Invisible Girl (13 page)

“W
here did you go?” whispers Grace, during Science while we’re testing the temperature of the water in our polystyrene cup.

I don’t know how to answer. There’s so much to tell, but nothing she’d understand. And if she tells her mum then my dad might get in trouble with the police.

“I told you. I went to my mum’s.”

“Then why are you back?” she says, writing the temperature on our results table.

I wish I could spill everything out. I wish I could tell her about Henny and Tia, sleeping on the warehouse roof with the sounds of the city blaring below and the huge blue moon shining on my drawings. I wish I could tell her about the fire in the shop and the diamonds of glass shattering all over the ground. I wish I could tell her how much the blood raced round my body when I broke into the apartment so Henny could steal things. And that a big black car chases me through the night in my dreams; hiding in the shadows, waiting to catch me.

“Dad changed his mind,” I say. “He came back for me.”

I pour boiling water into a glass beaker and watch the wispy steam rise. Grace’s curtain of hair falls in front of her face and she tucks it behind her ear so she can write numbers on our chart neatly.

“Zoe’s mum says the police are involved,” she says. “That they’re after your dad for taking you out of school for so long.”

I shake my head and use my new pencils to colour in our graph. Grace tells me about a sleepover she had with Zoe and Elsie at the weekend. She tells me all about the film they watched and the milkshakes they made that spilt everywhere. And that they couldn’t stop laughing. She talks non-stop and I like hearing the sound of her voice again. And I don’t know why, but I feel like crying.

After school Zoe comes racing over and threads her arm through Grace’s. They kind of pull in, close together, in a way that makes me ache.

“I’m so excited!” Zoe says, her eyes glittering in the sunlight. Zoe’s all glittery and shimmery everything.

I feel in my hair and touch the glittery bobbles Amy’s mum bought me from Sainsbury’s. And then Grace’s mum pulls up in her red car. She winds down the window and turns her soft face right towards us, so we can see the whole of it, her red lips and everything, smiling. And my heart pounds so I put my hand on my chest in case she hears.

“We’re going swimming,” says Grace, touching my wrist. “We planned it yesterday. I didn’t know… I didn’t know you’d be back otherwise I’d have invited you. But we’ll go soon, yeah?”

They climb into the car, all girl legs and arms, and clunk the door shut. I hear their seatbelts click in place. Grace’s mum looks at me. She smiles and blows me a kiss and I hold my breath while it travels on the breeze to my cheek.

And then she says, “Ready, girls?” And they drive away.

Mrs Evans rushes over to me.

“I’m glad I caught up with you,” she says, looping a long, rainbow-coloured silk scarf around her neck. “Is everything OK, Gabriella? We were so worried about you when you disappeared.”

A lump grows in my throat. All the words I can’t say, pressing hard to get out.

I nod, keeping my eyes on a little train of ants creeping along the pavement. I don’t trust myself to look at her in case her kind eyes make me cry or blurt stuff out.

“I went to my mum’s,” I say. “Dad forgot to let the school office know.”

“You would say though,” she says, fixing the big brass buckle on her bag. “You know, you would tell me if something was wrong, wouldn’t you?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” I say, feeling suddenly annoyed by Mrs Evans. “I’m OK.”

I walk back to Amy’s mum’s house slowly, wishing I could’ve gone swimming with Grace and then back to her house for tea. If I could’ve chosen, I’d have had her mum’s creamy fish pie and peas. I’d have borrowed Grace’s flowery bikini, the one she got at the airport when she was on her way to Greece.

I’m scared of seeing Dad, or scared that the police have taken him away. I sit on a bench in the park and listen to the traffic climbing the hill. I wish Tia were around, or even Henny. I feel too sad just sitting here alone.

“Hello,” says the cupcake lady, plopping down on the bench. “I’m glad to see you again. Haven’t seen you around for ages. Fancy a cupcake? I’ve a few left and if I eat them all myself I’ll end up as big as a whale!”

I take a cupcake with yellow swirly icing and butterflies on top. I don’t really want a cupcake; I want fish and peas and salty things. But I don’t want her to think I’m rude. So I nibble round the edge while she munches up a white one covered in a million silver balls.

The park lady talks and talks and talks and I don’t even have to answer. She tells me about her day and her dog and her grandchildren and the disaster that is her vegetable patch. She tells me about the old folk who come into the park at eleven o’clock every morning for coffee and how she’s a bit worried about where they’ll all go when the winter settles in.

I think about Manchester then and wonder where the kids go at night when it gets really cold. Then she tells me she makes these novelty cakes for people’s birthdays and special occasions and that her son-in-law is building her a website to get the word round. And her voice is like the longest train; it goes on and on forever.

“Well,” she says, at last, brushing cake crumbs off her lap and pushing another cupcake into my hands. “I best be off. Milo will be expecting his walk. See you again.”

“Bye,” I say, wishing she’d stay longer, wishing I could rest my head on her soft arm and go to sleep.

At Amy’s mum’s they’re all in the garden and Dad’s pretending to spray Amy with the hosepipe. Amy’s squealing for him to stop because she doesn’t want to get her clothes wet, but anyone can tell she doesn’t really mean it.

“What happened at school, Dad?” I whisper. “What did they say? Did the police come? Are you in trouble?”

“Oh, don’t go on, Gabriella,” he says. “We’re having fun! They’ll get over their little tantrum now you’re back. Why don’t you go and do your homework or something?”

I sit on the wobbly camp bed and rest my new Geography book on my knees. I’m supposed to be writing about settlements, but my head’s racing so much it’s hard to concentrate. I can’t believe I’m back sitting in a bedroom, doing my homework whilst everything’s still going on in Manchester. I wish Amy’s mum could make a nice big pot of something tasty and we could drive it up there to feed Tia and everyone else. I think about Tia and her hairy dad and my tummy flips over like a pancake. I can’t believe Dad and Amy are actually married, that she’s officially my step-mum. I’ll never call her that, not ever. I wonder how many homeworks I missed while I was away. I wonder how much other stuff I missed.

A settlement is a place where people live. It can be a house on its own or a hamlet, a village, a town or a large city. Nearly all settlements started as hamlets or villages.

Settlements make me think about Manchester again. About all the kids huddling together, making a village of their own. I wonder how many street kids it would take to make a city.

Amy’s mum makes sausage and mash with onion gravy for our tea. We balance it on our laps and watch
EastEnders
together while Dad and Amy go to the pub. Then she runs me a lavender bubble bath and I stay in it, shoulder deep, until my fingertips go chalk-white and wrinkly.

She brings me hot chocolate, and when I’m in my new pyjamas I dig another cupcake out of my bag. It’s a bit squashed, but I tell her about the park lady not wanting to be a whale and Amy’s mum laughs. We share the cake while she sits on the edge of the camp bed and reads me three chapters of this book called
The Painted Garden
. I lie on the soft pillow and melt into her voice that flows out of her mouth like a lullaby.

When she’s pecked me on the cheek and snapped off the light I close my eyes and don’t let myself think even for one minute about Beckett or Blue Bunny.

O
n Saturday, while Dad and Amy are at the shops, Amy’s mum and I sit in the garden making strings of pretty beads into bracelets. She got these teensy beads and you have to thread the thin elastic stuff on to a needle, tie a knot and feed the little beads on. They remind me of those hundreds and thousands things the park lady puts on her cupcakes; there are so many colours. We’ve got some tiny silver charms too and some bigger glass beads that twinkle and sparkle in the sun, making rainbows on my hands. I have six bracelets jingling on my wrist already.

Amy’s mum is telling me that after the beads we’ll have a snack and another few chapters of
The Painted Garden
,
when all of a sudden there’s this big bang on the door. I don’t really think much about it because it’s not my house. I just carry on threading while Amy’s mum goes to answer it. Then I hear this deep voice and a rush of feet and I panic that it’s the police after Dad.

So when I look up I can’t believe my eyes.

I have to blink a few times in case I’m imagining things.

There is a man standing there, just standing there in Amy’s mum’s garden, with the washing flapping near his ear.

The face in the little photo Dad forgot to put in my backpack flashes through my brain, flickering and moving, slipping and sliding. I look up at the man in front of me then back at the photo image in my mind.

My heart is clattering like mad.

The man in the garden has a stubbly chin.

He has this crazy, wild hair.

And it’s not until I notice he’s clutching Blue Bunny tightly in his hand that I know for sure that the complete miracle standing in front of me is Beckett.

It is actually him.

And seeing him here, just knowing he’s alive and real makes me crackle all over. It makes my chest fill up with the hugest pressure of everything. And Beckett just stands there, smiling, looking at me as if I were a complete miracle too.

“Hey,” he says, with this big grin on his face, “I found you!”

He holds Blue Bunny out to me, tipping his head slightly to one side like he always did. “I found
him
too,” he smiles, waggling him in the air. “In Selfridges. I thought you might be missing him.”

My heart’s banging in my throat and there’s this ringing sound in my ears. I stand up. I stretch my hand out to Blue Bunny and every part of me wants to fly into Beckett’s arms.

“Beckett!” I croak. “Beckett!”

Amy’s mum quietly nods then leaves us in the garden alone, and I turn into a volcano, all the boiling hot lava inside me gushing out. I tell Beckett about Dad and Amy; about Grace’s mum’s garden shed; about Colin on the train and everything in Manchester. I tell him all about Mum and Connor and Jayda and my eyes turn into a river too and I can’t stop crying.

Beckett listens quietly, holding me in his golden-eyed gaze until my talking stops. Then he stands up and pulls some papers out of his brown jacket pocket. He swishes them through the air like a sword.

“Listen to me carefully, Gabriella,” he says. “I’ve got something important to tell you. I got an Emergency Care Order, which means you’re safe. We’ll need to jump through more hoops to make it permanent, but everyone assures me we’ll get there. You never have to live with Mum or your dad again. Not ever. You’re coming to live with me. I’m going to take care of you.”

A lady I don’t know peeps her face out of the back door and smiles.

“It’s true, Gabriella,” she says. “I’m Lizzie. I’m your Social Worker and I’ve come with Beckett to get you. We have everything in writing.”

I can’t say a word. So many things are crashing around inside me I think I might explode.

Why have I got a Social Worker? How come I didn’t know?

Beckett tugs a strand of messy hair from his eyes. Amy’s mum comes into the garden and takes the papers from Beckett. She looks at them carefully, reading every single word. Her face looks really serious and sad, and for a minute I think Beckett’s got it wrong.

Then she looks up at me and nods. “What about it, princess?” she says.

A million yeses are sitting on my tongue, screaming to be heard, but I can’t seem to spit them out. Beckett comes so close I can smell him. He’s this friendly mix of wood smoke and spice. He rests the palm of his hand on my back.

“I never forgot about you, Gabriella,” he says. “I’ve been waiting for this day. I’ve been waiting for you forever.”

I can’t move. Everything is thrumming all over.

“Is this what you want, Gaby?” says Amy’s mum, taking my hand. “Because if it is, you’d better get moving.”

“But what about Dad?” I say, panicking.

“But what about
you
, Gabriella?” says Beckett. “This is your chance to do something good for
you
. Mum and your dad don’t really care about anything but themselves. They never really have. They’ve never really seen us, Gabriella, they’ve never thought about what
we
need. We might as well have been invisible. So it’s time to think of yourself, Gabriella, to work out what you need for you.”

I jingle the bracelets on my wrist and sit back down on a stripy garden chair because my legs are weak with worry.

“I looked everywhere for you,” I say, sniffing back my tears, remembering the wet mirror puddles in the street. “Everywhere.”

“I know,” he says, kneeling down and taking my hand, “I know. And I’m so sorry you couldn’t find me. I was there all along. Just round the corner.”

“Do you really want me to come?” I ask. “Because it’s OK if you don’t. I don’t mind.”

He pulls a scruffy leather wallet from his pocket, opens it and shows me a photo of a little girl with untameable brown hair.

“Who’s that?” I ask. “Have you got a daughter?”

Beckett laughs. “No, silly, it’s you! I’ve carried this with me every day since Mum and I left. I vowed to myself that one day I’d come and find you.”

He looks shy for a moment, then he coughs and says, “I
want
you to come with me, Gabriella. I always have. I was just too young to do anything about it before now.”

I suck the warm air deep into my lungs, hold it there for a minute while my brain cogs turn everything round, and then let it all out in a rush.

“OK,” I say, my body flooding with relief. “I’ll come.”

Amy’s mum flies into action, gathering my stuff up and neatly folding it into a pretty bag with daisies on. She makes everyone a cup of tea. My heart is hammering so loud. We have to wait for Dad. Amy’s mum puts her arms around me and pulls me so close that my nose touches her powdery neck. She takes my face between her gentle hands and fixes her watery grey eyes on mine.

“You be a good girl, OK?” she says, tears spilling from the corners of her eyes. “Be a good girl for your brother and never let anyone hurt you again. And remember that everything that happened wasn’t your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong, Gabriella. They were the parents; it was their job to look after you, not the other way round.”

Amy’s mum slips the bracelet making stuff in my bag along with
The Painted Garden
.

“I don’t think I’ll be able to talk to Dad,” I say, my voice splintering like wood. “I can’t…”

I pull out a sheet of paper and in blue pencil I write a letter for Dad to read when I’ve gone.

Dear Dad,

I’m sorry if I hurt you, but I had to go. I’m making a fresh start with Beckett.

You’ve got Amy now, so I know you’ll be OK.

I do love you,

Gabriella XXX