Paper Airplanes Page 3

  I’m so angry that we never talk about Mum, and that Dad having left is just a fact rather than a problem. Mum died a long, painful death that we all watched, and Dad left because he couldn’t handle it. We’re all supposed to hate him for that, but from where I’m standing none of us is dealing with it much better. My family is like four stretched elastic bands about to be pinged and land so far apart that we never find each other again. Something has to give. Someone in our house has to say something.

  I wish Aunty Jo were here. Aunty Jo is Mum’s sister. She is so cool. When Mum died, Nell and I thought we might end up living with her, but she met my Uncle Andrew and moved to London with him. If she were here she could make this better, but as it stands, it’s down to me. Until now I’ve just stayed quiet, never hinting at how I feel for fear of upsetting somebody else, but after seeing Nell cry like that in a toilet stall, I know it’s time to try. We have to talk about Mum. We just have to.

  When the bell goes I’m out the door so fast I don’t even have my coat on. I feel so wound up. I ignore Carla and Gem when they call after me because I know this will be the one time I won’t be able to stop myself from screaming in their faces. I need to get home before Pop and Nell, so that I can tell Nana we have to make everyone talk about Mum. If I get home after them, they will all be in separate rooms and I’ll have to go around asking them to come and meet me in the kitchen, and that will never work. I can’t do it over dinner because Pop eats like a wild animal, and trying to make him focus on a conversation while that’s going on is impossible. Timing is everything, so I could really do without Lawrence waiting for me at the end of the school lane and presuming that I have nothing better to do than smoke his bum-sucked cigarettes.

  “Hey, don’t you want a fag?”

  I don’t stop. I can’t deal with him right now, I can’t take the pressure he’s been putting me under lately. Does he not understand anything about who I am?

  “Renée, stop. I’ll buy you chips?”

  “I don’t have time. I don’t want a fag. I don’t want chips.”

  I want to scream “FUCK OFF” in his face, but somehow I manage to keep that in. I know I’m being crazy and that he doesn’t know I’m on a mission to save my family from its group depression, but he is like a wall I have to run through, so I just keep running.

  “But you always want a fag,” Lawrence shouts, sounding confused.

  I feel like my heart is coming up into my face. It’s a rage I’ve never experienced before. I could explode with liquid heat, or maybe just tears. The pressure building inside of me is loud and feels like sick, but not from my stomach—like every part of me could throw something out.

  I turn to him. His face is giving me a good idea of how mine might look. He looks shocked by whatever it is he sees in me.

  “Please never presume what I want, or what I am thinking. No one knows what I want, or what I am thinking.” My voice is calm. I am being very weird.

  For a split second we stare at each other. I feel an odd sense of relief in making that statement. My breath is broken, his face is still. I want to apologize, but the words won’t come. Instead I turn around and keep running home.

  I grind to a halt at the kitchen door. I’m one step away from solving this problem. If I get this right then we might all be happy. Maybe Nell will stop treating me like I’m the devil, and Nana and Pop might find it within themselves to express something other than complete denial about Mum dying. All I need to do is open the door and tell Nana to sit down. And then wait for Pop and Nell, and make them sit down. And then talk. Like normal people.

  I slowly open the door and step into the kitchen. Nana is standing at the stove, boiling something that smells awful, and my stomach churns at the thought of another one of her home-cooked dinners. She turns to me and smiles. This is my moment.

  “Nana, can we talk?”

  She switches off the heat, wipes her hands on a tea towel, and takes a seat at the table, almost robotically, like she’s been expecting this. She looks old, but even if I hadn’t seen pictures I would know that she had once been beautiful. Her hair is suddenly silver, and I mean silver, not gray. It shines and is perfectly arranged to look like a cauliflower on top of her head. She gets it done every Friday morning. Her face is all wrinkled, and her eyes are soft and warm. I love her more in this moment than I ever have before. Her gentle voice, her soft hands. One of which I reach for before I start to speak again.

  “I think Nell is in trouble,” I say, already thinking I’m getting it all wrong.

  “Renée . . .” she replies, her eyes gently warning me.

  “I think Nell needs help. I think we should all talk, about Mum—all of us, together. For Nell’s sake.”

  Nana looks down, rubs her right wrist with her left hand, sniffs, and looks back at me. “I don’t know what I could say. I’m sorry.” Her face looks so broken a piece could fall off.

  She looks up at me tearfully.

  “What good would it do, Renée?”

  “I just want us to talk about Mum.”

  Her tears fall just as Pop and Nell walk in. Pop shouts at me and calls me selfish for making Nana cry, and Nana leaves the room. Nell gives me a look that is so hard, so scathing, that the very thought of trying to make her happy exhausts me. Seeing her crying that way at school had hurt me just as much, but what can I do? No one in this house wants my help. I think they’re happier being sad.

  FLO

  Sally turns up at my house at 8 P.M. wearing red hot pants, black tights, huge black shoes with a solid three-inch platform from the toe to the heel, a skintight tank top, huge silver hoop earrings, loads of bangles, a fake fur coat, a ton of makeup, and a black velvet cap. I am wearing a pair of My Little Pony pajamas and some Bert and Ernie slippers. She struts past me and poses by the door of the living room like Naomi Campbell at the end of a catwalk.

  “Is Julian here?”

  “He’s upstairs.”

  “You should tell him to come down. I’ve got ciders,” she says confidently.

  “Can I have one?” I ask, already knowing the answer.

  “No.”

  I sigh and start to walk upstairs. She follows me, walking like a total slut on the off chance Julian might see her. When we get to the landing, a loud giggle comes from his room.

  “WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?” she squawks.

  “Julian’s new girlfriend.”

  An hour earlier Julian had stormed into the house, followed by a skinny blonde girl. She was dressed like a tart and couldn’t walk properly because of her silly high heels. I’d just put Abi to bed and was lying on the sofa, and they didn’t know I could see them. Julian poured them both some Sunny Delight, and while she was drinking hers he put his hand up her skirt. Her face was really red, and I wouldn’t say she looked massively happy about it. After a few minutes he took his hand away and told her to follow him upstairs—her walk was even more wonky after that.

  “What do you mean ‘girlfriend’? Since when does he have a girlfriend?” Sally asks, staring at his bedroom door.

  “Julian has always got a girlfriend. Julian has hundreds of girlfriends.”

  Sally looks relieved rather than disappointed, obviously thinking the fact he sleeps with loads of girls means she has a chance, rather than that he has no respect for women and should be avoided at all costs.

  “Did you bring me something to wear tonight?” I ask when we are in my bedroom.

  “Oh, no, sorry, I forgot,” she says, rummaging in her bag for some lipstick.

  This is typical. All week I have been telling Sally how I have nothing to wear. How since Dad lost his job he can’t afford to give me any money for clothes, and Mum won’t either. Sally promised yesterday she would bring me something for the party—she promised four times. What is wrong with her?

  I feel myself starting to cry, so I face my wardrobe and pretend to choose an outfit. Most of the clothes in it are Mum’s. Anything of mine is either part of my school uniform or ju
st jeans and T-shirts—not the kind of stuff I can wear to one of Carla and Gem’s parties. I don’t even have any shoes, just my old burgundy Doc Martens boots. It’s just me and Margaret Cooper who wear them now, and Margaret doesn’t get invited to parties because she is so square. I guess that says a lot about how everyone feels about Doc Martens.

  I’m hoping for an apology. An acknowledgment that Sally’s made me feel like crap about myself again, but obviously I don’t get anything like that out of her. She just sits in front of my mirror, rearranging her cleavage.

  “I’m not going. You go, I don’t want to,” I say, trying to hold back the tears. I’m so sick of feeling ugly, and square, and uncool.

  “Flo, if you think I am walking into a party on my own, you have another thing coming. I didn’t hike all the way to your house for you to tell me you are not coming.”

  “I really have nothing to wear. You promised me you would bring something. I’ve told you Dad has no money and that I don’t have any clothes. Sally, do you not understand how crap everything is for me right now?”

  “Why don’t you just get a job?”

  “I can’t just get a job. In case you haven’t noticed, I have a mother who refuses to bring up her own child. I spent the entire summer holidays pushing swings or making forts out of bedsheets. I sleep for no more than five hours a night and wake up humming the theme song to Sesame Street because I spend more time watching that than I do speaking to human beings above the age of four. I can’t just get a JOB.”

  She meets my outburst with a long silence. Turning back to the mirror, she tosses her head, powders her nose, and breathes in deeply.

  “Where’s Abi now?”

  “With Dad. He has her on Saturdays.”

  “Well then, you have the night off babysitting duties, don’t you? Get dressed. You can borrow my lipstick if that will make you feel prettier.” She twists the lid off a bottle of cider and takes a huge glug.

  I hope she chokes on it.

  RENÉE

  I get to Gem’s house early so I can borrow something to wear. They always let me borrow what I want, but because they’re so sporty and eat healthy food I struggle to fit into most of their stuff now. Carla has massive boobs, but not big floppy ones like Margaret. Hers are firm and perfect, like everything else about Carla and Gem. I’m sure I could have a perfect figure if I didn’t eat so many chips and didn’t bunk off games all the time, but I don’t have the willpower. You have to be a bit of a goody-goody to be that skinny.

  I think I might be addicted to cheese puffs. I should probably try to have three packets a day instead of five. And I should probably cut down on the chips after school too, but they taste so good and mean the cardboard dinners that Nana makes don’t matter so much. Carla and Gem always laugh when I go to their houses because I raid their mums’ food cupboards, where there are always loads of crisps and chocolates. Carla and Gem hardly have any of it, which is so weird. If Nana had a food cupboard with anything other than cans I would never be out of it, but she shops and cooks like someone stuck in an air-raid shelter waiting for war.

  Gem has some white jeans that are a bit big for her. I’m really hoping she gives them to me, but generous as she and Carla are, they’re quite strict about me giving stuff back. Once, I borrowed a tape from Carla and a week later her mum called our house to speak to me about it. I had to cycle round on my bike the next morning to give it back, as apparently Carla had said I could only borrow it for a couple of days. I didn’t understand why she couldn’t just let me keep it and make another one. It was just a mixtape she made herself. And why did her mum have to call my house for it? Sometimes I reckon other people’s mums think I’m bad news because of my family. They pretend to think I’m normal so they don’t look judgmental, but they think I’m trouble and messed up because of Mum. I guess it’s hard to argue that, when I bunk off lessons all the time, but I don’t do anyone else any harm.

  Despite the tape thing, I’m allowed to borrow clothes for parties. Gem said I could borrow the white jeans, which is great because the high waist lets me bend forward without the stretch marks on my hips showing. I wear them with a baggy black top that I bought over the summer and some platform shoes I got from Pandora, the only clothes shop on Guernsey that sells cool clothes for people under the age of twenty. Otherwise it’s all about Marks & Spencer and Next, and all their stuff is so boring. The shoes were £39.99, which is more than I have ever spent on anything, but I had some money left over from my summer job so got them with that. They have a sole of about three inches. Everyone’s wearing big-soled shoes at the moment, so it means I have something that makes me cool without looking like a total fashion victim. Unlike Sally Du Putron, who dresses like such a try-hard.

  Gem’s house is amazing. You enter through two huge electric gates, and the driveway is bigger than our back garden. To the right as you come through the gates is the house. It’s painted white with lots of cute windows and ivy growing over most of the front. It has a stable door, and there’s a little bench just outside it where you can sit while you take off your shoes. It’s all so perfect and pretty and homely and warm. Inside, the rooms have real fires in them, and there are pictures of the family all over the place. I always think the house smells a bit like Christmas, as there are so many flowers and plants and even candles. In comparison, Nana and Pop’s house is like a hospital.

  To the left of the driveway is the pool house and the pool, which is where the party is. There’s a note stuck on the front door of the house saying NO ENTRY TO THE MAIN HOUSE, but someone always manages to sneak in at some point. Last time Gem had a party, one of the boys from the year above, Adam, snuck up into Gem’s room, took off all his clothes, and put all of hers on, including her underwear. He came back down and paraded around before jumping in the pool. Gem was furious at first but she ended up jumping in the pool after him, and now he’s her boyfriend. Everything always works out for Carla and Gem.

  By 9:30 there are around twenty-five of us in the pool house and around the pool. I’ve had three 9.2% ciders, and I’m sitting on a bench near the pool with Samuel Franklin—a guy from the year above at Grange College who nearly everyone in our year has made out with. He thinks that makes him a stud, but it actually makes him a bit of a joke. He’s funny, though, so he gets away with it. I like him, but even though his hand is full of intentions and stroking my leg, I have no plans to kiss him. Well, that is until I see Lawrence out of the corner of my eye, staring at us. He looks really upset.

  I should go and speak to him, explain that I don’t feel the same way he does, and let him go gently. But I am drunk now, my head is spinning, and I wonder if maybe my family is right—if you ignore a problem, it will go away. So rather than do the right thing, I kiss Samuel Franklin until I am sure Lawrence has gone. I hate every second of the kiss. And myself too, for being so cruel.

  FLO

  “Boys like it when girls touch each other,” Sally says, wrapping her arm around my shoulders and standing far too close to my face.

  “Only if they’re lesbians, Sally,” I say. “I don’t think just you sitting on my lap turns them on like you think it does.”

  “Quick, sit back down. Here comes Owen Jones.” She pins me back to the chair and starts flirting shamelessly with Owen. I lean back and scan the room. Just opposite, with her back to us, is Renée Sargent, getting off with Samuel Franklin. I think everyone in our class has kissed him at some point, apart from me. The last person I got off with was Liam Miller. I’d fancied him for ages, and he finally noticed me at a beach party last term. We were snogging and I was loving it until Sally put her face really close to ours and shouted, “HA. HA. HA,” then told everyone how weird I am because I kiss with my eyes open. My eyes had not been open, I just opened them when I felt the presence of her big face. Liam never spoke to me again. Why would he? I’m just a freak who snogs with my eyes open.

  “Sally, are you sure you need all six of those ciders? Just one won’t get me that dr
unk,” I say, hoping the alcohol might have made her more generous.

  “No way. Just face it, you can’t take it. You are not a drinker.”

  Apparently not. I wriggle out from under her.

  “I need the loo,” I say as I walk away.

  “Good, I can have the chair.”

  I go into the pool house and pick up a bottle of white wine that no one seems to be claiming. Me? Can’t drink? We’ll see about that.

  I can’t be sure how I ended up underneath the weeping willow tree, kissing Samuel Franklin, but it’s definitely happening. He is licking my teeth. Is that a thing? And where has Renée Sargent gone? Wasn’t she . . .? I can’t do any more thinking, it’s making me spin. I can hear the party still going on, so we can’t have been here long. Even so, I can’t remember how we got here, or how we have come to be kissing.

  A belch flies up from my stomach and shoots out of my mouth, leaving the distinct taste of licorice.

  I see Samuel recoil, but I’m too drunk to care.

  “Do you want some more?” he asks.

  “Some more what?”

  “Sambuca?” He fills up the cap of the bottle, and I down it. He has one too, and then we both have another. I’ve barely swallowed the second gulp before his tongue is running over my teeth again.

  I burp again. He scrunches up his face but doesn’t say anything. Instead he puts his hand on my boob. After a quick squeeze he moves down and starts undoing my jeans. My faculties must be down, because I seem to be willing for him to go ahead. Everyone else has done it, so why not me? He undoes my zip. I can feel his hand against my skin. And then I remember.

  “Oh no, stop it. I can’t!” I screech, grabbing his hand and trying to push it away.

  “Don’t be frigid,” he says, half his mouth still inside mine.

  He pushes his hand farther into my pants and then yanks it out so fast he nearly takes my knickers with it. He is on his feet.