“So, your Mum.”
We’re caught in the midst of year 7 locker rage: home time on Friday means high-pitched, loud squeals and hair toggle wobble; Mint and white dominos: one push from year 10 and they’re down. Joe Brannigan runs away, laughing and I turn all the toppled kids, lying on their backs like giant crabs, right side up.
“She’s been buying for Britain.”
“What do you mean?”
Miss Mint makes me nervous. The power she has at the mo feels immense: Josh’s my friend, but she knows more than me. Rach is my friend: she and Phoebs are cliquey. Kai’s not my boyfriend, but are he and she ..? And what will she say about Mum?
“We sat down this morning and went through some French.”
“The pluperfect?”
She looks blank. “I don’t know that yet, no.”
That’s something, I s’pose.
She says they did tenses though; past, present, future.
Conditional.
Most of the time, I don’t help Mum out. It sounds like Miss Mint spent, like, ages this morning but she gets up well early. So does Mum. Maybe she’s better off as me, I think, feeling my starting-to-heal stomach stretch.
“Your mum’s got a problem.”
I think, but she’s yours now.
Turns out Mum’s spent all her money on things for the house. She showed Miss Mint cross-stitched wall hangings and Miss Mint went mad.
“How come?”
“They were awful.”
Mum does have a knack for tack. Bric-a-brac fills our lounge.
Though Miss Mint would say ‘sitting room.’
“So I told her the sitting room’s full of detritus ...”
Where I would say ‘crap.’
“ ... and she cried.”
I can see Mum there, standing with hair in her face and her nightshirt all creased and her French text book next to a parcel of tat.
“She doesn’t even sew; she can’t even ...” Miss Mint stops, looking puzzled and cross, “ ... stitch.”
But she can. Oh, mum can. She sewed up the ulcers of students in uni, she told me. She sewed all our curtains without Dad or money. When she was happy, she sewed Em and me Christmas dresses. And I want to hit Phoebe. I want to hit her so hard she tumbles and tears my school skirt on a locker. But then Mum would have to sew it up.
We pause at the stairwell ‘cos Mr Morlis comes out of his room as we pass.
“Ah, my girls,” he cries, tugging on his ski jacket. “Nothing to report?”
He means pain, like a doctor would ask.
Miss Mint shakes her head. “No, and this is fifth night.” And he says,
“Great. OK. So what I’ve discovered is rather obscure. I’ve read, calculated and I’m pretty sure that if you’re both honest, your lives will, in time be harmonious; rhythmic. They may even rhyme to be honest, if things turn out just as they should. So here’s hoping, eh, girls? Be great if they could.”
I don’t know what he’s talking about, sounds like crap to me, like some rubbish horoscope and Miss Mint looks sceptical too, like Mr Morlis is insane, but maybe she’s just thinking, hmm. ‘Rhythmic’. A word with nearly no vowels. Actually, she looks like she wants to be somewhere else — keeps gazing off, down the stairs — and I wonder where and then I know in a flash ‘cos of her look at break, she’s going to find Kai. We wave ‘bye to Mr Morlis and I’m watching her back as she leaves me as well, thinking Josh, Mum, Kai, they’re all part of my life but they’re not in my life ‘cos she’s moved them all on in what seems like a legendary way.
And I’m not certain I could have done it.
* * *
So I’m thinking of ways to avoid cleaning up and Miss Mint with Kai and Josh with Felix and Taff coming back when the pain starts. It’s bad. Stabbing through soft layers of merino Gap roll neck, it burns through my camisole, rips at my bra and plunges into my chest. Posy supports me as I lie in her arms, yelling.
Then it stops.
Then it continues again, tumble-drying my heart. I reach for the phone.
“Where are you?”
She can hear me, I know. I can hear him; his low voice says, “shall I get popcorn?”
It’s Kai. With Miss Mint.
“Can’t talk,” she sounds strained.
“Does Mum know you’re out?” She stays quiet. Then,
“Yes.” But she has to be lying, ‘cos the pain in my chest’s getting worse.
“Have to go.”
“Well, don’t eat all the popcorn,” I snarl, ‘cos not bringing up what I know to be true is practically killing me.
Chapter 14: Saturday, sixth night
I wake up and Miss Mint’s texted angrily, saying my period’s like being hugged by an elephant and I think maybe the date went mouldy ‘cos she was cramping. And I only feel a tiny bit sorry for her. Anyway, today’s lovely and Saturday-ey so everything’s going to be good. ‘Cos I get to see Mum.