Me Myself Milly (9 page)

That holiday was the first time that Lily tried to be different. I mean, look different. Up until then we’d always been proud that we were identical, but that summer Lily got one of the
women living in the house to braid her hair and told me I couldn’t have any in mine. It was only two thin braids at the front, done in coloured cotton with beads on the end. Mum said it
looked lovely and certainly made it easier for everyone to tell us apart. I pretended not to care.

On the last day of our holiday Mark asked me if I wanted to go badger-watching with him that evening. We were in the barn, sitting on the hay because we’d run in there to escape a rain
shower. Mark told me that he knew about a badger sett in the woods and if we went up there at dusk we’d get a good view of them. I love badgers and said I definitely wanted to go.

‘Shall I bring Lily?’I asked Mark.

‘Best not,’ said Mark. ‘We’ll have to be quiet or we’ll scare them off.’

‘I might not be able to stop her from coming if she finds out about it.’

‘Well, don’t tell her, then. I’ll meet you by the gate at half-past seven, which should give us plenty of time to get to the hide and settle in before the badgers come
out.’

It was easier than I thought it would be because I didn’t see much of Lily for the rest of the day. Thinking about it now I think she was avoiding me. After tea I said I’d help
with putting the younger children to bed because I knew Lily hated doing that.

When I was running a bath for them Lily came into the bathroom and said, ‘I’ve got a message for you from your precious Mark. He says make it eight o’clock,’ and then
she disappeared. I should have been suspicious at that point. Why didn’t she ask me what was happening at eight o’clock? But I was just glad that I didn’t have to explain. When I
was reading the kids a story I kept looking at the clock; I was getting really excited. I’d never seen a badger in the wild. In fact, thinking about it, I’d only ever seen dead ones by
the side of the road.

At eight o’clock I went to the gate but Mark wasn’t there. I waited about fifteen minutes, wondering what could be holding him up, then I went to the stable block and knocked on
the door. Mark’s mum came to the door and I asked her if Mark was there.

‘I think he’s taken your sister up to the woods to look at the badgers,’ she said.

I thought about going to the woods to look for them but I had no idea where the hide was and I could hardly go blundering about calling them; I’d scare the badgers for certain.

I went back to the house. I couldn’t understand why Mark had gone with Lily. Lily wasn’t even interested in badgers and why had he gone without me? It wasn’t until I got
back to our bedroom that I began to understand. Lying coiled up on the bedside cabinet were two braids.

Lily got back two hours later. She flung herself onto the bed, laughing uncontrollably.

‘You will never guess what I just did! It was the funniest thing ever,’ she finally managed to say.

I didn’t look up from my book but that didn’t deter Lily.

‘It was so funny! I went to the woods with Mark, pretending to be you!’ I turned over so I had my back to her. I tried to concentrate on my book but it was impossible. I was
furious. Lily could see thatI wasn’t enjoying her joke.

‘It was easy,’ she said. ‘I heard you arranging it in the barn. I was in there all the time – bet you didn’t know that. I heard him telling you not to tell me
about it. I can’t believe you listened to him. So anyhow,I just turned up at the gate at half seven and simpered a bit and didn’t say much. He took me to this place in the woods where
we were meant to sit quietly or something and wait for some badgers. It was dead boring so after a while I told him that I didn’t care about the badgers but I’d fancied him for ages
– and then I kissed him! And all the time he thought it was you!’

In the end we didn’t get to meet our new neighbours until the end of the week. Mum was having a bad week, I could tell. I was pretty concerned when I took her a cup of
tea one morning and saw a bottle of whisky next to the bottle of pills on her bedside cabinet. I put the tea down and she just about managed a ‘thanks’ before rolling over and pulling
the cover over her head. I took the bottle of whisky into the kitchen. I thought about pouring it down the sink but didn’t dare, so I put it in the cupboard under the sink with all the
cleaning products. At least Mum would know what I thought when she saw it was gone. But then I imagined her looking for it and getting cross with me, so I took it out and put it on the draining
board.

When I got home on Friday Mum was in the kitchen putting some biscuits she’d made into a tin. She insisted we go straight upstairs and give them to the Americans, but I said there was no
way I was going in my school uniform so she told me to hurry up and change.

Lily was in the bedroom lounging on her bed. She was wearing her school uniform.

‘We’re going upstairs,’ I told her.

‘You might be, I’m not. I think I’ll listen at the door, though.’ She means the door at the top of the stairs in our hallway that leads to the house.

I didn’t want to argue with her and
I
wasn’t going to let Mum down by refusing to go. I thought Lily would have been dying to see the boy; she’s way more into boys than
I am.

We had to go outside, up the basement steps, onto the pavement and then knock on the front door. It was weird, like knocking on our own front door. I didn’t like it.

A woman opened the door. She looked puzzled, then Mum introduced us and she was all smiles. She invited us in and we stood around in the hall while they made small talk and Mum handed over the
biscuits. I was standing next to the new downstairs shower room and I noticed that they’d put a new shower curtain up, over the glass door. Weird. Then I remembered Lily, listening behind the
basement door. Good luck to her because Mum and the woman, who had introduced herself as Mrs Wade, had moved into the kitchen.

It all sounded a bit formal. Mum didn’t say she was Ms Pond, she said, ‘I’m Summer and this is Milly, I wanted to say, ‘It’s Emily, actually,’ but I
didn’t.

Mum and Mrs Wade had got through talking about the flight and the move and the fact that Mr Wade had gone to the university to get settled in because he started work next week, before Mrs Wade
had looked at me and said, ‘Oh, I’m sorry, how rude, you must want to meet Devlin.’

I could hardly say no, so I just smiled. Mrs Wade got her phone out and sent a quick text so I assumed Devlin had gone out and she was telling him to come home. But then I heard someone coming
down the stairs. The boy walked into the kitchen, still holding his phone.

‘This is my son, Devlin,’ said Mrs Wade.

He didn’t smile, just sort of nodded our way.

‘Take Milly into the lounge, Devlin,’ said his mum. The boy glanced at me and turned and I had no real choice but to follow. How I wished Lily was here.

As I left the room I heard Mum telling Mrs Wade about Lily, so I shut the kitchen door behind me. If Lily was listening at the basement door like she said she would I didn’t want her to
hear. I kicked it as I went past, thinking it would make Lily jump. The key rattled in the lock and I suppressed the urge to unlock it and fling the door open, causing Lily to fall out onto the
floor. Then I was in the front room with Devlin.

It was awkward. I couldn’t think of one single thing to say that wouldn’t sound stupid. Neither, it seemed, could Devlin. I sat on the sofa and tried to look like I didn’t
care. Devlin stood by the fireplace and really looked like he didn’t care.

I wondered what Lily would do if she was here. Probably wait for him to speak. She’d probably sit and stare at him and make him feel awkward, not sit looking at everything except him, like
I was doing.

I pretended to study a painting on the wall behind his head so that I could get a good look at him. I knew Lily would want a detailed description of him.

His hair was brown, like mine, but not as curly and he had a great tan. Well, he would have, coming from California. Not too bad, I thought, if he didn’t look so bored. He was about a head
taller than me and slim without being skinny, muscly in fact. I must have been staring, because he turned and looked straight at me and I saw for the first time that his eyes were blue. Really,
really blue.

‘Have you ever been to England before?’ I said to cover my confusion. God! I sounded like someone out of a Jane Austen novel.

‘No,’ said Devlin. I waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t. Then again how could he? What else was there to say? Then I remembered the library book. It said,
Don’t ask questions that have a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer. Ask ‘leading questions’ that need more than a one word answer.

‘So, what do you think of it, then? Do you like it?’

Devlin looked out of the window.

‘Don’t know.’

‘Oh.’

‘I haven’t been out yet.’

‘Ah.’

Why was Mum taking so long? Then, as if she knew what I was thinking, I heard them coming down the hall. Thank God! I stood up. Mum and Mrs Wade came in.

‘It’s so nice that Devlin’s got someone his own age to talk to,’ said Mrs Wade. ‘I’ve been trying all week to get him to go out. I was hoping that you could
show him round, Milly. We’re so lucky to be staying in this city, with all its history. Would you mind? How about tomorrow?’

‘That would be lovely,’ said Mum.

What? I glared at her, but she refused to look at me. Lily would have said she had other plans if she were here. She wouldn’t have let herself be railroaded like this.

I saw Devlin glaring at his mum, but she just glared right back without blinking until he said, ‘It was lovely to meet you, ma’am,’ and shook Mum’s hand. Then he shook
mine.

‘I’ll be looking forward to tomorrow,’ he added and I could have believed him if he’d smiled. The grown-ups seemed satisfied, though, and when the front door shut behind
us Mum said, ‘Americans have such lovely manners.’

When we got back downstairs Mum was in a sombre mood and I didn’t want to talk about what had just happened so I got my homework out, which is code for ‘Don’t talk to me,
I’m busy’, even though it’s a Friday night and nobody does homework on a Friday night.

Of course, when we were in bed Lily wanted to know all about him.

‘He’s got brown hair, blue eyes and he’s really fit,’ I told her.

‘Ooh, so you fancy him, then?’

‘No, I mean “fit” as in tanned and slim and muscly. Other than that he’s just ordinary, nothing special.’

She wanted more details, like did he have a funny accent and did I think he fancied me?

‘No,’ I said and turned over, ending the conversation. I didn’t want her to know that when he’d fixed his blue eyes on me I’d stopped breathing and my heartbeat had
doubled in speed, or that when he’d shaken my hand the same thing had happened and I could swear that I’d felt a jolt – like an electric current had passed between us. I decided
I’d been reading too many romantic novels and that Devlin had hardly even noticed me. I tried to think up a simile to describe his eyes, like they did in books.
His eyes were as warm and
blue as the Aegean sea and she wanted to swim in them forever
– sort of thing. But all I could come up with was that his eyes were as blue as the cover of my English exercise book, so I
gave up and got my journal out.

The summer before last, when Lily and I were thirteen, Mum decided to take us to the seaside for the holidays. At least that’s what she told us, but really she wanted
to go and visit an artist friend of hers who lived on the coast in Wales. There wasn’t much for us to do and we took to walking to the nearest village, which had a shop and a pub and a
castle. Most of the time we just sat on a wall eating ice cream and watching the tourists.

Then some boys turned up. They were local boys and after they’d driven past us a few times on their BMXs, showing off, doing wheelies and things, and looking at us out the corner of
their eyes, they got a bit bolder and looked at us properly and made jokes about ‘buy one get one free’, which I thought was really insulting but Lily laughed anyway.

The next few times we went to the village they were always there, either messing about near us or talking to Lily. Then on the Friday of what was our last weekend in Wales they said there was
a party on Saturday night and we had to come. It was going to be a barbecue on the beach; they had one every year.

It was all Lily talked about for the next twenty-four hours. I didn’t want to go and spent all of the time trying to persuade Lily not to go. Mum gives us way more freedom than most
girls our age get, but somehow we both knew that it was best not to mention the party to her.

Which was why, the next evening, I heard Lily telling Mum that we were going for a walk because I wanted to see if we could find any bats. This was typical of Lily. She’s not stupid
enough to say she wanted to go looking for bats because that would definitely have made Mum suspicious. But by saying ‘Milly wants to find some bats,’ in an ever so slightly
‘I’m humouring her’ voice, Mum didn’t think anything of it. So we set off for the village and the party. There was never any question that I wouldn’t go with Lily,
even though I really didn’t want to. For a start, if I’d refused, Lily couldn’t have gone on her own because Mum would have wondered where she’d gone without me. Lily kept
telling me not to be such a drag and I really tried not to be, but it didn’t help that all the way there Lily kept going on about how Laura Barker had done it with Keiran Scott at
Daisy’s birthday party. Who cared what Laura Barker had done? I didn’t believe it anyway.