearby. I was relieved I had schoolwork as an excuse. Sarah’s parents are nothing to me, really, so why should I bother seeing them? Especially when I could be helping my only real family. I’m resolved. You can’t go back on a promise, even if mine was a telepathic one.



























There’s just one thing left to do – change out of these hideous school clothes. A laugh forms in my throat as I kick off my hated shoes and strip down to my underwear, reaching into my suitcase for the most inconspicuous items I know. I end up with my oldest, most retro pair of jeans, a black sweater, and my spiky boots. I tie my hair into a quick, messy bun, running my fingers down my fringe to straighten it. Done. Ready to go.































I march down the stairs, grabbing a few quick snacks and some bottles of water and Dr Pepper from the fridge, stuffing them into Sarah’s Tesco picnic bag. If I’m going to do this, I’m going to do it properly, even if it means extra caffeine to keep me awake.



















Finally finished, I use the key Will gave me with a twinge of conscience, shutting the door decisively. I just pray the suitcase won’t hinder my progress too much, lest Sarah or Will should get home too quickly and catch up with me at the station. If that happened, I would probably throw myself into the nearest train and hope for the best, I muse wryly.




























A few people give me odd looks as I puff through the streets with my suitcase and big, recycled bag, but I pay them no attention. I’m new to this area, so they can’t exactly stop me, can they? (If they do, I’ll give them the finger. I am a woman on a mission).




























What I need to do now is work out a route. I pull out my phone, shrugging, and begin plotting my steps from my town in North London to Mum’s nuthouse in the quiet village of Shepperton, Surrey. I lean against a shop on the doorstep of Bounds Green station (the nearest from Sarah and Will’s house), frowning over the list of Google results. Why can’t I find what I need, just this once?
















Aha. I peer more closely at a trail of directions, and am left speechless. All this time, my mum has been one hour and sixteen minutes away? Now that’s just taking the...





“Excuse me?” comes a gravelly voice.



















I twist round, heart jarring, to see a toothless old woman right up in my face, so I can see the haggard lines around her yellowing eyes.


















“Spare change?” she says in a slurred voice, and I move away, further into the station. If I get away from her, she’ll leave me alone, I think uncertainly.











I’m wrong. The woman stumps up to me, jabbing me in the chest. “Just two, three pounds,” she says insistently. “Just two, three pounds...”














Oh, help. She’s started repeating things, mumbling into her handkerchief, and we’re attracting attention (we? We’re a ‘we’ now?), something I really don’t need.














“Sorry,” I say politely. “But I don’t have anything.” Nothing to spare, at least.








At last, the woman’s ramblings cease as she sees another straggler, leaping into their path and striking up the same tune. As I watch, the only guard on duty grunts and stamps up to the woman, demanding that she leaves. She refuses, spitting in his face, and chaos ensues, with the guard hissing into his radio. A fearless sensation begins at the tips of my toes, trickling into my mind. I couldn’t...could I?















One way to find out.

























Throwing caution to the grave, I take a chance and dash through the ticket barrier after an on-the-verge-of-meltdown mother of five. Nobody noticed. Nobody saw. I’m invisible.









Exhilarated, I ride down the speedy escalator, watching busy Londoners charge down the moving stairs, phones clutched to their ears, briefcases in their hands, bumping shoulders and not apologising. Shit. I’ve broken right into rush hour. Just my bloody luck. While I wait for the tube, I feel a strange mixture of gratitude and revulsion for the unnamed woman, whose diversion saved me a bit of cash. I feel a tiny bit bad about that, actually. Since I didn’t pay for this particular tube ride (I don’t think I’ll be trying it again, on second thoughts), I probably could have spared that two, three quid. I can’t seem to get those haunted, drained pair of eyes out of my head. Somehow, they have me questioning everything I’m going to find. But that’s stupid. By the look of her, the woman probably would have spent it on cheap alcohol anyway. I would have only sped up her premature death, I think hopefully, somewhat reassured.











After nine minutes and 45 seconds (I timed it) on the tube from Bounds Green, the doors swing open for Finsbury park – my stop. After somehow having enough spare to get through the barrier and top up my oyster card, I get on another tube, this one a little longer – about seventeen minutes. On the way, I play quick games of solitaire on my phone – I’m a whiz at this game. Call it plenty of hours of experience travelling to places, waiting for someone, but I’ve gotten pretty good. A text interrupts my latest win, and I look down at it with a growing sense of panic. It’s from Will. He has no idea yet, only having texted to see how my first day went, but how long until he finds the note? How long until he takes after me? I haven’t thought this through at all, I think despairingly. And he’s much quicker at working out routes than I am.
























The first day was bearable, I text back. Lessons are drab as expected, but most people seem nice, I guess. When will you be back?

























I nearly asphyxiate from the suspense hinging on his answer – then it pings back, and my shoulders slump in relief.
























Will be late tonight – something’s come up at work. Sarah told me to pass on message her and Angel won’t be back until seven, so heat up one of those ready-made meals, OK? If you know how to use a microwave.
































Of course I know how to use a microwave, I type back, insulted in spite of myself. What do you take me for?






























He won’t suspect a thing. None of them will. At least until seven (cue mad hyena laugh). By that time, I’ll have got Mum out of that place, with a bit of much-needed luck, even though it’s let me down so many times. I sigh. You can’t control hope, I suppose.




I get off the tube, heavy-shouldered, and prepare to board my final destination. Forty-eight minutes from Vauxhall to Shepperton, and I’m there.

-
This time I sit down, predicting a crowded journey as thus far. This time, though, it’s quieter. I guess less people need this village than London. I look out at the foggy images that breeze past, lingering on grassy meadows and star-shaped clouds that hang idyllically in the heaven-blue sky. The best bit of entertainment comes, surprisingly, in the form of a random cow-field, in which I take great pleasure in naming the ugliest ones after Claire, Ms Tavern, Maisy and Hannah. Juvenile or not, it takes my mind off things for a while. My head’s drooping sleepily on my seat when a cool, mechanical voice announces the end of my mini-odyssey. I stand up, stretching my legs, and grab my luggage, filing out of the train after a blue-haired woman with a guitar case. I’m stunned. Too stunned even to punch the air in triumph, like I ache to. I don’t believe it. I actually made it. Me of all the people, the Homer Simpson of geography. I look at my phone – ten to six. I bite my nails, deliberating. Would it be better to storm in there now, or wait for the morning? I’m swinging in favour of the latter, but the only thing is, I have nowhere to stay for the night, and I’ll need to count my coins to pay for a bit of breakfast in the morning. There’s no way I could afford even the most pint-sized Bed-and-Breakfast, anyway. The evening sunshine slits my eyes, and I rub them, still a little dazed. The dream-like feeling I felt on my first day at Sarah and Will’s is back, more forcefully than ever. It’s as though I’m expecting an inn to spring up out of nowhere, Stardust-style. I wouldn’t be surprised, the mood I’m in right now. Of course, no inn appears, which may be just as well, since I like my heart where it is. I sink down onto a bench to think, steadying my thoughts. I’m considering using the bench as well of an old bit of newspaper like some old bum (hey, beggars can’t be choosers) when something catches my eye. Outside the eerily deserted station is a reasonably sized, and abandoned ring of toilets. The room is a little beaten in, to be kind, and someone’s scrawled illegible vandalism inside it, but I’ve stayed in worse places, seriously. Broken toilet it is. I wander in, marvelling at the shabby glamour that meets my eyes. If I imagine enough, this could transform to a gilt, five-star hotel with bed sheets that smell of strawberries and butlers who bring you trays of honey-dripped pancakes and fizzy lemonade. I hold onto this image as I take out my rough sleeping bag from my suitcase, using my thick winter coat as some sort of clumsy mattress. It’s still only six o’clock, and my stomach rumbles, but there’s no sense in spending any more of my precious coins. I break into my supplies, taking out a squashed jam sandwich that reminds me uncannily of Claire, as well as a pear and a melted chocolate bar. Dinner is served. I think of Will’s ready-made meal and my mouth waters. It’s not too late to go back... No. When I decide to do something, I do it, and there’s no turning back. Not for anything. Besides, the sandwich’s perfectly good, if I say so myself. Like my current living quarters, I’ve had worse meals, too. Trust me, this beats trampled-on soup any day. I jump in dismay when my phone starts to ring. It’s not even six thirty yet. Nobody’s supposed to be home. I breathe out. It’s just Mi-Mi. “Finally!” she says peevishly. “I’ve been calling for ages.” “Hi to you too,” I say sourly, secretly thrilled to hear another person’s voice. “What are you doing now?” I can’t even laugh. The truth’s too sad. I picture how high her voice would go if I blurted out: ‘In a smashed-in toilet in Shepperton, Surrey’. She’d probably scream at me. Then contact my brother, somehow. I don’t doubt her ability to track down anyone. “Nothing. Just sitting at home, making micro-wave spaghetti Bolognese,” I say, stroking my rumpled sleeping bag. “Why?” “Shut up, Ollie,” she says in a tetchy voice. I hear the sounds of a whack and an ‘ow’. “You deserved that. Now give me back my bag.” A few crackly seconds later, she’s back on the line. “Sorry about that. We’re getting him checked out for Peter Pan syndrome any day now. Anyway, want to join us at that milkshake bar? We’re shopping for materials for that History project, remember? I for one am I not being the only person in the group to do any work like always-” “Hey, I contributed last time!” I hear Ollie say indignantly. “You know I did.” “You gave me a toothpick,” she says, as though the mere memory still disturbs her. “Remember?” “Well, maybe,” he says sheepishly. “Well, are you coming or not?” Mi-Mi says, and I look around for a fool-proof excuse. Nothing. Just those damn dripping taps. “I’d love to, but I’m kind of held up,” I say carefully. “Don’t worry, I’ll still help with the project, obviously.” “You just said you were doing nothing,” Mi-Mi says suspiciously. Shit. “Well, I wasn’t at that moment,” I say stupidly. Think, you imbecile, think. “But now I am.” Lame, Stephanie, lame. “Because...because Angel’s thrown up again, right this second, in fact, and Will’s held up at work and Sarah’s popped out to get some medicine, so, yeah, I’ll be held up for the rest of the evening.” “Oh,” she says, clearly disappointed. “Well, fine. But now I suppose I’ll have to pay for everything on top of doing everything...” “We can split the cost three-ways, and I’ll give you the money tomorrow,” I say tiredly, starting to yawn. “Three-ways?” Ollie says, horrified. “I don’t even think you’re really held up. I didn’t hear any voices. Are you lying to us?” For flip’s sake, Ollie, accept the f*ing excuse. “The signal’s bad, and it happened when you stole Mi-Mi’s bag,” I say triumphantly, quite proud of my moment of invention. So take that, I feel like adding. “Well, fine,” he says mulishly, then brightens up at the thought of something. “With three of us, I think we should split the jobs up. Mi-Mi, you can do the research...let’s see...Steph, you do the presentation based on her findings...” “And what will you do?” Mi-Mi says, her keen-eyed suspicion trained on him this time. “The artwork,” he says. “I’ll find loads of cool pictures-” “Cool pictures of burnt Vietnamese children?” Mi-Mi says sceptically. “You know what I mean,” he says impatiently. “Just go with it. If you do, I’ll pay more than my fair share.” “Deal,” Mi-Mi and I say seriously. At this second, one of the toilets suddenly bubbles up, splashing over the surface. “What was that?” Mi-Mi says, the distrust returning. “That was Angel, vomiting up her spag bol again,” I say rapidly. “Sorry, guys, got to go. See you...tomorrow.” I switch off the phone and push it away from me as though it’s a dirty object, wiping my forehead in pacification. I’ve never had such interfering friends before. Or any friends, come to think of it.

I SIT BOLT UPRIGHT AT SEVEN IN THE MORNING, AS THOUGH I’M






getting up for school, and it’s then that I remember Mum’s present. In my panic, it went out of my mind, and I buried it in the picnic bag. That’ll have to wait for the moment. I need to get sorted. I look around at my grimy, class-less surroundings, taking the sleep out of my eyes. Oh well. At least this toilet has mirrors and taps. Though, to be honest, the thought of washing here makes me shudder.














I can’t turn on my phone. I physically can’t bring myself to do it. If I don’t listen to the frantic messages, if I don’t see the constant flow of texts or the long line of missed calls, then maybe none of it exists. I’m in Surrey now. Time to leave London behind for the moment.





























I get up with renewed determination, deciding it’s best to get on with it. I bring out my towel, stuff my used clothes into a suitcase, and start to wash, shivering (hey, it’s September). At least I thought to bring my sponge and flannel, as well as some toothpaste. I can always do my teeth later, after I’ve tracked down a cafe to have a quick breakfast (maybe using the cafe toilet, if it has mirrors too). If the situation wasn’t so humourless, I’d spot the irony in all this. I must be the most efficient runaway ever.
















Runaway. I feel a little sick at the thought. The label feels odd, and I scrub my skin raw to take away the alien bleakness of the situation. I long to wipe everything away with a flourish of pressed-down soap and cold water, and start over again. My head hurts thinking about it all. I was supposing to be starting again, wasn’t it? With Sarah and Will? And I cocked it all up, as usual. I should come with a warning – ‘danger, do not house’.





























Successfully depressed, I dry my body methodically, searching for fresh clothes. Eventually, I settle on a cherry-print shirt and baby blue jeans along with a white pair of trainers, brushing my hair in world-record time and scooping it into a neater bun than yesterday. You’d never guess I spent the night here. You’d never guess I was out of place on the streets of Shepperton. The thought makes me smile, but it makes me sad too.





The biggest problem to hand at the moment is my luggage. I can’t really run the risk of leaving my suitcase in here, can I? I know this isn’t North London, where someone might rob you if you started keeling over and dying in front of them, but still. I have valuable items in this. I’ll take the picnic bag (my purse and oyster can go inside, just in case, along with my phone), but the suitcase...it’ll look totally out of place. That’s the disadvantage of landing in a seemingly nice little village. People might peer at me, seeing I look a little young, and ask if I’m alright. I’ll just have to say...I’ll say I’m visiting someone. It isn’t a lie. I am. She just isn’t, you know, officially sane. What’s a small detail like that in the way of truth? Like my dress code, on a normal day, you’d never know she was any different, either. You might notice her because of her graceful, sparrow-like walk, her high cheekbones, her sultry red lips. But when you look perfect on the outside, people seem to miss the fragility inside.

















I put my bag on my right shoulder, seize my suitcase with the left, and take an almost mawkish last gaze at last night’s shelter. We had some good times, this toilet and I. It was all I had, anyway.

























I set off down the too-green, cobbled streets of the sleepy, tucked-away village, impressed in spite of my cheerless goal. Is this really such a bad place to end up in, on the scale of things?






























Maybe if you have a life here, a voice in my head tells me sternly. Not like your mother. She won’t be seeing the beautiful, picturesque landscapes, or the old-fashioned teashops...unless it’s through a window. With bars...




























Hang on a second. Old fashioned teashops? Perfect.















I step inside the one that looks friendliest – a small, slightly peeling cafe with chocolate-brown paint and the air of a Beatrix Potter story. I push open the door and have to quash a girlish squeal as the little silver bell tingles. I am less than an hour and twenty minutes away, but London may as well be another world. I’d almost live here.








“Hello, dear.”




























I look up in surprise to see a red-faced, fairy godmother-like woman with cheerful grey hair piled in a mess of plaits on top of her wide face, positively beaming at me. Not in the kerching – customers! kind of way, but like she’s actually pleased to see me. That’s stupid. Of course she’s seeing pound-signs.


















“Er...hi,” I say timidly, unnaturally shy. I’m so far from anything familiar, my personality seems to have vanished along with my new life. “Um...can I have a breakfast menu, please?”




























“Right you are, dearie,” the woman says, wiping a jammy crumb off her pink, frilly apron. This is too priceless. If Will or Mi-Mi or Ollie (etc.) were here, I can imagine their looks of total disbelief. I am literally in a parallel universe, five thousand miles away. Plus, this is the first time I’ve heard a waitress with an English accent in a while.






She sits me down in a subdued corner of the cafe, with only five other customers, all sitting at different tables. I will never challenge the phrase ‘silence is golden’ again. Whoever said it is a genius. Maybe I’m losing my marbles too, but I feel...tranquil. Like none of the world’s problems can touch me.


















I roam my eyes over the outdated, laminated menu, selecting a bacon sandwich and a tall glass of orange juice. I don’t want anything fancy (although there are loads of delicious-looking, homemade cakes oozing with milky cream and layers of icing), just something to get in my stomach. I feel empty enough as it is, without throwing up when I locate the...when I find Mum. I could ask frilly-apron woman if she has exact directions from here, because like I said, I’m not the best traveller around. I got here, and that’s a start. In truth, if I do end up getting found by Will, I’ll probably just boast I didn’t end up in Yorkshire or something rather than Surrey. I’m on the verge of looking forward to it. That and completely pissing my pants.
















What will he say? What will they both say? Will they hate me for running away? Will they even understand why I did?





















It’s alright for them, I think fiercely. They know who they are, they know their family. Me, I’m all over the place. Half a person.



















I guess being tranquil bit the dust pretty quickly.















I attempt to finish the sandwich like the wolf to the grandmother in Red Riding Hood, swallowing it with relish. It’s really good, for a cheap little bacon breakfast. I’m starving. It occurs to me I’ve been living on sandwiches recently. Why did all these intrepid explorers never include them in their survival guides? It’s a scandal.







I look up to see the maidenly waitress watching me as she reads her newspaper at the counter. Damn it. She’s already getting nosy, isn’t she? Soon she’ll wake up and smell the fishiness. I plan to be long gone before then, of course.














Time to pay. (With money, not revenge, obviously. What do you take me for?)






After I’ve brushed my teeth slyly in the toilet, I haul my suitcase and myself over to the counter, taking out a two-pound coin and a fifty pence piece. After I’ve paid, I shift my feet a little, wondering if I dare to ask. The waitress looks at me, waiting, and I cough once before speaking.


























“Um...could you possibly give me directions to this place?” I say, bringing out the wrinkled envelope in no great haste.




















“Right you are, dearie,” she says heartily. “I know this place like the back of my hand.” She scrutinises the loopy, curled writing, a frown creasing her features. My trainers do another scuffle-dance on the polished, white-and-black tiled floor.









“What do you want with this place?” she says at last, and I can’t help noting her eyes go straight to my suitcase.























“I – I’m visiting someone,” I say, flushing. “A relative. Is that a problem?”









“No! Goodness me, of course not,” she says, gathering herself. “You see that post office at the end of the street?”

























I nod.































“Turn left and keep walking straight, and you can’t miss it,” she says. “Just follow the signposts. It’s a big, silver building – tight security, though. You’ll have to buzz in to the receptionist. You do have an appointment, of course?” she adds more sharply.






“Yes, yes of course,” I say. “I came up here from London especially.”








Thanking her for her help, I start to move my suitcase towards the Victorian-style black door, but she calls out after me. I freeze, a million thoughts whizzing around in my brain. Maybe she knows. Maybe Will phoned the police after finding my note, and now the villagers are on the lookout for me...have I unwittingly given myself away?






“Take this on your way,” she says warmly, pressing a slice of wrapped yellow sponge with swirly pink icing into my free hand. “You look famished.”











“Oh, er, thanks,” I say, heart slowing. “You’re too kind.”













The little silver bell tinkles merrily as I shut the door.















I follow the instructed path (it’s hardly the Yellow Brick Road, but it’s quite pretty really), a little stricken. Maybe I should check my phone now. My nails embed themselves violently into my hands as I try to think. I don’t want to lose my bottle now – I’m come so far. But I don’t have to actually listen to any messages, do I? Or read any of the texts? Just seeing how many have been left will tell me enough.










I turn left at the post office and switch on my phone, feeling jittery. It’s like if I acknowledge what I’ve left behind, it’ll suddenly appear out of an abyss and snatch me back. Not knowing, it’s safer. I take a deep breath, telling myself staunchly to quit being so ridiculous and cowardly. It’s time to face up to what I’ve done.










Twenty missed calls? Twenty? Didn’t they get my note? I’m hardly in Outer Mongolia – I can easily find my way back in little over an hour.















It gets worse. My inbox is flooded with texts, the most recent ones from Mi-Mi. Confused, I decide to read these, but they all say basically the same thing: Steph, where the hell are you? Your brother rang me yesterday asking if I was with you, which is crazy because you said you were staying in. Why aren’t you at school?


















School. It completely slipped my mind. I picture Ms Tavern’s flaring nostrils, and flinch. What if she expels me?

























I didn’t bother listening to most of her speech, but what I did hear was a lot of jabbering about ‘extremely high standards’ and ‘impeccable behaviour’ etc etc. She’s going to kill me with her bare hands for tarnishing her precious school record. And she didn’t even cross my mind in my desperation to get here. How could I have been so stupid?





I haven’t just messed up with Sarah and Will. I’ve ruined any chance of settling into a good school and completing my GCSE qualifications. And there’s no one to blame but myself.






























I stare helplessly up at the great, sombre silver building that comes into view. The chances are they won’t let me in anyway, and I’ll have to turn back. My stomach simmers in nervous expectation. Well, it can’t hurt to try now, can it? I’ve botched everything else up, but maybe I can still salvage this.















I jab the buzzer aggressively with my thumb, stabbing at it repeatedly until the calm, deep tones of a man answers.






















“Abbey-Lake residence,” he says in a bored, practised monotone. “How may I help?”









“I – I’m here to see someone,” I say, feeling like there’s a ball of wool wedged in my throat.





























He clicks his tongue snappily, obviously used to this conversation. “Are you here to see one of our specialists, or patients?”



















“I – a pat – I’m visiting someone,” I say, stammering.















“Do you have an appointment?” he says lazily.
















“Yes,” I say defiantly, fired up all of a sudden. I check my watch. “For ten o’clock today. The person’s name is Sian Collins. I’m her daughter.”












“Ah,” he says, and I imagine him nodding. “Sian. Quite a character. Yes, she talks about you often.”



























She does? I feel a glow of pride. Even the receptionist has noticed. A few of my nerves quell down in my stomach. Of course she wants to see me. She’s my mother.







“However,” he says curtly, and my face falls. “I’ve been informed Ms Collins isn’t supposed to be seeing any visitors for quite a while.”














No. No way. I’ve come this far, and a bloody receptionist isn’t going to stop me now.



“This is different,” I say plaintively, hoping if I persevere he’ll give in to get rid of me. “It’s a special case. She’s my mother – I can’t not see her for months and months!”




I peek at the intercom sanguinely.

“Alright,” he says bullishly after a long pause. “I’ll send someone out to see you.”





Yes.































I wait outside the coiled, rusty iron gates, tapping my toe persistently on the tarmac. It worked. It actually worked. I did something right.















After a moment, a bright-looking woman with thick black hair bounds out, holding a special kind of pass. My toe stops tapping, and I stand eagerly on the pavement, hardly able to contain my glee. As the gates unwind theatrically, I’m expecting a lecture, but the woman passes me a friendly smile, seeming, weirdly, as ecstatic as I am. Maybe the carers are as mad as the patients? Figures. I’ve seen it in movies.









“You must be Steph,” she says knowingly, and I’m a bit freaked out a person I met this second knows who I am. But, then, Mum would have talked about me, I suppose. I feel a wash of sympathy. What is she even doing here? She doesn’t need looking after. She just wants to look after me, her daughter. What’s so crazy about that? OK, so she has mood swings sometimes, and maybe she is a little quirky, but so what? I think of the word she used...colourful...and smile. I’ve always thought she sees the world in moving, abstract water paintings, a green land to explore, armed with Technicolor contact lenses, while the rest of us see life in grey, drab and pale and routine. It’s what I love most about her, and now they’re trying to crush her and make her into one of them with seedy little pills? No wonder she wants me to rescue her. If that were me, I’d have smashed a window, jumped out and never looked back. Rather a broken ankle than a minute longer in this dump. It’s OK, I try to communicate telepathically as we walk inside the building, I’m getting you out.


























I am.






























The woman walks me briskly down the hallways, and on the way, I use the opportunity to look around and get a feel of the place. No screaming, incensed words hit my ears, like I was expecting. No one is banging on the walls, shouting to be let it out. It’s remarkably, strangely, quiet as we go along. I don’t see many people awake at this point in the morning, but the people I do see look at me tentatively, like I’m a wild animal who’s wandered into their midst. They don’t look scary. They don’t look mad. They seem...spookily normal. Spookily sad.























“We’re a tight knit group here,” the woman – Barbara by her name tag – says genially, seeing my face. “Most people – not your mother! – go in for the shared counselling sessions. It makes it feel like a community, see? Like you’re not as strange or outcast as you’ve been made to feel, because everyone here has problems, and they’re willing to talk about it. That’s what we need,” she adds, suddenly fierce. “People who are willing to talk about it. Get rid of this stigma.”























I lick my dry lips. “Why doesn’t Mum like to go?”















I know the answer, though. I can’t honestly imagine my mum sitting in a supportive circle of people, tossing her long hair and admitting she needs help. That isn’t her. I’m not really surprised. It’s something I’ve learned, too. Not relying on anybody.

























Barbara throws back her head and roars with laughter, while I look at her, a little irked. “Your mother!” she says, clucking like a hen. “Would rather die than be seen in those sessions – or words to that effect. We’ve tried, believe me. But she doesn’t want to integrate at all.”

























“Yep, that sounds like her,” I say, cheered by the thought.












Barbara stops by a greyish white door, studying my composed, blank face. “Are you sure about this?” she says quietly.






















“Of course I am,” I say for what must be the millionth time. “She’s my mother.”





“OK.” Barbara opens the door, and then stops again. “I’ll wait down the corridor, by my office, if you need me,” she says, seeming to have mulled something over. I’m relieved. How can we sneak out if she’s in here snooping?
















I push open the door, my breath in my throat.














This is it. This is everything I’ve been waiting for.














Mum is perched on the colourless window sill, robin-like, her legs curled up. I stare at the image of her for a few seconds, not wanting to speak, to ruin it. Her curly, raven-brown hair is swept into a hasty ponytail, making her sharp cheekbones all the more striking. It’s like I’m seeing a film star or something. She doesn’t seem real. I might have dreamt her up.


























Her head turns, sensing something, and at once her full, scarlet lips quirk up in a bright, glittering smile, her whole body seeming to awaken from a long, long sleep. She looks as astounded as I am.































“Steph,” she says at last. “Hey. Good to see you.”

I TAKE ANOTHER STEP INTO THE ROOM, SHUTTING THE PALE, WASHED




- out door. I still can’t quite believe I’m here. I can’t quite believe it’s her.







Now I am actually here, though, a small fist seems to have closed around my heart, fortifying myself against her. I guess Mum’s life lessons have worked a little too well. I can’t even bank on the only family I’ve ever really known. I thought the journey to and from here would be the difficult bit, but that wasn’t it at all. It’s this awkward stage in-between, where we both stare at each other, speechless. Mum seems to be waiting for me to say something, but I don’t really have any words. I didn’t prepare anything. That seems stupid. It should be so natural, shouldn’t it? But it isn’t. An old resentment rises to the surface. That isn’t my fault.






















“Er...hi,” I say when I can’t stand the silence any longer. Not that Mum seems affected by it. She just looks at me, face pensive and eerily ethereal, with her wild dark hair and unfathomable expression. I have the feeling I could look down a thousand dark tunnels, and I still wouldn’t quite reach her.



















“‘Hi’?” Mum says in a curious echo of my voice. “Is that all? Haven’t exactly been on holiday, have I?” her eyes look beadily into mine, and I have to look away. I wasn’t expecting this. I didn’t come here to play her mind games. I love her, but sometimes, it’s like she can’t help twisting everything, playing her own private, warped version of chess. After a summer apart from her, I can’t keep up with it anymore. And I’m tired of trying to. I’m the daughter, the teenager. She’s the one who’s meant to be working me out.






























“Well, what do you want me to say?” I say defensively. “‘Hey, Mum, how’s the madhouse?’” Right away, I wish I could take the words and cram them back in my mouth, stop them poisoning everything, but I can’t, of course. Mum gives me another of her long, assessing looks, and then she bursts out laughing. It’s such a shock I stumble and bash my hip on her chest of drawers, rather painfully, I might add.

















“You’re a chip off the old block, alright,” she says, the edges of her strong brown eyes folding into smiley lines, the only hint of her real life, her real experiences. She likes to tell people she’s thirty, and once, memorably, that I was her little sister, and it was such a drag to babysit me all the time. But that was because she wanted to pull some IT technician guy who was twenty-six. I didn’t mind him, because he got me a free laptop his company were chucking away. Then – well, Mum did what she always does and went and slept with someone else. That guy was old (but rich). She has weird taste in men.


























“I got your letter,” I say doubtfully, sitting on the end of her pink-and-white quilted bed. “You mentioned...leaving this place?”

















Maybe she’s changed her mind. Maybe she thinks all this is the best after all. Not that I’m clinging to this thought. I don’t care either way. I’ve found her...the cards are in her hands now.




























Mum sits up, lean legs dangling from the window sill. “Well, do you blame me?” she whispers, whipping her head round as though Barbara’s about to reappear, a guard in tow for good measure. “This fleapit’s driving me insane. Oh, the irony.” She smirks at me, the bitterness clear in her face. “I mean, what am I doing here, Steph? I’m saner than all these bloody psychologists’ and doctors, all those bloody I’m-here-to-talk f&ing specialists!” Her voice reaches fever pitch, chewing the words in their rage. “So what do you think, huh? Do I want to leave or not?” Her tone drips with exasperation. Maybe because no one in here is listening to her, stressing her illness and her confusion, literally driving her up the bend.





















“Obviously, yeah,” I say, trying not to give away how unsettled I feel. I unravel the stitching on a pink patch of quilt, turning it all over my mind. “What do you want to do, then? Break out? I don’t think it’ll be that easy...a woman I met said security’s pretty tight here...”



























Mum doesn’t seem to be focusing on the conversation. “What? Oh, that. Not a problem, sweetie. Look at this.” She brings out a slightly wonky, clearly homemade cushion, looking down at it in unhidden distaste.















“Um...nice,” I say lamely, wondering where this is going.













“What, this?” she rolls her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous. This is part of some half-baked ‘therapy’ idea.” I can hear the quotation marks in her voice. “I’m actually trying to show you something, Steph. Please try and concentrate.” Waspishly, her fingers find the cushion zip and draw it down. The sound inflames my ears like hands running down a blackboard.





























A look of unbridled victory crossing her face, she brings out a thin, green, rectangular card swathed in white plastic.






















“Do you know what this is?” she says jeeringly.















“A pass,” I say, remembering Barbara’s.



















“Gold star, Steph. This is our ticket out of here,” she says, while I look at her, puzzled. Our ticket out of here? I’m not exactly shut up in this place, am I? What is she talking about? I’m half expecting masked doctors to slam into the room, sinisterly telling me I can’t leave. Maybe I need some of those pills. Tempting, after this week. I look at my watch. Everyone will still be in second lesson back at Cloverfield, without me. I don’t even know what I’m missing today, but that can’t be helped. Woman on a mission, remember?

























“Where did you get that?” I say nervously, and am even more rattled to see Mum’s responding, gratified expression.




















“Stole it,” she says with an unmistakable air of pride. “It was easy. I created a diversion, pretending to be as crazy as everyone else in here, and charmed one of the other inmates into sneaking into the office and grabbing a pass. Can you believe him? He didn’t even question me, following my plan along like a pet monkey. I didn’t even need to bribe him with pills to keep his mouth shut – though I gave him some anyway, to get him to stop bugging me.”
























A q-tipped bubble appears in my head, showing a vacant-eyed, strait-jacketed man performing tricks for my mother. It feels uncomfortable, humiliating even.







“So I was surprised you turned up today,” she says, applying a glistening coat of red lipstick, not that she really needs it. “You were my reserve. I was always going to get out of this dumping ground. I’m not a sitting duck, am I?”














“Apparently not,” I say, still gathering my thoughts together. It’s been one hell of a morning – in a good or bad way, I don’t know. Technically, my plot is on its way to instant success, but funnily enough, I’m not in a celebratory mood. I think I must have been in a total fantasyland.





















“You know Barbara’s in her office right this minute?” I say pointedly.








“Yeah, dreadful woman, she never leaves,” Mum says in a mutter. “Don’t worry. We’ll get rid of her. You can cause a distraction, and I’ll slip out. If the emergency alarms start ringing, just pretend to be looking for me and ask to leave. They can’t keep you here, can they? Unless there’s something you’re not telling me, Miss Sane?”








I can’t help smiling at this. “Right,” I say. “OK. Erm...right now?”







“Well, I haven’t got anything better to do,” Mum says sarcastically. “Now, you guard the door in case Prissy-knickers comes nosying again, and I’ll pack.” She glances at my own suitcase. “I’m glad to see you came prepared.”













“Prepared for what?” I say.























She doesn’t answer, starting to throw t-shirts and pairs of jeans and non-toxic paint bottles into a heavy black rucksack. I notice this morning’s pill – still in its stale water glass – goes straight down the sink. I chew my lip, watching her. I’m starting to get a bad feeling about all this. Where does she think we’re actually headed?










Oh gosh. She doesn’t think I’m going on the run with her, does she? That wasn’t in the plan.


































“We’ll go somewhere exotic,” she’s saying as she flings items carelessly into the rucksack. “Somewhere amazing and hot and relaxing...”













“They took your passport,” I say, forcing myself to sound calm, when really I’m thinking: shit, shit, shit.



























Mum tuts, remembering. “Well, that’s a bummer isn’t it?” she says with a sigh. “Somewhere in Britain, then – somewhere secluded.”












“Yes, but where?” I say. The whole thing is bizarre. It’s like my own mother is kidnapping me.


























“I don’t know, Steph!” she says, her hands starting to tremble. “I don’t know, OK? I’m trying to do the best for us and you’re just pissing all over our plans! What’s wrong with you? I’m trying to give us a brand-new life, full of birds and sunshine, and you go and say all this! We can work out the geography later, OK?”















I get the sense I’m shrinking, falling into nothingness, beneath her unflinching gaze. I don’t know what to say. It’s not OK, of course. I’ve completely forgotten what she gets like. How ideas take possession of her everything, and nothing and no one will get in their way. I used to be able to talk her out of them, most of the time, but I seem to have lost the knack. We’ve been separated too long. Now she feels like a distant creature, a stranger, and that hurts.

























“Mum, this isn’t going to work unless we start getting realistic,” I say, but she carries on piling the rucksack with clothes until it can’t fit anything more, acting deaf. I know she can hear me. “Would you please stop packing and take some responsibility for once in your life?”




























She swears to herself, still trying to cram the clothes in the rucksack. “Damn things,” she says, absent-minded. “What the hell is wrong with you?”











She’s talking to a pair of jeans. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.








“Stop it!” I say viciously. “Stop packing and grow up! Grow up, Mum!”







At last, the frantic music of the packing fades away, and her thin, frail body seems to be falling in on itself. I don’t know what to do.
















So I do the only thing I can. I call Will.