Shine (4 page)

a lie to my bestie…

T
hat night, I creep up the stairs and slide away to my room.

I have to put my plan into action before Chelsea gets too suspicious, so I pull my mobile from my bag and ping it into life. I look through my photos and delete the one of Mikey’s big fat face, then I look at a photo of my mum. Every time I think about her, the washing machine starts up in my tummy. Something deep inside me knows that she and Mikey have done something bad, but still a small part of me wants to believe that the police have made a huge mistake. Somehow, I always knew that something like this would happen. But I never imagined how
it would feel. I try to convince myself that I do not miss my mum. In fact, right now, I think I actually hate her and never want to see her again. I curl up in a tiny ball, trying to hide from the world. I open a photo of Chardonnay. Looking at her puppy face makes tiny tears escape from my eyes again, but they mustn’t, so I kiss her quick, zip away my feelings and get started on my text.

Hi, r u there? xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I press send and wait.

Yeh, where r u? xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

A lie to my bestie.

I’m in France on holiday, in a cool hotel. Been drinking Shirley Temples by the pool all day. What r u doing? Missing u more than all the stars in the sky. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I press send. I have never lied to Chels before. We’re besties, forever. We’ve always told each other the truth,
all our worries and all our secrets. But I can’t tell her this. Not ever. It’ll all be sorted out soon enough and Mum and I will be home and Chels will never have to know.

In France? My dad says they caught Mikey and your mum. It’s in the news. He’s v angry and says I can’t talk to u any more. Missing u 2 more than all the cherry drops in the cherry drop shop. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

My mouth goes dry and I can’t swallow. My heart starts thumping in my ears.

They did get him. He’s rubbish, but my mum and I r in France. R we still besties? Missing u more and more and more than all the stars in the skies and more than all the lemon meringue pies. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I hit the send button and wait.

Have fun. Hope you don’t have to eat frogs’ legs! Besties for life xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Yuck! Don’t worry, I won’t! Tell school I’ll be back soon. Besties for life 2, forever and ever xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

My door creaks open and a long shadow stretches its way across the carpet. I know it’s not Claudia or Darren coming to say goodnight, or a little one looking for cuddles.

“They’ll all leave you,” Matilda says, “I promise you. The texts will stop. They’ll all forget about you. Everyone else’s life will go on happily, except for yours. No one wants to be friends with a rubbish-dump girl. It happens to us all, so get used to it – fast. This is the dead zone, new girl. The end of love.”

I close my phone and throw it in my bag because she’s right, and I know that Matilda is the only one in the house who’s telling the truth.

“And you’ll never forget,” she taunts. “You wait, it happens to us all. You’ll play it over and over in your mind, trying to work it out. You’ll have your very own horror movie etched on your memory bank forever.”

Please, please don’t let her be right.

i’ve got some news for you…

“
I
’ve got some news for you, Tiffany,” says Amida when he arrives on Monday morning. He pops a peppermint into his mouth. “Come and sit down.”

I sit at the kitchen table and sip my juice. He does that stupid thing again where he sits really close to me and looks deep into my eyes. “I’m afraid that your mum’s going to have to stay in police custody for a bit longer than we thought. There’s good news though, Tiffany. She’s arranged for you to stay with your family on Sark.” My tummy starts churning. He breathes peppermint breath in my face. “Your mum’s managed to get hold of her sister, your Auntie Cass, and she’s coming to pick you up this afternoon.”

My head starts spinning. I know I suggested that my mum telephoned Sark, but I didn’t think about what might happen if someone came to get me. I didn’t think that I’d
actually
be going to stay with them. What I really thought was that she’d be home by now and that I’d be back at school on Monday morning and no one would ever have to know anything about the worst weekend of my life. What are my family on Sark like? My mum always said it was the most boring place on the planet! And I don’t know even where I’ll be living or what school I’ll be going to or what’s going to happen to me. But
someone is coming to get me soon
.

I leave Amida drinking coffee with Claudia and fly upstairs to the green room. I stuff my clothes into my wheelie suitcase. Matilda was wrong. I’m not a rubbish-dump kid after all; somebody in this stupid world cares about me, even if my own mother doesn’t! I put my case near the front door and sit on the tatty old sofa in the hallway.

“She won’t be here for hours, Tiffany,” says Claudia. “Why don’t you find something to do to pass the time?”

But I’m not moving. No way. As far as I can see, rubbish-dump kids don’t get rescued very often and I’m
not about to miss my opportunity for escape. And I have a lot of thinking to do. What will my Auntie Cass be like? How long will I have to stay with her? Will I evenlike her? And what about Chardonnay? My brain is a fairground ride, spinning and spinning. I pick and pick at the little frayed strands of sofa fabric and make tiny plaits to pass the time. I wait and wait. At lunchtime Claudia brings me a cheese and tomato toastie and some juice. The baby is having a nap so she does that sitting-really-close-to-me, looking-into-my-eyes thing, like Amida.

“How are you feeling, Tiffany?” she asks, sipping on her coffee.

It’s a stupid question. In the past three days my whole life has turned into a crumbling tower and I know that she’s trying to squirrel away into my feelings again. But I don’t want it, so I put them in a safe box, tuck them inside my heart and hide away the key. “I’m fine,” I say. “Really fine.”

I’m still waiting when Darren brings the kids home from school. Matilda slumps down on the sofa next to me. “So it’s true, you really are going then?”

“I am,” I say. “My auntie’s coming to pick me up.” I want to say “I told you so, you horrible girl” and I want
to hurt her and scare her and get my own back, but her face looks so sad that I can’t bring myself to do it. She waits and waits with me, and the more I think about it, the more I begin to see that Matilda isn’t a horrible girl at all; she’s a hurt girl, a left-alone girl. I start to understand how hurt feelings can sometimes come out all twisted and wrong and make people do horrible things like lying to their best friend.

“I wish I could come,” she sighs. “I wish I could drink some magic shrinking potion and climb in your bag. No one would notice.”

We sit in silence, busy with our thoughts. After ages and ages someone knocks at the door. I freeze and wait for Darren to open it. My heart’s thumping away. I smooth my hair down and paint on a smile. And suddenly, Amida appears in the doorway with a woman who looks like a brown-haired version of my mum. The lump grows in my throat again, making it hard to swallow. My eyes don’t know where to look and I don’t know what to do. I needn’t have worried, because my Auntie Cass takes charge.

“Wow,” she says, looking at Matilda, and me. “I don’t need to be told which one of you is Tiffany, do I? Look
at you,” she says pulling me to my feet and folding me into her arms. “You look exactly like your mum did when she was your age. I can’t believe it!” She cups my face in her hands and takes a good look at me, tears rolling down her cheeks. “I’m so excited to meet you, Tiff, so glad you’re safe. I didn’t even know you’d been born until your mum phoned me.” My throat lump starts aching and tears are pricking at my eyes. I push them down, and push her away. I can’t let myself cry, not know.

“Can we go?” I whisper.

“You, bet,” she says.

Claudia, Darren and Amida say goodbye to me and wish me luck. Matilda’s face turns into thunder and rain. “You’re so lucky,” she says, rubbing her eyes.

“I know,” I say, giving her cold hand a warm squeeze, “and I think you will be too, one day.”

And I just hope that I am right.

my aunt cass drops the bombshell…

“
W
e’ve got so much to sort out, Tiff, and not a lot of time,” says Auntie Cass when we’re settled in her car. But first let’s go and find somewhere to eat and I’ll fill you in on what’s happening.”

We drive to the centre of town and find an Italian place where we order pepperoni pizza, cheesy garlic bread and a big salad. While we’re waiting for our food to arrive my Auntie Cass drops the bombshell.

“I’m so sorry to have to tell you, Tiff,” she says, holding my hands in hers, “but it looks like your mum is going to have to go to prison for a few months. She’s
really sorry and she says to tell you that if she could change things she would. She loves you millions and is always thinking about you. She’s asked me if I would take care of you while she’s away and I’ve said yes. So you’re coming home with me, back to Sark, where you belong right now.”

My heart turns to ice. “She can’t love me that much,” I snap, “otherwise she wouldn’t have got us into this mess in the first place, would she? And she never thinks about me, not really, she only ever thinks about herself and what she wants. What did she actually do, anyway?” I ask. “Can you tell me what
actually
happened?”

“Well,” she says, looking worried, “I don’t want to worry you, but I think you deserve to know the truth about what’s going on. It looks like your mum got herself involved with a bad crowd. They’ve been accused of stealing some pretty big things, by all accounts, and for using other people’s credit cards. And trying to get on a ferry to leave the country just made things worse.”

“I knew it. She always does it,” I bark. “Everywhere we go, it’s like she just can’t help herself. I thought she was getting up to some dodgy stuff; it was Mikey wasn’t it and that stupid red car? She’s so embarrassing. I hate
her. And what about Chardonnay? What’s going to happen to her?”

Auntie Cass’s face drops. “Tiff,” she says, trying to comfort me by holding my hand, “I’m afraid that the money your mum used to buy her was money she made from the stolen car. The police need to reclaim the cash, so Chardonnay’s had to go back to the breeder you bought her from. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not fair,” I whisper. “None of this is fair.” I pull my hand away and stuff it in my pocket, her words still stinging. The little box where I’d hidden my feelings unlocks itself. Hot tears spill down my cheeks and my whole body trembles. Our waiter brings us our food, but Auntie Cass pushes it to one side and pulls me into a hug. I pull back, trying to sniff it all away, trying to be brave. But my tears keep coming and coming in great fat sobs and as hard as I try, I just can’t hold them in any more. I want to just scream it all out, and break all the plates and trash all the food. I want to punch and bite and scratch and kick someone. I want to push it all away and scrunch it all up and throw myself in the bin. My explosion of rage travels up through my body, wanting to escape me, wanting to be free. My feet scuffle
and stomp on the floor and my fists curl like Matilda’s, ready to fight. But my auntie just pulls me back into her hug and holds me close.

“It’s OK, Tiff,” she whispers into my hair. “It’s OK.”

“But it’s not,” I scream, pulling myself away from her hug. “My life is never going to be OK again.”

After our food we drive away from Dover, back to London, back to our flat to collect my things before going off to Sark. Auntie Cass picked up the keys from my mum when she’d visited her in the police station. Apparently, my mum is going to be moved to a proper prison soon, where she’ll have to wait until some judge person decides how long she’ll have to stay there for. If she hadn’t tried to run away she’d be allowed home to wait for the judge’s decision, but now they have to lock her up in case she tries to run again. I decide it’s about time I stopped being pushed around by everyone and make some decisions of my own. And my first decision is that I’m not going to visit her in prison. Or even speak to her on the phone.

It feels weird going home without my mum. And it’s scary when we open the door. The dresses that Chels and I borrowed are still strewn across the room and the
Shirley Temple mess is still sticky on the table. But there’s other mess too. Someone has been rummaging through our drawers and has tipped our stuff out all over the floor. And there are big empty spaces where our sofa and TV and stereo used to be. I freeze.

“It’s OK, Tiff,” Auntie Cass soothes. “Your mum warned me that things might look bad. The police let themselves in, they were searching for stolen goods and it looks like they found what they were looking for. Sorry I didn’t warn you before.”

I run to my room and loads of my stuff has gone. My laptop, my stereo and TV, my iPods and my jewellery, even my bed. I’m glad everything’s gone. I don’t even want her stolen stuff, her shiny stuff, her new, new, new stuff. Doesn’t she know that I don’t care about having new things all the time? Doesn’t she know that having a mum who looks after me is way more important than junk that will soon be thrown on the rubbish dump? Just like me.

Auntie Cass starts sorting me a pile of clothes and folding them into a black bin liner.

“I don’t want them,” I say, “I don’t want any of this.”

Auntie Cass leaves the clothes and heads for the door.
Anger-bubbles fizz through my body, and my bottom lip trembles.

“Why did she do it?” I whisper.

“I don’t know, Tiff.”

I gather up my special set of old movies and my ruby slippers that Chelsea bought me last Christmas and shove them in my bag. There’s one more thing I want and it’s in my bedside drawer. Everything else can stay.