Paper Aeroplanes (11 page)

Assembly is awkward. The usual shuffle is replaced by solid silence as I walk in. If I was more of an exhibitionist I might enjoy it, but the truth is I’d prefer to be invisible. I don’t enjoy attention at the best of times, but a room of four hundred girls in green uniforms staring at me is oddly chilling. ‘It’s because they all think he killed himself’ is no reassurance from Sally.

Miss Grut comes in. She is such an odd woman. I watch her, trying to work out why this stony, cold woman was the one who broke the news to me that my dad had died. It isn’t that she isn’t nice, she just doesn’t really have a personality. I’ve never really seen her express anything more than slow claps and half-nods, the odd smile, and telling people off for running in the corridor. I can’t imagine her being any different at home. I can’t imagine her cuddling anybody, apart from her cats, which we all know she has because she is always covered in cat hair. How did my mother think it was OK that she was the one who told me my dad died?

‘Sing, will you? The teachers keep looking at us,’ whispers Sally and she elbows me in the ribs.

I manage to croak out a few lines of ‘O Come, O Come, Emmanuel’ but my tongue ties at the word ‘rejoice’. I close my mouth and shut my eyes. I can feel the tears building up again. I beg myself not to cry, not here, not in assembly with Sally right next to me so desperate for me to crumble. I feel a finger tap on my left shoulder. Sally, to my right, doesn’t notice. I look back. It’s Renée.

‘Welcome back,’ she mouths. Apparently not bothered that a teacher might see.

I smile for the first time in nine days.

‘Renée, can I have a word?’

When teachers pull you aside after assembly it’s hardly ever good news, but Miss Anthony looks surprisingly happy.

‘I read your detention essay. It’s really beautifully done,’ she says, smiling at me.

‘Thank you.’ I wait for the ‘But’.

‘Renée,’ she goes on, ‘is everything OK at home? You told me a while ago that you have people to talk to, but I get the impression from your piece that might not be true. Is it true?’

‘Sure, of course it is true. I mean, my grandparents aren’t exactly the most expressive of people, but we get on OK. And I have friends. Loads of friends. I was just practising my creative writing a bit. In real life I’ve got loads of friends,’ I say quickly.

If ever there was an ‘I don’t believe you’ face, then Miss Anthony is pulling it.

‘OK, Renée. Well, I’m always here should you need to talk. And if that is a bit much for you then I think you could use writing a bit more, to get things off your chest.’ She stops. There’s a little furrow on her brow. ‘When my mother died I was so angry but I couldn’t talk about it, so I wrote it all down. I wrote letters to all the people that I felt had let me down. I never intended to give the letters to them, but getting everything on to paper really helped me make sense of it all. You write really nicely about your feelings. Maybe you could try it?’

It is really nice to be told I am good at something. Even if it isn’t something I can get a GCSE for.

‘Thanks, Miss Anthony. I’ll give it ago. Can I ask you something?’

‘Of course.’

‘Do you still miss your mum?’

‘I’m not sure I miss her, but I think about her every day,’ Miss Anthony says slowly. ‘It’s just a part of who I am. Does that makes any sense?’

I nod. That makes sense to me. That is how I am starting to feel. I miss missing her a bit at the moment though. It makes me feel bad.

The bell rings.

‘Thanks, Miss Anthony.’ I walk away.

‘Oh, and Renée,’ Miss Anthony calls back. ‘I imagine you make a fine friend to other people too. Flo is lucky to have you.’

‘I’m lucky to have Flo,’ I say, feeling like a total fraud.

I take my place on the front bench of the science lab. A few weeks ago we had been dissecting pigs’ trotters and all the vegetarians were huddled in a corner trying not to look. I thought it would be funny to flick a bit of trotter at them from the end of my ruler. As it turned out, it wasn’t very funny. I only meant it as a joke but it landed inside Kerry Bowden’s pencil case and she screamed like someone had run over her foot.

Vegetarians are so dramatic. What’s it all about anyway? I mean, I respect animals, but I also respect the food chain, and one of the few pleasures I have living with Nana and Pop is that once a week I’m allowed to have a tin of Chicken in White Wine Sauce with a pouch of Uncle Ben’s rice. I have the whole tin, in a bowl, poured on top of the rice and I sprinkle so much salt on it that not all of it dissolves. The reason I love the Chicken in White Wine Sauce so much is because Nana gives it to me while Pop is at the snooker hall on Thursdays, and she lets me eat it with a spoon sitting on the floor next to the heating vent, because that is my favourite place. That fifteen minutes once a week is my idea of heaven. Not only does tinned Chicken in White Wine Sauce taste like the most delicious thing ever – with the possible exception of Wotsits – but Nana only has to heat it up, so even she can’t ruin it.

Nell has recently announced that she is a vegetarian. When she told Pop he shouted at me for filling her head with nonsense, and Nana cried. I think everyone in my family is actually starting to lose their minds.

When Mrs Suiter turns to write something on the blackboard, something light hits me on the back.

Hey!

Thanks for coming to Dad’s funeral. I don’t know why you came but I am really glad you did. I’m sorry if I was weird with you in the field that time. I guess I am quite jealous of you really. Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks for coming. It was really nice that you did x

My belly does a little flip and I get goosebumps on my arms. I’m so used to people translating every nice thing I ever do as me trying to get something for myself that I just presume people think the worst of me all the time. I have been wanting to apologise to Flo for ages about how mean I was to her that day we ate chips together. I think I just got defensive because she was right – I don’t really do anything apart from mess about.

That’s OK! I’m sorry I took the piss out of you for playing the clarinet. I actually think it’s quite cool that you play an instrument x

I wait for Mrs Suiter to turn around and throw it at Flo. Seconds later it’s back.

Chips after school?

I turn around to smile and nod.

I see Renée waiting for me at the end of the school lane. I observe her more in these few seconds than I ever have before. Renée is really pretty but a bit of a mess. Her skirt is above the regulation length, and both of her brown knee-length socks are scrunched down at her ankles. Her white shirt is untucked and hanging below her jumper, and her tie is loose. She’s wearing a blazer despite the cold – almost everyone else comes to school in their duffel coats at this time of year. Above her round face her hair is messy and brown with a fringe that’s too long. Her eyes are dark and her smile is wide and cheeky, with dimples on both of her cheeks. She leans against the wall with one foot pressed against it, her bag on the ground even though it’s muddy, smoking a cigarette.

We first make eye contact when I’m halfway down the lane. She doesn’t take her eyes off me, and I walk towards her awkwardly.

‘Hey.’

‘Hey.’

She picks up her bag. Not even checking to see if it’s got muddy, which it has.

‘So, what do you want to do?’ she says as she swings it over her shoulder and sprays mud on her socks.

‘Honestly, whatever you want. I don’t mind.’ I hate myself for being so indecisive.

‘OK, let’s go to the beach. Do you want a fag?’

I shake my head. ‘No thanks. I don’t smoke.’

‘I like the smell of smoke,’ she says, blowing a perfect smoke ring. ‘On the right person it smells lovely.’

We walk down the huge hill into St Peter Port, passing the boys’ school on the way. They’re all coming out, looking so smart in their grey suits. Julian used to go there, but he left after his GCSEs to work as a mechanic. I can’t imagine any of this lot fixing cars, they all look like lawyers or bankers. No wonder Julian never fitted in, these aren’t his kind of people at all.

We don’t say much while we walk through the sea of boys. Renée links her arm into mine and leads me through them like she has done this a thousand times. Then one calls after us. He looks angry.

‘Renée?’

‘Keep walking,’ she says. ‘I don’t want to talk to him.’

‘Who is he?’

‘It doesn’t matter. Just keep walking.’

‘Renée, WAIT. Renée.’ He is pretty determined to get her attention but not as determined as she is to get away from him. As his voice gets louder she makes more of an effort to avoid him. Then she slips her arm out, grabs my hand and screams.

‘RUUUUNNNNN!’

We run down past the Sunken Gardens, past the courtrooms, down onto Smiths Street and past the post office, then we take a sharp right and run all along the cobbled high street. She is pulling me along so fast my feet leave the ground a few times and it’s a miracle I don’t fall flat on my face. Eventually she pulls me into a tiny alleyway with steep steps that lead to the waterfront. Bent double and panting, I manage to catch my breath.

‘What was that about? Who was that boy?’ I ask, intrigued.

She can barely speak.

‘Lawrence.’ Her breathing starts to stabilise. ‘Do you think he got the message?’

‘Did he get the message? I think the whole school got it. I take it he wasn’t very nice to you then?’

‘He told me he loved me,’ she says, still out of breath.

‘Isn’t that good?’ I ask, confused.

‘It’s only good if you feel it back. If you don’t feel it back it’s just annoying. Come on, let’s get chips.’

I follow her, feeling a bit unsure of what Lawrence did that was so wrong. I think I’d quite like someone to tell me they loved me.

With our chips, we walk along the seafront and end up at Havelet Bay, a beach just south of town and at the bottom of a huge hill with lots of bends that Mum and Nell and I used to call the Wiggly Woggly Road. When Mum drove up or down it Nell and I stood behind each of the seats, holding onto the head rests, leaning to one side shouting ‘Wiiiiiigggggllllllyyyyyy’, then when we went round the next bend we would swing to the other side and shout ‘Woooogggggglllly’. The idea was that we couldn’t move or start the next word until the car had started to turn. After Mum died I’d do this in the car with Pop, but he’d shout at me to sit down and shut up. So that was the end of that.

‘Let’s sit on the wall and dangle our feet over the edge,’ I say, climbing up onto the high sea wall.

‘But it’s so high!’ says Flo, looking up at me.

‘I know it’s high, but what is the worst that can happen?’

‘Um, I fall off and drown?’

Fair point. But I still don’t get down.

Havelet wall is high, but so is the tide, so the fall isn’t that big. And anyway, people jump off it all the time. It’s a ‘thing’. There are no rocks, so unless you bang your head on the way down or forget how to swim you can’t really go wrong. Not that I’ve ever done it. Pop caught me down here last year with a bunch of surfer boys and dragged me away making me promise I would never, ever jump. So I haven’t. But I don’t know why I keep my promises to Pop. He promised Mum on her deathbed that he would take care of me, and even though I live in his house and he pays for my food, I don’t think ignoring my feelings and making me feel like a continuous pain in his arse is taking care of me. So maybe I shouldn’t care so much about the promises I make to him.

‘Let’s jump,’ I say, looking at Flo.

‘Don’t be crazy,’ she replies adamantly.

‘Why not? People do it all the time. I know the water will be cold, but I’ve never seen anyone get out saying it isn’t amazing. Let’s do it.’

‘But what about our uniforms?’ says Flo, looking anxious. ‘We can’t walk home drenched. And there is no way I am stripping off. And it’s freezing!’

I start to take my clothes off.

‘We can leave our jumpers, skirts and coats up here. Our shoes will stop the other stuff blowing away. We can jump in, swim to the beach, run back up here and put our coats on to wear home. Come on, Flo.’

‘I can’t, Renée. I don’t do this kind of thing. You jump, I’ll hold your clothes. NO, don’t jump. This is crazy. It isn’t safe.’

‘I’m sick of being safe. I’m bored all the time. Come on, Flo. Haven’t the last few weeks taught you anything? We have to live our lives. Keep pushing ourselves, take risks, be silly. If Madonna was here, she’d jump.’

‘What’s Madonna get to do with anything?’

‘Flo, are you coming or not?’ I stand up straight on the wall, my legs slightly apart. I’m eye level with the sky. It’s peaceful up here. I close my eyes. I’m going to take three deep breaths and jump. I can do this. Sod Pop and his rules. This is my life and I will live it my way. ONE . . . TWO . . .

‘Wait. Wait for me.’

Flo tears off her coat, jumper and shoes. After folding them up neatly (mine are in a heap) she takes my hand. I pull her up and we stand next to each other on the wall. After a few deep breaths I turn to her. She’s pure white and clearly terrified.

‘Are you ready?’

‘I’m ready. No, wait. Oh my God. OK, I am ready.’

‘ONE, TWO, THREEEEEEEE.’

Hand in hand, we jump off the wall and into the sea.

When I walk into school, Sally does her usual act of speaking to me like the sole purpose of my existence on earth is to be her sidekick.

‘Have you been practising the second part for our clarinet lesson? My solo is perfect now.’ She says it like that makes her the Queen or something.

‘Actually, I’m not sure I want to play the clarinet any more. I’m never going to be in an orchestra, so what’s the point?’ I tell her firmly.

‘You WHAT?’ Sally’s face seems to get bigger, and she shows her teeth. If this was a cartoon steam would shoot out of her ears.

‘Yeah, the clarinet just isn’t for me. I’m not going to come to the lessons any more. Sorry,’ I say. I can’t quite believe how much I’m enjoying making her squirm.