The Bone Dragon (19 page)

And that’s when I realise what my ‘but’ is: why I’m with Paul rather than Amy on the whole Sonny Rawlins thing. Although I’m glad they would if I asked them to, I don’t want Paul and Amy fighting this battle for me because they don’t understand how much I want Sonny Rawlins to pay. They’d never make him sorry enough. They just don’t have it in them.

And I love them for it. I love that they don’t know how wonderful, and terrible, it is to be powerful. I couldn’t bear for them to lose that . . . that
innocence
because of me. It wouldn’t be right. If it was going to happen, it should have been when Adam and Aunt Minnie and Nanna Florrie and Grandad Peter died. But it didn’t.

And it mustn’t happen now, over me. Because if it did, it would mean that Fiona and her parents had taken away some of what makes Paul and Amy and Uncle Ben so different from them: it would be like the worst people I know making the best just a little bit like them.

But Paul doesn’t understand that. You can’t really, until it’s too late.

‘What is
with
you this week?’ Lynne hisses, kicking my ankle to draw my attention back to the board and the rubbish we’re supposed to be copying into our notes. I let my pen drift across the page while I continue fretting over last Friday: the night of the second dark moon since I wished the Dragon into being.

Even though the Dragon and I stayed in, I waited up, listening for Paul and Uncle Ben’s triumphant return, hurrying to the window the moment I heard movement below in the garden, but Paul was alone. He walked straight to the back door and let himself into the kitchen and that was that.

The next morning, he was irritable over breakfast, slugging his coffee down and taking off early for work. Was he just tired or was he worried about the consequences of his dark moon adventure? Or was he disappointed because their plans had somehow fallen through or, worse yet, because something had gone wrong? I spent the whole weekend brooding over it and I’m still not done.

Lynne kicks me again and I look up to find Mrs Poole staring at me. I blink at her for a moment, receive another kick, and realise I’ve been asked a question.

‘I don’t know?’ I say. It comes out sounding like a question and I have to resist the urge to flinch in case what Mrs Poole actually asked was something along the lines of ‘Do you think pupils who ignore their teachers should get detention?’ But Mrs Poole just sighs and turns to Jenny instead.

‘Are you sick?’ Lynne whispers. ‘Do your ribs hurt?’

I shake my head, then sigh and shrug. ‘Sort of. A little. Didn’t sleep last night.’

‘Shall I ask to take you to the nurse?’ Lynne offers.

I sigh again. ‘No. It’s nearly break anyway.’

I try, I really do, but although there are only ten minutes left my thoughts immediately drift back to Paul and Uncle Ben. The only thing I know for certain is that Amy fussed at Paul, first for coming in so late, then for tossing and turning all night (plus he tracked mud into the house: a cardinal sin).

The day grinds past. Phee and Lynne stop bothering to kick my ankles to make me pay attention, realising that it’s a lost cause, before we even get to lunchtime. I expect to spend the afternoon lurching from one telling-off to another. Instead the teachers just get this weird, sad look in their eyes and ignore my daydreaming or ask if I need to go and lie down. Even more strangely, no one picks on me about this preferential treatment: no one says anything about the fact that I should be in trouble left, right and centre today, and yet I’m not. Instead, six different classmates tell me they’re glad I’m OK and don’t have to go back to hospital, or some variation on that theme.

By the time the final bell goes, I’m so confused and baffled that my head hurts.

Usually Amy would be collecting me because Phee has tennis on Mondays so she can’t cycle home with me. But, as Lynne is off to her grandmother’s tonight and that’s just a few streets over from us, Amy said we could walk back together.

We’ve only just turned the corner from school when Lynne says, ‘See: people really
do
like you,’ as if she’s picking up a conversation that was interrupted earlier. ‘You shouldn’t always assume the worst.’

‘I don’t!’ I protest, but Lynne loops her arm through mine and says, ‘Yes, you do, Evie. Maybe you don’t mean to, but you always think that if people are a bit funny it’s because they don’t like you. You never think that maybe they just don’t know quite what to say.’

For a moment, I consider asking ‘About what?’ but end up not saying anything at all.

When we get to my gate, Lynne surprises me with a hug, throwing her arms tight around me and stroking her hand once down the back of my head. Then she’s off down the path before I have the chance to hug back or even call ‘See you tomorrow’ after her. I stand, watching, waiting for her to turn the corner into her gran’s street and wishing she would look back, knowing she won’t. But she does, spinning with a grin and a wave. I wave back and then she’s gone.

Amy is bustling about upstairs when I let myself in, though she calls down a hello and I call up an ‘I’ll make some tea.’ But first I go to the TV and turn on the news, sitting on the very, very edge of the sofa, leaning forwards . . . But there’s nothing. Nothing at all.

When the news cycles back to sport again, I stomp into the kitchen and viciously slap the kettle on, scowling at the fridge as I slump, arms crossed over my chest, against the counter.

Maybe there won’t be anything until tomorrow, I tell myself. All sorts of things can happen and not get found out right away. It might take days, a week . . .

I shiver and push away from the counter, busying myself with getting the mugs down, fetching the milk, spooning out sugar, arranging biscuits on a plate. Telling myself that I can’t afford to go on thinking like this: that I can’t keep on waiting and hoping and willing for days on end.

I shove the tea-tin lid back on so violently it dents.

Suddenly my eyes are flooded with tears and I’m gripping the counter, shoulders bowed, because I’d been sure, so sure that Paul and Uncle Ben were going to do
something
on their dark moon. Even though I’d tried to tell myself that there were all sorts of explanations for why they kept going out at night, why they have been keeping secrets that for some reason Uncle Ben thinks they should share with me but not Amy . . . All that guilt and worry, all those Friday nights we stayed in, the Dragon and I, all of it wasted.

I whirl away from the counter and go hammering upstairs, slamming the door to my room behind me and throwing myself down on to the bed, careless of the agony I awaken in my ribs.

‘Evie? Evie darling, are you OK?’ Amy calls.

‘Be right there!’ I garble out around the tears, cutting my nails into my palm to steady my voice.

I hear Amy’s footsteps move away from my door and have to gulp down the sob that escapes before it becomes something louder. Catching up the Dragon, I roll over with my back to the door, face pressed into my pillow.

The Dragon winds itself around my thumb and presses its nose to mine. Through my tears, its outline seems to ripple like dispersing vapour. I don’t even know why I feel so awful. Part of me is happy and relieved: it’s good that Paul and Uncle Ben haven’t done anything that will make them unhappy or get them in trouble. Another part is angry and disappointed and betrayed . . . And another part is breathless. Still full of anticipation, as if the numbness from earlier has somehow passed it by.

I jump as a needle-sharp claw sinks into my finger.

We must not assume anything
, the Dragon says.
We must remain vigilant. We do not know what has happened or what is yet to come. We must wait
.

The Dragon’s outline wavers once again and suddenly all my confusion over Paul and Uncle Ben – whether they have done something, whether that would be a good thing or a bad, bad, bad one – is gone in a rush of fear that the Dragon will dissolve away in front of me.

I am still here
, the Dragon says.

I lie there shaking, staring and staring as if a blink will reveal that there never was any Dragon at all, just my little carved bit of rib.

I am still here
, the Dragon repeats.

I draw in a breath and blink without intending to.

The Dragon regards me steadily.

I draw in another breath. And blink.

The Dragon’s breath warms my palm.

I am still here
, the Dragon says again.
Do you need anything more?

Another breath. Another blink.

My eyes lock with the Dragon’s.

‘No,’ I say.

The Dragon smiles.

‘Evie darling, Lynne and Phee are here to see you,’ Amy calls from the hall.

I toss my book aside and gallop downstairs. Paul looks up from the sofa with a smile. ‘That keen to escape a Saturday morning with your Aged Ps?’

I grin as I tear around the corner of the sofa, completely ignoring Amy’s warning to be careful. Lynne and Phee are standing in the hall, all muffled up, and grinning in deepest satisfaction.

‘Look at those smiles,’ Uncle Ben says to me. ‘There’s trouble if I ever saw it. Don’t tell us. You’ve fed Sonny Rawlins cupcakes with rat poison and you want Evie’s help to dig a really big hole?’

Lynne wrinkles up her nose.

‘I wouldn’t bother to bury Sonny Rawlins if I bumped him off,’ Phee says.

‘Exactly! Why would we want to get all muddy for him?’ Lynne adds.

‘You’re going to lure him to your garage and dissolve him in acid?’ Uncle Ben suggests.

‘Eeeeew!’ Lynne says. ‘These are my favourite jeans. I’m not getting acid spatter on my favourite jeans.’

Amy sets about smoothing down my flyaway hair. I bat at her hands and she leaves off with a sigh, trying to summon a smile for my friends.

‘We’ve got a much better idea than anything to do with Sonny Rawlins,’ Phee says.

‘Yes. Because we’re
proactive
,’ Lynne adds, savouring the word.

I wonder what she’s been reading. Probably her mum’s latest self-help bible.

‘We’re going to take charge of making ourselves happy, instead of letting him make us dwell on being miserable.’

Amy blinks in surprise. ‘That’s . . . That’s very sensible, Lynne,’ she says.

Phee rolls her eyes. ‘It’s a lot of psychobabble is what my dad would say.’ Lynne elbows her in the side. ‘But fun is always a good thing. So we’re here to take Evie out to have some. Because we’re just the most stellar friends ever.’

‘She can come, can’t she?’ Lynne asks, opening her big green eyes wide and looking soulfully at Amy. ‘We promise to look after her, and not walk her off her feet, and to sit down and have a hot drink and something to eat . . .’

‘My mum’s waiting outside to drive us into town
and
she said she’d pick us up when we’ve had enough, so you don’t have to worry about Evie getting jostled about on the bus.’

‘Yes, and we promise to bring her back before dinner, when the mov—’

‘Shh!’ Phee hisses. ‘It’s meant to be a surprise, you dork.’

‘Oh,’ says Lynne. ‘Anyway, anyway, the thing . . . the thing we’re planning to do. I mean, one of the things . . . Well, it’ll be over . . .’

‘We’ll bring Evie back by six o’clock,’ Phee interrupts. ‘
Please
, Amy.’

‘Yes,
please
,’ echoes Lynne.

‘I’ll go and get my stuff,’ I say, stopping just long enough to kiss Amy’s cheek as she rolls her eyes at me.

‘Just don’t . . . run . . . on the stairs . . .’ I hear her call (to absolutely no avail) as I thunder back up to my room for my favourite jacket: the one I keep in my wardrobe to wear at night with the Dragon.

It’s one of the best days ever. Uncle Ben slid two twenties – two! – into my pocket before we set off, then Amy gave me another in case we got the munchies. We end up treating ourselves to double burgers, fries
and
onion rings, followed by chocolate fudge cake, despite Lynne’s wails of ‘I’m going to be so fat tomorrow!’ My hamburger is so huge that I wrap half of it up in a napkin and put it in my pocket for later. (‘It’s too good to leave, but I’ve
got
to have room for cake,’ is my argument, while Phee grins and says, ‘It would practically be a sin not to on a girls’ day out. I shan’t be your friend any more if you don’t at least split a piece with me and you can’t leave the
cake
.’) Then off we go to the cinema (to see something I’ve been dying to go to for ages but haven’t because it’s not really Phee and Lynne’s sort of thing). We’re all high on Pepsi and sweet popcorn (with Lynne grumping ‘I’m going to have to diet for a
year
!’ at semi-regular intervals) when we leave the cinema and duck back into the shops for that dress that looked so good on Phee but that she really didn’t need but . . .