Paper Avalanche E-Book

Lisa Williamson

• Herausgeber: David Fickling Books
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 413

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

Bonnie. Never Mum or Mummy or Mother. Just Bonnie . . .When it comes to flying under the radar, Ro Snow is an expert. No friends. No boys. No parties. And strictly NO VISITORS.It may be lonely, but at least this way the truth remains where it should - hidden.Then Tanvi Shah, the girl who almost died, comes tumbling back into her life, and Ro finds herself losing control of her carefully constructed lies.But if Ro's walls come crumbling down, who's going to take care of Bonnie . . .

Leseprobe

For Joyce, who always made me feel special And Bella, who told me I could write

Contents

Title PageDedicationSUMMER123456789AUTUMN1011121314151617181920212223242526272829303132333435363738394041WINTER424344AcknowledgementsAlso by Lisa Williamson Copyright

SUMMER

1

‘Umami.’

I look up from my phone. Jamie Cannon, a boy from my year, is standing in front of me with his hands in his pockets. My heart, until now beating in a perfectly normal, healthy fashion, quickly morphs into a big fat thumping monster.

‘Sorry, were you talking to me just then?’ I ask, nervously tucking an invisible strand of hair behind my ear.

‘Who else?’ Jamie replies, smirking and pouring himself a cup of orange squash.

Annoyingly, he makes a valid point. We’re the only two people at this end of the drama studio. Everyone else is gathered at the opposite end, caterwauling along to the Hamilton original cast recording. I’ve been camped out by the buffet table for the past twenty minutes now, filling the time by filling my face.

The drama club’s production of Grease finished half an hour earlier and this is the official after-show party. The members of the cast, with their quiffs and perky ponytails, faces waxy with stage make-up, easily outnumber the blackclad backstage crew, of which I am one. I would have headed home straight after the curtain call, given the choice, but my backpack and jacket are locked in Ms Chetty’s office and Ms Chetty has mislaid her keys, leaving me stranded until the caretaker turns up with the master.

‘Umami,’ Jamie repeats, nodding at the bowl of chilli heatwave flavour tortilla chips I’ve been ploughing my way through. ‘That’s what they call any addictive savoury flavour. It’s why you’ve eaten forty-two Doritos in the past five minutes – they’re covered in the stuff.’

‘You’ve been watching me?’ I ask, heat creeping up my neck.

‘Maybe,’ Jamie replies, a completely unself-conscious grin spreading across his face.

I swallow. Jamie and I are in the same year but have never really spoken before. This is unremarkable. Ostborough Academy is a big school, and I’m not exactly what you’d call a social butterfly. Plus Jamie is part of the ‘popular’ crew who hog the beanbags in the social area and say everything in loud booming voices, like they assume everyone in listening distance is automatically interested in what they have to say. This must be a dare. I glance over at the crowd gathered around the speakers, but no one is looking in our direction.

Jamie pours himself a second cup of squash and perches on the edge of the table like he’s here to stay.

Out of the corner of my eye, I note he’s about three inches taller than me and muscular, the fabric of his close-fitting white T-shirt straining across his chest and biceps. I can tell from the way he’s folded his arms high across his chest so his muscles bulge like inflated water balloons – that he’s ridiculously proud of them.

He drains his cup of squash, immediately pouring himself another one. ‘You were on lights tonight, right?’ he asks, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. His upper lip is stained pale orange.

I nod.

‘You into all that, then? Lighting and things?’

‘I suppose.’

At Ostborough Academy, every student is required to participate in at least one extra-curricular activity. Operating the lights for school productions is both the least time-consuming and least socially demanding option available, and I’ve clung onto the role since Year Seven.

‘You don’t fancy being on stage?’ Jamie asks, tossing an M&M in the air and catching it in his mouth.

I shake my head so hard my plait smacks me across the face.

Jamie starts to say something else, but my attention is stolen by the arrival of the caretaker.

‘Excuse me,’ I say, cutting off Jamie’s sentence and heading for Ms Chetty’s office.

‘Wait, you’re not going, are you?’ Jamie asks, following me.

It’s weird, but he almost sounds disappointed.

‘Yep,’ I reply, ducking under the caretaker’s arm and scooping up my backpack and denim jacket.

‘Are you getting a lift?’

‘No, walking.’

‘I’ll walk with you,’ Jamie says, reaching for his hoodie from the heap on the floor and tying it round his waist.

‘Don’t be mad, it’s still really early,’ I say, panic fizzing in my belly.

Hamilton has been replaced with the Grease soundtrack and the cast are re-enacting bits of the show they’ve literally just performed, hyper from Haribo and syrupy squash.

‘I was going to go soon anyway,’ Jamie says. ‘I’ve got to be up at six. Paper round. Plus, I’d be a proper dickhead if I didn’t. It’s dark out.’

I try to argue, but it’s no good. Jamie’s mind is made up.

We walk down the corridor in silence, our trainers squeaking against the rubber floor. We’re both wearing Converse. Jamie’s are charcoal grey and obviously new, the laces brilliant white. Mine are ancient, the canary-yellow canvas faded and streaked with dirt. Despite my efforts not to, we keep falling into step with each other. It’s all very discombobulating, like my universe has been shaken up like a snow globe and everything has landed back in slightly the wrong place and no one has noticed but me.

‘So, where do you live, Ro Snow?’ Jamie asks as we step out into the muggy July night.

Hearing him say my name out loud sounds weird. More than weird. Until tonight, Jamie has never even registered my existence, never mind indicated he knows my full name.

‘Quite far,’ I answer, leaping on my chance for an out. ‘Right over the other side of town. Probably totally out of your way, actually.’

‘Try me,’ he says, folding his chunky arms across his chest.

‘Er, Arcadia Avenue,’ I say, mentally crossing my fingers. ‘You won’t know it. Like I said, it’s a proper trek.’

Jamie takes out his phone and jabs at the screen a few times before holding it up so I can see. ‘It’s not that far,’ he says. ‘You were making it sound like you live in Timbuktu.’

I smile weakly.

‘I can’t believe Year Nine is nearly over,’ Jamie comments as we cross the road. ‘This term’s gone well fast, don’t you think?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Got any plans for summer?’

‘Nothing special.’

‘I’ll be in Florida for most of it. My grandparents live out there. You going away anywhere?’

‘Not this summer.’

As if this summer is the exception and not the rule.

The journey veers between awkward silences and equally awkward small talk and I’m weak with relief by the time we turn into Arcadia Avenue.

‘Well, bye then,’ I say, hovering by the street sign. ‘You can just leave me here.’

‘Don’t be mental,’ Jamie says. ‘I said I was walking you to your door and I’m gonna. What number are you again?’

‘Er, fifty-six.’

I increase my pace, hoping Jamie will follow my lead but he does the opposite, slowing down, his head swivelled in the direction of the houses on his right. Reluctantly, I reduce my pace to match, all the while hoping the crazy hammering in my chest doesn’t sound as stupidly loud as it feels.

‘Do you know who lives here?’ Jamie asks, stopping in front of number 48.

‘No, not really. Why?’ I say, fiddling with the hem of my jacket and looking in the opposite direction.

‘I just thought you would, being neighbours and everything.’

‘Well, we’re not exactly neighbours,’ I say. ‘It’s not like I live next door or anything.’

‘Lucky you. I bet they have rats and all sorts.’

I keep walking, hoping Jamie will notice and follow but he stays stubbornly where he is, gazing up at number 48 as if under some sort of spell.

The house is mostly hidden behind thick thorny bushes, old crisp packets and plastic bags impaled on the thorns, fluttering in the faint breeze. Rotting climbing ivy clings to the walls, obscuring almost all of the filthy windows, their frames scuffed and peeling. Although its leaves are brown and brittle, the ivy seems to multiply by the day, as if slowly choking the dirty, crumbling house to death.

‘I wonder what it’s like inside,’ Jamie ponders, screwing up his face. ‘Well skeezy, I bet.’

As if on cue, a mangy-looking cat shoots out from under the gate and scampers across the road.

‘Can we keep going? I kind of just want to get home now.’

‘OK,’ Jamie says, reluctantly dragging his eyes away from the house.

We continue down the street in silence, the only real sound the soles of our trainers scuffing against the paving slabs.

Number 56 is in darkness.

Good.

‘Bye then,’ I say, reaching for the front gate.

Jamie moves in closer. He smells of sweat covered up with aftershave. I try to step backwards, but I have nowhere to go, the catch on the gate digging into my lower back.

‘You’re different, Ro Snow. Did you know that?’ Jamie says. ‘Good different,’ he adds quickly when I don’t say anything. ‘What I mean is, it’s a compliment.’

He grins. He clearly has no idea that ‘different’ (the good or bad kind) is the very last thing I want to be.

I fumble for the catch with my left hand.

Before I can register what’s happening, Jamie has wrapped both arms around my waist, his open mouth looming towards my very much closed one.

‘Er, what do you think you’re doing?’ I say, pushing him away.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asks, staggering to regain his balance, his face slack with confusion. ‘I thought we were getting along. Didn’t you?’

‘I wasn’t really thinking about it, to be honest,’ I say, digging into the front pocket of my backpack for my keys.

‘Oh … Well, can I use your loo at least?’

‘No!’ I cry, the keys slipping from my hand.

Jamie’s eyes widen in alarm.

‘What I mean is, you can’t,’ I stammer. ‘We’re … we’re having our bathroom retiled at the moment.’

‘I wasn’t planning on pissing on the tiles.’

‘Very funny. Look, the whole bathroom is out of action, OK?’

Jamie frowns. ‘If you don’t want me to come in, then just say so. You don’t have to lie.’

‘I’m not. God, do you really think I’d bother lying about something so mundane?’ I crouch down to pick up my keys.

‘But I really need a wee,’ Jamie whines.

I stand up. ‘For God’s sake, can’t you just go in the bushes or something?’

‘Hey, don’t have a go at me,’ Jamie says, holding up both hands. ‘We were having a nice time until you started making weird shit up.’

‘It’s not my problem you find the concept of my bathroom being retiled so bloody exotic!’

He shakes his head. ‘You’re a weird girl, you know that, Ro Snow?’

Downgraded from ‘different’ to ‘weird’ in a matter of minutes. It’s clearly a very fine line.

‘Well, that’s rich, coming from the boy who spent most of the evening monitoring my Doritos intake,’ I snap. ‘Because that’s not creepy at all.’

Jamie’s eyes narrow into a glare. I return it with a glare of my own. He looks away first.

‘Seriously, I’m going in now,’ I say.

Jamie doesn’t say anything, his shoulders hunched over like a sulky toddler as he pushes a pebble back and forth with his foot.

‘Night then,’ I add.

‘Night,’ he mutters, sticking his hands in his pockets and striding back up the street.

I sigh, ease open the front gate and walk up the path. I wait until I’m at the top before sneaking a look over my shoulder. Jamie has increased his pace and is already several houses away. Instead of using the front door, I go round the side of the house, the security light flicking on as I pass beneath it. I press my back against the wall, the bricks rough and cool against my splayed hands. I close my eyes and silently count down from sixty. About halfway through, the security light snaps off, plunging me into reassuring darkness for the rest of my countdown.

‘Three, two, one, zero,’ I whisper.

I creep back down the front path and look both ways, relieved to note the street is quiet and empty.

I take a brisk left in the direction I’ve just come from.

Towards number 48 Arcadia Avenue.

Towards home.

2

A rustling in the overgrowth.

Rats.

I saw a pack of them in the back garden just the other morning, scampering about leisurely, bold as brass. They were fat, with well-fed rounded bellies and tails as thick and pink as the strawberry cables you can buy for 30p from the corner shop. I’m certain they’re in the house too. I haven’t spotted one yet, but I’ve seen the droppings – skinny black pellets – and I can hear the scrabbling of their tiny sharp claws at night.

With a shiver, I push open the creaking gate. Faded red paint flakes off on my sweaty hands, the prickly shards sticking to my palms. I follow the path round the side of the house, weeds tickling my ankles and ivy tangling in my hair. The front door hasn’t been used since I was tiny. I’ve never even seen a key for it. Not that a key would make much difference, seeing as the doorway is totally blocked from the inside anyhow. It’s painted the same shade of red as the front gate. Sometimes I like to close my eyes and imagine what it looked like when it was freshly painted – shiny and bright. Above the door there’s a stained-glass panel of a sunburst, each of its panes, once brilliant shades of orange and yellow, now covered with a thick layer of grime. The letter box is sealed with layers of peeling gaffer tape accompanied by a handwritten note in a dirt-splattered plastic sleeve, attached to the door with rusting drawing pins, instructing the postman to go round the back.

I unlock the back door and push it open as far as it will go. As I squeeze into the kitchen, the familiar smell of home hits, filling up my lungs and nostrils with its stale, dusty, rotten, chemical scent. It’s the same scent that seems to cling to my clothes and hair, no matter how many times I wash them, and forces me to keep a miniature bottle of Febreze at the bottom of my school bag.

I grope for the light switch with my left hand. The fluorescent strip lights take a few seconds to flicker on, buzzing angrily like a disturbed beehive. During this thin slice of time I sometimes fantasize that while I’ve been out, some sort of miracle has occurred, and the lights will turn on to illuminate the sort of sleek, orderly kitchen you see in the pages of the IKEA catalogue. It never does though, no matter how hard I wish for it. Instead, it’s the same old chaos – overflowing cupboards, a kitchen table groaning under piles of rubbish and an endless supply of dirty dishes stacked in the sink.

I inch across the overly bright kitchen, navigating the boxes and bags and gravity-defying piles of papers, climbing and squeezing, ducking and contorting like I’m a contestant on The Cube.

I imagine a parallel universe where I invited Jamie in. Just the thought makes me want to shrivel up with embarrassment. And fear. Because it’s not just about him thinking I’m weird or disgusting. It’s about him telling an adult. And that adult making a well-meaning call to Social Services. And Social Services coming to take me away. And then what would happen? Because as bad as the house is, it would be a hundred times worse if I wasn’t around. How long would Bonnie last without me? I dread to think.

I shudder and continue into the hallway. It’s similarly packed, the flowery wallpaper almost entirely hidden from view. A string of fairy lights winds round the bannister – a remnant of a time when my mum and I actually celebrated Christmas properly, with presents, and a real tree, and turkey for lunch. I’ve been waiting for them to run out of juice for years now, but they stubbornly hang on, their bulbs emitting the weariest of rainbow glows as I pass.

There was a time when I could walk down the hallway more or less normally, but over the years, as more and more junk has been piled up against either wall, the floor space has become narrower and narrower, forcing me to edge along it sideways, like a crab. According to the internet, the ‘experts’ call these narrow passages ‘goat paths’, because they resemble the well-trodden trails goats follow on mountainsides. Only whereas the goats are treading on grass and dirt, I’m treading on paper – mounds and mounds of it, the surface slippery and bumpy beneath my feet. It’s been so long since I last saw the hallway carpet, I can’t remember for certain what colour it is.

My mum, Bonnie, doesn’t really discriminate when it comes to her ‘collecting’, but it’s definitely paper that dominates – newspapers, battered paperbacks, leaflets, catalogues, bills, receipts, handwritten letters, postcards, travel brochures, shopping lists, old telephone books, calendars and diaries from years gone by, notebooks filled with empty pages, recipes and vouchers clipped from the pages of magazines, envelopes separated from their original contents, old train tickets. And greetings cards. Hundreds and hundreds of unsent greetings cards – birthday cards, Christmas cards, congratulations cards, thank you cards, get well soon cards – each one of them blank inside.

Sometimes, I try to ignore the mess, not to let it get to me. Or I try telling myself that it could be worse, that Bonnie could be what is known as a ‘dirty’ hoarder and the house could be full of used sanitary towels and human excrement, so aren’t I actually quite lucky? Occasionally my pep talks work. Not tonight though. Tonight, every single scrap of paper makes me want to scream at the top of my lungs, until my voice is hoarse and my throat red raw.

I brace myself and push open the living-room door. Bonnie is sitting in the one available spot – a floral armchair with a broken footrest and lumpy seat cushion, the fabric discoloured from years of occupation. A large glass of red wine is balanced precariously on the stack of old newspapers acting as a makeshift side table.

Bonnie.

Never Mum or Mummy or Mother.

Just Bonnie.

We look nothing like each other. While Bonnie is tanned (albeit out of a bottle) and blonde and comic-book curvy, I’m pale and mousy and straight-up-and-down. The only feature that’s vaguely similar is our eyes – big and rain-cloud grey and exactly the same shape, drooping down ever so slightly at the sides.

‘Sad eyes,’ my gran (my dad’s mum) once remarked with more than a hint of disapproval. ‘Just like your mother’s.’

I spent ages in the mirror after that, smiling inanely at my reflection in an attempt to fight what nature had given me. But it was no good. My gran was right. Even with the biggest, toothiest grin on my face, my eyes can’t help but tell a different story.

Bonnie is wearing one of her stage outfits – a low-cut red sequinned dress with a split up the right thigh. From afar, it looks great, but up close it’s difficult to miss the loose threads and numerous sequinless patches. Her shoes, a pair of matching glittery heels that she has to respray before every gig, lie abandoned on the floor, the soles scored with scissors to prevent her from slipping on stage. The red clashes with her brassy blonde hair, hard and crunchy to the touch from all the backcombing and hairspray she subjects it to before each gig.

I don’t know for sure, but I’d hazard a confident guess that when Jamie imagined the sort of person who might live in place like this, he wasn’t picturing Bonnie.

My eyes fall on the half-smoked cigarette smouldering in an ashtray on Bonnie’s lap.

‘You do know that if that goes over, this whole place would go up in flames,’ I say. This entire house is one massive fire hazard – a big fat bonfire just waiting for a match.

‘Sorry?’ Bonnie says, her eyes flickering with annoyance at the interruption.

Both the television and radio are blaring – ‘Sweet Talking Guy’ by The Chiffons battling to be heard over an episode of a reality TV show I don’t know the name of.

I swear under my breath as I search for the radio, eventually locating it nestled amongst the pile of junk covering the sofa. I turn it off, and repeat what I just said.

‘Don’t get at me, Ro, not tonight,’ Bonnie says, lifting the cigarette to her lips and taking a hungry drag.

‘Why? What happened? I thought you had a gig,’ I say, looking for somewhere to put the radio before giving up and tossing it back where I found it.

‘Ha!’ Bonnie says, stubbing out the cigarette.

On the TV, a group of bronzed and bejewelled women are gesticulating wildly as they screech at each other. Bonnie appears enthralled, but it makes my head hurt.

‘Can you turn that down a bit?’ I ask, pointing at the screen.

Bonnie sighs, lifting the remote like it’s made from lead and reducing the volume by a few notches.

‘What happened to your gig?’ I ask, finally able to hear myself properly.

‘It was cancelled,’ Bonnie replies, peeling off her false eyelashes, each of them thick with layers of old glue. Discarded on the arm of her chair, they look like a pair of dead spiders.

‘Why?’ I ask.

‘Oh, booking cockup at their end. Bloody bastards rang me when I was halfway up the pissing M1 and told me not to bother turning up.’

‘Are they still paying you?’

She tuts. ‘I wish.’

‘But that’s not fair.’

‘Tell me about it.’

‘Have you spoken to Pip? What did he say?’

Bonnie removes her chandelier earrings, draping them next to her eyelashes. The cheap glass catches the light.

‘Bonnie, did you hear me? Have you spoken to Pip? It’s his job to sort out stuff like this.’

‘Pip’s not working for me any more,’ Bonnie says, not quite meeting my eye as she massages her red earlobes.

‘Why not?’

‘I sacked him.’

‘You sacked your manager?’ I splutter. ‘When?’

‘Just after Easter.’

All I can do is stare. She sacked Pip over three months ago and didn’t think to say anything. Even now she’s acting like it’s no big deal, humming as she reaches for her wine.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ I ask.

She breaks off from her humming. ‘Because I knew you’d only go and make a big deal out of it.’

‘What happened?’

‘We had a falling out.’

‘Over what?’

‘He was rude about my set. And I can’t work with someone who has no faith in me. It stifles my creativity.’

‘But we’re skint!’

Over the past few months I’ve opened our bank statements and watched our balance steadily fall. Now I know why.

‘Oh, don’t be dramatic. We’re fine,’ Bonnie says.

‘We’re not “fine”!’ I cry. ‘We’ve been overdrawn for ages now. I keep telling you, but you never listen!’

Bonnie closes her eyes and rubs the bridge of her nose. ‘Please don’t get at me, Ro, not tonight. I’ve just driven halfway to Manchester and back for sweet F.A. I’m tired and I’m fed-up and all I want to do is have a glass of wine and watch a bit of telly and forget about the whole bloody fiasco for a few hours. Is that really too much to ask?’

‘Yes! We’ve got a load of bills coming out of the account next week. If we don’t top up it up we’ll be even more in the red!’

‘So, we go a bit further into the overdraft. Isn’t that what they’re for?’

‘How would you even know? You haven’t opened a bank statement in about five years.’

‘Attitude!’ Bonnie cries, pointing an accusing finger towards my face.

I shake my head. ‘Attitude’ is Bonnie’s go-to reprimand when she has no other defence left.

‘Look, I never asked you to deal with the banking,’ she says.

My eyes bulge. Is she for real?

‘Fine. I’ll stop doing it then. Just don’t come whining to me when the bailiffs come knocking. Which they will, if you have anything to do with it.’

Bonnie responds by picking up the remote control and turning up the volume to maximum.

‘Nice!’ I yell over the racket. ‘Really mature, Bonnie!’

Bonnie pretends not to hear, her gaze fixed stubbornly on the TV screen.

‘Oh, grow up!’ I snap.

I stamp out of the room, acutely aware of how topsy-turvy this all is. I’m the child, not Bonnie. And yet every one of our exchanges these days seems to slip into this messed-up dynamic.

You’re a weird girl, you know that, Ro Snow? Jamie’s words echo in my ears as I stomp up the stairs.

Jamie Cannon, you have no idea.

3

On the landing, I pause to catch my breath. I need to calm down. I close my eyes and count to ten and will the pent-up anger to vacate my body. When I open my eyes again, although I still feel furious, my breathing has at least calmed down a bit and my hands are just trembling now instead of full-on shaking.

I take a long deep exhalation and concentrate on plotting my route to the bathroom, ploughing all my energy into planning exactly where I’m going to place my feet. Bonnie acquires new items almost constantly so the most direct path changes on a daily basis. Tonight, I have to navigate a large box containing a deluxe foot spa (unopened), a piñata in the shape of a donkey, a broken record player and at least ten stuffed black bin bags, as well as the usual piles of paper. When I was a little kid, I used to think all people lived like this, that everyone’s house resembled a dangerous playground, filled with obstacles and booby traps, requiring you to be on constant alert in order to make it safely from A to B. It was only after a run of playdates and birthday parties at other kids’ houses that I twigged that I was the odd one out. I specifically remember going to the loo at Georgia Purnell’s house and the creeping unease I felt when I realized it took me just ten seconds to walk from her living room to the bathroom, rather than the full minute it took me at home.

As Jamie suspected, the bathroom is not being retiled. The bathtub is piled so high with stuff I can’t even see the tiles. I haven’t had a bath since I was about five or six. I shower in the cramped plastic cubicle in the corner of the room instead, one of the few spaces in the house that Bonnie hasn’t yet colonized. I sometimes wondered if my favourite bath toy, a wind-up Nemo, is still in the tub, buried for ever under years’ worth of rubbish, still smiling his sweet hopeful smile as he patiently waits to be found.

I brush my teeth and wash my face, still wearing my backpack on my shoulders, then pick my way back across the landing to my bedroom.

I pause outside the door. A hand-painted wooden sign declaring it as ‘Ro’s Room’ hangs on a small plastic hook at chest height, just as it has done for as long as I can remember. I trace my name with my index finger.

Ro’s Room.

My bedroom.

My sanctuary.

I reach into my backpack, take out my keys and unlock the door.

The lock is relatively new. I added it two years ago, after I’d finally had enough of Bonnie sneaking her crap into my room while I was at school.

I step inside and instantly feel calmer.

Around the same time I fixed the lock, I used that year’s birthday money from my dad to paint my entire room white. My bed linen is also white, topped with squishy cushions in coordinating shades of pebble grey and duck-egg blue, and a soft fleecy throw. My desk and bedside table are clear and the walls bare apart from the full-length mirror that hangs to the right of my bedroom door. There’s no clutter, no mess, no fuss – my room is the calm at the centre of a raging storm.

I go into autopilot – changing into my pyjamas, spraying my pillow with lavender-scented sleep spray, and climbing into bed. I usually read for a bit, but tonight all I want to do is sleep. I turn off my lamp and lie on my back, the duvet tucked under my arms. Bonnie has turned the radio back on, Sixties pop floating up the stairs. God knows when she’ll turn it off and go to sleep. Bonnie is a night owl, staying up until the early hours and dozing until lunch.

I retrieve my earplugs from the top drawer of my bedside chest and shove them in my ears. It takes me for ever to drop off, and when I do, I dream the dream I’ve dreamed at least one hundred times before.

Being buried alive under piles and piles of paper.

4

On my way to breakfast, I stop to peer around the slightly ajar living-room door. Bonnie’s snoring away in her armchair, her head lolling forward to expose her naturally dark roots, a crocheted blanket crumpled around her ankles.

I sigh and creep over to her, picking up the blanket and draping it loosely over her knees. Her snoring is soft, pretty almost. She looks different when she’s asleep – younger, sweeter – her face relaxed and free from its usual thick layer of stage make-up.

As I watch her doze, the lingering anger from last night begins to fade a little. I haven’t a clue how she manages to get a decent night’s sleep in this horrible lumpy old chair. I wish I could scoop her up and carry her to her bedroom, but, even if it was physically possible for me to get her upstairs, there’d be no point. There’s a reason Bonnie’s sleeping down here and not in her bedroom.

I tuck the blanket round her knees and press my mouth to her cheek. Her skin is cool and soft against my lips.

‘See you later,’ I whisper.

Bonnie murmurs a sleepy reply and turns her head in the opposite direction.

I spend my Saturday mornings pushing leaflets advertising local takeaways and cleaning firms through letter boxes. The headquarters, where I pick up my leaflets, are located above a pet shop on the high street. On reflection, ‘headquarters’ is probably far too grand a description for the higgledy-piggledy collection of rooms.

‘Morning, Ro,’ Eric calls when I arrive.

I stick my head behind his office door where he’s sitting behind his paperwork-laden desk. ‘Morning,’ I reply.

‘Just a few more days at school now, isn’t it?’

‘Yeah, we break up on Wednesday,’ I say. ‘Cup of tea?’

‘You read my mind.’

I smile and swipe his Avengers mug from the debris and head into the narrow kitchen, the squawk of birds from the pet shop below just audible over the boiling kettle. I’m rifling in the box of tea bags when Jodie stumbles in. She’s wearing a crop top with huge pompoms sewn onto each shoulder, leggings covered with lightning bolts and a battered pair of gold Reeboks.

‘Are you making tea?’ she asks.

‘Well spotted. Do you want one?’

‘Yes. A million times yes, you little beauty.’

She collapses into a chair, resting her forehead on the tea-stained Formica table. Her choppy bleached-blonde hair flops forward, forming a curtain around her face.

‘Out last night by any chance?’ I ask, teasingly, plopping a tea bag into each of the assembled mugs.

She groans. ‘No shit, Sherlock. Student night down at the George. Three sugars please.’

I spoon three heaped teaspoons of sugar into Jodie’s mug before pushing it under her nose.

‘Thanks, babe,’ she says, groping for it with shaking fingers. ‘You’re an angel without any wings.’

‘You should really eat something too. Want me to pop out to the cafe before we have to head off? Get you a bacon sandwich or something?’

Jodie shakes her head hard. ‘I can’t, Ro. I’ll spew, I swear.’

‘It’ll make you feel better. You need to replace the salts you’ve lost.’

Jodie peers up at me between strands of knotty hair. Her eyelashes are thick and crusty with day-old mascara. ‘You’re far too bloody wise for your age, Ro, do you know that?’ she says, pausing to take a long slurp of tea. ‘I’m twenty, you’re fourteen. I should be guiding you through your disgusting hangover, not the other way round.’

‘Have a biscuit at least,’ I say, ignoring her and pulling the lid off the ancient Quality Street tin that houses the communal biscuit supply. ‘Iron.’

Jodie laughs and reaches for a custard cream. ‘You’ll make a great mum one day, Ro,’ she says, dunking it in her tea. ‘Do you know that?’

‘I don’t know about that,’ I say, turning away and tending to Eric’s tea.

*

Ten minutes later, I head out into the sunshine. My delivery patch is near the park, where the streets are wide and tree-lined and the houses big and sprawling with driveways large enough for at least four cars.

I like my job. I like the fresh air, even on the days when it’s freezing cold or tipping down with rain. I like the peace and quiet and being up and about when most people are still lazing in bed. I like peering in through the windows of the houses I leaflet and admiring the spacious living rooms, drinking in the fancy wallpaper and matching scatter cushions and framed art on the walls and fantasizing about the orderly lives the owners must lead.

Today, though, despite the glorious sunshine and cornflower-blue sky, I’m distracted, and even my very favourite stops on the route (the Georgian villa with the sunshine-yellow door, the row of art deco semis with their elegant curved windows, the Victorian house on the corner with its very own turret) can’t get me back on track. I just can’t stop my stupid brain from replaying the events of last night, all the very worst sound bites from my conversation with Jamie making me want to slide between the cracks in the pavement. I lurch between feeling mad at Jamie for being so pushy about walking me home, and mad at myself for giving in so easily. I let my guard down and it backfired. Horribly.

There’s no use in dwelling on it though. I need to move on and learn from it. And that means never, ever putting myself in a situation like that again.

*

I’m almost home when I notice a large red lorry with ‘Addis & Son Removals’ on the side parked up outside 46 Arcadia Avenue.

Number 46 has stood empty since its former occupant, an elderly man called Terry, moved into a care home just after Christmas. I liked Terry. A lot of people would have a problem living next door to a house like ours, but Terry never had a bad word to say. He even let me borrow his toolbox and lawnmower whenever I asked and gave me a chocolate egg every Easter and a Cadbury’s selection box every Christmas. I was sad to see him go, but mostly scared of who would take his place, well aware that not everyone would be as forgiving. Lots of people have been round to have a look, but the ‘For Rent’ sign has remained up and the house has continued to sit empty.

Until now.

I approach with caution, slipping behind the cluster of bushes that separate my front garden from number 46’s, and peer through the foliage. I watch as the removal men unload an assortment of mismatched furniture, cardboard boxes and black bin liners from the half-empty van. I’m struck by just how little stuff there is. I wonder how many vans’ worth of junk my own house contains. Two? Three? Five? More?

A few minutes later, a black SUV with a dented bumper pulls up behind the van. A man and two boys get out, one around ten years old, the other around my age. All three have the same shock of inky black hair and olive skin. All three look utterly miserable.

The man opens the boot of the car and removes a large, clearly very heavy suitcase. It lands on the driveway with a thud. Sighing, he extends its handle and wheels it towards the front door. The younger boy follows, the Arsenal Football Club backpack he’s carrying in his hand trailing on the floor behind him. The older boy reaches for a black sports bag and hauls it over his shoulder. The strap’s too long and it bangs against his lower thigh as he makes his way up the driveway. In his other hand he carries a guitar case covered with stickers. He’s basketball-player tall and dressed all in black apart from a pair of grubby white hi-tops. His features are sharp and delicate at the same time, and make him look like he belongs in the past, in a frock coat perhaps, reciting poetry.

I can’t take my eyes off him.

The boy pauses outside the front door and glances over his shoulder. I hold my breath, terrified I’ve been spotted. But the boy’s gaze fails to settle on any spot in particular before returning to face the exterior of number 46. He looks it up and down through lank strands of black hair, before shaking his head and disappearing inside, the door falling shut behind him with a dull clunk.

Bonnie’s in the back garden, marooned on a rusty sunlounger in the centre of the overgrown lawn. Without access to Terry’s lawnmower, the grass has grown so high it looks like she’s floating on a carpet of green. The back door is open and the radio’s on – Adele lamenting ‘Someone Like You’.

It isn’t quite warm enough for sunbathing, but Bonnie is wearing an itsy-bitsy red bikini at least two sizes too small for her anyway, her boobs barely contained within its flimsy Lycra triangles.

‘Bonnie,’ I say. ‘Bonnie. Are you awake?’

‘Mmmmmm,’ Bonnie says, rolling onto her stomach and tucking her bikini bottoms between her bum cheeks.

‘Did you see? Some new people have moved in next door.’

‘Have they?’ she murmurs sleepily, resting her head on her forearms.

‘A man and two kids.’

‘No woman?’

‘I didn’t see one.’

‘Hmmmmm.’

‘Anyway,’ I continue. ‘We should probably put in a bit of extra effort to get our place in order.’

‘Why?’

‘They might not be as relaxed about things as Terry was.’

‘What things?’ Bonnie asks.

My insides twist with annoyance. ‘What do you think? Living next door to us. To this.’ I gesture towards the house.

‘I don’t see what the problem is,’ Bonnie says.

‘Of course you don’t.’

Bonnie props herself up on her elbows, and peers at me over her shoulder, through heart-shaped rimmed sunglasses.

‘You’re clothed, aren’t you?’ she says. ‘Fed? I mean, I know the house is a bit busy, but the way you act sometimes, you’d think I’d installed razor blades on the stairs or something.’

‘But what if they say something?’

‘Who?’

‘The new neighbours!’

‘Who on earth to?’ Bonnie asks, incredulous.

‘You know who. Social Services.’

Just saying it out loud makes my palms prickle with nervous sweat.

‘Oh, don’t be daft,’ Bonnie scoffs. ‘What could they do?’

What could they do? For starters, send me to live with Dad and Melanie, leaving Bonnie all alone. I once went away on holiday to the Isle of Wight with Dad, and when I got back, the house was such a mess I couldn’t even open the back door properly. If that could happen after just a few days, what state would the house be in after a couple of weeks? A month? A year? An image of Bonnie buried under a mountain of her own belongings, just her feet poking out, invades my brain.

A lump forms in my throat and I can feel tears gathering. I try to blink them away before Bonnie notices. I needn’t have worried though – she’s already flopped back on her belly, her face buried in her forearms.

‘You really are like your father sometimes,’ she says in a muffled voice. ‘He was always worrying about something or other. There’s no need to get in a tizz. They’re only renting. You’ll see – they’ll probably be gone in a few months.’

Her phone, abandoned in the grass, vibrates into life, the screen flashing as a tinny rendition of ‘I Will Survive’ by Gloria Gaynor crackles from its tiny speaker.

I bend down to pick it up, noting the unidentified number before passing it to Bonnie.

‘Hello, Bonnie Snow!’ Bonnie says in an extra-theatrical version of her usual voice.

Even though the divorce went through over six years ago, she still refuses to reclaim her maiden name.

‘Saturday the eleventh? Just give me one moment while I consult my diary,’ she trills.

She holds her phone to her chest.

‘See,’ she says, grinning triumphantly. ‘Who needs a manager, eh?’

She springs off the sunlounger and sashays into the house, her hips swaying in time with the music, leaving me alone on the patio, chewing on my thumbnail and worrying.

Always worrying.

5

The last day of term falls on Wednesday. As is tradition, normal lessons are abandoned in favour of games and quizzes and DVDs.

In English, Mrs Merry announces we’re going to be playing literary charades. She nominates two captains and asks them to choose teams.

I’m second to last to be picked.

This is not unusual. It’s the same in PE, whether we’re playing netball or hockey or rounders. I don’t mind. It’s never done in a cruel way. I just don’t think people notice me until something forces them to, or I’m literally the only person standing in front of them.

When it’s my turn to mime, I let a girl called Zahra go up in my place. No one notices. The other team wins by a mile anyway – twenty-one points to eight.

At 3.30 p.m., instead of ripping off my tie and tearing out of the gates like almost everyone else, I take my time, calmly clearing out my locker as the school empties out around me. I get their euphoria, but I don’t share it. For them, the summer holidays mean freedom; for me, it’s more like a prison sentence.

A few metres away, three girls from my year are making plans go to Shake It Off, the milkshake bar on the high street.

One of them, Alice, went to my primary school. We used to play together sometimes, and I went to a couple of her birthday parties. Since moving up to senior school though, we haven’t really spoken.

‘Hurry up, Sof,’ she says. ‘If we don’t get a move on, we’ll miss out on a booth.’

Her friend Sofia is trying to stuff her PE kit into her already stuffed backpack.

‘Do you want to put anything in my bag?’ Shazna, the third girl, offers.

‘I think I’m gonna have to,’ Sofia says.

I watch as they divide up Sofia’s PE kit, giggling over her stinky trainers and debating which flavour milkshake to order (‘I’m going to have Oreo!’ ‘But you always have Oreo!’ ‘So? You always have Toblerone!’).

I imagine them suddenly noticing me, and asking me to join them. Then the four of us huddled in a booth, elbows touching, laughing and joking and making plans for the summer.

‘Finally!’ Alice says, jolting me from my fantasy.

Immediately, I feel stupid for even letting my brain go there. Alice probably doesn’t even remember my name. And it’s not like I could actually say yes, even if they did ask me. It’s too risky.

Sofia’s PE kit successfully distributed, they link arms and head for the exit, oblivious to my eyes on their backs.

By the time I step out into the sunshine, the crowds have dispersed and my footsteps echo on the concrete as I make my way towards the gates.

Instead of my usual route home, I find myself heading for the high street. A long queue snakes out the door of Shake It Off. From my vantage point on the other side of the road, I can see Alice, Sofia and Shazna sitting in the window; they got their booth after all. They’re laughing at something Shazna just said. I watch as they shift along the plastic seating to make room for some other people from our year.

Alice’s head swivels in my direction, and for a split second our eyes lock. Panic floods my chest. With fumbling fingers, I pull my phone out of my blazer pocket and pretend to answer it.

‘Hello?’ I say.

My voice is shaking even though there’s no way Alice can possibly hear me or know I’m faking it.

As I walk away, my phone still pressed to my ear, I sneak a glance over my shoulder. Alice isn’t looking at me any more.

No one is.

6

‘Where’s the tank?’ I ask as I climb into Dad’s car on Sunday morning.

As usual, he’s parked several doors down, firmly out of sight of his former home. Instead of his ridiculous and entirely unnecessary four-by-four, he’s behind the wheel of Melanie’s car, a shiny red Mini with plastic eyelashes attached to the headlamps and a ‘Princess on Board’ sticker displayed in the back window.

‘Mel needed the big car to pick up the cake,’ Dad replies, pulling out into the road. ‘That for Izzy?’ He nods at the plastic bag on my lap.

‘No, Princess Charlotte,’ I say, rolling my eyes.

‘Rosie,’ he says in a warning voice.

The name on my birth certificate is Rosie but I’ve been known as Ro for as long as I can remember. Dad (and by extension, Melanie and Izzy) are the only people who insist on calling me Rosie, or, even worse, Rosebud. I’m so not a Rosebud, it’s unreal.

‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘It was just kind of a stupid question.’

‘Stupid or not, I could do without the attitude.’

‘Where are we going?’ I ask after a few minutes of loaded silence.

Instead of heading out of Ostborough and towards Claybridge, the nearby town where Dad lives, we’re driving in the complete opposite direction.

‘The trampoline park, of course.’

‘What trampoline park?’

‘There’s more than one?’

‘Wait, I don’t understand. I thought Izzy was having a pizza-making party at your house.’

‘She is. After the trampoline park.’

‘You didn’t tell me about the trampolining. You only told me about the pizza.’

Now it makes sense why Dad’s wearing a tracksuit instead of the usual chinos and shirts Melanie lays out for him at the weekend, like he’s a little kid.

‘I don’t have a change of clothes with me,’ I say.

Dad glances over at my outfit. I’m wearing one of the few dresses I own (a loose denim sundress) and a pair of black rubber flip-flops. I only put the dress on in the first place to stop Melanie from lamenting that I don’t ‘make enough of my figure’, the way she usually does when I turn up in my normal weekend uniform of jeans and baggy shirt.

‘Well, I don’t know what you want me to do about it,’ he says. ‘We can’t turn back now. Mel’ll go spare if the guests start arriving before we do.’

‘God forbid,’ I mutter, closing my eyes and resting my head against the window.

Melanie and Izzy are already there when we arrive, waiting just inside the foyer. Izzy has an oversized ‘10 Today’ badge pinned to her pink sequinned hoodie, her gleaming blonde hair pulled into a neat ponytail.

‘There you are!’ Melanie says.

She waves us over, the Pandora charm bracelet she wears on her left wrist jangling, every charm polished within a millimetre of its life. Everything about Melanie Snow is spotless, from her French-manicured nails to her bouncy blonde bob. Even in tracksuit and trainers, she looks pristine.

‘Now, Rosie, don’t you look a sight for sore eyes. A dress! Finally! Although it could do with cinching in a bit.’

I brace myself as Melanie steps forward, wrapping her hands round my waist, her fingers pinching my skin.