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  ‘Hey!’ he said, still sweaty – the black T-shirt had damp patches that I wanted to sniff. (Again, I know.) ‘Thanks for sticking around. How was it?’

  Everyone showered him with compliments, even Polly. ‘Honestly, your best gig, dude. The synth is sick.’

  ‘I know, right? Best thing we ever bought; we should have done it years ago.’

  ‘I suggested that,’ Beasley said proudly.

  ‘Yes, my friend, you did. Why are you drinking Coke? God! Losers!’ Nico left his bass behind the bar and convinced the bar girl to get us all cider. They had a band rider apparently and most of the band were over eighteen anyway. I hadn’t realised Nico was a year older than us. Immediately I started to panic about him going away to university and abandoning me, before I forced myself to get a grip.

  We all gladly accepted the cider. There’s only so much Coke you can drink before you can feel the diabetes actually happening within. Nico handed me a pint.

  ‘Hey, Toria. I can’t believe you came.’ He seemed genuinely surprised.

  PLAY IT COOL, I told myself. ‘Of course I came!’ WAY TO PLAY IT COOL, COOLIO. ‘You know … everyone was coming … and it sounded fun.’

  ‘Well, cheers.’ He plinked his plastic pint glass against mine. Is it a glass at all, if it’s plastic? Something for you to dwell on later. ‘What did you think? Be honest.’

  ‘OK, honestly –’ I sipped my drink – ‘I thought you guys were excellent. I mean that. I’m not just … blowing smoke up your arse or whatever that saying is.’

  ‘Really?’ His face lit up.

  ‘Really. I’m not gonna lie, I wasn’t expecting much … some of my old friends were in bands and they … really sucked. Sucked so bad! But I really loved that. “Papercuts” was my favourite.’

  His smiled broadened to show his dimples. Not being able to touch him was killing me. ‘No way! I wrote that one.’

  ‘Seriously?’ I thought about telling him I wrote poems, but stopped myself at the last second in case he thought it was lame.

  ‘Yeah.’ He steered me away from the group. ‘Don’t ever, EVER tell her I told you this, but it’s about Polly.’

  My heart kerplunked. I wanted to ask him why he was toying with my very soul, but instead I said, ‘Oh … OK.’ What did that mean? Was he still in love with her?

  ‘I don’t think she pays enough attention to realise, to be honest.’ I don’t know if he could see my big sad pug eyes but he changed the subject abruptly. ‘You look awesome tonight, by the way. Does that sound mega cheesy? Like, “Hullo, pretty lady, be my carer,” or something?’

  ‘Do I? Thank you … it was, erm, Daisy … She did my make-up.’

  ‘You look hot!’ he shouted at exactly the same time as the song ended. His words echoed round the room like it was a canyon. ‘Oh god! That’s so embarrassing!’

  Polly smirked. ‘Slick, Mancini. Real slick.’

  I caught her eye. She didn’t seem angry, but I felt awful at once.

  ‘Well, it’s true,’ Nico said. Zoë appeared and tugged on Nico’s sleeve – they had some band stuff to sort out or an amp to shift or something. ‘Urgh, I better go help. Don’t go anywhere, OK?’

  ‘OK.’ That made me feel a little better, but I was still baffled. ‘Oh, one thing. Before you go, what does Judas Cradle mean?’ I tried to be flirtatious, I really did. It probably came off as psychotic, making weird eyes like the snake in The Jungle Book.

  ‘Oh, it’s a medieval torture device. Prisoners got sat on a big wooden pyramid and then they weighed their legs down so it went all the way up their ass.’ He scurried off to help Zoë.

  I really wished I hadn’t asked.

  I got home that night to find Mum passed out on the sofa. Some old Christopher Lee horror film was playing on the telly, but she was face-down-in-a-cushion asleep, an empty bottle of wine and a half-finished tub of Twiglets spilled over the carpet. ‘Dad?’ I shouted but didn’t expect a reply. She didn’t get this wasted when he was home.

  All the fun I’d had that evening gurgled down the plughole, replaced by a painful knot in my gut. I angrily kicked off my shoes, intending to wake her. I thought I’d better put her to bed and hide the evidence. I don’t know why I do this every time, but I’d rather cover for her than listen to a fight. My dad is useless at stuff like this. He either sulks or does his head-in-the-sand ostrich impression, less use than the proverbial chocolate teapot.

  I went to the sofa and crouched at her side. ‘Mum … Mum, wake up.’ I shook her shoulder.

  She snorted out of her nostrils and came to. There was an equal amount of eyeliner smeared on her face and the cushion. ‘What time is it? You’re home early.’

  ‘I’m not. It’s late. After midnight.’

  ‘Where’s Dad?’

  ‘I dunno.’ I suspected he’d been out for dinner after work with some other lecturers and it had turned into a mammoth session. Dad does his drinking out in public where everyone can see it. Mum, like a lot of women, I suspect, kept her drinking behind closed doors. ‘Come on, let’s get you to bed.’

  I went to help her up but she brushed me aside. ‘Get off! I’m fine! I’m not a bloody invalid.’ She staggered across the lounge, unsteady on her feet. I braced myself to catch her. ‘Did you have fun tonight, Vicky?’ She walked like the carpet was sprung, bouncing slightly on every footstep.

  ‘Yeah, it was fine,’ I said, humouring her. What else could I do?

  ‘Good! You should have fun … you’re young. You should be out! Making friends and meeting boys!’ She stopped at the foot of the stairs, her eyes glassy. ‘You’re a good girl, aren’t you? Nice girl! Not like your old mum. No, no … you don’t want to be like me. I’m an embarrassment …’

  I’d been to this pity party before. It wouldn’t be spoken of in the morning. ‘Mum. Go up to bed. I’ll get you some water.’

  By the time I placed the pint of water on her bedside table, she was already unconscious.

  Chapter Five

  Papercuts

  After the night of the gig, I was on the inside of the outside. I’d never belonged to anything before – I even eschewed the Brownies because they make you wear poo-coloured garments – and it felt strong. It suddenly made sense why people join clubs and societies and cliques. It was nice to feel like a part of something. The side-effect of this was that most of the school now thought I was a freak. The sixth-formers were pretty used to Polly’s temper, Beasley’s mannerisms or Alex’s outfits, but the lower school – particularly gobby Year 9s – had now taken to screaming DYKES when Polly and I walked down the corridors together.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Polly told me one day in the library study room. She was surreptitiously eating a Müller Crunch Corner under the desk when the librarian wasn’t looking. ‘This is why we’re going to revise the **** out of these end-of-term tests. We’re the ones who are getting the **** out of Brompton. They can call us geeks and freaks or dykes and faggots, but in two years we’ll be in London or wherever and they’ll be pregnant, dead or working on the pier. It’s school karma.’

  ‘I hope so,’ I told her. ‘My first two essays were Cs. That’ll be me frying the doughnuts at this rate.’ The time obsessing over Nico (more about him in a second) and time spent on the crazy-golf course was cutting into my study time. Mum, perhaps to punish me for finding her so drunk, had thrown an eppy about my first two essays. For the first time ever, I’d been grounded to study.

  Over the library table, Polly took my hand and drew a smiley face on my thumbnail with a Sharpie. ‘Toria, we are not going to let you ******* fail. We leave no one behind.’

  ‘Thank you.’ I could feel myself blushing. So this was what having proper friends felt like. Back home, my old friends had made everything a competition – trying to outdo each other, failing to realise you get nothing for finishing first.

  ‘We got your back. Daisy has French and I’ve got English. You’ll be fine.’

  Meanwhile, as we crept towards half-t
erm, Nico was interested. I could tell:

  1. He texted constantly – sending pics from rehearsals or telling me how dull his lessons were.

  2. He liked everything I put on Facebook.

  3. On 12 October he asked me to send him a selfie – all above shoulder height, I stress. The last thing anyone needs to see is me squidging my boobs together with my arms like something off Nuts magazine.

  4. He always came to Fantasyland if he knew I was going to be there.

  I decided, shortly before half-term, that I would have to have a chat with Polly. She didn’t seem overly concerned about me and Nico texting, but I was becoming attached to both of them and didn’t want to make an epic mess just when things were going well. I finally plucked up the courage one evening at the golf course. Some of the others were playing. Alex had invented a hybrid of golf and croquet that he and Alice and Nico were trying out. I sat on the swings with Polly and Freya, who was, of course, reading.

  ‘Can I talk to you about something?’ I said, my voice strangled and feeble.

  ‘You can.’

  ‘Look, I know you used to date Nico …’

  Polly guffawed. ‘Bless you, child. I’d hardly call it dating.’

  ‘OK, well … whatever. I like him, but I don’t want to do anything if that’d piss you off.’

  ‘It’s not me you should worry about.’

  ‘What?’

  She leaned in conspiratorially. ‘You didn’t hear this from me, but Beasley has a major crush on you.’

  My eyes almost fell out of my head. ‘What? Beasley Beasley? I thought he was …’

  ‘Gay? Well, duh. The boy plays the ******* flute. It’s pretty much a single entendre.’

  ‘Then how can he have a crush on me?’

  Polly smiled. ‘Poor Beas. I know he’s gay, you know he’s gay, Freya knows he’s gay.’ Freya nodded with a wry smile, not looking up from her book. ‘The only person who doesn’t know Beasley’s gay is Beasley. Or if he does, he’s fighting it.’

  ‘God, why?’

  Polly shrugged. ‘Beasley really wants to be normal.’

  ‘Being gay is normal,’ I said defiantly.

  With an inquisitive tilt of her head, Polly scrutinised me. ‘You’re way too cool for this ******* town, Grand.’

  ‘Well, duh,’ I agreed with a grin. ‘Oh god, I don’t wanna upset Beasley. I love Beasley. But not like that. Do you think I should talk to him?’

  Polly shook her head. ‘Nah, he’ll get over it. He’s probably more concerned about you stealing Nico from him to be honest. I give you my blessing, by the way, if that’s what you’re after. Nico is … a dude.’

  She didn’t seem too certain, but I took her blessing gratefully. I’d worry about Beasley later.

  It was getting cold and I was starting to wish I’d worn a jumper. Polly changed the subject. ‘Hey, are you coming to Zoë’s Halloween party during the hols?’

  ‘Yeah, she mentioned it in passing. Was that an invite?’

  ‘Of course it was. Zoë’s dad is the vicar …’

  ‘What?!’

  ‘I know! He’s mega chilled out though. He’s letting her use their house while they’re on holiday. It’s gonna be epic.’

  ‘OK, cool. What should I dress up as? I hate fancy dress.’ I think it pretty much always looks naff and what are mixed-race girls meant to go as? I’ve oscillated between Pocahontas and Princess Jasmine pretty much my whole life.

  ‘I think a few of us are going to do a Beetlejuice thing this year.’

  ‘What’s Beetlejuice?’

  Polly looked at me with a mix of disgust, pity and horror before she stood up and screamed across the golf course. ‘STOP EVERYTHING. TORIA HASN’T HEARD OF BEETLEJUICE.’

  One night later I was sat in Polly’s bedroom with the title sequence of Beetlejuice rolling on her laptop. ‘So you know who Tim Burton is, right?’

  ‘Of course. I love Corpse Bride.’

  ‘Well, this is his early ****, when he was really ******* twisted. I can’t believe you’ve never seen this!’

  ‘It came out like ten years before we were born! How have you even heard of this? Are you secretly thirty?’

  Polly laughed. We were in our pyjamas – hers Hello Kitty, mine bunny rabbits. This was a proper sleepover. I popped a kernel of slightly frazzled microwave popcorn into my mouth. Sweet, obviously – Polly and I were on the same page when it came to popcorn. Salty popcorn is the foodstuff of the Antichrist. ‘No. But my sister is.’

  ‘I didn’t know you had a sister.’

  ‘Well, half-sister, from my mum’s first marriage.’

  ‘Ah, OK.’

  Obviously I loved the film. It was nuts. Apparently Beasley wanted to go as Beetlejuice while Alex and Alice were going to go as the dead bride and groom. When we got to the scene where the dead couple go into the afterlife, Polly paused it on the receptionist – a green-skinned beauty in a pageant sash and crown.

  ‘I’m going as her. Look how ******* fierce she is. I’m going to dye my hair red.’

  ‘Yeah, she’s cool. Are you going to paint yourself green?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Polly took a breath. She went to press play but hesitated. ‘And it’s sort of an in-joke.’

  I was confused. ‘Is it?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Polly held her wrists up.

  ‘What am I looking at? I don’t get it.’

  Polly took my hand and ran my fingers over her alabaster skin. I could feel shiny ridges, silky scar tissue in neat, minute parallel lines. They were so delicate I’d never noticed them before, but now I could feel them, I could see the skin glisten, almost like pearl. ‘I cut myself. Just like she did.’ She nodded towards the green receptionist.

  My stomach clenched like a fist. This is going to make me sound like a baby or an idiot or both, but I’d never understood self-harm and it scared me. I think probably it scares a lot of people who’ve never been there. Like, I could never get past the hurting part, or the fact that the scars would remain forever. There’s also that fear that I’m not quite deep enough to get it, so I usually keep quiet on the issue.

  I forced myself to speak. I remembered Daisy telling me that Polly never talked about real things. Well, here she was, letting me feel her scars. ‘Oh, OK … I get it.’

  ‘Do you?’

  Busted. ‘Not really.’ Tears were stinging my eyes and I didn’t know what to say. ‘I … do … is it something you still do?’

  ‘God no! It was years ago, when I was, like, fourteen.’

  That calmed me down. Her jovial tone made it clear this wasn’t a cry for help.

  ‘I figured you’d probably seen.’

  ‘I hadn’t. You were pretty neat, I see … kind of like your room!’

  Polly laughed. ‘Ha! Yeah. It was pretty OCD cutting.’

  There was a long pause. Polly went to press play again, but I stopped her. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

  ‘Not really. It’s all a bit Camp Tika-Boo Hoo, isn’t it?’

  I searched her eyes. She was trying to gloss over it, but under the paint there were cracks in those walls. ‘Polly! Tell me about it. To be honest, I don’t get how you could do that to yourself. So … help me understand.’

  Polly rolled her eyes but caved in. ‘Uh. Intervention. I was young and I thought it was cool.’ My eyes must have widened in shock. ‘What, you want me to lie? I thought I was the saddest sad person and the angriest angry person in the whole world and that cutting myself would be a good way to deal with that. Surprise, surprise, it wasn’t.’

  ‘Why did you stop?’

  ‘I’m not gonna lie. It’s kind of addictive, but I started masturbating instead. Much healthier form of release!’

  We both laughed. ‘But seriously?’ I said.

  ‘Because I didn’t want to be a ******* cliché. I could see what I was turning into. That teenage girl. I refuse to be a ******* statistic. Ever. So I stopped. It was hard and I still sometimes look at pencil sharpeners funny, but I just st
opped.’

  ‘No one helped you?’

  ‘Everyone pretended not to notice. I hid it pretty well.’

  My eyes stung again, but in a different way. ‘Wow. You’re tough. Like seriously tough.’

  I thought for a second she might cry too, but it passed in a second and her lip curled. ‘You are such a mushy ******. Shut the **** up!’ She pressed play. ‘Watch the film!’

  The film finished and I brushed my teeth. It felt like I’d punched through a dam tonight: Polly Wolff was strong but she wasn’t invincible. It made me like her even more. I guess I’d had her on a pedestal and that’s not especially healthy. It was nice to have a human friend.

  When I got back to her room, Polly was on all fours rummaging around in her cupboard.

  ‘Hey, I can’t find the foot pump for the blow-up bed. I hope you’re full of puff.’

  I did not fancy blowing up a mattress manually. ‘That’s OK, why don’t I come in with you?’ Polly had a stupidly big bed – we’d practically be sleeping in different postcodes.

  ‘Is that OK? It’ll take ten ******* years to blow up otherwise.’

  I agreed and we climbed into Polly’s vast bed together. It was freezing cold. Bed: pleasurable. Getting in and out of bed: un-pleasurable.

  ‘God, it’s freezing!’ Polly shrieked.

  ‘Snuggle!’ I commanded and we squished our bodies together – my chest pressed to her back. Polly was gloriously warm, like a gangly hot-water bottle. ‘That’s better.’

  ‘We should totally be filming this for Nico,’ Polly suggested and we both cracked up.

  The Poem

  I tried to write a poem

  But it got awaa

  a

  a

  a

  a

  a

  aay from me.

  Tried to catch it in my hands like a firefly

  and found it burned.

  Canary in his cage, refusing to sing

  Because he’s an allegory.