In Sarah’s Shadow
Karen McCombie

For the four girls at Coombe Girls’ School

who helped inspire a plot twist. (You know who you are!)

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

PART ONE Out from the Shadows Megan’s story

Chapter 1 Charmed, I’m sure…

Chapter 2 Wonderful things happen…to other people

Chapter 3 Good deeds = good luck?

Chapter 4 Ice and fire…

Chapter 5 Funny? Peculiar…

Chapter 6 The surprise – make that shock – party

Chapter 7 A secret shared…

Chapter 8 On the Angel trail

Chapter 9 Take a chance on me…

Chapter 10 Luck…but which kind?

PART TWO Life in the light Sarah’s story

Chapter 1 Walking on eggshells

Chapter 2 Good times, bad vibes

Chapter 3 Twitterings and warnings

Chapter 4 Waiting impatiently

Chapter 5 The many faces of Megan

Chapter 6 Party hard

Chapter 7 The damage done

Chapter 8 The end of a beautiful friendship…or two

Chapter 9 Too much, too little, too late…

Chapter 10 Shadows and light

Preview

About the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

PART ONE Out from the Shadows Megan’s story

Chapter 1 Charmed, I’m sure…

There’s always a flip side to everything, isn’t there?

For every good bit of news, there’s bad. For every amazing piece of luck, there’s a dog poo waiting to be stepped in. For every silver lining, there’s a big, fat cloud. For everyone who’s charmed, someone’s jinxed. For every Sarah, there’s a Megan…

“Hey, Sweetpea, what’s with you?” Dad beams as Sarah bounces through the living room doorway. “You look pleased with yourself!”

Ah, yes…and for every Sweetpea, there’s a Pumpkin. ‘Cause in our family, my sister Sarah is the bringer of good news; the one who has amazing luck; the girl with her own in-built silver lining; the charmed eldest child with the pretty pet name to go with her pretty self.

Then there’s Megan (ie, me): the bringer of bad news; the one destined to tread in the dog poo; the girl lurking under the big, fat cloud; the jinxed younger sister with the pet name as round and lumpen as—

“Put your legs down, Pumpkin!” Mum orders me, practically shooing me off the sofa I’ve been curled up on since I got home from school. “Let your sister sit down!”

All praise Princess Sarah! She hath arrived and we must all bow low to Her Loveliness. Wonder if I should wipe away any grime left behind from my trainers before she graces the sofa with her wondrous bottom?

Nah. I won’t bother.

Oh, God – I know how bad that sounds. I’m coming over like a total bitch, aren’t I? But I’m not…honest I’m not. Just ask anyone who feels like they’re the least loved kid when it comes to their parents and they’ll know exactly what I’m going through. After fourteen years of watching my parents and Sarah indulge in this mutual appreciation society, it’s like I’m this invisible member of my own family, somehow surplus to requirements. Think of it that way and you’ll see it’s hard not to sound bitter and twisted sometimes, but all I really am is hurt, hurt, hurt.

Specially when I spot those snidey, sideways looks Sarah sometimes throws my way when she thinks I don’t notice…

“Come on then, Sarah! What’s put that smile on your face?” says Dad excitedly, setting aside his newspaper and giving his favourite child his full attention. Mum’s the same, turning the sound down on the local news she’s been watching on TV and gazing at my sister expectantly.

Sarah shrugs her fluffy-collared coat off her shoulders and shakes free her sheeny-shiny chestnut hair. Where does she think she is? At an audition for a shampoo ad? The steps outside the Met Bar, with the whirr of cameras and catcalls of the paparazzi all around? Doesn’t she realise that this is just our normal front room, with its normal floral wallpaper border and a normal family sitting around on our extremely normal sofa and chairs? Ah, but maybe that’s it; maybe that hair-tossing business is for my benefit. You know, just to remind me that my dull, brown fuzz of a hairdo can never compete with hers.

Oh yeah, Sarah likes to let me know my place, but it’s in these subtle, paper-cut sharp ways that can only be seen by the trained eye. And believe me, I’m trained. After a lifetime of being related to Princess Perfect sitting here next to me, you get wise.

Sarah is just about to speak, when Mum starts fluttering and clucking around her as usual.

“Oh, don’t crush your new coat, darling!” she frowns in concern, indicating Sarah’s long, fawn, sheepskin coat. “Pumpkin – go and hang it up for your sister!”

I’m about to say something – like, why doesn’t Sarah hang up her own coat? – but there’s no point. Instead of Mum realising how unfair that is, she’ll just think I’m being unhelpful and grumpy, instead of bright and smiley, like you-know-who. So instead, I put my magazine down on the floor, wordlessly hold my hand out and wait for Sarah to pass me her stupid coat, like I’m her handmaiden or something.

“Stop fussing, Angela!” I hear Dad jovially tell my mum off as I head out into the hall. “Let the girl talk!”

What a joke, eh? Dad tells Mum off for the heinous crime of stalling Sarah’s latest piece of good news, in her never-ending stream of amazing luck. He doesn’t nark at Mum for ordering me about; it’s as if I came as a package deal with the house (‘1930s semi with garage; servant included’).

“Well…” Sarah begins from the comfort of the sofa, but I’m outside in the hall now, burying my face into the soft-as-clouds furry collar of this amazing sheepskin coat. Not that I want it – if I wore it, I’d look like…well, a sheep. Whereas Sarah – with her matching boots, knee-length denim skirt and tight black top – looks like she just stepped out of the pages of a style magazine.

If only I was taller, slimmer, less round in places I shouldn’t be and more round in places I should; maybe then I’d have people staring at me in the street like Sarah does; maybe then I’d be less invisible.

And then I smell it – the cloying, sickly-sweet scent that Sarah always smothers herself in. It jars in my head and sends a sharp pain shooting through my sinuses. I quickly pull my face away from it and chuck the coat towards the row of hooks on the wall, but I miss and it crumples into a pale heap on the floor. I grab it up roughly, then chuck it towards the rack again, not bothering to search among the white fluffy fibres for a clothes hoop for hanging. Instead, the coat dangles lopsidedly, swaying gently, an ugly bulge already pressing through the suede where the hook juts out.

There’ll be a mark if I leave it like that…I think guiltily. Automatically, I reach over to hang it properly, then hear Sarah’s boastful words waft out of the living room, as if she’s deliberately raised her voice so I don’t miss what she’s got to say.

“…and that’s when Mr Fisher said – ‘I want you, Sarah!’”

I want you, Sarah…to shut up, for once? I say to myself, feeling the blood pound in my veins.

I want you, Sarah…to leave the country and never come back?

I want you, Sarah…to have, just for once, the tiniest bit of bad luck – just enough so you know what life feels like for the mere mortals who have to live in your shadow?

All of a sudden, I snatch my hand from Sarah’s crumpled coat, turning away from it and the ugly bulge, and walk back into the living room. It’s petty and pathetic, I know, but you can’t begrudge a girl a bit of petty and pathetic revenge now and then, specially in the face of a sister who gets the strangest kick out of making her feel useless…

Somehow, I don’t feel like sitting back down next to her – maybe Sarah’s silver lining is radiating too much ultra-violet light for a thin-skinned person like me to stand. Instead, I perch on the arm of Mum’s chair and try and figure out what exactly Sarah’s boasting on about this time.

“So, Mr Fisher chose you, out of how many people, Sarah?” Mum asks, practically prickling with static electricity she’s so proud.

“Well, there were about thirty people at the auditions today, and I think he saw more people yesterday,” Sarah smiles a golden-child smile. “But today he finally decided on which five to pick for the band line-up.”

“And when is the actual Battle of the Bands competition happening?”

That’s Dad, perched now on the edge of his seat. He couldn’t look more excited if he suddenly saw his Lotto numbers sliding next to each other on the TV screen.

I get it. This Battle of the Bands thing – there are posters all over the noticeboards at school about it. It’s this regional competition that’s on at the end of next month – all the schools in the area enter a band, and the winners get a free pair of drumsticks from the competition sponsors or whatever. It’s pretty good fun; I was in the audience for it last year and there were some really brilliant bands there, and some spectacularly naff ones too, but it was a great afternoon’s skive. I hadn’t realised Sarah was going in for it this time around. I mean, I know she can sing (well, she can do anything, can’t she?) and she’s taught herself to play guitar this year (in between getting top grades in her exams, having an amazing social life and being all-round fantastic). But then she wouldn’t tell me, would she? She’s not even bothering to look at me now; she’s saving all her smiles for her appreciative audience of two.

“Who else is in the band with you? Did Cherish and Angel get picked?” asks Mum.

I realise I’m scratching at my wrists and stop. It’s a nervous habit and I don’t mean to do it, but it just happens. It really winds Mum up.

“Yes, they got picked too. And there’s this guy Conor who’s going to play bass and a lad called Salman who’s going to be on drums. I kind of know both of them, but just to say hi to.”

I rack my brains. Cherish and Angel – of course I know them, since they’ve been best friends with Sarah for years, regularly swanning in and out of our house (and blanking me, usually). But Salman and Conor…well, I’m pretty sure there’s a Salman in the Upper Sixth, but I don’t know about a Conor – there’re loads of Conors at our school.

“And so what happens now?”

That’s Dad again, probably already envisaging some glittering musical career for Sarah. Sorry, Daddy dearest; don’t suppose she’ll be opening for U2 any time soon. Then again, knowing her luck…

“Well,” Sarah says brightly, “we’ll have to get together with Mr Fisher and work out what song we want to play, then it’ll be a case of loads of rehearsals up until the competition!”

They’ll probably win. I haven’t heard them play together and I haven’t seen the two blokes, but unless they make a real mess of it or the guys look like extras out of Planet of the Apes, then it’s in the bag. How could the judges pass over a band that’s got the three prettiest, coolest girls in our school in it?

Oh, boy…Sarah’s swollen head is just about to get that bit more hot-air balloon-sized. Winning the competition will be a case of yet more glory landing slap-bang in her lap, just like it always does. Unlike me, who can’t scrape past average in any given exam. The only competitions I ever bother to enter are for give-aways in magazines. And guess what? ‘Free glitter make-up!! 1000s of sets up for grabs!!! To everyone except Megan Collins!’ I’ll tell you what my luck’s like: if I buy a magazine with a free gift on the cover, I won’t notice the gift’s been nicked off it till I’m outside the shop and can’t complain. And round about then is the time I’ll step in the dog poo and get soaked by an unexpected black cloud’s worth of rain.

God, I’m off on one again, aren’t I? I’m sorry. It’s just hard when you don’t feel like one of life’s shiny, happy people. And it’s even harder when one of life’s shiny, happy people lives in the room across the hall from you.

“Megan, don’t do that!”

Mum’s voice is soft and urgent, her cool fingers are pressing mine still. I hadn’t realised I’d been scratch-scratching at my wrists again. And now they’re all looking at me. Looking at the freak member of their family with the scars on my skin that remind me and them of just how imperfect I am.

“I’ve got homework,” I mumble and get out of the room, away from the pitying, uncomfortable glances that are focused on me. They’re better off without me around, spoiling my parents’ fun as they soak up the sparkles of Sarah’s success.

“Megan…!”

I hope Mum doesn’t follow me – I don’t want her to. I hate those cosy pep talks she tries to give me, when she perches on the edge of my bed and always ends up upset, holding my hands and turning them over so she can stroke the jagged, bumpy white marks running longways across the raised tendons and blood vessels. And then she starts crying, like she always does, as if every time she touches them it’s as shocking as that first time when she found me…

I’ll stick on my headphones; that’s what I’ll do. Listen to something loud, so loud that there’s no room in my head for Sarah and her ten trillion lucky breaks.

My hand wraps around cool metal and I’m about to close the door of my room, to shut the whole world out, when I glance across the hallway into Sarah’s room. There’s her guitar, propped up against the desk, a reminder of how much Fate likes to smile down on my sister while leaving me stuck in the shadows.

Any chance I can get a turn in the luck department? Please? Maybe sometime this century?

Chapter 2 Wonderful things happen…to other people

“It looks nice!”

Pamela, my best friend, is lying. It’s something she does pretty regularly.

“It doesn’t look nice,” I tell her as I stare at my bizarre reflection in the full-length hall mirror. “It looks crap. Before, I had no boobs, and now – now it looks like I’ve got two satsumas shoved up my T-shirt.”

“But in a good way!” Pamela shrugs uselessly. “Maybe you just need to slacken the straps or something…so they’re not so high.”

High, as in tucked just below my chin, where – unless I’m very much mistaken – boobs aren’t meant to be. Well, bang goes two weeks’ allowance on a Wonderbra that probably does wonderful things for other girls but makes me look like a freak.

“You’ve really got to be more positive, Pumpkin!” Mum had told me this morning when she caught me hugging a cushion across my non-existent chest while sighing at the sight of Destiny’s Child bouncing around in spangly bras that could barely contain their bosoms on some old video they were rerunning on MTV.

“Be more positive”: that’s what Mum always tries to tell me if I’m down about anything. Maybe if she stopped calling me Pumpkin for five minutes I might feel more positive, of course. (Just a thought.) But you know, like most human beings, mothers can’t be wrong all the time, so I decided to try and do the positive thing, just this once, just to keep her happy. And so this afternoon (spent shopping and window-shopping, like every other Saturday), me and Pamela wandered into the underwear department at BhS, laughed at all the old lady knickers (big enough to hold a week’s worth of groceries, if you sewed the legs up), sniggered at the G-strings (not enough pant to cover a postage stamp, never mind your girly bits), and bought myself a slinky, black Wonderbra. Which I am now wearing, and which is making me feel about as slinky as a baboon in a fairground hall of mirrors.

“Hold on…” says Pamela, and before I can stop her she’s got her hands up the back of my top and is trying to wrestle the straps a little looser. “There! Now if I just do this…how’s that? Better, huh?”

Better…no, I don’t think so.

In front of me, all I can see is a girl wearing size 12-14 black trousers, a boy’s (aged twelve) grey Gap T-shirt, with two satsumas loitering in the middle of her chest (one higher than the other), while a hand holds up her dull, brown hair in what is supposed to look like a loose and lovely topknot but is more like a gently collapsing bird’s nest.

God, I’d be irresistible, if I wasn’t such a walking disaster…

“You might as well let it go,” I tell Pamela, wriggling away from her hand and feeling my hair tumbling down over my shoulders. “It still looks lousy, whatever you try to do to it.”

Maybe I should grow my hair really long – that way I could drape it over my chest so no one would see that I don’t actually have one.

“Just trying to help,” Pamela mumbles, taking a step away from me.

I know she’s trying to help; she always does. But sometimes, the more Pamela tries to help, the more she puts her foot in it. Like the time she convinced me that the silver, spray-on hair glitter I bought looked excellent? I wasn’t so sure, but decided to believe her and wore it to the end-of-term Christmas party. Lucky it was the end of term; the nickname of “Granny” that the boys dumped on me that night – on account of my new-look ‘grey’ hair – had been forgotten by the time the next term started, thank God. Even if I still remembered.

“Look, you want a coffee?” I ask her, realising that Pamela’s acting like I’ve slapped her in the face.

“OK,” she replies, following me, lap-dog style, through to the kitchen.

Poor Pamela; she has to put up with me and my stupid black moods, but it’s cool – she knows how hard things get for me. It’s not as if Pamela’s life is some rose-tinted success story – me and her are neck-and-neck when it comes to being resoundingly average at school – but at least her size 12 body is all in proportion, even if she isn’t exactly Kate Moss gorgeous, and at least she doesn’t have an older sister who’s so stunning in every department that she can’t help but feel like the family booby prize by comparison.

‘Course, there is one area where my best friend is scoring considerably better than me.

“You said you’d show me the message Tariq texted you,” I nod in the direction of the bag Pamela left on the kitchen stool when she came round to collect me earlier.

I know what the message says, of course: Pamela only told me about twelve thousand times this afternoon. But then she’s desperate to dig out her mobile and show me the message for real, and if that gets her smiling again then I’ll act surprised (as surprised as she was to get a message like that) when she sticks it under my nose.

“Look, see?” she beams as, right on cue, the jumble of text letters dance in front of my eyes, just as I flip the kettle on.

“Hi, Pammie – what’s up? Tar x,” I read aloud, my voice practically drowned out by Pamela hyperventilating.

Not the most romantic message in the world; not exactly an excerpt from the love scenes between Joey and Dawson in Dawson’s Creek. But it’s enough to make Pamela feel like the most desired female in the Western hemisphere and I have to say I’m a tiny bit jealous, even though Tariq is the sort of boy I’d have to kiss with a paper bag on my head if we were ever in that last boy/last girl on Earth scenario.

“See? I told you! ‘X’ is a kiss, isn’t it?” Pamela babbles, stabbing at the phone and nearly erasing her precious message.

“‘Course it’s a kiss!” I grin, idly wondering if ‘x’ stands for kiss in all languages. What if ‘x’ is short-hand for ‘sod off’ in Vietnamese? But luckily for Pamela, Tariq is from north London, same as us, and so ‘x’ is most definitely a kiss and most definitely unexpected, since the only communication Pamela and Tariq have had so far is a few shy “hi”s across a crowded dinner hall. Who did he get her number from? What gave him the courage to call? And why’s he suddenly calling her “Pammie” when no-one else in the world ever has?

“Pammie…” says Pamela wistfully, leaning up against the gently gurgling fridge.

I guess it sounds more exotic than plain Pamela (in the same way chocolate digestives are more exotic than plain ones). Pamela Ann Jones: not the most memorable name in the world, as Pamela would be the first to agree. Not even an ‘e’ on the end of Ann for that extra scrap of glamour. But don’t get me wrong; I’m not putting her down for having a dullish name; after all, mine is only just a fraction more interesting. It’s just that it’s ironic, isn’t it, that my best friend happens to be called Pamela, while Sarah’s two best mates are named Cherish and Angel. Cherish Kofi and Angeline Girardot, to be precise. Memorable by name, memorable in the flesh, as most of the boys at Bakerfield School will happily tell you, if only they can get their tongues back in their mouths and their jaws off the floor. They’re like that about Sarah too (naturally), but I don’t want to sully my mind with thoughts of her right now. It’s been two solid weeks of Sarah, the competition and general parent hysteria about Sarah and the competition in this household and, right now, I’m kind of enjoying having the place to myself for five Sarah-free, parent-free minutes…

“So, what are you going to text back to him?” I ask ‘Pammie’, handing her a mug of milky coffee.

“God! I hadn’t thought about that!” Pamela suddenly switches from happiness to panic in half a split second.

Lateral thinking: that’s when your mind spins off at different tangents from one particular thought. Pamela, bless her, doesn’t do lateral; her mind works in one direction at a time, with blinkers fixed to either side of her brain to stop her from being distracted by incidental stuff. Now I feel bad for her, the last thing I want is to spoil her happiness by making her tense up about a suitable reply.

“How about…Hi Tar – hanging with Megan. What’s up with U? Pammie x,” I suggest.

“That’s brilliant!” Pamela beams. “But could you key it in, Megan? My hands are shaking too much…”

“Sure,” I shrug, taking the mobile from her and doing my good deed by tapping out the message.

“Hey, that’s not right,” says Pamela, being a backseat texter and pointing out the mistake I’ve just caught myself making.

“Hi Tar – hanging with Sarah—”

My stupid brain has just subconsciously sent traitorous messages through my nervous system, all because I’ve just heard the front door open and my sister’s laughing voice drift down the hall towards us.

“Oh,” says Sarah, stopping dead in the kitchen doorway. She’s got her wine-coloured velvet jacket on today, with those hipster Levi’s of hers that have worn in all the right places.

“Oh?” I shrug back at her, hoping I sound edgier than I feel as I quickly slam down Pamela’s phone and fold my arms across my lopsided, satsuma-look boobs. (Wish I’d got Pamela to even up the straps at least…)

Maybe it’s worked, me staking my finders-keepers’ claim to the kitchen and my right to a private conversation with my friend. Sarah’s looking weird: kind of flushed and surprised or something.

And then I see why…and it’s nothing to do with me trying (and probably failing) to be edgy or tough with her.

“Conor…” says Sarah, with her voice wavering and her hands fluttering, “this is my sister Megan. And that’s her friend Pamela.”

Behind her in the doorway is this tall guy I vaguely recognise from the Upper Sixth, in a denim jacket, with shaggy, fawn-coloured hair flopping around his face and a guitar case – the flash guitar Sarah’s borrowed from the music department – slung across one shoulder.

Instantly, I know that something is going on between the two of them. Sarah wouldn’t flush pink and act so flustered if it was just one of the regular boy mates she sometimes hangs around with. And regular boy mates don’t act the gallant hero and offer to carry your guitar home from rehearsal.

And just as instantly, when Conor’s face cracks into a heart-melting smile in my direction, I know that the world is not a fair place.

How else can you explain it when you’ve just set eyes on your soulmate…and realise he’ll never in a million years see you the same way?

Chapter 3 Good deeds = good luck?

“Oh.”

That ‘oh’ doesn’t sound too good. The cards on the table – some face down and some weirdly illustrated and facing up, spread out in some strange cross pattern – tell me precisely nothing. But for the old woman sitting across from me, it’s like she’s deciphering some ancient language or something.

Or maybe she’s just making it all up as she goes along.

“I see conflict with someone,” she mutters, shaking her head as she talks, sending minuscule whorls of peachy powder drifting from her face into still air that smells dusty, musty and Mr Sheen clean at the same time. “A girl. Someone close…close to you, and close in age. Does that make sense to you?”

Two years.

That’s all that separates me and Sarah, but it might as well be two decades or two continents for all we have in common. It’s been like that as far back as I have memories. Actually, my very first memory – when I was around two, which makes Sarah around four – is of being hot and uncomfortable, wriggling around in Mum’s arms in too many layers of knitted clothes and being told off. Why? Because I was distracting her and Dad from watching Sarah doing her one-girl singing sensation show – belting out Kylie Minogue’s I Should Be So Lucky. Ever since then it seems like I’ve had years of being told to shush and be quiet while Sarah has sung, skipped, tap-danced and dazzled her way through life.

Me? I’m a trudger – trudging through shifting sands while Sarah jogs right past me on the pavement towards some bright, shining future, which now includes great boyfriends, if Conor is anything to go by…

“It links in here, with this card that points to a feeling of unrest,” says the old lady, tapping a ridged, yellowish nail on the illustration of a stooped figure. “Almost of being weighted down.”

I’m finding it hard to concentrate – now that I’ve let a thought of Conor into my head I know I won’t be able to shake his face from my mind for hours. I wish I could stop thinking about him. I wish I could stop my hand from doodling his name every time I’ve come into contact with pen and paper over the last week. I even caught myself spelling ‘Conor’ with the alphabet magnets on our fridge door – I only just managed to scramble it (and the ‘Sarah sucks’ thing I’d spelt out a couple of minutes before) when Dad walked in on me.

“This conflict…there seems to be more to it than meets the eye. Am I right?”

Mrs Harrison tears her gaze from the cards and shoots me a look, which is kind of disconcerting. Well, the heavy blue eyeshadow is what’s really disconcerting. That and the peachy layer of powder covering her downy face, like some fuzzy mask. And the coral lipstick. You can’t miss the coral lipstick. Where can you buy make-up like that? Is there some secret, old lady make-up counter at the back of big department stores or something? The freaky make-up – that’s what’s made me (and every other kid in the street) avoid Mrs Harrison like the plague when I was growing up. The batty old mad woman at the house on the corner: she was practically guaranteed to get everyone under the age of twelve’s imagination going. If she was that freaky to look at, what must the inside of her house be like? Full of slugs and snails and puppy dogs’ tails?

Well, I’m here in Mrs Harrison’s house – a double first, since it’s also the first time in my life I’ve ever given her more that a vague, grunted “hello” as I scurried past her garden gate – and it’s a disappointment to my over-imaginative, eight-year-old self to see that it looks pretty ordinary. Like most old ladies the world over (my gran and my great grandma included) there’s a place for everything and everything in its place. Apart, of course, for the bookshelf that toppled over when she was dusting – the reason she called out to the first person passing (me) to help her lift it up.

Shyness – make that wariness – made me say very little as I followed her inside and lifted the lightweight, flat-pack shelves back upright. Once the job was done, and I’d been in her house just long enough to be surprised by its ordinariness, I thought Mrs Harrison might let me go with a simple thank you, or try and press a Werther’s Original (or whatever other strange sweet old people like) into my hand.

Wrong.

And wrong about the ordinary stuff too. “Would you like me to do a tarot reading for you, as my way of saying thanks? I know you young girls love anything to do with horoscopes and seeing into the future.”

What I don’t like is cliches – that girls my age should be into certain bands or certain TV shows or think certain ways, as if millions and millions of us can be lumped together as one dumb, trivia-obsessed bundle of raging hormones. But in this case, I had to admit Mrs Harrison had a point. Yeah, so maybe I’m the same as so many other people and not as individual as I want to be, but yes, I definitely wanted to see what the future had in store for me. Just as long as please, please, please don’t let it be more of the same…

This conflict…there seems to be more to it than meets the eye. Am I right? I ran what she’d just said through my head again.

“It’s my sister. We don’t get along,” I shrug, finally giving in and helping Mrs Harrison out with a confirmation or two. “My parents think I’m just jealous of her, but that’s not how it is. Not really.”

“I see,” says Mrs Harrison, glancing from me to the cards that are already face up, and back again.

Does she really see? Can those mass-produced, Lord of the Rings-style cards really let her peer into my mind, into my life? Can she tell how hard it is to be around someone who constantly puts you down in the smallest, subtlest, almost-invisible-to-the-human-eye way? A self-satisfied smirk in my direction here, a patronising dig there. A few of those a day add up to a lot of dents to a girl’s self-esteem over the course of weeks, months, years. Maybe that’s what Mrs Harrison is looking at now; not the ordinary, plain me on the outside, but the dented, bruised me on the inside.

Then again, the way her eyes are darting up and down from my face to the cards spread on the table, she might have spotted my scars. Quickly, I pull the sleeves of my fleece down and clutch them tightly in my fists.

An uncomfortable silence suddenly hangs in the air between us, which I realise is her waiting for me to say more about Sarah. But I won’t – if she really can do this stuff, if she really has some kind of a gift, then she doesn’t need me to tell her a thing. And if she’s just some batty old fake, then I’m not going to give her any more clues that she can use to make up some fantasy future for me.

“Let’s take a look at these…” I hear Mrs Harrison say softly as her strong-looking but wrinkled fingers flip over the last three cards that remain unturned.

The figures on them: they might as well be of Homer, Bart and Lisa Simpson, for all they mean to me. But not to Mrs Harrison, who makes the sort of small, appreciative “ooh” noise that my Mum does when Sarah does a turn in the living room, modelling her latest amazing outfit. Only this “ooh” is all for me…

“I see change, lots of change. One phase of your life is ending and a new one is beginning. And with it being in conjunction with these other two cards…”

She pauses, starting up with that tap-tap-tapping of her nail on the laminated illustrations again (but not drumming nearly as fast as my heart is now beating).

“…it’s a change that’s going to make you very happy. And it’s coming soon – sooner than you think.”

Change? Happiness? Coming my way soon? My heart is soaring so high I could kiss the thoughtful frown off Mrs Harrison’s forehead – only I won’t, since I don’t want to ruin a beautiful moment by getting peach powder in my mouth…

I’ve been holding my breath, looking for early sightings of this earth-shattering change coming my way. But life has been depressingly normal: Pamela’s been bleating on about her non-blossoming romance with Tariq; every teacher has ignored the fact that there are other subjects – and other teachers – at school and has saddled me with mountains of homework; and Sarah swanned out last night on yet another date with Conor.

I know this last fact because it was me who opened the door to him and had my second ever encounter with that smile. I tell you, no other boy has ever looked at me that intently or smiled at me so warmly in my life. Of course, it only lasted a nanosecond, before Sarah swooped on us, gathering up her coat and Conor, and practically hurtling the poor guy down our garden path.

But I don’t care; one nanosecond of that smile will keep me going till next time, whenever that might be. My head’s got a snapshot of his face and those friendly, soul-searching brown eyes, firmly fixed, deep in my psyche. And there’s a soundtrack on loop too…“Hi, Megan! Hi, Megan! Hi, Megan!” (I’ve erased the part that said “Is Sarah in?”)

“That one’s seventy-five pence, love.” A voice jars me out of my thoughts.

I glance at the tatty copy of Catcher in the Rye I’ve been holding and quickly put it down.

“No thanks,” I shake my head at the pushy guy behind the makeshift table covered in paperbacks.

I’m on my way home from another Saturday hanging out in town with Pamela. This stall: it’s parked up outside our local supermarket every weekend afternoon and I’ve never usually given it a second glance. But a few minutes ago, I found myself hovering, scanning the rows of bright covers, thinking that maybe I should lose myself in a book, to help pass the time till this amazing change decided to make itself known.

But I guess I shouldn’t be too impatient. It was only yesterday teatime that Mrs Fruitcake Harrison did her tarot thing on me.

“Go on…I’ll make it fifty pence for you!” says the stall guy, forcing Catcher in the Rye under my nose again. “It’s a classic! It’ll be good for your schoolwork!”

Which is exactly why I don’t want it. And probably the reason why I’d absent-mindedly picked it up in the first place – we’d read it already in English.

I’m smiling and shaking my head, already stepping away from the book and the hard sell, when something catches my eye. Witch Way Now? says a cartoony, gothic, black title on a blood-red book. Spells To Make Your Life Special! it says in smaller letters underneath. I can tell from the mock-serious lettering and the exclamation mark that this isn’t exactly some ancient tome of historical importance – it’s more like a tongue-in-cheek ‘spook’ cash-in on the back of the Harry Potter phenomenon.

But, cynical or not, I find myself picking it up and flicking through the pages. ‘The It Should Have Been Me! Love Spell’ makes me smile. I could sure do with some of that. ‘The How To Make Him Know I Exist Spell’ makes the smile start to fade as I become more intrigued. And then I spot it…

‘The Change Your Life Spell’.

“Fancy that one? Won’t get you many gold stars from your teachers, a book like that!” I hear the pushy guy guffaw. “Fifty pence for that one, love. As long as you promise to come back and turn it into a fifty quid note once you’ve got the hang of the spells!”

He thinks he’s a real hoot, this bloke. He’s not going to get a laugh out of me with pathetic witticisms like that – all he is going to get is fifty pence, in the smallest, most annoying pile of change I can rake from the bottom of my purse.

“Oi! You going to be the next Sabrina then!” I hear him call out to me when I’m already halfway down the street.

Of course I’m not the next Sabrina. Of course I don’t really believe in magic. But what I do believe in are signs and gut feelings – and maybe (just maybe) this book is the start of it all happening.

Maybe that’s rubbish, but so what – it only cost me a bunch of loose coins that were weighing down my bag anyway. And if I’m right, well, it could be the best fifty pence I’ve ever spent…

Chapter 4 Ice and fire…

I feel ridiculous.

According to the book, I need: a beeswax candle (is there any other kind?); a fresh sprig of lavender; an object sacred to me; and a peaceful, quiet room. The trouble is, I don’t have any of those. What I do have is a cinnamon-scented room freshener candle (unused, unloved Christmas present); some lavender aromatherapy oil (ditto); a copy of PJ Harvey’s Songs from the City, Songs from the Sea (my favourite rock staress, my all-time favourite CD and therefore my sacred object); and a room that is anything but peaceful, thanks to my dad roaring at the Manchester United versus Someone-or-other football match on the telly downstairs and Sarah twanging away on her guitar in her room across the hall.

“Come on…just do it,” I whisper to myself, trying to block out the noise and my feelings of total silliness. The point is, I don’t believe in magic, but I do believe in doing something symbolic, so if I go through the motions of this – with my reject Christmas presents and Songs from the City blaring on my CD player to drown out Manchester United and Sarah’s twanging – then I’m being positive. I’m saying if change is going to happen then I’m ready and waiting, not sulking in the corner while good stuff passes me by…(Wow – what would Mum make of that, if she could hear what I’m telling myself?)

First, light the candle…

Great – what with? I don’t want to spoil the moment and go trekking downstairs searching for matches. I’ll only get the third degree from Mum, hassling me about what exactly I want them for (to light the bonfire under the witch I’ve got stashed in my bedroom, obviously), so instead I just place the candle exactly in front of me on the carpet and stare at it intently, like I’m meditating or something. And then I realise that’s pretty stupid, because I need to look away at the book for my next set of instructions.

Move the sprig of lavender above the candle flame in anti-clockwise circles: not close enough to burn it, but enough to let the smell of the lavender infuse the room with its cleansing scent.

OK, so all I have is a small, brown bottle. I twist the cap off and it seems to make more sense to waft it (in anti-clockwise circles, of course) under my nose, so I can actually smell the damn stuff.

Next, hold your sacred object to your heart…

Easy peasy: I grab the empty CD box, with its cover of PJ Harvey striding through a night-time, light-strewn Times Square in New York, and clutch it to my chest. In the background, PJ growls above the roar of guitars.

Now, recite the thing you most want to change in your life.

Wow. How do I choose? Ever since I got the book home and studied this particular spell at close range, it’s all I’ve been able to think about. All through tea tonight, all through Mum and Dad twittering on to Sarah about her day’s rehearsal, I just drifted away, trying to figure out my options. And out of a long list of changeable situations (stuff like teachers realising I’m a shy genius rather than an underachieving loser), I settled on the main contenders, which just happened to be…

1 Boobs. Boobs would be good. Two of those – matching, please.

2 Sarah vanishing into thin air – that’d be nice.

3 My parents noticing I exist would be quite a novelty.

4 Conor. Just…Conor.

So how can I choose just one out of all of those? I stare hard at the cinnamon candle, the scent of which – even unlit – mingles headily with the lavender I’m wafting, hug hard on my CD, and whisper…

“Can you please let me in there?”

See? This is what it’s like. I’ve only been in the bath five minutes – a bath I announced to everyone that I was having, so no one could complain about no warning and full bladders – and now here’s Sarah, banging on the door with yet another loud, bleating demand for me to get out, to make way for her Royal Highness to get in here and floss her Royal Teeth, or whatever, before she goes out for the night. It’s not enough for her to rub my nose in it about the great Saturday night she’s got planned (some amazing party, I bet, in someone’s amazingly huge house in the west end, with the amazingly beautiful Conor to keep her company). Oh no, it doesn’t matter that the only thing I’ve got planned for tonight is a long, lazy bath, with Jim Carrey – courtesy of a DVD – for afters. Sarah has to edge her way into my privacy just that little bit more, making out like I’m selfish or obstructive or something, lying here among the steamy bubbles. It’s got to be for Conor’s benefit; Dad’s still roaring at the never-ending football match and I can hear Mum cackling away with Auntie Kelly on the phone.

Conor is in Sarah’s room right now…when I first ran the bath, I heard them chatting as she let him in the front door and led him up to her room. After that, I turned the taps off and had a deliberately shallow bath, just so I could listen through the walls as Conor began to sing along to the track Sarah was strumming on the guitar.

But now, shallow bath or not, I have to get out of it. I can’t relax with her hammering on the door every ten seconds.

“OK, so you’ve got your way! Satisfied?” I blink at her, hauling open the door and shivering as the chilly January air seeps in through the gaps around the front door and slithers up the stairs to slap my bare, wet skin. Against that, no amount of towelling fabric can keep you warm.

“Yeah, yeah! I just need in for two minutes!” Sarah glares at me, all pretence of niceness gone – as usual – when Mum and Dad aren’t around.

Yeah, yeah. Two minutes, two hours…it doesn’t make much difference. Sarah’s point was to get me out, to ruin my moment, and she’s done it. She wins again, as usual.

The bathroom door slams shut behind me and I find myself shivering miserably on the spot, too cold and dejected to move, suddenly too weary of waiting for my ‘life change’ to do anything but stare off into space, zombie-ing out to the background soundtrack of Dad and the telly roaring, Mum yackety-yacking, and…and…a soft, comforting voice.

“Megan? Are you OK?”

In my frozen moment, I turn my head (a mistake – rapidly cooling beads of water trickle uncomfortably from my wet hair to my goose-pimpling back).

But my bones warm up to centre-of-the-Earth temperatures when I see Conor, perched on the edge of Sarah’s bed, arms resting on his knees, those soulful brown eyes staring right at me, reducing me to the shivering, vulnerable mass of jelly I am underneath.

“Yeah…” I nod, feeling my teeth start to chatter in time to my head-nodding.

“C’mere,” he motions to me, leaning over to switch on the small convector heater in Sarah’s room.

Instant warmth – in two ways. How can I refuse? Even if shyness is practically paralysing every stilted step I take towards him.

“You and Sarah,” he smiles at me as I crouch down in front of the heater and, coincidentally, at his feet, “do you always bicker like that?”

He’s got a very fine silver chain around his neck, I notice. Whatever’s on the end of it is unseen, hidden behind the neck of his dark-blue top. Has Sarah seen it at close quarters…?

“Hey, what can I say?” I shrug, not looking him in the eye.

And what can I say? “See that beautiful, talented, exciting girl you’re going out with? Well, you do realise she’s a manipulating bitch, don’t you?” Hey, it may be the truth, but while his vision is currently (unfortunately) clouded by the rose petals of romance when it comes to my sister, it’s easier to be vague.

“I know what it’s like. Me and my big brother fought like crazy till he went away to university. Best thing that ever happened to us – now I have a great time when I go to visit him, and we always go out together when he’s home. Before last summer, we’d have been more likely to kick each other’s heads in than go for a pint together!”

I realise what he’s trying to do; he’s trying to comfort me. Big wow. And I don’t mean that sarcastically: no one in my family – Mum, Dad, Sarah – has ever tried to rationalise it; none of them has ever suggested that what goes on between me and Sarah is normal and will pass. That’s because Mum and Dad keep their heads in the sand, and because what goes on between me and Sarah is anything but normal, even if it does seem like harmless bickering on the surface. Oh, no – I don’t expect any cosy chats over a few glasses of wine in some student union in the future. The sooner me and Sarah have enough independence and money, I can guarantee that the two of us will keep as far apart from each other as the occasional enforced family get-together will allow.

“How old’s your brother?” I ask, flicking a shy look Conor’s way.

Worn, grey cord jeans, Kicker boots, fleece-lined denim jacket, dark-blue top, that glint of a chain at his neck, the floppy, slightly unwashed hair, a grin that brings his whole face to life, big, brown eyes with a fluttering of sandy lashes all around them. In the computerised filing section of my brain, it’s all noted, all bookmarked.

“Twenty-one. Three years older than me. He’s aiming to do a Masters degree in Financial Regulation and Compliance Management.”

“Whatever that is,” I hear myself saying as I start to thaw out in front of the heater.

“Exactly!” I hear Conor laughing and, self-consciously, I start laughing too, feeling slightly hysterical that I’ve inadvertently cracked a joke with the one person I’d wanted to make an impression on since the moment – freeze-framed forever in my memory – that I saw him.

Of course it all gets ruined. It has to, doesn’t it? Knowing my luck?

“Ready already?” Conor smiles at something over my shoulder. That something being Sarah. I turn and see she has red-rimmed eyes, probably from ramming her contact lenses in too quickly in her rush to get back here once she heard me and Conor talking.

Filthy.

That’s the only word to describe the look Sarah gives me with her reddened eyes. But hey, what’s new?

I stumble to my feet, and with a quick wave ‘bye in Conor’s direction, pad barefoot across the hall towards my own room, feeling the warmth of the heater and Conor’s friendliness being replaced by icy prickles on my skin, courtesy of the wisps of draughts in our house and the frosty glare I can still feel emanating from my ice queen of a sister.

Chapter 5 Funny? Peculiar…

“You sat next to him, practically naked?!”

That’s Pamela, whispering, even though the classroom is almost empty. I say almost: Miss Jamal, our English teacher, is in a bit of a huddle over at her desk with Mr Fisher, the music teacher. Wonder if there’s anything going on with the two of them? Miss Jamal is kind of OK-looking and Mr Fisher is pretty cute for someone who must be about thirty, so it’s not like it’s a totally wild, out-of-the-question idea.

Hmm – and how would Sarah feel about that? I know she’s seeing Conor, but ever since she first mentioned this Battle of the Bands stuff, it’s been “Mr Fisher” this, and “Mr Fisher” that every five seconds. You know, it really wouldn’t surprise me if she had a bit of a thing for him…

“Didn’t you just want to die of embarrassment, Megan?!” Pamela gasps.

“I wasn’t naked!” I whisper back, handing a pile of muddled textbooks down off the shelf to Pamela’s waiting hands and peering out through the door of the walk-in cupboard at the two teachers. “I told you, I was wearing a towel!”

Me and Pamela are on volunteer tidying duty, spending our precious Monday morning break trying to make sense of the jumble on the shelves here. I really mean it about the volunteer bit; we haven’t been forced into it and we’re not complete mugs or anything, it’s just that when you’re a stunningly average student, teachers tend to give you a hard time. Unless, of course, you prove yourself to be an exceptionally accommodating and pleasant pupil. So when Miss Jamal asked for help with this deadly dull task, me and Pamela (my equally average accomplice) offered our services straight away. If earning Brownie points with your teacher gives you an easier ride, then hell: I say, go for it. (I did spot a ‘How To Study Better Spell’ in my new book yesterday, but as it involved geranium oil, a bird feather and a piece of coal – none of which I happened to have handy – I never got round to trying it out.)

“Yeah, OK, so you were wearing a towel, but still, Megan! Weren’t you mortified?!”

“No,” I shrug. “I wasn’t. I know I should have been, and I know normally I absolutely would have been, but somehow…he just didn’t make me feel uncomfortable.”

It was true. However shy or weird I felt sitting with Conor for that little while on Saturday night, the one thing I didn’t feel was awkward. Or embarrassed. It’s like a miracle, really – normally, I hate my pear-shaped body so much that I’ll wrap a huge beach towel around me when I go swimming and only drop it at the last minute when I get to the poolside. On holidays abroad, I’m happier in long shorts and T-shirts than the micro-bikinis Sarah flaunts herself in.

“But, my God,” Pamela goggles her eyes at me. “Wearing next to nothing in front of someone you fancy…I’d just die!”

She’s imagining herself and Tariq, I can tell. You know, I’m really beginning to wish I hadn’t told Pamela about what happened on Saturday or that I fancied Conor in the first place. For a start, she’s pissing me off by making the whole thing sound seedy, and second, I’m not doing it to titillate her and get her mind working overtime about being in the same situation with Tariq. As if that’s ever going to happen. They’ve never even been in the same room alone together, never said anything apart from shy “hi”s (still!) to each other. I mean, there’s something fundamentally nuts about flirting by text and then acting too timid to talk to each other in the (fully-clothed) flesh, isn’t there? OK, so I’m no super-confident ladette, who has a posse of male buddies and would think nothing of asking a guy out – I’m just the exact, polar opposite. But even I know Pamela and Tariq are goofing around pathetically. She’s in a win-win situation: she likes him and knows for a fact that he likes her, so what are they waiting for? Some kind of matchmaker, like they had in Victorian times – or like they have in arranged marriages – to formally introduce them? God, I’m going to have to end up doing it, aren’t I…?

“Look, Pamela, me and Conor talking – it only lasted for about one minute, till my sister came scurrying in,” I say to the top of my friend’s bowed head. I try to bring her wandering mind back to the conversation by thunking a particularly huge pile of books down into her arms…

“Oww!”

“Oops! I’m sorry!” I gasp as Pamela clutches the top of her head and tries to rub the pain away with the palms of her hands.

“Are you OK in there?”

Close up, Mr Fisher has the look of an older David Beckham about him, but maybe that’s just because he’s got that Number One buzzcut that Beckham made famous once upon a time. Behind him, Miss Jamal frowns at Pamela’s whimpering and at the scattering of books over the cracked lino floor.

“I dropped them…only she, um, didn’t catch them,” I mumble uselessly in explanation, scampering quickly down the stepladder and immediately crouching down to gather up the mess.

“Come out here where it’s brighter, so I can check you haven’t been cut,” Miss Jamal motions to Pamela, who shuffles past me, her scuffed, black, school brogues sending textbooks skimming off to the farthest corner of the cupboard.

“It’s like an episode of Itchy and Scratchy in here!” Mr Fisher says wryly, squatting down and helping me gather up everything. “What was going to happen next? Was Pamela going to hit you in the face with a giant frying pan?”

“No – I was going to hide a bomb in a copy of David Copperfield and then ask her to read it out loud to me while I ran away!”

Mr Fisher laughs and I get that same spine-tingling thrill as when Conor laughed out loud at something I said on Saturday night. People – male people – finding me funny; this is a real novelty. The only one who’s ever found me remotely funny up till now is Pamela, and that’s ‘cause it’s in her Best Friend contract. (Just like it’s in the contract that I have to listen to endless tales of longdistance longing from her.)

It’s fair to say that my family have never found me funny. You know how you get a certain feeling that people have a set opinion of you, and no matter what you do or don’t do, they’ll always think that way? Well, my family probably think I’m a lot of stuff: difficult, moody, psycho even (hey, don’t forget the scars – they never let me), but I can safely say that it would never occur to them to find me remotely funny. Funny peculiar maybe, but funny ha ha? You’ve got to be kidding.

“Listen, I’ve got a bit of a problem…” says Mr Fisher, suddenly getting kind of serious on me.

It’s on the tip of my tongue to say, “Well, shouldn’t you see a doctor?” but I bite my lip and hold myself back; there’s only so much fooling around you can do with a teacher, even one who laughs at your jokes.

Instead, I raise my eyebrows in what I hope comes across as an expression of intelligent questioning, but which probably looks more like the look on a bunny’s face two seconds before the juggernaut splats it.

“You know this Battle of the Bands competition that’s coming up?”

I nod. Of course I do. Haven’t I been singing the words to Ash’s Girl from Mars every spare minute of the day since it dawned on me that that was what Conor and Sarah were rehearsing together in her room on Saturday night?

“Well, there’s only two weeks to go and there’s a hell of a lot of work to do with the school band that’s entering—”

Wow! You mean something involving my sister isn’t gold-plated perfection?!

“—actually, it’s more a case of sorting out everyone else, like the lads who are doing the lighting for them, and the crew in the art department who are supposed to be coming up with a backdrop…”

Whatever. But why exactly is he telling me all this? I don’t think Mr Fisher even knows my name – he only joined Bakerfield at the end of last summer, long after I’d opted out of Music.

“Anyhow, the point is, it’s like spinning plates, and I can’t manage to co-ordinate everything, and put the band through their paces, all on my own. I need help.”

“Oh,” I mutter, open-mouthed, for lack of anything else to say. Now I must look like a cross between a startled bunny and a cod, for God’s sake!

“Yeah, so I was having a moan to Miss Jamal about it just now, telling her that what I really need is a runner – someone to zoom around and help me sort everything out – and she suggested either you or…”

He’s bumbling now, throwing a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of Pamela somewhere out there in the brightly-lit classroom. Told you he didn’t know my – or my friend’s – name.

“Pamela,” I reply, helpfully filling in the blank. “And I’m Megan.”

“Megan. Yes, of course,” he grins, knowing he’s been caught out. “Anyway, Miss Jamal said that you two are always very willing to offer your services, and usually—”

He glances around at the general untidiness swamping the floor.

“—very efficient. So what about it?”

“Um…what?” I mumble, knowing exactly what he’s saying but too stunned to believe what I’m hearing.

“What about helping me out? Being my runner? It means sitting in on every after-school and weekend rehearsal, and then coming to the Battle of the Bands competition too. You’d need the afternoon off school, but I’d sort that if you’re up for it.”

“I’m up for it,” I mutter, hardly able to move the frozen muscles in my face to make the words come out.

He must take my lack of facial expression to mean I’m not keen.

“Are you sure? Because I can always ask Pamela – if she doesn’t have permanent amnesia after these books scoring a direct hit on her head!”

“No!!” I squawk a little too loudly. “I mean, yes, I’d love to help out. And, um, my sister’s actually in the band.”

“Yeah? You mean…Sarah?” I see Mr Fisher frown, instantly ruling out Angel and Cherish as obvious relations and settling on Sarah by a process of elimination.

I can see he’s struggling to see the resemblance. But I don’t care. I’m not offended; I’m elated – already a change is happening in my life, and it seems to be a change of luck. OK, maybe that’s not the exact change I wished for over my PJ Harvey plastic CD cover a couple of nights ago, but it’ll more

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