Wonderland (2 page)

And just my luck. They all do drama.

It’s the last lesson before exams. Before review sessions and Brodie’s Notes and late-night panic attacks and Prozac on prescription. But not me. I won’t. I can’t. I don’t even drink. Not seriously, anyway. Because I don’t want to be like him. He thinks I don’t know, but I’ve seen the bottle. Everything’s fine, he says. But it’s not. It never is.

So we’re sitting in the theater. It’s dark and cool, the hazy heat of the school and town shut out. The only sound is Holly Harker’s laughter echoing off the walls as she recounts last night’s trash TV.

This is my world, my private kingdom. Has been ever since Mum took me to Drury Lane when I was six, to see some old friend of hers play Fagin in
Oliver.
“It’s hardly the Royal National Theatre,” she said. “But you’ll love it anyway.” And she was right. I was hooked. As the lights dimmed and the first notes of the overture played out across the rows of plush red seats, I could barely breathe. And as the curtain went up to reveal the perfectly rendered filth of the workhouse, I knew what I wanted to do and where I wanted to be.

I begged her to take me again. If not to London, to Plymouth. Dad would say we needed the money for salt blocks or fencing, but she always found a way. It was our drug. It still is mine. Pulling me in with its gaudy lights and greasepaint and promise of something more, something better. Under the lights, when the faces of the crowd are just an inky swirl in the distance. This is where I can be someone else. Where I can be who I want to be.

But for now I’m sitting at the side, in the shadows. Making myself invisible. Listening to Mr. Hughes — Hughsie — telling us that acting’s not the easy option. That we need to work hard. That we won’t just walk out of the Duchy gates and onto the set of
Hollyoaks.

“It’s a slog. It takes courage. And wit. And hard bloody work.” He pauses between each word. Taking pleasure in them. In their sound. And their effect. I watch Emily look up from her nails. Hear some of the others snigger. Thrilled at him swearing. Breaking the rules.

“And one of you is making it even tougher for herself.”

The laughter falls away into silence. Holly Harker flicks a glance across at Emily, wondering if they were seen up at the Point two weeks ago, drinking when they were supposed to be in rehearsal. But it’s not that. No one is in trouble. Instead he turns to me. And I know what he’s going to say and my stomach rises into my throat. And I’m thinking,
Don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it.
Willing him to stop. But he doesn’t.

“Jude Polmear has applied to the Lab in London. And I think she has a serious chance of getting in. So, before we go, let’s wish her luck.”

My face is burning red, my head down, staring at a scuff mark on the floor. But I can still see their faces, lit with scorn and delight at finding the secret I’ve been carrying. And what they can do with it.

It was his idea. Mr. Hughes’s. I needed his reference to apply. But I wish I hadn’t listened to him, to his belief in me. Because his voice is drowned out now by their mocking and my own self-doubt.

Emily corners me at the lockers, the Plastics behind her, blocking my exit. “Who do you think you are? Keira Knightley?”

“Shut up, Emily.” But it’s not an order. It’s pathetic. Pleading.

She slams my locker door shut and grabs the key, forcing me to face her.

“Give it back. . . .” But it’s a whisper.

She mimics Mr. Hughes: “Project, Polmear. I can’t hear you.”

Dawce laughs.

“Give it back,” I plead. Louder this time.

“I can’t hear you.”

Tears prick the backs of my eyes. Too near the surface. Like hers. Mum’s. Just waiting to come out. “Give it back!” I yell. People stop in the corridor, staring and whispering behind their hands.

Emily laughs.

“Please . . .” A tear escapes, running down my cheek. I wipe it away. “Please,” I whisper again.

She drops my key on the floor. I stoop to pick it up, and the heel of her shoe crunches on my hand as she walks away.

I stand at the school gates, on my way to the bus. I can see the postbox ahead, its gaping jaw waiting, black against the red. But Emily is right. Who do I think I am? I walk past without stopping.

I WASN’T
always like this. Diminished. A shadow. Once I was as bright as she was. People took notice, because she was with me. Stella.

She came when I was eight. Just showed up at school one day, chewing Doublemint gum, and sat at the desk next to mine. The desk that had been empty ever since Dawce had begged to be moved, complaining that I muttered and talked to myself. But Stella didn’t care what I did. I was her best friend. And she was mine.

Her hair was blond, hanging down her back, and wild, like her eyes. She didn’t care what anyone thought. Even then. The world turned for her alone.

It was Stella who taught me to swear. “Shit bloody piss.” As soon as I said the words, I willed them to disappear. But, defiant, they hung in the air between me and Dad. Still there, after he’d sent me to my room. Still there during tea, their rounded shapes appearing in the Alphabetti Spaghetti. I never swore at him again. But that second of pleasure stayed with me. Even after Stella left.

Now I sometimes wonder if she was real. If she actually existed. No one mentions her name. She’s been erased. Like Mum.

But she did exist.

I find it when I’m pushing the letter back down to the bottom of my drawer. I see the childish loops of my first ink pen, of the eight-year-old me, peering out from the shelter of an old birthday card. I pull it out, carefully. Like it might bite. Or burn. Like it’s dangerous. Because that’s what she was, Stella. Dangerous. And then I read.

I lie back on the bed and close my eyes, the memory coursing through my blood, a dangerous heat. And I wish. I wish that Stella would come back. Because then I could post the letter. Then I could be someone else again. Someone who swears. And dares. And shines.

June

I STOPPED
believing in fairy godmothers a long time ago, along with Santa Claus and good triumphing over evil. But somehow, someone grants my wish. Because three weeks later she’s back.

The GCSE French exam is over, and I’m in the dunes, doing handstands like some schoolkid. I am some schoolkid. For now — my kilt hanging upside down, hem falling around my chest, regulation knickers up to my waist. Looking at the new world order, sky at the bottom, sea and beach at the top. That’s when I see her. Taller now. Ray-Bans on, the black lace of her bra showing. Packet of cigarettes in her hand. Stella.

“Jesus, Jude, those knickers are huge. Where’d you get them? Your gran?”

“Stella . . . ?” My arms buckle and I fall gracelessly into the sand. My heart races and I think I’m going to be sick. With happiness. Or fear. Then I think maybe it’s not her. That I’ve imagined her. That when I turn, she’ll be gone. Like in the mirror.

But when I look, she’s still there. Beautiful and bright like she always was.

“What are you doing that for, anyway?” She folds her arms and looks down at me. “Handstands are for five-year-olds.”

“Oh, my God, Stella . . . what are you doing here?”

“Nice to see you too.” She sits down next to me. “Dad’s painting here for the summer. Got an exhibition next month. I’m helping him.”

I wonder about school. If she’s been expelled. Finally. “Haven’t you got exams?”

“Done them.”

I wait for her to say something else. Like which ones, or how they were. But Stella never went in for details. Or tests. Said life wasn’t about what grade you got. Said half of Hollywood never even went to school. And I think of her working with her dad. His model. His inspiration. “His Muse,” I say.

Stella looks out to sea. “Something like that.” She taps the cigarette packet hard on the sand. Packing the tobacco down. A pro. Like Ed’s mates up at the Point. Learning tricks with their lighters. Blowing smoke rings.

She peels off the cellophane, letting it catch the wind, the sun glinting off its transparency as it disappears into the heat and light. I watch her, fascinated, as she flicks the packet and a single cigarette shoots up. She takes it with her lips, gloss staining the paper. Pulls out a brass Zippo. Something engraved on it. Her name, I think. Or a boy’s. Then she lights it, shielding it from the wind, hair whipping around her face, and the smell of lighter fluid in the air. I will learn to love that smell.

“Want one?”

I shake my head. Then regret it. I should have taken one. Everyone around here smokes. At school it’s practically compulsory.

Stella shrugs and lies back on the sand. “I called for you at the post office, but an alligator told me you’d be down here.”

“Crocodile,” I say. “Alfie.” My little brother. Nine and still obsessed with dressing up. Yesterday he was Spider-Man. Teachers have given up on sending him home.

“He’s grown. Anyway, what’s the difference?”

“Um. Head shape, apparently.” I fidget, not sure whether to lie down too. I try stretching my legs out but it feels odd. Instead, I pull my skirt over my knees and clutch them tight. “So, how’d you know to try the post office?”

“God’s sake, Jude.” Stella lifts her sunglasses up and looks at me. “This is Churchtown, not Los Angeles. You can’t cough without someone knowing. Your dad’s glittering career change is headline news.” She lets the glasses drop again.

I feel heat surge to my cheeks. The last time Stella was here, we lived at the farm. The farm Dad swore he would never take over, but did anyway when his father died. The farm he left London for, bringing his pregnant girlfriend with him, happy to follow, saying it would be an adventure. Dad said she’d read too many daft books, that she was living in a dream world, but she came anyway, head full of the romance of
Rebecca
and bleak moors and wave-battered beaches. But there’s no romance in farming. In the mud and the rain and the bellowing of sick cows and the getting up at dawn.

The farm that sent her quietly mad and then drove her away for good. The farm he clung on to through foot-and-mouth, only to lose it a year later. Subsidies forcing him to pour good milk down the drain. Supermarkets cutting prices. Had enough, he said. Can’t fight it anymore. Without her, is what he meant. So the farm got sold off for holiday cottages, and I could feel the village’s silent pity bearing down on us. Lost their mum; now lost their home. Until he bought the old post office/general store and was reborn as some kind of local hero. Nothing heroic in stacking shelves, though. Still has to get up at dawn.