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Authors: Jacqueline Wilson

Vicky Angel (13 page)

BOOK: Vicky Angel
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M
um's being extra nice to me, making me special meals, thinking up little treats, letting me have my hair styled at Toni and Guy's, giving me a special nail kit so that my stubby fingers grow false nails with patterns, and a little ring hanging off the end of my thumb. I like my new hairstyle and my new nails but they don't seem part of me. I find I'm flicking my new fringe out of my eyes every five seconds and fiddling endlessly with the edges of my new nails until they flick right off.

“Stop all that fiddling and twitching, for God's sake,” Mum shouts. Then she looks guilty and makes me a cup of hot chocolate and cuts me a slice of iced sponge cake. She made it herself, the same recipe she once used for my birthday cakes. It makes me remember all those little-girly parties. The icing sticks to my teeth as I think of Vicky
blowing out my candles so she could steal my birthday wish.

“You're not crying, are you?” says Vicky. “
I'm
not crying and I'm never going to have another birthday now.”

“Have another slice, Jade, go on. Be a devil,” says Mum.

“Now there's a thought,” says Vicky. She puts a finger either side of her head to look like horns. “Maybe I'll try traveling
down
the way?”

“Maybe that's where you belong,” I say.

She's leading me into all sorts of serious trouble. I'm still not doing any proper work at school. I hardly ever bother with homework. Some of the teachers don't care. Others give me little lectures in that weird embarrassed way they deal with me now. “I know there are special circumstances, Jade. Of course it's difficult for you. Just do your best.”

I do my worst. They sigh a little but don't really tell me off. The only teacher who gets really mad with me is Mrs. Cambridge, of all people.

“You haven't handed in any homework
again,
Jade?”

“Yes, well … I tried so hard, Mrs. Cambridge, but I just can't seem to think straight,” I say, in my sad-little-grieving-girl voice.

It works like magic with the other teachers. But not Mrs. Cambridge.

“Come off it! You didn't try at all! I don't mind you handing in work that's all muddled or work
that's completely wrong. Maybe I'm willing to make excuses for you then. But you haven't bothered to do any work at all!”

“You know how it is, Mrs. Cambridge,” I whine.

“I know that you're taking advantage. I know you're very unhappy. I know you're missing Vicky terribly. Maybe talking to Stevie Wainwright might help. But you've still got to do a little bit of work or you'll get so far behind you'll never catch up.”

“I don't see the point.”

“So you can pass your exams and get an interesting job and have a fulfilling life.”

“Yeah, and some of us are stuck in a frustrating living death!” Vicky shouts. “Shove off, you stupid teacher. Leave me and Jade alone. You don't understand!”

I have to clamp my lips together to stop saying Vicky's words myself. I don't always manage it. I'm rude to poor Madeleine and Jenny when I hear them chatting to Vicky Two—because they just call her Vicky.

“She's Vicky
Two,
and she always will be. She'll always come second to my Vicky. So don't you dare act like
she's
Vicky.”

They stare at me as if I'm off my head. I think I am. I'm floating a foot above myself with Vicky, getting madder and meaner every day.

I can't stand to be in school now. I can't sit still either. Literally. I wriggle around so much there are bruises on my bony bottom. I stretch and
yawn and scratch, so restless that I actually look forward to Fridays and the Fun Run.

It's still not fun but I'm starting to be able to run. I'm not really any
good
at it. I'm still slower than everyone apart from Sam. But I can keep going for much longer now, and sometimes my head's straight, my shoulders are square, my back's upright, and I just get
into
it. It's still hard work but not as hard as it was.

“Great, Jade,” says Mr. Lorrimer, jogging along beside me. “You've really revved up your stride rate. You're looking really good, coming along in leaps and bounds.”

He's acting like he's forgotten my nastiness about Sam. Sam himself is lumbering along behind us.

“What about me, Mr. Lorrimer?” he puffs. “Hardly leaps and bounds like Jade, eh? More like staggers and stumbles.”

“You're doing fine too, Sam,” says Mr. Lorrimer. “You're getting fit, lad.”

Sam laughs raucously, then has to stop and wheeze.

“Yeah, sure, Sylvester Stallone,” he says, thumping the big soft pillow of his stomach.

Though it's not quite as big as it was. Or as soft. He's lost a little weight.

“Look at Jade staring at me,” says Sam. “She can hardly keep her hands off my new lithe physique.”

“Ha,” I say. But I grin at him.

“Are you two guys pals again?” says Mr. Lorrimer.

“You have to be joking,” says Sam. “That's why she's running faster. It's to get away from me. Isn't that right, Jade?”

“You got it,” I say. But when Mr. Lorrimer runs ahead I slow down so that Sam and I can run together. Vicky's running along beside us too, of course. She keeps making outrageously rude remarks about Sam. She tries to make me say them too. It's such a struggle I can hardly concentrate on what Sam's saying. Every now and then he stares at me, almost as if he susses out what's going on.

“Sorry?” I say.

“It's OK,” he says gently.

“I just—I can't always—I keep thinking—”

“It's OK,” he repeats.


You're
OK, Sam,” I say.

Vicky makes the most unethereal vomit noises and makes my life a misery for days. She just won't leave me alone.

She whirls round and round the room when I'm with Mrs. Wainwright so I can't even talk to her properly.

I jump and twitch and fidget as Vicky prods and pinches and pokes her tongue out.

“I'm sorry,” I say miserably. “I want to sit still, but I just
can't
.”

“I think you're so tense and fidgety because you're still searching for Vicky in some way,
unable to face up to the fact that she's dead,” Mrs. Wainwright says gently.

Vicky might be dead, but she's very much
here
.

“I can't stop thinking about her,” I say.

“Quite right too,” says Vicky, nodding approvingly.

“Of course you can't. It's only natural. It's all part of the grieving process.”

“God, she's so boring,” says Vicky. “She's acting like she knows it all, and she knows nothing. Go on, tell her. Tell her!”

“You don't know anything about Vicky and me. We're not part of any process, like we're peas! You make it all sound so
boring
.”

I put my hand over my mouth, shocked I could have been so rude. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean—”

“It's OK, it's fine, Jade.”

“I don't want to say rude things, it's Vicky, it's like I have to copy her,” I wail.

“You rotten little telltale,” says Vicky, tweaking my nose with her ghostly fingers.

“Perhaps you copy Vicky some of the time to feel close to her,” says Mrs. Wainwright.

“No, you copy me because I'm better than you, I'm prettier and sparkier and funnier—” Vicky sings.

“You're meaner,” I mutter.

“I could get a lot, lot meaner. I've been very, very sweet to you so far. I haven't gone on about what happened. Shall I start, Jade? Remember when we were coming out of school and—”

“No,” I interrupt Vicky, and I put my hands over my ears.

“What is it, Jade?” says Mrs. Wainwright, putting her arm round me.

“I feel so bad about Vicky dying because …”

“Because?”

“I can't.”

“OK, pet. You don't have to talk about it now. Maybe you'll want to talk about it some other time. But you mustn't worry about feeling bad or guilty as if it's all somehow your fault. Everyone feels that, even when it isn't true at all.”

It is true. And Vicky is pointing at me, going, “Guilty, guilty, guilty!”

“Jade?” Mrs. Wainwright is gently pulling me to my feet, the session over. “Have you got a photo of Vicky? I'd like you to bring one to our next session.”

I spend hours sifting through all these little paper wallets of photos, trying to select one. I've even got photos of Vicky before I knew her, a little gummy one of her as a baby with nothing on and another of her with tiny plaits wearing a swimming costume. I filched both of them from her mum's photo box because Vicky looked so sweet. Then there are heaps from primary school days and outings up to London and Legoland and one magic trip to Disneyland, Paris, Vicky looking seriously cute with Mickey Mouse ears. It's harder sifting through the recent photos. It's so sad sorting out all these smiling Vickys.

“Don't get the photos all wet, idiot,” Vicky says. “How many more times? It's
me
that should be crying. You can fill a whacking great album with your future photos. There won't ever be another snap of me. Hey, why didn't anyone take a photo of me in my coffin? I bet I looked drop-dead gorgeous. Ha!”

She lies down on the floor in a parody of her own death, hands crossed on her chest, eyes closed, face still and saintly.

“Cut it out, Vicky,” I say, snuffling.

She takes no notice.

“Stop it! I hate seeing you like that. Please get up.”

I try to shake her shoulder but my fingers poke right through her in an unnerving way.

“Vicky, you're scaring me.”

Vicky suddenly sits bolt upright. She opens her eyes—she opens her mouth too, wider than wide, showing two new great incisors. She lunges at me.


Now
you're scared!” she squeals. “Oh God, these fangs! I'm drooling, I'm thirsty, I want
blood
!” She pulls a pint mug out of thin air. It's brimming with scarlet liquid. “That's the ticket! Cheers!” She raises the mug and slurps noisily, her vampire teeth clinking on the glass.


Yuck!

“No, yummy!” says Vicky, wiping red smears from her lips with the back of her hand. “But it's cold. I like it warm. And
fresh
.” She throws
back her head and then bites down hard on my neck.

I scream. Though her teeth aren't real and my skin stays unpierced.

“Jade? Are you all right?”

Oh God, I've woken Dad.

“Yeah, I'm fine,” I shout.

“You were screaming.”

“No, I was just … I nearly dropped something, that's all.”

“Dropped what?” Dad comes right into my room and stares at all the photos spread out around me. “Oh, Jade,” he says, shaking his head.

“I wish you wouldn't come barging into my bedroom without knocking.”

“I'm sorry. I was worried about you.”

“Well, I'm fine.”

“No you're not,” says Dad, and he squats down beside me. He peers at all the celluloid Vickys, picking one up, then another. “She was such a lovely kid,” he says, his voice thick.

I can't stand him drooling all over her. I whisk them up out of his reach, crumpling them in my haste.

“Hey, hey! OK, I won't touch,” he says, his hands raised as if I'm pointing a gun at him. He's playing the fool, but his eyes are still watering. “Jade? What is it? Why do I always seem to rub you up the wrong way, lovie?”

I stare at my lap. “No you don't, Dad.” But he
does, he does. Just the whiny way he says that silly word “lovie” sets my teeth on edge.

“It's not just you. It's your mum,” says Dad. “I don't know. The way she's acting nowadays …”

Oh God. Please. Don't ask me.

“Do you know what's up with her, Jade?”

I shrug, still looking down.

“She acts like I'm not here half the time, or else she skirts right round me like I'm a heap of rubbish. If I ever try to get close to her she winces away. It's not like I've ever done anything bad. I've tried my best to be a good husband, a good dad.” He shakes his head, sighing with self-pity.

I should feel sorry for him. He's so unhappy. I don't suppose it is his fault. He
is
my dad.

I reach out to give him a quick pat on the shoulder but he thinks I'm trying to hug him. He pulls me closer than I want.

“Oh, Jade, you still love your old dad, don't you?”

I can't get the words out.

“Dad!” I mumbled, wriggling away from him.

“You're a cold little fish, just like your mum,” Dad says, turning on me. “Weird little kid.” He picks up one of the photos on the floor. It's a seaside snap, Vicky smiling saucily, her hair blowing in the wind, skirt whipping up in the breeze.

“Little Vicky. She was always so full of life,” he says.

He lifts the photo to his face as if he's going to
kiss
her but then thinks better of it. He lets it fall
from his fingers and then he walks out of the room without a backward glance at me.

I take a tissue and wipe and wipe at her photo. There's nothing to see but I feel as if his moist fingerprints are all over it. Vicky is wiping herself down too, pulling a face.

“I'm sorry.”

“I never liked your dad much.”

“Neither do I. What am I going to do if Mum clears off with this guy at her work?” I whisper.

If only I could still go to Vicky's house every day and be their sort-of second daughter. I knew her mum didn't like me but she still made me special teas and included me in all the family treats. And Vicky's dad was always lovely. He used to act daft and play at being a big bear and he'd spin us around and around in the garden when we were little. Then once we got to secondary school he'd pretend we were really grown up and fuss round us like we were film stars. I want to be part of Vicky's family again. I want Vicky to be there….

“I
am
here,” says Vicky when I go to bed. She kneels down beside me and puts her arm round me as best she can. She rocks me and tells me that we can be together forever this way.

The night goes on forever, even though Vicky still has her arms round me.

When I see Mrs. Wainwright the following lunchtime she puts her arm round me too. “Bad day, Jade?”

Vicky hates it when anyone else touches me. I
pull away from Mrs. Wainwright. What I'd really like to do is put my arms up like a little kid and have her pick me up and hug me close.

BOOK: Vicky Angel
7.1Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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