Violet Ink (5 page)

‘If something interesting doesn't happen around here soon then I'm going to have to make it happen.' Alex flops down on to her bed and sighs. She's in a totally stinking mood today. I haven't got a clue what's wrong with her unless she's got the January blues, so I ignore her moaning and examine my face in her dressing-table mirror. No, it's no good pretending – I am truly terrible at putting on lipstick.

I'm spending this afternoon busy with the task of trying to make myself look older than twelve. It's surprisingly tricky. My eyes are quite big and very brown so they don't look too bad, but it's my hair that always lets me down. It's frizzy. There's no other word for it. Frizzy and not-quite-brown. Mum tells me that it's my unique selling point and makes me stand out, but she's just being
kind. I have spent my whole life envying Alex her curly, glossy, almost-black hair, but she doesn't ever seem to realize how lucky she is. Mum's got the same hair as Alex so I'm the odd one out. Apparently, I get my hair from my dad. The one thing he's ever given me. Anyway, I've decided that I can maybe distract people from my hair with clever use of make-up. Alex said I could use her stuff and I thought we'd have fun, but so far all she's done is stare out of the window and whinge about being bored.

I turn to her, pretty sure that one look at my face will make her laugh and snap her out of her miserable mood.

‘Ta-dah!' I grin at her, a crazy big smile that makes my bright red lips look even more clown-like.

‘You look a complete state, Izzy,' Alex says in a flat voice and rolls over on to her stomach. ‘And
you
can stop grimacing at me too, you freaky thing.' She grabs something off her pillow and, stretching her arm back over her head, throws it into the corner of her room. I look to see what's offended her so much.

‘Alex! You can't treat Mr Cuddles like that.'

‘Give me one good reason why not,' she says, rolling on to her back and staring up at the ceiling.

I'm in shock. Some things are sacred and should not be messed with – Alex has gone too far this time.

‘Because he's Mr Cuddles. The same Mr Cuddles that Grandpa gave you the day you were born. The same Mr Cuddles that you've snuggled up to EVERY NIGHT since … well, forever. Even when you've been on a sleepover. You can't just chuck him around like he's a bit of rubbish. He's seventeen years old, Alex – you need to look after him.'

‘News flash, Izzy. It's a stupid stuffed teddy bear.' Alex has made her voice sound really low and dull, like she thinks I'm incredibly stupid. I don't like how she's making me feel – as if I'm too young to be interesting.

I grab a tissue off her dresser and wipe my mouth, really hard. When most of the lipstick is on the tissue, I drop it into the bin and walk across the room, avoiding the piles of clothes that are lying randomly across the floor. I pick up Mr Cuddles and hold him close to me for a moment. I know that he's just a toy, but Alex has always had him and sometimes the old stuff is the most important. I carefully pick my way across the stack of magazines that are between me and the bed and hand Mr Cuddles back to her.

Alex takes him from me and looks at him closely. She strokes his fur and sniffs his head and then passes him back to me.

‘You can have him, if he means that much to you.'

I don't know what to say. The thing is, I've wanted Mr Cuddles ever since I can remember. I've got my own cuddly toys, of course, but none of them seems special. Not like him anyway. He was a ‘welcome to the world' present to Alex from Grandpa. Mum was really young when she had Alex, and Grandpa was majorly upset with her until the day Alex was born when (as Mum tells us every year on Alex's birthday) he took one look at his first ever grandchild and fell totally in love with her. He dashed straight from the hospital into town, spent ages choosing a teddy bear that had the nicest face (only the best would do for his granddaughter) and put it in Alex's cot when he went back later to visit. So Mr Cuddles has slept in the same bed as Alex every night since she was born.

By the time I came along, babies weren't such a surprise to our family. I guess the novelty had worn off a little bit. I've got loads of things to cuddle: a rabbit, a hippo, a strange-looking kangaroo glove
puppet with a baby in its pouch and quite a few teddy bears. Mum kept a sweet wooden rattle that I was given when I was a baby and a family of plastic ducks that you can pull along on a string. They used to quack, but not any more. I reckon it's just another one of the perks of being the oldest child: people make a bit more of a fuss if you're the first.

This is why I don't know what to do right now. I've longed to have Mr Cuddles snuggled up to me in my bed at night – but not like this. Alex is being cross and confusing and I don't think she really means it.

‘You can't give him to me. He's yours. It'd make Grandpa sad if you didn't have him any more.' Alex rolls her eyes at me, but sits up, cross-legged, on her bed. ‘And I think you'd be sad without him too.' I say this last bit really quietly, just in case it makes her yell at me again.

Alex reaches out her hand and strokes Mr Cuddles again. Then she looks up at me and smiles, and she looks like my normal, lovely big sister again.

‘OK, I guess he can stay.' She takes Mr Cuddles from me and stares him hard in the eye (he's only got one eye left after years of being scrunched
and snuggled and slept on by Alex). ‘You've been given a stay of execution, Mr Cuddles. Izzy has argued your case. Now what do you say to her?'

‘Thank you, Izzy,' growls Mr Cuddles/Alex.

‘You're welcome,' I tell him, grinning at Alex, and then navigating across her floor to the door, taking great care not to trample on the piles of school books that are strewn everywhere. I think that I could have a great career ahead of me as a minesweeper, all the practice I get avoiding stepping on Alex's stuff.

Once I'm safely out of her war zone of a room and across the landing, I open my own bedroom door and step inside. My room could not be more different to Alex's. Everything has a place. My homework is stacked tidily on my desk and my clothes drawers are all neatly closed – not half open with underwear and T-shirts flowing out. I'm not weird or anything – I just like everything to be tidy. I like knowing where everything is; it makes me feel calm inside. Alex teases me about it, but Mum says there's nothing wrong with needing to be ordered and that everybody likes to feel in control of something.

I sit down on my bed and twist my mood ring round and round on my finger. I love my mood
ring and I wear it all the time. Alex gave it to me for my tenth birthday. She got it from one of the funny little shops that she likes: shops that sell candles and incense and weird statues. I know that it's just supposed to be a bit of fun, but I realized pretty quickly that my mood ring is actually quite accurate. I wouldn't ever tell anybody, but sometimes it feels like it REALLY can tell what's going on in my house, even before I can.

It started one day when I noticed that it had gone an amazing silver colour and when I checked with my mood-ring guide it said that could mean loneliness. And then, the very next day, Betty, my cat who I'd had for eight years, got run over and died, and I felt lonelier than I've ever felt in my whole entire life. It just seemed too much of a coincidence.

Anyway, it's a murky colour at the moment, which means that I must be feeling anxious or scared. I suppose Alex's grumpy mood has made me feel a bit worried so maybe that's it. Then again, we've got that horrible maths test at school tomorrow and I just know that I'm going to fail – I didn't understand a word that Mrs Hardman said when she was teaching us about simple equations.
There was definitely nothing simple about them though, I know that for sure.

Something's making me feel nervous and I don't like it. It's like that feeling you get when there's about to be a big storm: things start to feel wrong. I think I'll distract myself until Mum gets back from work by finishing my homework. Then I might make sure my pencil case has got everything I'll need for tomorrow's test. Best to be prepared, just in case a miracle happens and I actually understand one of the questions. It'd be a shame if that happened and my pen had run out of ink.

Some nights I have the same dream. A recurring dream – a dream that you just can't stop, even if you really want to. I dream that I'm sitting in a seat in a theatre. The seat is covered in red velvet and I can tell it's old because of the way that there's a rip on the side and the armrests are worn through and shiny, from the hundreds and thousands of arms that have rested on them over the years. There are rows of seats stretching out in front of me and rows of seats reaching into the distance behind me, but they're all empty. I'm all alone in the theatre, except for one other person.

Alex is on the stage, standing in a single spotlight. She starts to dance, slowly at first, but then faster and faster, until she's whirling and twirling so fast that I forget to breathe – I'm so sure that she'll fall. There's never any music, but
it doesn't matter because Alex
is
the music. The way she moves is so beautiful, so everything, that music couldn't compete with her. Definitely not me on my violin.

And then, suddenly, she stops. I clap as loudly as I can – I clap until my hands hurt. I stand up and cheer and call her name.

‘Alex! Alex! I'm over here!'

She stands on the stage, eyes sparkling, with the biggest smile I've ever seen. She's breathing deeply, out of breath, and I can feel her excitement and pride; it's radiating out from her in purple waves.

I want to run to her, to hug her and tell her how amazing she is, to tell whoever will listen that this is my big sister. I feel like I'll burst, I'm so proud.

And then something catches Alex's attention and she turns slightly, looking right in my direction. I wave and shout, but she looks straight past me. I spin round to see who's behind me – whose name is on her lips – but there's nobody there.

When I turn back, Alex has gone. This is when I wake up. When the dreams first began, I'd be sweating and crying. Mum would come running in and I'd try to explain why I was so sad. But, after a while, the crying stopped. Now I wake up
and lie in the dark, looking up at my glow stars on the ceiling. I wonder why, not once, even though I've been having this dream for over a year, Alex has never looked at me.