Violet Ink (12 page)

‘Nothing,' she says, pouring the milk into the cups and putting one on the table for Finn. ‘Drink your tea.' I see her looking anxiously out of the
window and I follow her gaze, but it's OK. Mum is moving around near the shed and doesn't seem to have any idea of the clouds that are gathering over our house.

Finn looks at the tea, but doesn't move. He likes his tea as strong as possible, so strong that ‘you could stand a spoon up in it' Mum always says. It's something that he and Alex have in common, and they moan on and on if anyone ever makes either of them a weak cup of pale tea. The cup of tea that Alex has made looks more like warm milk than tea; there's no way that Finn will drink it and I don't blame him. The storm that's brewing in our kitchen is stronger than Finn's cup of tea.

‘Alex.' His voice is firm, like he's not leaving here without answers, and I feel cold inside when I see what's about to happen.

‘Finn.' She's trying to make a joke of it, distract him by being silly, but as she still won't look at him it's not going to work.

‘What's wrong, Al? What's the big secret?'

Alex shakes her head and starts opening and closing cupboard doors.

‘Where's the sugar? It's got to be here somewhere.'

I want to remind her that she doesn't have
sugar in her tea, but then I think better of it. This is definitely between Finn and Alex and I don't think she's really looking for the sugar anyway, not when I can see it in the sugar bowl, right in front of her on the kitchen counter.

‘Is it true?' asks Finn in a quiet voice.

Alex stills, one hand reaching into the cupboard and closing round a tin of baked beans.

‘Is what true?' she whispers.

‘Is it true that you're –' Finn doesn't seem able to say the word and Alex turns round slowly, looking down at the floor. Finn tries again. ‘Is it true that you and Charlie are –' But he doesn't need to say any more because Alex has raised her head and is looking at him, and he can see the answer written all over her face. It's like she wants him to know – that or she just can't hide the truth from Finn like she could hide it from me and Mum.

‘Oh God,' groans Finn, running his hand through his floppy hair. I think how ridiculous this all looks: Finn with tufts of hair sticking up at weird angles and Alex clutching a tin of baked beans like it's going to save her. It's not how these things happen on the TV anyway. There's absolutely nothing glamorous or exciting about this moment. It all just seems a bit scary, and a bit messy, and a huge
mistake – like we've stumbled into somebody else's story for a while.

‘Finn –' starts Alex, but he puts his hand up, like he doesn't want to hear her. ‘I don't know what to do,' she finishes, ignoring his hand and slumping against the kitchen counter.

There's silence for a few seconds and then Finn looks at Alex.

‘What did your mum say?' he asks her. Alex doesn't answer and, for the first time since he walked into the room, Finn looks over at me.

‘That's the big secret, isn't it?' he says and I nod, not looking at Alex in case she's mad with me. Finn sighs really loudly and turns back to Alex. ‘You've got to tell her, Alex. Now.'

‘I can't.'

‘You can. You have to. What if she finds out from someone else?'

‘She won't, will she?' Alex's voice has a warning in it that I can hear all the way over here by the fridge.

Finn slams his hand against the door frame and I jump in surprise.

‘So what are you going to do? Wait until she notices? Or have you got other plans?' He's angry,
but I don't know why. It's not his baby after all, so it doesn't really affect him.

‘Charlie's sorting something out. I'm just waiting for him to tell me what we're doing.' Alex doesn't sound like her normal self – her voice is wavering and quiet, like she's unsure about what she's saying. ‘He doesn't want me to tell Mum until we've got all the details sorted.'

‘Is that what he's doing now, while you're sitting here on your own?' Finn asks her, his voice getting louder with each word.

I feel a bit hurt by this. Alex isn't exactly on her own, is she? She's got me and I'm working quite hard to deal with all of this, which isn't being made any easier by her and Finn having an argument in the middle of our kitchen.

‘Yes, it is,' Alex tells him. ‘He's getting everything sorted.' She sounds trusting, like she truly believes that Charlie is going to save the day, and it's too much for Finn.

‘Right, so that wasn't Charlie I just saw in the pub with the rest of his football team?' he explodes. Alex's face goes red, but she stays silent.

‘That was Charlie “getting everything sorted”, was it? Because it looked to me like he was bragging
about scoring a goal and laughing at some stupid joke made by an equally stupid girl.'

Tears bubble up in Alex's eyes, but she grips her tin of baked beans even harder and stares at Finn.

‘Come on, Alex! Wake up! Lover boy is NOT going to do the right thing. You know it. Time to deal with that and start figuring out what YOU are going to do. If you wait for him, you'll be waiting forever!'

‘Maybe he's worth waiting for – forever,' Alex says quietly, looking at Finn until he looks away, shaking his head in disgust.

I think this is probably the most romantic thing I've ever heard anybody say. It's the sort of thing I expect Juliet said about Romeo when the Montagues and Capulets were fighting and yelling at them, and forcing them to stay away from each other. It just seems a bit sad that Alex has said it about Charlie though because I'm sure he's an OK kind of person really, but I'm not at all convinced that he's Alex's ‘forever' person.

‘Then you don't need me then, do you?' Finn asks Alex. This time it really does sound like a question, hovering in the air above the kitchen table. They look at each other for a moment, but then Alex is the first to look away, not answering.

‘You know where I am,' Finn tells her. ‘Where I'll always be.' And then he turns and leaves, and it feels like he's walking out of much more than our kitchen, and Alex leans her head on the kitchen cupboard and cries and cries and cries until I think that she must have no tears left inside her.

If I thought not knowing a secret was hard then I had absolutely no idea how difficult it is to keep one. Since that awful night in the kitchen two weeks ago, I've barely spoken to Mum because I'm so terrified that it'll all come pouring out of me in one long, guilty flow of words. Fortunately it's a really busy time for her at school so she's working extra hard, and then at suppertimes, if everyone's quiet, Mum thinks it's because we're tired.

Alex has gone back to school. She's not going to get away with not telling Mum for very long and I've told her that, but she doesn't seem particularly bothered. She's started sitting on her own in the library at lunchtimes. Well, she was alone to start with, but one day I saw Finn in the school canteen and he asked me where she was.
He laughed a bit when I told him and muttered something about how he'd never have looked for her there in a month of sunny days. Now they sit there, heads together and talking quietly. She's not doing any revision even though her exams are about to start any minute now. I suppose she's got more important things to think about other than school. Like growing a baby, for starters.

I snuck into the IT room at lunchtime last week and looked up babies on the Internet. I could have done it at home, but Mum checks our search history every now and again and I don't want to make her suspicious. I know that the baby was thirteen weeks old when I talked to Alex that night because I read it on one of her texts from Sara – Charlie told her. So right now her baby is about fifteen weeks old and the size of an orange. It can hiccup and it's starting to hear sounds. That seems extremely weird, like a mini alien has made its home inside Alex.

Apparently, she should be ‘glowing' now too, whatever that's supposed to mean. When I read that, it made me think about Alex all lit up, a neon green light radiating out from her body, but I know it doesn't mean that really and it's a good
job too because that would be an instant giveaway that she's pregnant. There's no way she could hide from Mum looking like a human glow stick.

I haven't been hanging around with Hannah much recently. I'm finding it quite hard to think about anything other than Alex and everything else seems so unimportant and childish.

We're sitting in citizenship again. Our topic today is dilemmas and Mrs Wallis is running through a list of different scenarios that apparently we might encounter in our daily lives. I'm not really listening, but then Hannah nudges my arm.

‘What do you think?' she asks me. I have no idea what the question was so I just look at her blankly and she grins. ‘Where were
you
, Izzy? Somewhere better than this rubbish lesson, I hope?' I smile back at her and she repeats the question.

‘What is a dilemma?'

‘What do you mean?' I ask her.

‘What's the definition of a dilemma? Mrs Wallis has given us two minutes to work it out.'

‘That's easy,' I tell her. ‘Something where there's no right answer. Where you absolutely, totally and utterly will never get it right for everyone.'

‘Fantastic, Izzy!' says Mrs Wallis from behind me. I didn't realize she was prowling the room,
listening in to the discussions, and I feel my face go red. ‘Everyone listen to Izzy's definition of a dilemma.'

I look at her in disbelief – I don't DO speaking in citizenship – but she nods encouragingly at me and somehow I manage to stutter my way through my definition again, Hannah looking at me in amazement.

Then Mrs Wallis returns to the front and I sink as far down in my chair as is humanly possible.

‘Bad luck,' murmurs Hannah to me and I grimace in her direction, determined to keep my mouth closed for the rest of the lesson.

The next task is based on choosing how we would deal with a dilemma. There are four choices. We can choose to consider the point of view of everyone involved; go with our gut instinct; ask someone for advice; or toss a coin. I sit quietly, listening while the people on the front row get all enthusiastic about which is the best option. I bet none of them have ever had a proper, genuine, grown-up dilemma to deal with in their entire lives.

Mrs Wallis shows a picture of three people tied to a train track – like one of those old black-and-white silent movie clips where everyone runs
about flapping and has a huge moustache. She tells us that a madman has tied them down and a train is coming. She asks us to imagine that we're the first person to discover the scene. Luckily for the three people there's a handy switch that we can flip that will divert the train to another track and miss squishing them. But it's like everything: just when you think there's a bit of good news, you get slapped in the face with disappointment. On the other track there is one person, tied down by the same madman.

So what should we do? Should we flip the switch and save three lives but allow one person to die? Or should we do nothing and let the train continue on its regular track? Will we save three lives or one life? Are we responsible because we can DO something? Just because we CAN do something, does that mean that we SHOULD? Or should we just leave it to chance or fate or whatever you believe in?

The questions are coming thick and fast and I sit in the middle of the classroom while all around me people excitedly discuss the problem. It's like they get a kick out of having so much power, even when it's pretend. I think about the options and I think about my dilemma.

Something is going wrong with Alex. Even more than it already was. She won't talk to me and I heard her whispering on the phone in the hall yesterday. She shooed me away when she saw me, but I know that something's up. She still hasn't told Mum and I'm starting to think that she isn't going to. This morning at breakfast she was totally different – all chattery and bubbly – and when Mum left for work Alex actually got up and gave her a hug. It wasn't a very big hug, probably because she didn't want Mum to feel the ever-growing bump pressed against her, but it was more than she's done for ages and I could tell that Mum was pleased.

I look at my mood ring and it's turned blue. Blue is for truth and trust, confidence and loyalty. I feel totally confused about what I should be doing for the best. Should I be loyal to Alex and not tell her secret? Or is it better for everyone if I tell the truth? Just because I CAN, does that mean I SHOULD? Alex isn't just Alex any more, she's two people, and the baby inside her can't make its own choices.

I looked it up online and found a website that said that women should have choices when they get pregnant – that some people don't even think
it's a proper baby until it's actually born, so it doesn't really matter what happens to it because it's not like it can cry or eat or even think anything properly. I hate what this baby is doing to Alex, but I still think someone should be thinking about what
it
might want to happen. And I can't be sure WHAT is going through Alex's head at the moment. It's just like when I didn't get a chance to play with Dad when he used to visit: nobody thinks about what babies want.

Alex told me that it'd hurt Mum really badly if she found out about the baby. But I think that Mum is stronger than Alex realizes and I'm starting to wonder if Alex and her baby need Mum to help them. Surely it's better to save two lives and risk upsetting one?

Matthew is yelling that he'd just toss a coin so that who got hurt wasn't his responsibility. One of the girls tells him that he's totally irresponsible and pathetic – that the only fair thing to do would be to get the opinion of all four people tied to the train track. That makes all the boys howl with laughter.

‘Not a very practical solution,' shouts one of them.

‘And who's going to say “save the others – I'll
die for them”?' asks Matthew. ‘Everyone would just look out for themselves – that's how it works!'

‘Can't you think of a single person who would sacrifice themselves for others?' asks Mrs Wallis. She actually sounds interested, like she really wants to hear what we've got to say.

I feel my hand rising in the air and sense Hannah looking at me in horror. Mrs Wallis looks over at me and nods her head.

‘Izzy?'

‘You'd want the other person to live if you really loved them,' I tell her.

‘Oooohhhh,' says Matthew in a sing-song voice, but Mrs Wallis shushes him by waving her hand in his direction and miraculously he shuts up.

‘Go on, Izzy,' she says to me.

I think that my report this term had better be fantastic for citizenship after all this contributing that I seem to be doing. My face is a bit red, but it suddenly feels really important that I say this.

‘It's not about people being tied to train tracks really, is it, Miss?' I say. ‘It's about being brave enough to do the right thing even when you haven't got a clue what the right thing is.' I take a deep breath. ‘So I think the answer is different every time. Sometimes it's better to ask for help.
Sometimes you might just have to guess, which is a bit like flipping a coin. And other times – most of the time actually – you just have to do what feels right and know that, even if you get it wrong, you did what you thought was the best thing.'

The class has gone quiet and everyone's looking at me. This is probably because I've just said more in thirty seconds than I've ever said in Year 7. I shuffle awkwardly in my chair.

‘That's just what I think anyway,' I mutter.

The bell rings and the silence is broken by everyone leaping up and grabbing their bags. I join in, but as I walk past Mrs Wallis's desk she puts out her hand and stops me.

‘Can I have a second, Izzy?' she asks. She waits until everyone has gone and then gestures to a chair in the front row. I sit down and she perches in front of me on her desk.

‘That was a really great answer that you gave there,' she says, smiling at me.

‘Thanks,' I say. I realize that I like Mrs Wallis; she treats everyone like they're worth listening to.

‘How's your sister these days?' she asks me and I look at her in surprise. ‘I haven't seen much of her recently and I used to like our little chats.'

‘She's fine,' I say, trying to shake off the feeling
that Mrs Wallis is searching my face for the truth. I'm getting very good at lying, considering that I've had very little practice over the last twelve years.

‘Tell her I was asking about her,' she says and I nod. ‘She's always welcome to come and see me any time.' I wonder if Mrs Wallis knows. Surely she can't know – there's no way Alex would have told her. Then again, Mrs Wallis has a way of looking at you like she can see right into your brain. I wouldn't be surprised if she'd guessed all on her own. Not that she can do anything about it. Alex is seventeen and can do what she wants. And apparently this is what she wants.

‘Izzy?'

I realize that Mrs Wallis has asked me a question and I blush.

‘That goes for you too,' she repeats. ‘Any time you need some advice then my door is open. The same with your other teachers; if we can help you then we will.'

Yeah, right, I can just imagine Mrs Hardman listening to me while I tell her every single thing that's wrong with my life. She'd have got bored and nipped off to the staffroom for a coffee hours before I'd finished.

‘Thanks, Miss,' I say.

‘You'd better get to your next class,' she says, standing up and putting the books on her desk into a neat pile. I pick up my bag and walk towards the door, but as I open it I hear Mrs Wallis call my name.

I turn to look at her. She's looking out of the window at the huge tree near the car park and for a moment I think I've misheard. But then she speaks, without looking at me.

‘Trust yourself, Izzy. You were completely right with your answer today. Every situation is different and you just have to do your best. Sometimes you have to guess what to do and other times it's too big for you alone and you need to ask for help. And that takes a bravery that I know you have.'

She carries on looking out of the window and I walk through the door, closing it quietly behind me. I know what I need to do and it's the right thing for Alex and her baby and for me and for Mum.