The Taming of Lilah May (2 page)

Burning hot rain falling from a dark red sky.

I've been angry for two years.

I'm angry most of the time.

No.

Not most.

Make that
all.

So I'm home from school, and I'm trapped in the kitchen like a ball of fire that wants to spread through the house but can't.

I want to get ready to see Adam Carter, but Mum's gearing up to ask me That Question.

I can tell it's coming, because she has just turned around from the sink and given me an intense, scowling sort of frown.

The frown doesn't match her outfit.

She's wearing black and white baggy checked trousers, a matching long-sleeved top with a huge white frilly ruff around the neck, giant red shiny lace-up shoes and a small, black bowler hat.

In case you think my mother is some kind of demented nutcase with no fashion sense, I ought to point out that actually she's a clown.

No, really, she is. She runs a business that organises clowns for children's parties.

There's something dead weird about watching somebody in a clown's outfit doing the washing-up just like a normal mother.

Dad's not much better. He's wearing boring
clothes but it's a certain bet that his mind is only full of one thing. Lions.

My dad's a lion tamer.

Yeah. That tends to kill quite a lot of conversations stone dead, at least for a moment or so. Most people think that lion tamers are some Victorian thing, involving circus big tops and crowds of women in long stripy dresses fainting as the brave lion man does some sort of freak show, perhaps accompanied by a dwarf or two, and a man with a big handlebar moustache.

Well, maybe it was like that in the Olden Days.

But now ‘lion tamer' is just a name for somebody who looks after the lions and tigers in a zoo, which is what my father does. To give him his full title, he's Head of Big Cats at Morley Zoo.

He's a solid bloke, my dad, all hair shaved to a number one and hard muscles. He's got a tattoo of a green mermaid with long red hair all the way down one arm and my mum's name, Rachel, written in black inside a red heart on the other. I reckon the big cats know when they're beaten.

Don't ask me how he went from serving as a chef in Her Majesty's Army to confronting lions, leopards and cheetahs on a daily basis, but somehow his
career path took an unexpected turn and chucked him towards the jaws of the big cats.

He's standing in the kitchen doorway with his shirtsleeves rolled up and his hands on his hips. His body language screams
I-don't-know-what-to-do-with-my-mental-teenage-daughter
.

‘
Groo
,' I say. That's a Lilah-ism. I've invented loads of these words for when I can't find real ones that explain what I'm feeling inside. I've got a whole list of Lilah-isms for various different occasions. I can select them just like I choose an outfit every day.

‘Make it quick,' I say. ‘I'm going out again soon.'

Both of them are now looking at me as if I am a breed apart. Or an alien daughter, beamed down from Planet Zarg to replace the apple-cheeked violin-playing prodigy they'd have liked to bring home from the hospital fifteen years ago. Hah! That's kind of rich, them looking at ME like I'm the weird one!

My cheeks are pale as goat's cheese and I don't play the violin. My sort of music needs to be played loud and is the source of much arguing between The Old Dudes and me.

I live on Planet Rock. It's a radio station.
It's also my spiritual home.

My mother dries her hands on a scrunched-up tea towel with a picture of Windsor Castle on it, and sits down at the kitchen table. She pulls out a small mirror and starts to remove the big white circles around her eyes.

‘I had twenty of the little buggers earlier,' she says. ‘I suppose I shouldn't complain, but sometimes I wonder why their parents can't just take them to McDonalds and have done with it, and then I could stay home and watch
Emmerdale
instead.'

I know.

Sad.

It's not surprising I've turned out so twisted.

Mum and Dad are now doing that thing parents do, where they start raising their eyebrows at one another and looking towards their troublesome offspring.

‘Erm, Lilah,' begins Mum. She stops for a moment to pull a false eyelash off, and then has to fish it out of her wine glass and run to the sink to rinse it clean.

Oh, the ‘Lilah' thing. Yes, that's my strange name. It's short for Delilah, but obviously I can't go around using that. Not unless I want to spend my final few years at school as a total social outcast. My parents
have this obsessive love of names from the Bible, which is a bit weird, as neither of them are exactly church-going types. My brother's called Jacob but he was quick to shorten it to Jay, which, if you ask me, probably saved his reputation at school too and even made him sound quite cool.

Jay May.

Not that there's much point asking me any questions about Jay.

I get up from the kitchen table, where I've been hacking my name into the wood with a pencil.

‘Gotta go, programme's starting,' I mutter. Then I make for a quick exit, but Dad's all fired up today. His reaction times are impressive. One minute he's sitting at the table, the next he's blocking the doorway. I almost forgot that he works with large, dangerous animals for a living and is ex-Army to boot, all darting eyes and big rippling muscles.

‘Not so fast, hotshot,' he says. I have no idea where these nicknames come from. But they're, like,
so
yesterday.
Hotshot?

I slump down back at the table. Defeated – for now. I'll get my revenge with the new Slipknot album later on.

‘The thing is, Lilah,' says Mum, ‘we want to ask you something. We don't want you to get offended. We're just trying to help.'

Oh no. My soul starts to slide towards my black Uggs like thawing clumps of snow.

I wish they wouldn't start trying to HELP me. I mean – that's what I've got a best friend for, isn't it? Parents are just there to make dinner and tell you off.

‘Yeah?' I say. ‘What?'

Mum reaches out and holds my hand. Hers is slimy with greasepaint and make-up. Yuk. Now I'm itching to get away.

‘Lilah,' she says. ‘How ARE you? You seem so angry all the time. It's been two years.'

I feel the prickles of anger starting up in my gut again.

I really, really hate it when people ask me this question.
How ARE you?
It's mainly adults who come out with it. They always have this kind of soppy look on their faces when they ask it, and they say it in a sort of hushed, low voice that reminds me of something on an American chat show.

It's the worst question in the world, because I just can't answer it in any way that is honest, and
it makes my eyes sting and my heart thump and my teeth clamp together and my arms fold tight across my chest.

‘Fine,' I say. That's what I always say. It's a complete lie, of course, but I can't tell Mum how I'm really feeling inside without the risk of shouting at her that of course I'm not fine, I'm probably never going to be fine again and I've never felt less fine in my whole life. So I just stick to that one word and I try to keep all my churning feelings of rage inside.

A silence greets my answer. It fills our heads with moving pictures from old home videos. Seeing them is torture. It's like a knife twisting deep in my guts.

I know that we're all seeing different pictures. Mine are full of childhood and light and sand and laughter. I don't know what Mum is seeing, but I'm guessing that it's babies and nursery and school uniform with nametags sewn inside. Dad has turned away so that I can't see what he is thinking, but it's probably football matches and homework and trips to the zoo.

I can feel the prickles of anger starting up in my gut again.

My eyes fill up with hot water.

The tears never fall down my cheeks. It's like they've got to stop just short of my bottom eyelids or else I'll go to pieces.

I haven't done proper crying for over two years.

I scrape my chair back and leave the room.

I pass Jay's bedroom door as I go upstairs.

Closed, as usual.

I aim a swift kick at the wood with the toe of my boot and then curse when it hurts.

I go into my bedroom and take a good look at myself in the mirror.

I want to see whether all the crap I'm feeling on the inside is visible on the outside, but I still look like the same old Lilah May. Glossy shoulder-length black hair, sallow complexion the colour of onion skin, glaring dark blue eyes, and a defiant look in them, too.

I sink onto the bed with a sigh.

My parents are right. Not that I'd give them the satisfaction of telling them so.

I'm still angry.

Too angry.

I just about keep it under wraps when I'm with Bindi, but something about being at home makes me into this seething ball of wrath.

I pick up my mobile and dial Bindi. Even the thought of tapping in a text message makes me feel cross, and I hate predictive texting, so I just dial her number and wait until her slightly breathless voice answers. Bindi always sounds as if she's expecting some major adventure to happen. She's kind of the opposite of me – hopeful, wide-eyed, like she can't wait to grow up and live her life and make her mark on the big world.

Innocent. That's the word I'd use for Bindi. But then, she seems to have the perfect home life, and I don't.

I'd stay in bed every day if I could, with a duvet pulled right over my head to block out any chink of light.

‘Yes, who is it, hello?' says Bindi's voice.

She hasn't worked out that you can save numbers on your phone so that you can see who's calling you. I've given up trying to make Bindi move into the twenty-first century.

‘It's me,' I say. ‘Lilah. You know – your best mate. That Lilah.'

Bindi gives her little chuckle.

‘You crack me up, Lilah May,' she says.

‘Yeah, I'm hilarious,' I say. But I'm smiling again.

That's what's good about Bindi. She really likes me just for being me, even though she knows everything about me.

Everything.

And not all of it is good.

There's no way that my parents are ever going to agree to me going out with Adam Carter tonight, so I have to rope Bindi into a devious plan.

Bindi does not like deception. She's the most honest person I've ever met. I just can't imagine Bindi ever lying. Ever.

‘Why can't you just tell your parents the truth?' she says. There's the sound of screaming in the background and the harassed voice of Bindi's mum, Reeta, trying to separate two of the youngest members of the family. ‘They like Adam, don't they?'

I sigh.

‘Yeah,' I say. ‘They like him because he's a friend, but if I said I was meeting him on my own they'd lose their cool.'

I squirm on the bed where I'm sitting in a pair of black jeans with my legs crossed and my hair falling like silk around my face in its post–school liberation.

‘I'm going to have to say I'm with you,' I tell Bindi.

‘But then your mum will ring my mum, and my mum's not going to lie for you, Lilah. I can tell you that now.'

I roll my eyes – she can't see me anyway – and flop back onto the bed, sticking my legs up into the air and observing my blue and white stripy socks.

‘Well, then – you're going to have to pretend to be your mum and answer the phone,' I say.

I know I'm putting Bindi on the spot here, but nothing can be allowed to ruin my wonderful evening with Adam Carter. He is only like the most gorgeous boy in the entire school. He's sixteen and plays in a band called Death of Love. They're thrash metal and really good.

The trouble is, Adam might be all tough when he's in the band, but when he's not, he likes girls to be all feminine and pretty and small and laughing. Which is just about the opposite of me. I'm a tomboy, attractive rather than pretty, taller than most girls
in my class, and I definitely have not done much laughing of late. That's why I was surprised when he suggested meeting up.