The Twice-Lived Summer of Bluebell Jones (3 page)

But I'm not
just
brainy. I know I'm not bright and shiny like Dad or Tiger or Mum, but I'm not terrible. I have interests. I have extra-curricular leisure pursuits. I like Pixar films and Parma Violets. I am gradually wallpapering the entire surface of my bedroom with perfectly tessellating photographs; one wall's half done already, and, in patchwork, a corner of the slopey ceiling over my bed. I wake up every day to see the same two pictures: me and Grace poking out our tongues, and a close-up of Tiger's left eye, huge like a wet pebble. When I grow up I would like to find a cure for peanut allergy, and take pictures for magazines.

And there's all the rest. I'm bigger on the inside. I worry about the future and exams and university fees and jobs and, you know, dolphins in tuna nets. And who I'll be, and why. I've been the boring parts of a teenager for years already. I've just been waiting for my outsides to catch up, so everyone else can see it.

But last night, it didn't happen. And I don't know how to fix it.

I make a little moany noise of misery, then clamp Milly to my mouth. Tiger's not normally visible to the human eye before ten; wake her any earlier and she's all snarls.

I roll over and hang my head off the bunk to check, wrinkling my nose at the flotsam of books and clothes she's managed to spread over the tiny floor space already. It's AS level results day in four weeks. From the number of books, I think she's planning a few resits. I don't need a ladder to get down from the top bunk; I could fashion my own out of Cliffs Notes and knickers.

(All my stuff should be on the floor too. Thirteen-year-olds are messy. Why am I not suddenly uncharacteristically messy?)

Tiger's not there. I can see the covers have been slept in, but she's gone. I look at my watch: half past seven. Maybe Penkerry makes everyone go peculiar.

I toss and turn in the narrow bunk for a bit, but Dad's snores keep thrumming through the cardboard wall. Eventually I give up on sleeping, flip over, and tug out the bag that's wedged behind my pillow.

My birthday presents. They don't exactly cheer me up. Tiger got me Haribo, and a clockwork mouse for the Great Mouse Army that lives on my bookshelves at home. Mum and Dad got me a camera, like they promised. All mine, so I don't have to keep begging to borrow Mum's digital.

This one's called a Diana, and it's new but made to look old: plasticky, junk-shoppy. It's got a huge squarish flash that snaps on to the top, like an old cartoon. It even uses film, so there's no screen to see the picture you just took – and the prints are supposed to come out ultra-bright and unreal, like
The Wizard of Oz
.

Thirteen-year-old me should find that vintagey and hipster.

I just wish they'd got me something they thought
I
might like.

As for the rest of the pressie pile – from all the uncles, and Granny in Australia, even Grace – it follows the usual theme. Bluebell notelets. Bluebell soap. Perfume that smells like bluebells, with a plastic bluebell wedged in the bottle. Tiger never gets old-lady-smelling stuff for her birthdays. I don't think they make stuff with tiger lilies on. Or tigers. Even if they did it would be all fierce and grr and Tigerish. I'd wear perfume if it smelled like tigers and had a plastic tiger in it.

We've got a list of possible Peanut names pinned up on the fridge, brought from home. I should be a kind future big sister and swap out all the stupid flowery names for better present inspiration. Like “Money”, or “iPod”. “Giftcard” has a nice ring to it.
Meet my baby brother/sister, Giftcard Jones
. That way Peanut will never, ever have a birthday as rubbish as this one.

There are scrunchy footsteps on the gravel outside, and a click at the door. A moment later, Tiger appears, flushed and sweaty. She's wearing jog bottoms and too-white trainers, and there's a twinkly smile in her eyes as she swishes through the orange curtain.

“Morning!” she announces, then bites her lip, guiltily dropping her voice to a whisper. “You should get up, it's gorgeous out there!”

“Where have you been?” I whisper back.

“For a run on the beach,” she says brightly.

I don't think I've even seen Tiger run for a bus.

She tugs off her trainers, still laced up, and swishes back through the curtain. I hear the plasticky throb of water hitting the base of the shower, and her singing to herself through the wall.

I bet the pretty nose-ringed elf girl goes for a morning run on the beach too. Tiger's only just stopped sobbing herself to sleep over breaking up with Sasha the Cow (even though she was a cow), but Tiger goes through girlfriends like Dad does guitar strings. Looks like she's back in the game.

People always ask what it's like, having a sister who goes out with girls. Like they think it's catching.

Seriously. Yesterday I was twelve. I'm sharing my bed with a cuddly mouse. I don't think I even have a sexuality to be confused about yet.

I suppose I should start worrying about that now, too.

I stare at Milly's single orange eye. It stares back, accusingly, as if even she thinks I should've outgrown her.

I throw her on the floor in disgust.

“Whoa, there! Don't take it out on the mouse.”

I scrunch my eyes up tight, but it's not like I don't recognize the voice.

“Morning!” says Red. She's standing there, right next to my bunk bed. Same smiley-face T-shirt and cut-off shorts. Same wicked grin. Same total-impossibleness.

“Yes, I'm really here, no, you aren't dreaming or mental, I really am you from the future, and
please
can we skip all this part because, hello, everyone hates that bit in a film where the hero is stupid and needs the whole plot explained to them even though it was all written on the back of the DVD.”

I blink at her from behind a safe corner of my pillow. “Am I really seeing you? How did you get in? Where did you go last night?” My stomach does a backflip, and I wield the pillow between us like a shield, pressing myself against the wall, as far back as I can get. “Were you here all night and I just couldn't see you? Or am I just, you know . . . insane and seeing things?”

Red's shoulders flop. “Seriously, we have to do all this?”

There's a hammering on the cardboardy wall, as the shower noise cuts off.

“Oi! Keep it down in there!” shouts Mum. Her voice is muffled, but not much; she can probably hear everything in here just as clearly.

I clap my hand over my mouth.

Red smirks, unhelpfully.

“Sorry!” I call through the wall. “I'm. . .” My eyes scan the mess on the floor. “Just reading one of Tiger's books. Out loud.”

“
Very
convincing,” says Red.

“Shhh, she'll hear you!”

“What?” shouts Mum.

“Nothing!” I shout, as Red goes on smirking. “Wait – she
can't
hear you?” I say, this time super-soft.

“You think?”

I press my lips very firmly together.

Red rolls her eyes. “Look, we can't talk in here. And what're you doing still in bed anyway? There's the whole of Penkerry out there and you're sat in your jammies. Get dressed, meet me on the cliff top.”

The shower door slides open again.

“Red – she's coming – how will you get—” I squeak, in a panic, as Red shows no sign of moving.

“Wha?” grunts Tiger, swishing through the orange curtain wrapped in a towel, dreadlocks all piled in a knot on top of her head.

“Ohhh,” I breathe, my eyes going wide as Red gives me a flash of a grin. Tiger can't see Red. Only me, talking to myself. Then Red walks backwards through the wall. Straight through it, leaving nothing behind but a wisp of smoke like a blown candle.

I know the caravan walls are cardboard-thin, but that is still quite unexpected.

My fourteen-year-old self has amazing hair and walks through walls. I like me more already.

 

 

3.
A Girl Who Stands on Cliff Edges

 

I take a ten-second shower, fling on the top layer of clothes from my suitcase, and brush my dampish hair back into its usual ponytail. Then I hesitate, and stroke one hand up the back of my neck. It tingles. I shake the ponytail, feeling it swish. What will it feel like, when I've cut that hair off? I can't wait to ask.

Dad has other ideas. By the time I'm dressed, he's filling the kitchenette with burnt toast and bacon smells, squeezing out teabags with his fingertips. Tiger's already sitting at the table, gazing fondly at the ketchup bottle.

“Not officially a holiday till you've had a bacon sarnie for breakfast,” Dad says, and he looks so pleased with himself, waving his spatula about, that I can't just leave.

“So what's on the itinerary today, baby?” asks Mum, sleepily padding out to join us, her dressing gown knotted but not quite meeting in the middle. “Are we going anywhere nice?”

Dad flips open the diary I've made, stuffed with printed maps off the internet and little notes in my round handwriting. We're here for six weeks, and I've planned the whole of our first one: bird sanctuary, chocolate factory, boat trip out to Mulvey Island lighthouse. All the essentials from the
Penkerry and Surrounding Area Top Ten Fun Attractions for all the Family
.

It looks stupid now.

“Dearie me, I think Bluebell might have to learn a bit of flexibility,” says Dad, eyeing the diary. “Doesn't say anything in here about testing out any of your birthday presents. . .”

I might learn to love my weird plasticky new camera after all.

Half an hour later I'm running out of the caravan with Diana tucked in my bag, leaving Mum and Dad throwing each other proud looks about how much they nailed my birthday present.

I weave through the other caravans, past the row of posh chalets with sea views, across the grass. Clumps of bushes mark the edge of the cliffs, with a spindly iron fence blocking the sheer drop. In places the fence leans out, almost level with the ground, as if someone's already leant on it and fallen off. It's probably illegal. Red doesn't care, though. She's standing on the edge, breathing in salt.

She's me. I wished her here, and she's real (in a walking-through-walls kind of way) and when I grow up I'm going to be
her
. A girl who stands on cliff edges. Red, not Blue.

I wipe bacony hands on my jeans, squint through Diana's tiny viewfinder, and click a shot off quickly. Red poses at once, arms flexed like a weightlifter, as if she
likes
having her picture taken.

“It won't come out, you know,” she laughs. “I can walk through furniture, I'll slide right off camera film.”

She's probably right. I can't help trying to pin her into a picture, though.

The film needs to be wound on after each shot, and there's this funny system for taking different-sized prints, and a button for daylight versus night shots, and I wish it wasn't so obvious that I'm only fussing about with Diana because I don't have a clue what to say. I thought she'd feel familiar, equal. But Red's like a celebrity, or a superhero; bigger than life.

I so want her to like me. She grins, as if she knows
exactly
what I'm thinking – because
she probably does. It doesn't help.

“Oh!” I squeak, suddenly even more embarrassed. “I forgot to say: happy birthday. For yesterday, I mean.”

Red's smile gets even bigger. “Bless, get you with the lovely manners. I'm so nice! I didn't know I was that nice. Oh my god, are you wearing those shoes? I'd forgotten them. They're disgusting; I can't believe I ever went out in public with them on. Whoa: apparently I'm not nice any more, I'm patronizing and rude. Sorry. Really. That's . . . sorry.”

Her red hair blows about her stricken face in the cliff-top wind, and I can see she's trying to be kind. My shoes probably are disgusting: flat canvas lace-ups with blotchy pink and green flowers on them. “Don't worry about it, it's fine,” I say.

“See?” she says. “So nice!”

Also, she has boobs. Not that I'm staring. But there are actual boobs, attached to my body which has my face on it. Me, I only have flat bits and fat bits. Tiger's the one who overflows in all the right places. I'd given up waiting for them to pop up, and now, there they are. Boobs are in my future.

I might be staring.

Does she know what I'm thinking? Is that why she's smiling? Why am I still thinking about boobs? Boobs boobs boobs.

“Why are you here?” I blurt.

Her hopeful smile fades a touch. I'm ruining it already. No wonder lately Grace is always already out with Monique or Jen or some boy when I text her on Saturday mornings. I can't even talk to myself and not mess it up.

“That came out wrong! What I meant was . . . don't you have somewhere else to be? I mean – it's obvious why I made a wish. I need help. I need someone to rescue me from . . . me. But, well, look at you. You did it. You've done the growing-up thing. You're. . .”

I scrabble for the right words. Perfect? Incredible? OK, now I sound like a stalker. Girls aren't supposed to like themselves: it says so in Grace's magazines. Am I allowed to like me when I'm her?

“You're . . . fine,” I stutter, eventually. “Better than fine. Why would you wish yourself out of your own life, back to here?”

“It's Penkerry! Who wouldn't want to be here?” Red beams, flinging out an arm across the bay.

This is awkward. I see a dishwater sea, wafting the smell of decaying seaweed up my nose. Far-off pebbles dotted with tiny people pretending to sunbathe while rocks poke their backs and the sun fails to shine. The rusty pier. The fairground. The Red Dragon, a dark twist of iron against the sky.

She sees heaven.

“Haha, don't you love it!” Red picks up her shoulders and does a little run on the spot, like she just can't keep still. Then she catches my eye. “Well, OK, you don't love it yet. But you will. I guarantee it. And I'd know, right?”

She claps her hands, disappears into the clump of bushes right on the edge of the cliff, and vanishes.

She can walk through walls. Can she fly, too?

Then her perky red head reappears, peering through the bushes. “Short cut to the beach,” she says, beckoning. “Come on. You've got new best friends to meet!”

For a second I feel sick. Tiger got all the small-talk genes in my family; round new people, I go shy and tongue-tied. But if they're her friends, they're going to like me too. Like she said: guaranteed.

I edge closer to the bushes, looking anxiously for the exact edge of the cliff, eyeing the bent iron railings warily. I have to take a step out into nothing to follow her – but my foot hits solid ground, and as I push through the prickly twigs, I can see it: a sandy windy yellow path, lined with green, sloping along the cliffs down to the beach.

I'd never have found it without her.

Penkerry is an attractive resort town, with a mile of pebble beach sheltered between two high cliffs, Verney Head and Penkerry Point
, it says in my Tourist Information leaflet.
Picturesque Edwardian villas overlook the semicircular bay, accessed by a series of steeply winding narrow streets. The fairground is conveniently situated on the seafront, a few minutes' walk from the Victorian pier. Visitors can enjoy a boat trip to Mulvey Island lighthouse, sample the local Penkerry Dairy Ice Cream (seventeen flavours, including Raspberry Ripple, Candyfloss, and the unique Chilli Prawn – do you dare?), or relax in a deckchair on the prom. Fun for all the family!

What the leaflet doesn't say: Penkerry is loud and smells of poo.

The cliff path leads us straight on to the promenade, the shop-lined road that runs the length of the beach. Babies wail. In the penny arcades, a million fruit machines go blipblipblipblipblip, not quite at the same time. People are eating chips at ten in the morning, and none of them seem to mind the cat-sized seagulls of death swooping at their faces making
argh argh
noises and trying to eat their children.

But Red is practically skipping, pointing out Frisky's Mussel Hut, Deckchair Jim, giggling maniacally at The Bench – which is a bench. Just a bench. But we have to sit on it because apparently it's brilliant and amazing and I'll understand soon.

I try to see it through her eyes. Grace has gone to Bali for three weeks, whale-watching, and I don't know how a bench is going to compete with that. But that's why I wished her here. She can see what I can't.

“So, last night: where
did
you go?”

“I was right here,” Red says. She moves to tap the wood of the bench, but her hand sinks into it palm-deep, the fingers disappearing in a puffy cloud of smoke. She gasps. “Brrr,” she whispers, twisting her wrist and shivering as the smokiness swirls and slowly forms back into bone and flesh and skin. “I am
never
going to get used to that.”

Me neither. I'm getting used to seeing her beside me, solid as I am. Watching bits of her vanish is terrifying.

“Hey, don't look so freaked out!” she says. “It doesn't hurt. I don't think I can get hurt, exactly.” She frowns, as if she's trying to work out the rules for herself, too. I like that. It makes me feel like I'm the clever one, knowing there are some things even she isn't sure of.

“Can you sleep?”

“Don't need to.” She shrugs. “That's good, though,” she adds, gazing dreamily out across the water. “Penkerry's beautiful in the dark. I mean, I love it when it's all busy and mental and full of happy holiday people, but when it's quiet, it's like magic. They leave the pier lights on all night, and you can watch them dancing on the water. All you can hear is the crashing of the waves, the tide coming in, or the tide going out. It never stays still, never stops, and you can't argue with it. Can't fight it. It does what it wants. And then slowly, ever so slowly, the sun starts to come up, and the sky glows orange, and all these early-morning people come out and scuttle about like crabs, putting it ready for the day. I never saw that, when I was here last summer. You should sneak out and come with me, one night. I don't want you to miss it.”

My toes tingle inside my dorky shoes. I'm going to be the kind of girl who stays out all night to watch sunrises. It's just so . . .
Tiger
. I sneak a sideways glance at Red, and she glows; almost pretty, and I never think that about me.

I might not love Penkerry yet, but I love knowing that I'm going to.

“Didn't you get cold?” I ask, looking at her thin purple T-shirt.

She barks with laughter. “All the questions in the universe, and that's what you want to know?”

It isn't. I could drown her in questions. What's it like, being a person made of candle smoke and wishes? Do you know already that's what I want to ask? Are you hungry? Are you tired? Does time feel long or short or exactly the same? Do you mind, that you're here not there?

And about the rest of this year she's already lived, too. Will I cry when I get my ears pierced? Does Grace like my hair? Are we still friends?

Did something happen, something big, to make me turn from Blue to Red?

“Oh!” I can't believe I forgot the most important question of all. Again. I am going to be a terrible big sister. “Peanut! Tell me about Peanut! Boy or girl? Did they call it something stupid? Please tell me it's not called Milk-Thistle?”

The list of potential baby names pinned on to the fridge is horrifying. There are some sensible ones – Rowan for a boy, and lots of girl ones, Poppy, and Rose (which I've crossed out and changed to Rosie, because it's nicer for a baby). I think Milk-Thistle and Hydrangea and Hedge are Dad just mucking about, but he did call me Bluebell; with him you can never be sure.

Until now, I suppose.

“Yeah,” says Red, clearing her throat awkwardly. “About Peanut.”