I heard Mum and Gary arguing, then – or rather Gary delivering one of his lectures, his voice raised. When I was going back down the hall, I heard him say, ‘It’s a bit more than just puppy fat, Jen! I hate to say it, but it seems to me like she growing into it, not out.’
I stopped outside the sitting-room door. I suppose you just do that, don’t you, when someone’s talking about you, even if you really don’t want to hear? Even if you couldn’t care less what they’re going to say.
‘She’s been much better recently,’ Mum said. ‘She’s definitely lost a few pounds. Let’s just wait until she’s been to the hospital.’
‘OK, fine. But I think you’re avoiding the issue. You’re burying your head in the sand.’
‘And I think you expect too much.’
‘It’s not about what I expect, Jen. I want her to be happy.’
‘She is happy.’
‘Have a normal teenage life,’ Gary went on. ‘You know – friends. Boyfriends. I mean, come on! Who’s going to want to date her like . . . like she is?’
‘Well, we’re dealing with it, aren’t we?’ Mum said, her voice raised as well now. ‘She’s losing weight. Honestly, Gary, she’s only fifteen. I don’t really want her doing anything with boys.’
There was another silence. Then Gary, wanting to have the last word like always, said, ‘OK then. Let’s just pretend she’s losing weight and everything’s hunky-dory, shall we?’
‘Everything is hunky-dory, Gary. Let’s just wait and see.’
I did a silent cheer for Mum for beating Gary to the final word and started up the stairs, but she wasn’t finished. She said – the words clipped like she was accusing him – ‘You weren’t there.’
Yeah, I thought. You weren’t there, Gary Thornton – Gary Thorn-in-my-bum. You weren’t there.
School felt different the next day, and it wasn’t anyone else. Everyone was the same – basically either ignoring me or calling me names.
I was different, though. And I knew why. It was because I had a purpose now, because I had to save Alice. It put a new angle on everything. It’s like the perspective thing we did in art last year: far away = small, close up = big. It’s obvious, I know, till you’ve got to draw it (unless you’re Alice, of course, who could even make rotting fruit look lush). What I’m trying to say with the perspective thing is that I’ve always felt like I’m far away, like I’m the dot in the distance, and that everyone else is close up – big – living. But suddenly that day I didn’t feel like the dot anymore. I felt like I was the one that was close up – the one who knew the score, who could see the big picture – and I walked around the place like Bring it on!
I didn’t get much of a chance to look for you, other than out of the top corridor windows on the way to History. For one thing, it was raining all morning and I wasn’t so desperate to see you I’d get wet for the privilege, then there was a GCSE Drama meeting at lunch. I’m not really any good at drama. I only took it because I thought it’d be easy. And because I knew Alice would take it. And because I knew none of the Klingons like Katy or Sophie would choose it, meaning I could look at Alice without getting evils off them all the time.
Anyway, when I walked into the drama studio, Alice was in there on her own, sitting at one end of the semi-circle of chairs, drawing in her sketchbook.
Normally I’d have sat at the other end, or maybe in the middle somewhere. I’d definitely never have had the guts to sit next to her. But with my new perspective I just strolled over like it was the most normal thing in the world and plonked myself down beside her. ‘Alright?’ I said, like no big deal.
She said ‘Hi,’ but she was a bit surprised, I think. She closed her book and did that leg-crossing thing where if you cross them away from the person, it means you don’t like them. (She crossed her legs away, if you were wondering, but I wasn’t going to let a little thing like that stop my rocket.)
‘That’s good,’ I said, meaning her drawing. I wasn’t just saying it either, although I’d only caught a glimpse, because everything Alice drew was incredible. ‘Can I see?’
She hesitated and I thought I’d gone too far then. I thought she’d get up and move away – sit over the other side. But she didn’t. She put the book in my hand. In my hand – just like that! And I thought of that saying that Dad used to tell me: If you don’t ask, you don’t get.
Everyone else at school plasters their sketchbooks with things cut out of magazines, like words and dismembered bits of models and any other stupid stuff they can find to stick on. Alice’s cover was blank, though. Black – just how it was when Miss Trainer handed them out. I loved that. It was like she didn’t need to impress anyone; like she was telling the world that all the good stuff’s on the inside and it’s up to you to find it, like it didn’t matter to her if you did or you didn’t.
I flicked through with my thumb, catching colours and sketches and words written in fine pencil lines, and the beautiful delicate flowers she’d drawn in the corners with the page number in the centre of each – some in colour, some in pencil, some just in black ink, depending on whatever she had in her hand I suppose. I wanted to stop on every single page of course and stare at it all – at every line – but obviously I couldn’t. Not with her there. I got to the drawing she’d been working on. It was a girl, like a Manga girl, that glared out at me from the paper with gleaming eyes beneath a thick, black fringe. She was standing defiantly, like she should have a sword in her hand or something, though what she was actually holding was an apple.
Alice’d spent time on it, you could tell. The shading was brilliant – cross-hatched so it got darker and lighter just where she wanted it, like Miss Trainer’s always trying to get me to do instead of smudging with my thumbs. And round the edges were hundreds of tiny, wispy lines that were like ghosts of the finished drawing, or expressions of it or something. I don’t know. It was beautiful. It took my breath away. ‘It’s amazing,’ I said.
I didn’t look up, but I saw Alice out the corner of my eye twist her lips and give a little shrug, like maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. ‘Thanks,’ she said. Some of her hair fell forward. It was inches away, pale and gold, like a waterfall or something, even though I know that sounds corny. The point is, it was right there. I could’ve touched it.
That’s all I could think of then: imagining how her hair would feel slipping through my fingers, pooling onto my palms – cool, like water. My chest felt like it had an owl in it trying to beat its way out and I wanted to tell her, suddenly, about Alice’s Box – her box – and how it feels when I hold her things. I wanted to tell her about you as well, and how she should be really scared but at the same time not worry about any of it because I was protecting her and because I wasn’t going to let anything happen.
Robert came in with Max Bailey, though. I didn’t think so at the time, but it was probably lucky, because otherwise I might not’ve just closed Alice’s sketchbook and given it back. I might’ve flung my arms round her.
A couple of days after, when I was watching the path for you from the PE hut after lunch, I saw someone through the trees and hurried down to the fence with my bag. It wasn’t you. It was two women in wellies walking three big dogs.
I kicked the fence. I was annoyed. I knew you were planning to take Alice, so where were you? Why weren’t you there? Then the bell rang and right after that – after I’d turned to go back across the field – I heard a dog bark.