First published in paperback in Great Britain 2012

by Electric Monkey, an imprint of Egmont UK Limited

239 Kensington High Street, London W8 6SA

Text copyright © 2012 Laura Jarratt

The moral rights of the author have been asserted

ISBN 978 1 4052 5672 8

eISBN 978 1 7803 1079 4

www.electricmonkeybooks.co.uk

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher.

For Mum, who taught me to read and so gave me the key to a bottomless casket of treasure.

Contents

Cover

Title page

Copyright page

Dedication page

Rewind

Eight months later . . .

1 – Jenna

2 – Ryan

3 – Jenna

4 – Ryan

5 – Jenna

6 – Ryan

7 – Jenna

8 – Ryan

9 – Jenna

10 – Ryan

11 – Jenna

12 – Ryan

13 – Jenna

14 – Ryan

15 – Jenna

16 – Ryan

17 – Jenna

18 – Ryan

19 – Jenna

20 – Ryan

21 – Jenna

22 – Ryan

23 – Jenna

24 – Ryan

25 – Jenna

26 – Ryan

27 – Jenna

28 – Ryan

29 – Jenna

30 – Ryan

31 – Jenna

32 – Ryan

33 – Jenna

34 – Ryan

35 – Jenna

36 – Ryan

37 – Jenna

38 – Ryan

39 – Jenna

40 – Ryan

41 – Jenna

42 – Ryan

43 – Jenna

44 – Ryan

45 – Jenna

46 – Ryan

47 – Jenna

48 – Ryan

49 – Jenna

50 – Ryan

51 – Jenna

52 – Ryan

53 – Jenna

54 – Ryan

55 – Jenna

56 – Ryan

57 – Jenna

Fast-forward

Acknowledgments

Rewind

The stereo thumps out a drumbeat. Lindsay yells and reaches into the front of the car to turn the volume up – it’s her favourite song. The boys in the front laugh and Rob puts his feet up on the dash. I smile like I’m having a good time, squashed in the middle of the back seat with Lindsay dance-jigging around on my knee and Charlotte and Sarah on either side of me. I wish Steven would slow down because the pitch of the car round the country lanes makes my stomach lurch and I don’t think he should be driving this fast.

Charlotte’s giggling and rubbing Rob’s head over the back of the seat. She likes him, I can tell. He rolls a joint and takes a drag, then passes it to her. She inhales the smoke right down. I shiver inside. Mum and Dad would go crazy if they knew I was in a car with people taking drugs, and if they saw me in Lindsay’s halter-neck top and short skirt. Charlotte passes me the joint and I shake my head. She shrugs, her face scornful, and Lindsay grabs it and takes a few puffs before passing it on.

The car careers round another corner like we’re on a track ride at the funfair.

I sort of wish I was at home, tucked up on the sofa with Mum and Dad and Charlie watching TV. But when the bottle of cider goes round the car, I drink as much as the others so they don’t laugh at me for being the youngest. For being a stupid little girl. My eyes feel funny and heavy with the mascara Lindsay brushed on them earlier. I don’t know who this girl is. It’s not the me who stacks the dishwasher every night for Mum and helps Charlie paint his Warhammer figures at the kitchen table.

I drink more cider, but that doesn’t give me any answers, just makes me feel a bit more like throwing up.

Lindsay leans forward and kisses Steven on the neck. Open-mouthed. Sucking hard. He’ll have a bruise there tomorrow.

Rob laughs. ‘Get a room!’

And Steven waves to him to take the wheel while he cranes round to catch her mouth.

The car swerves and my stomach clenches.

Sarah’s quiet, probably miffed that Charlotte’s after Rob and there’s no one for her.

Lindz whoops as Steven takes the wheel again and floors the accelerator. The car surges forward and hurtles faster and faster down the road.

We hit a straight stretch and Steven spins the wheel from side to side, hands in the air, steering with his knees. Us girls scream and laugh all at once. I force my giggles out.

Something white swoops low in front of the car. Steven shouts out and the car veers towards the hedge.

An owl!

He grabs the wheel and we shriek with relief. My heart steadies again though I feel sicker than ever.

‘Fairy!’ Rob jeers at him and Steven’s face sets harder in the rear-view mirror. His eyes glitter and he slams down on the accelerator.

We’re moving rally-car fast. The January frost coats the hedges in the headlights’ beam as we flash past.

We wheel round another bend into the dip down to Harton Brook. Another twist in the road, and another.

The needle on the speedo reads 70 mph and the girls and I are really screaming. Steven’s knuckles are white on the wheel and even Rob takes his feet down off the glove compartment.

We shoot over the bridge into the bend straight after it.

The stereo bass batters my ears.

And then . . . then the car feels different underneath me. The wheels . . . they glide and spin.

Bumps in the road . . . I can’t feel them any more.

We’re floating.

And I remember. Remember how Mum always nags Dad to slow down here. ‘It’s a frost pocket. There’s black ice here,’ she always says.

Suddenly Rob starts to yell and Sarah shrieks. And I know why the car feels funny. Why it’s skating on the road.

Steven cries out, ‘Shit! Shit!’

The car spins off the road, crashes down the steep bank into the field below.

We’re not gliding any more and my bones shake like they’re falling to pieces.

Thump . . . thump . . . thump from the stereo.

Screaming.

So loud.

I’m thrown upwards as the car turns over.

Then sent slamming down again.

The car rolls once more and my head hits the roof.

Blackness.

Dark.

So dark.

But it’s not safe like it is when I’m snug in my bed. In my own little room.

This is choking dark.

Through it, the screaming reaches me again.

Deafening.

It won’t let me stay, pulls me back to the sound.

I open my eyes.

I’m pressed up against the roof of the car. It’s upside down. Charlotte’s hanging over the back seat, her head half out of the rear window. Blood drips along the shards of the broken glass. Her legs pin me to the roof and I can’t move. My arms are trapped under her. I shove, but she doesn’t move.

There’s a sharp, bitter smell in my nose. I recognise it, but I can’t remember what to call it.

Lindsay’s not on my lap any more. She’s in the front between the seats. Her eyes stare up, wide and glassy. Lifeless.

I wonder why it’s so light, why I can see Lindz, and the panic rises in my throat.

I know.

Coils of light – orange flames – lick towards me.

An acrid stench of burning.

The screaming is coming from me now.

The flames touch me. I can’t move away, can’t get my arms free. They stroke my skin in a white-hot sear of agony.

The pain . . . oh God . . . the pain.

It goes on forever.

A voice yells, sobs, ‘Hang on, I’ll get you out.’ A hand grabs my leg and pulls me hard and fast, away from the flames. Out from under Charlotte’s body.

Rob yanks me out of the door. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I couldn’t get it open in time.’ One arm hangs useless by his side. He puts the other arm round my waist and half drags, half carries me away.

I know I’m howling with the pain and I can’t stop. Nothing’s ever hurt like this before.

He collapses on to the grass with me. Steven’s bent double beside us, rocking back and forth on his knees. Sarah’s there too, whimpering and holding her head.

Rob looks at me. ‘Oh my God, oh . . .’ and he starts to cry too.

I let myself slide back into the dark again as the car explodes.

Eight months later . . .
1 – Jenna

Ugly people don’t have feelings. They’re not like everyone else. They don’t notice if you stare at them in the street and turn your face away. And if they did notice, it wouldn’t hurt them. They’re not like real people.

Or that’s what I used to think.

When I was younger.

Before I learned.

When I was small, my mother used to take me shopping with her. Thursday is market day in Whitmere and she bought her fruit and vegetables from the organic stall there. The stallholder had a purple-red birthmark running the length of his face and across his mouth. It made his bottom lip stick out, all swollen and wet like a lolling tongue. I wished Mum would buy our food from somewhere else because I had to try to forget his face whenever I looked at the vegetables on my plate or picked up an apple.

He couldn’t speak very well either. I assumed he wasn’t all there in the head. Somehow not looking right made me think his brain was as wrong as his face. I could never stop staring, fascinated by how my stomach turned and how worms crawled along my spine when he sucked back on that flabby lip in a nervous tic. Mum told me off for it when she caught me.

She thought I was being helpful when I washed the fruit and veg for her at home. I never had the courage to tell her I was trying to wash him off them.

Once I asked her if we could buy our stuff from another stall. Why did we always have to go to that one? And she explained what organic meant, about pesticides and fertilisers and protecting wildlife. But she finished with, ‘Besides, some people need our support more than others.’ I never asked again, but I thought it was stupid because ugly people don’t have feelings.

I know better now.

That’s why on a warm day in early September, I wasn’t there for the school photo. I was sitting on the canal bank instead. The Orange River we called it because of the iron deposits in the soil that leached out to stain the water a murky rust colour.

I’d skipped school for the first time ever. Mum would’ve written me a note if I’d asked her, but then I would’ve had to explain and see the understanding come into her eyes. See her blink to hold back tears.

I checked my watch. The girls would be in the toilets now doing their hair and make-up, squealing about how bad they looked. As if. Then they’d line up on the staging in the hall. Best faces for the camera.

Oh, they’d notice I wasn’t there. But nobody would ask why. The teachers would be relieved because when they hung the photo in the school foyer, one face would be missing. I bet they’d even ‘forget’ to ask me for a note.

Ugly people don’t have feelings. We’re not like everyone else.

2 – Ryan

The water in this stretch of the canal was a funny colour – looked like Mum’s carrot soup. I steered the boat along, hand resting on the tiller bar. From the time since we’d last passed a town, I reckoned we must be about ten miles from Whitmere. Time to start looking for a mooring. Didn’t want to get too close. Towns meant trouble. Too many people.

I could hear Mum inside the boat, clattering around and singing some tree-hugger shit to herself as she made dinner. Not tofu again, please. I swear they made that stuff to convert vegans to meat. Cole had agreed with me about that. Tasted like candle wax, he’d said. But then if someone asked Cole what a vegan was, he’d say, ‘It’s someone who farts a lot.’ Death by beans, he used to call Mum’s cooking. It’s not really true. We don’t fart more than everyone else, but when he met us, Cole’s stomach had some trouble readjusting after a life of eating dead cow.

I cruised on a bit further. Nowhere good to stop yet. Too far from any roads. I didn’t fancy hauling my bike over four muddy fields in the middle of winter before I got to the nearest lane.

The smell of bean stew wafted out of the door and I listened to the familiar sound of water lapping on the boat hull as I scanned ahead. There were some houses coming up in about a mile – looked like a village. I squinted for a better view. Only a couple of the houses seemed to be near the canal. The rest were set back. There was bound to be a road nearby so this was a possibility.

I yelled into the boat. ‘Might have found a spot.’

‘I’ll be there in a minute,’ Mum called back.

She always got a buzz when we came to a new place. Me, not so much. Maybe I used to; now it was just same old, same old. This place could be different though. I had a plan for this one. I’d not told Mum yet, but even thinking about it made my stomach churn, in a good way.

It’d be better if Cole was still around to help me break it to her. He’d have backed me up, but he’d been gone a year now. He got tired of travelling, he said – found another woman to hook up with, one with a house and a couple of kids. Mum said I should forget him and move on. Travellers moved on – that’s what we did. But moving on in your head’s harder. I remembered stuff all the time. Things he used to say or do. Times we had a laugh together. Like when I told him about Chavez, the guy Mum was shacked up with before him.

Cole had frowned. ‘Mexican?’

‘Nah, from Bishop’s Stortford. Real name’s Jeremy, but he changed it. Thought he was Che Guevara – if Che spent his life permanently stoned and bumming around on a narrowboat.’

‘Sounds like a tosser to me.’

‘They were all tossers before you.’

He’d winked at me, then raised his voice so Mum could hear. ‘Yeah, well, you gotta kiss a lot of frogs before you meet the handsome prince, eh, Karen?’

Mum, predictably, freaked at him, yelling about women’s emancipation and respect while we cracked up laughing. Then she threw cushions at us until Cole grabbed and tickled her, and made her laugh too.

I spotted a copse of willow trees on the bank ahead, and a bridge across the canal – a road. Were we too near the village? You couldn’t see the houses from here and the footpath was so overgrown that I doubted anyone walked along it often. Cars going over the bridge noticing us? A risk – but the wall was high and if I pulled in just where that alder tree was, I reckoned we’d be tucked away out of sight. This might be it.

Mum came up the steps, shielding her eyes from the sun, and I pointed to the clump of trees.

‘Perfect! My clever son!’

Her hands fluttered round my face, stroking it, touching my hair. She smiled and my stomach churned, in a bad way. That smile was too bright, too fixed. Not right.

‘It’ll be good here. I can sense it. There’s good energy. The ley lines meet here and they’re rising up to greet us.’ She turned that smile on me. ‘It’ll be different here.’

I looked at her, wanting to say, ‘Like you said the last place would be different, and the one before that,’ but I kept my mouth shut. Couldn’t risk unbalancing her mood. Besides, we needed to moor up somewhere and we needed money. Whitmere had a market where she could sell the jewellery she made. Maybe we’d make it through the winter before they moved us on.

I steered Liberty towards the bank. Mum sat on the roof, her bare feet dangling in the doorway. Silver rings on her toes, and in her nose and eyebrow. Hennaed hair glinting copper in the sun. The last of the New Age travellers, who never grew up.

‘Feel that energy, Ryan, feel that energy.’

3 – Jenna

There’s something about waking up early on Saturday morning before the rest of the family. The whole weekend stretched before me and, for a few hours, I had it all to myself. A quiet house. Peace.

My magazine had an article on how exfoliation made the skin glow and apparently people in French spas spent a fortune battering themselves with water jets, so I turned the shower up high enough for the water to sting my shoulders while I scrubbed all over with a loofah. But when it came to washing my face, I turned the spray down. Low pressure, cool water. I never forgot to do that. Couldn’t.

I gave myself a scalp massage with the new hair conditioner, giving it time to soak in before rinsing it off. The bottle said it’d make my hair full and glossy. When I cleaned my teeth, I timed myself with a watch – two minutes like the dentist said. I had to do the flossing blind though; there was no mirror above the basin. I’d thrown the towel stand at it when I got back from hospital. Dad had taken the pieces away without a word. Nobody replaced it.

I sat down at my dressing table to put on the moisturiser and the sunscreen the dermatologist prescribed. It had to be done a certain way – tap the moisturiser in and then massage it thoroughly over the whole scarred area to keep the tissue soft and stop it contracting. The sunscreen was easier and only had to be smoothed over gently. My skin lived by this routine now.

I rough-dried my hair and gave it a quick smooth with the tongs, then threw on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt.

Raggs took one look at me coming down in my old ‘walkies’ trainers and ran around in circles chasing his tail. I grabbed his lead in case we needed it and stuffed it in my pocket with a couple of apples for the ponies and one for myself. He did his usual thing of hurtling down the garden and back to me again, over and over, as if he was on a bungee cord. I caught him up at the gate that led out into the paddock and down to the canal. The paddock was ours, two acres bounded by high hawthorn hedge to shelter the ponies. We bought the Shetland, Ollie, to keep Scrabble company when Lindsay’s horse was sold. It felt like Lindz had died all over again when Clover went, but my dad said no father would be able to stand seeing his daughter’s horse running in the field while she lay buried in the ground.

I whistled to the horses and Ollie headed over first, led by his greedy little tummy. Their velvet noses snorted at my hands as they chomped the apples. Raggs ran along the hedge line, nose to the ground as he followed rabbit trails.

I could see Lindsay’s home clearly through the trees, a Georgian manor house that dwarfed our old farmhouse. There was a figure in the garden, wearing pyjamas and a brown robe. He stood and stared at the rose bushes, statue still. Mr Norman. I hadn’t seen Lindz’s dad for weeks. I watched him for a few minutes, wondering what he was doing, and then he turned and shuffled back into the house, slowly, bent over like an old man.

Best not to think of Lindz today. Not on such a peaceful morning. The pain was always there to catch me if I did, always too raw.

I patted the ponies’ necks and followed Raggs down the field until we got to the thicket of trees that lined the footpath through to the canal. Not many people walked this stretch now it was so overgrown. Raggs disappeared into the undergrowth. He knew this walk as well as I did so I paid no attention and concentrated on picking a path through the nettles. The leaves on the willows above us were still pale green. They’d start to yellow soon, then fall. Raggs and I would kick them up as we walked. He hadn’t seen leaf-fall before – this would be his first autumn. He’d love it.

I lifted a branch aside and came out on to the canal towpath. Raggs was already there peeing up a tree. I patted my leg and he fell in beside me as we strolled along the gravel path. But he stopped abruptly after a few metres, his whole body a line of quivering attention, and I looked up to see what he was watching, expecting to spot a heron or something.

Then I stopped too.

It wasn’t a heron.

A narrowboat was moored up ahead of us and there was a boy on the bank washing the boat windows.

He was stripped to the waist and barefoot, wearing nothing but long shorts. His hair was the colour of the honey Mum bought from the farm shop, his skin tanned the same shade.

I ducked back into the trees, bending to grab Raggs’s collar. We were going to go the other way now, but the stupid dog jerked away from me. I patted my leg frantically, but he ignored me. He took a few steps towards the boy.

‘Come back,’ I whispered. ‘Come back.’

He fidgeted, dancing with his front paws on the spot, and then he made his mind up. He shot off towards the boat, yapping.

‘No! Raggs! Heel! Heel!’

But he’d gone, leaving me cowering in the trees.

4 – Ryan

You have to scrub really hard to get splattered flies off windows. Especially when there’s a week’s build-up of suicide bomber insects mashed on the glass. Maybe if insects could talk it’d be different. Maybe they’d warn each other in hushed whispers about the danger of Light. Don’t go there, one would say. My cousin went chasing Light. Always a fool, he was. Always after a new thrill and one day he never came back.

Then again, maybe not. The ability to talk didn’t seem to make humans less stupid.

A girl’s voice called out somewhere down the bank and I glanced up. Then a small ginger mutt came hurtling towards me out of the trees, barking like crazy. He slammed into my bucket, sending it into the canal, and then he cannoned into me.

‘Ouch!’

His paws scrabbled at my legs as he bounced up and down, yipping for attention. I crouched down and he leapt on to my knee. ‘Watch it, short stuff. Those are sharp claws.’ His tongue slobbered over my face. ‘All right, calm down. Where’ve you come from?’

‘Raggs! Come back!’ That voice again, sharper, panicking.

I rolled my eyes. What did she think I’d do with him? Wring his neck and throw him in the canal? Psycho narrowboat dog-murderer arrives in sleepy village – shock horror! We’d only been here two days. I’d expected longer before the locals found us and worked out we weren’t on holiday. But that’s villages for you. News travels fast and everybody knows each other’s business. So much for Mum thinking here’d be different.

The dog wanted to stay in my lap and get his ears stroked, but even if he hadn’t, I’d have hung on to his collar just to piss the girl off, stuck-up cow. Besides, he was a mad little pup and he might run into the canal. ‘Can’t have that, Shortie. We’d never find you in there. You’re the same colour as the water.’

‘Raggs! Raggs!’

‘Dead obedient, aren’t you?’ I said to him as he paid no attention to the voice and tried to hook his stumpy front legs over my shoulders so he could wash my hair too.

The girl appeared from out of the willow trees and stormed towards us. There was something odd about the way she walked – head down, hair over her face, shoulders tense. From what I could see, she had potential though – medium height, slim, sort of graceful even though she stomped along with her shoulders round her ears. Shiny hair the colour of a wheat field.

‘Hey, she’s hot,’ I whispered to the dog. ‘Stay here.’

She stopped about halfway, shouting ‘Raggs!’ again, not that it did any good. Her voice hitched on the name like she was close to crying and guilt pricked at me. Maybe she was a stupid up-herself bitch, but she was a girl on a deserted canal bank with a stranger . . . I didn’t like the idea I scared her.

‘Nice dog,’ I called out.

She didn’t come any closer.

‘He just wants to play,’ I shouted, but she still stayed close to the treeline. I gave up and pushed the dog down. ‘Go on, go back.’ He paid as much attention to me as he did to her, jumping straight back on to my legs. I nearly picked him up and took him over to her, but I reckoned I was less threatening crouched down. She started towards us again.

‘Raggs, come here!’

‘Who trained him?’ I said, grinning. ‘Cos you should ask for your money back.’

‘Raggs! Now.’

‘I think you’ll have to come and get him.’

‘I’m sorry he bothered you,’ she muttered when she got close enough for me to hear. I opened my mouth to say, ‘It’s all right, no worries,’ but the words choked in my throat when I saw the face behind the curtain of hair.

Jesus, her face . . .

The right side was chewed up by a wide scar running across her cheek, down her jaw and neck and disappearing into the collar of her T-shirt. Fuck, that was a mess. Not an old scar – still purple-red angry. But not brand new either as it was all healed up. The skin there wasn’t smooth like it should be, but rippled and puckered, especially on her neck.

What in hell had happened to her?

I didn’t see the rest of her face at first. The scar was all I could see, my eyes drawn to it like a driver rubbernecking at a crash scene.

She bent down and snatched the dog from me. That broke my trance and I caught a flash of her eyes springing tears before she turned away with the dog under her arm and hurried off.

I scrambled up. ‘Hey, no harm done. He was only playing . . .’

She all but ran down the path away from me.

No wonder she didn’t want to come over and get the dog. She must get that all the time – idiots staring at her with their gobs open, like Frankenstein’s monster had just lumbered into view.

You utter, utter dick! Why did you have to stare like that?’

Should I run after her and apologise? But what would I say . . . ‘Hey, I’m sorry I stared at your face’ . . . Hardly.

She disappeared into the trees.

I felt like shit. She only looked about fourteen and I’d made her cry. I should be ashamed of myself.

And I was.

I fished the bucket out of the canal. She’d gone and there was no way of making it right even if I had a clue where to start.

‘Ryan, I’ve got some tea for you here. Take a break,’ Mum called.

I went inside and Mum handed me tea in an enamel mug. I examined it. ‘What is it?’

‘Nettle.’ She beamed at me. ‘Very cleansing.’

Urgh! Gross. Reminded me of green piss. Not that I’d ever tasted green piss, but I reckoned nettle tea was how it would taste.

‘Did you finish the windows?’

‘No, I knocked the bucket over. I’ll go back out and do it.’

‘Drink your tea first. And you can tell me what you think of some of my new designs.’ Jewellery kit was spread across the table: stones, beads, silver wires and torcs and catches, leather cords.

I sat down on a floor cushion. No chance of chucking the tea in the canal then. Mum held up a silver torc with a jade stone carved into the shape of a dragon.

‘It’s great, Mum. You should make more of those. They’ll sell for sure.’

‘Good. It took me ages to get that right. Very delicate job, especially the tail. What’s wrong with your face?’

‘Nothing. Why?’

‘You keep rubbing it.’ She put her fingers on her right cheek. ‘Here.’

I flushed hot. ‘I do?’

She poked her tongue between her teeth in concentration as she threaded red beads on to a leather thong. ‘Mmm.’ Her hair was piled up in a scrunchie on top of her head. She looked like a pineapple.

‘Mum, if you get injured, like an accident, they can do plastic surgery to take the scars away, can’t they?’

‘Yes, but I don’t think they can make them disappear. Sometimes perhaps, but not always.’

‘What would give you really bad scars?’

‘I’ve no idea. I once saw a child with a terrible scar from pulling a hot pan off the cooker. Why?’

‘Just wondered. I’ll go and finish the windows.’

I filled the bucket again at the sink and managed to chuck the nettle tea away at the same time.

As I scrubbed the rest of the insect debris off the windows, I couldn’t get the puckered skin on the girl’s face out of my head, or the look in her eyes when she’d turned away. She’d have been pretty before that. Nothing incredible, just normal average pretty like a lot of girls are. Kind of cute in a quiet way. If I ran into her again, I wouldn’t stare. After all, I used to hate it when kids stared at me and Mum.

5 – Jenna

I towed Raggs down the lane away from the canal and we looped through the village so I didn’t have to go near that boat again. The stupid dog kept pausing to look anxiously at me and I tried to stop the tears rolling down my cheeks.

Even before the accident, that boy would be out of my league. I guessed he was a few years older than me and he was tall, around six foot, but he didn’t have that stretched-out look boys have when they’ve grown too fast. His shoulders were too broad for that and he had a whippy muscled thing going on that made me wonder if he worked out. The honey-coloured hair was streaked blonder on top and his nose had a touch of sunburn as if he spent a lot of time outside. He wasn’t boy-band pretty, but nobody would’ve thought him anything other than good-looking. Especially without a shirt.

If my feelings had gone away when I became ugly, life would be easier, but the wobble in my tummy when I saw a boy like that was still there. Even though he looked at me like I was a monster.

The tears fell faster, blurring the road ahead. ‘It’s all your fault, you useless dog! I told you to come back. I hate you!’

Raggs pulled out of the clump of brambles he was nosing in and ran towards me, his tail wagging.

‘Come on, you. We’re going home.’ Forget the weekend stretching ahead of me. I wanted to go home and crawl under my duvet and hide. Forever.

We passed Charlie in the garden where he was kicking a football around on the lawn. ‘Want to be in goal?’ he yelled as he dribbled the ball along on spindly ten-year-old legs.

‘No!’

He stopped and stared at me in surprise as I hurried into the house, leaving Raggs behind with him. ‘Jen, what’s up?’

I slammed the back door and ran upstairs.

In the bottom of my wardrobe, right at the back and wrapped in a towel, I’d hidden a make-up mirror, the only mirror I still had. I knelt down and unwrapped it with shaking hands. A wave of nausea rose up when I looked in it. It was as bad as ever. Like a horror film. The ugliest thing I’d seen outside the movies. No wonder that boy had looked disgusted. I bet he’d wanted to throw up at the sight of me. I did.

Better to have been Lindsay. Better to be dead than look like this.

The thing that lived inside me since the accident woke again. The thing that chewed me with grinding teeth. I wanted to hurl the mirror across the room. Scream. Break everything in sight. Rip the curtains down. Smash the window. Let the animal thing out.

But good girls don’t do that, don’t make a fuss, don’t upset parents. And I was a good girl so I curled up on the floor and sobbed silently instead.

When they took the bandages off in hospital for the first time, my dad had looked at me and cried. In fourteen years I’d never seen my dad cry, but he sat there and wept as if something inside him had broken. Mum tried to make him to stop, but he couldn’t so a nurse came and led him away gently. They weren’t sure they should give me the mirror after that. Mum and Dad were supposed to support me, but that wasn’t going quite to plan. I had to look in the end though. It couldn’t be put off forever. I told them that.

‘Now remember, you’ve still got a lot of healing left to do. This graft needs to take and it’ll be a while before the colour fades. The mask will reduce the scarring as long as you wear it properly. In a year’s time, it’ll look very different,’ the nurse said.

Mum’s hands trembled as the nurse raised the mirror to my face.

I looked in it and any shred of hope I had was butchered.

They gave me a jab to calm me down and the counsellor came later. Her face swam woozily in front of me. ‘Jenna, I need to check first that you understand what the doctors have told you about your burns.’

Yes, I’m not stupid. Third degree. Full thickness burns. They’ve been through all this with me when they harvested my skin for the grafts, and then again afterwards.

It means the burns are skin deep.

And beauty’s skin deep.

Mum knocked on the door. ‘Jenna, I’m going to the library. Do you want to come?’

No, I never wanted to leave the house again.

But that wouldn’t do. I’d promised I’d go out when the mask came off after those six long months. They’d been patient and hadn’t hassled me before that, but now they took every opportunity to get me out of the house. Refusing would lead to one of those conversations I didn’t have the strength for.

We got into Mum’s red Corsa and she drove carefully into town, making a fifteen-minute journey last twenty. She always expected me to be nervous in cars now, but I wasn’t. How much worse could it get?

Once we were in the library, she left me alone in the Fantasy section while she headed for the Crime and Thriller shelves. I found something I liked the look of and settled into a comfy chair to check it out. I hated taking a book home only to find it was unreadable so I always flicked through the first chapter before deciding.

I heard a voice at the desk counter next to me. ‘Is the craft shop closed?’

I looked up sharply. The boy from the canal . . . He was still in the shorts, but he had a white T-shirt on now.

‘Yes, the lady who runs it has gone for lunch,’ the librarian replied. ‘Can I help?’

‘My mum makes jewellery. I was going to ask if you’d be interested in a sample,’ he said, pulling a pouch out of his pocket. I wondered if I could slip away out of sight or if moving would make him notice me.

‘You’ll have to talk to Clare about that. She’ll be back in twenty minutes if you want to wait. Feel free to browse.’

Urgh! Now I had to move. I got up as stealthily as I could and ducked into an aisle. I sat down close to the shelf and let my hair fall over my face as I pretended to read.

Footsteps sounded on the cord carpet, the soft pad of trainers coming closer. And then . . .

‘Oh!’ He walked into me as he came round the corner and knocked the book from my hands. It skidded under the shelf.

‘Oh, sorry!’ He crouched down to fish the book out. ‘Didn’t see you there. Are you . . .’ He tailed off and I waited for the shudder.

He grinned at me.

What?

‘Hi again!’ He pulled my book out and handed it back to me. ‘I’m glad I’ve bumped into you . . . well, fallen over you! I wanted to say this morning, only you ran off . . . that . . . your dog . . . it’s fine. Dead friendly, isn’t he? I like dogs. Sorry if I came over as rude.’

I was too shocked to move away or speak. And . . . and he was looking me full in the face . . .

He had nice eyes – a sort of brown colour, warm and smiley. He’d looked at Raggs that way too.

He went on. ‘You surprised me, that’s all. The scar’ – he touched his face – ‘took me by surprise. I didn’t mean to be rude, honest.’

I gaped at him. Nobody ever, ever mentioned the scars. Their eyes slid away or they turned aside or they pretended they couldn’t see them at all. But nobody ever acknowledged them directly. Even my own family avoided talking about them in front of me, apart from those humiliating and painful times when Mum felt it was necessary for a serious chat about my progress. But in the way that he’d just done? So blunt? So matter-of-fact? No, nobody did that.

He scratched at his neck. His grin was sort of lopsided this time. ‘What I mean is, sorry if I screwed up.’

Screwed up? Oh yeah, you did that. For a few minutes in eight horrible months, I’d forgotten my face and enjoyed something as basic as taking the dog out. And then he’d made me feel like an ugly freak. Which I was, but I didn’t want to be reminded of it . . .

I blinked hard and opened my book, hoping he’d go away.

‘Good book? You read any of his before?’

I shrugged, unable to get words out, not knowing what to say if I could. Charlie aside, this was the first boy to talk to me since the accident. I avoided them at school and I’d have been shy of this one even before the accident. Close up, he was even cuter – the kind of boy girls would be drawn to like a magnet. My skin felt scratchy with nerves at having him so close, and having his eyes on my face.

‘I’ve read a couple. Not bad. He goes on a bit though.’ The boy chuckled. ‘So, do you come here often?’

Oh, I got it. That’s why he was talking to me. I was a joke. One big bloody joke. Talk to the freak and laugh behind her back about it later.

I scrambled up. ‘Fuck off!’

‘Hey, what’s wrong? I was –’

‘Fuck off!’

People turned to look at us and the shameful tears came again as they stared. As he stared.

I ran to find Mum.

She hurried towards me as I burst into the aisle. ‘Jenna, was that you shouting? What on earth is wrong?’

‘I want to go home! I want to go home now!’

‘Calm down. What’s happened?’

‘Now!’

From the corner of my eye, I could see the boy watching us, but he melted away when Mum stuffed her books on to a shelf and shepherded me to the door.

When we reached the car, she hesitated. ‘Are you sure you want to go home?’ she asked. ‘Only . . . well, Dad’s having one of his meetings.’

‘Oh, so that’s why you wanted me out of the house. I should’ve guessed.’

‘Darling, I know it upsets you and –’

‘I want to go home!’

She winced and put the car in reverse. I stared out of the window as we drove home in silence.

Dad’s meetings. His campaign group. The sorest of sore points. He hadn’t even had the courtesy to tell me about it. I’d found out when I came across a discarded newspaper. I came down one morning to find he’d rushed out and left the local rag open on the table by accident. I was folding it up when I saw the headline on the front page:

STRENTON MAN TAKES ACTION AGAINST THE MENACE OF DANGEROUS DRIVERS

I frowned and sat down to look at the article, my skin flushing and crawling the more I read:

Local businessman Clive Reed has taken his campaign to Parliament after enlisting the support of Whitmere M.P. Trevor Davies.

Following the car crash that led to the death of two teenagers and left his fourteen-year-old daughter horrifically disfigured, Clive Reed has been campaigning for action to be taken by county police to combat dangerous driving on our roads. The outcry caused when the eighteen-year-old driver of the car, Steven Carlisle, also of Strenton, was given a suspended sentence has made him even more determined to bring the issue to national attention. Carlisle was driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs, but walked free from court in June after the judge heard a range of character witnesses speak in his defence, including representatives from Whitmere Rugby Club. Carlisle received a lengthy driving ban, but with local opinion running high, Mr Reed’s pressure group has swelled in number.

David Morris, whose daughter was one of the two girls who died in the accident, has given the campaign his full support. ‘Clive has been amazing,’ he said. ‘After Charlotte was killed my wife and I were too distraught to organise something on this scale. Clive’s made people around here sit up and realise that we need to do something to keep our children safe.’

Mr Reed spoke to our reporter yesterday. ‘This verdict is a travesty of our justice system. The only fair result would have been a custodial sentence. We are now seeking a review of the handling of this case and we’re calling for tougher sentencing and a greater police presence on our roads.’ Mr Reed’s distress was clear as he added, ‘I would hate for any other parent to have to go through what we have all suffered.’

I was shaking when I stopped reading, and I was shaking again when Dad got home that evening and I confronted him. ‘When were you going to tell me?’ I asked as I threw the paper down on the table.

He sat down wearily. ‘When we thought you were ready.’

‘Horrifically disfigured – you let them print that in the newspaper. And down here’ – I prodded the paper – ‘it says a photo of me will be used in your leaflets. You’re going to put my photo in there. Without telling me. Without asking me.’ My voice rose to a scream. ‘What the hell gives you the right to do that?’

‘That was taken out of context,’ he protested. ‘It was only a suggestion from Charlotte’s dad. He thought it might help. Your mum said it wasn’t the right time to talk to you about it. We wouldn’t have done it without –’

‘Oh yes, like you told me about this whole campaign?’

‘Jenna, for God’s sake, we have to do something. That boy has ruined your life!’

The words were out there, though he looked like he could have bitten his tongue off for saying them. I got up and ran blindly to the door. He followed me up the stairs, putting his foot in my bedroom door as I tried to slam it.

‘Jenna, I didn’t mean that your life is over. Of course not, it’s all ahead of you. But look what he’s put you through, the pain, the operations. You could have died too!’

‘You didn’t even wait until the mask is off.’ I tore at the plastic mould on my face, but he grabbed my hands to stop me. ‘It’s me who has to wear this. Me!’

He hung on to my wrists. ‘Don’t. You’ll hurt yourself. It’ll be off soon. You’ll get back to normal then, see your friends.’

‘Oh yes, except my best friend is dead! It won’t be back to normal for her, will it? It won’t ever be normal.’ I hated Dad then. I’d heard him talk to Mum about how Lindz changed after her mum left and seen the frown crease his forehead when we went out together. He thought she was a bad influence. He couldn’t see her the way I did. How she glowed brighter than other people and that I wanted to sparkle like her.

‘But you’re alive, Jenna. Thank God, you’re alive.’

‘Yes, and I wish I wasn’t!’

Dad let me go and backed away. Mum came running upstairs and pushed him aside and he left me for her to deal with.

What he said stayed with me. There was no way out of this. I couldn’t go running to my parents and have them make it better like when I cut my knee playing with Charlie when we were little, or when I got stuck on my maths homework. This was never, ever going to go away. Like the man on the market stall, I’d be stared at. I’d be wrong all my life. No going back. No making me right.

Too soon we pulled into the drive. Mum had to park on the lawn because there were so many other cars there.

‘Why is he having it here?’ I muttered, wanting to know, but not wanting to speak to her either.

She hesitated before she answered. ‘Last time they met at the village hall, but the cars were vandalised. Paintwork keyed and the tyres let down.’

And I knew who’d have done that. We all knew.

‘They’ll be in the kitchen,’ Mum said. ‘Go in through the front door and straight upstairs if you don’t want to see them. I’ll bring you a hot chocolate.’

Charlie was doing trumpet practice in his room so I lay on my bed with my iPod turned up high to drown him out. Sometimes now I scared myself. Sometimes I couldn’t hold it in and go back to being Mum and Dad’s normal Jenna, even in the safety of my home. I wasn’t sure if any of that girl was still left. Perhaps the thing inside me had eaten her all away. Maybe I only acted at being her now.

Before the accident, I used to daydream about meeting a boy who didn’t want Lindsay or a Lindsay wannabe. He only wanted me. That was crazy thinking because Lindz was catnip for boys. She could get anyone she wanted. I’d watch her go into action, torn between admiration and jealousy, knowing I could never be like that. When she wanted the rich and unattainable Steven Carlisle, she’d even hooked him. But this dream boy would only be interested in me. We’d do regular things like go to the cinema, bowling with friends, hold hands, kiss eventually. Things I was ready for. Things Mum and Dad would be happy with. Things Lindz would laugh at as babyish.

And sometimes, after the accident, I used to dream it could still be possible. That someone would see past the scars and not care about them. Hopeless dreams. Stupid little girl dreams.

Dad sat on my bed and I jumped. With my headphones on I hadn’t heard him come in.

‘We’re having coffee and cakes. Come down and say hello.’

I turned the iPod off. ‘Why? So you can exhibit your freak to the crowd?’

His eyes registered his hurt and disappointment. ‘Where did that come from? Have some manners. Those people down there care about you. You’ve known most of them since you were a little girl. They’re doing this for you.’

‘If they care then they should leave me alone, like I want.’ I reached to turn my iPod on again, but he snatched it away.

‘Don’t be so selfish and rude. I want you down there in five minutes.’

So five minutes later, I went down to play the part of Daddy’s good, tragic little daughter. I smiled at the people while they smiled at my left ear. Mrs Crombie from the village shop cut me an enormous piece of chocolate cake and pressed me to eat it. Charlotte’s dad asked me heartily how school was going, which was brave of him, I guess, considering. Mrs Atkins from Belle Vue Cottage told me about her new kittens.

‘Does it make you sick to look at me?’ I wanted to ask. But Mum and Dad would never have forgiven me if I did, so I put the old Jenna on for them until I could escape back to my room.

Later, when they’d all left and the coast was clear, I crept down to the kitchen for a glass of milk. Mum and Dad were in the sitting room whispering to each other. I paused at the half-closed door to listen.

‘I’m worried, Tanya. She hardly comes out of her room. She won’t talk to people unless we make her. She never sees her friends. You said it would be different once she took the mask off.’

‘It’s only been a few weeks. She needs time to readjust. She’s gone back to school. That’s a start.’

‘But it seems as though she’s getting worse, not better. And what was all that about in the library today?’

‘I don’t know. She wouldn’t tell me.’

‘I know you’re worried too. I can see it in your face. She’s shutting herself off from everyone. I don’t want her getting like that poor bastard next door. He’s practically a hermit since Lindsay died.’

And I couldn’t stand to hear any more after that. I slunk back upstairs, the milk forgotten. Back to the safety of my room where I could lock the door on them all.

6 – Ryan

I snuck out of the library after the girl and her mother left.

Outstanding success there. Major league. I’d made her cry again. Only this time I didn’t have a clue why.

She was crazy. I hadn’t done anything.

If I saw her again, I was going nowhere near her.

I stood in the town square and pulled the sketch map out of my pocket. How did I get to the canal from here? When I looked up to get my bearings, three lads hanging around a black car were staring at me, narrow-eyed. I stared back at them just long enough to let them see I’d noticed, then I leaned against the lamp post next to me and examined the map. Just another set of small town lads who thought they were hard men. I found the street I needed and set off. I could feel their eyes following me and they straightened and stiffened as I passed them, but when I carried on ignoring them, they turned back to the car. It’s all in the body language, Cole said, in the way you stand, the way you walk. Get it right and they won’t touch you.

I never got it right before Cole came, but he sorted me out all right. He’d ridden into our lives four years ago on a Harley. We’d moored up by a skanky little place off the Llangollen canal – Mum’s Welsh phase – and Mum and I had gone to the Co-op to get some supplies in. The shop assistant followed us round from the moment we entered the shop. My face heated up as Mum strolled around filling her basket with lentils, carrots and peppers and the woman behind us watched, scowling.

‘Mum, hurry up, please.’

‘Quiet, Ryan. Don’t rush me.’

‘Can I wait outside?’

‘Oh, go on then. But don’t wander off.’

I went outside and sat on a bench. Some boys my own age, around twelve, kicked a football round the empty car park. It looked like a laugh, but I didn’t go over to join them. No point.

Quarter of an hour later and Mum still hadn’t come out of the shop. The boys noticed me and looked over, moving together into a pack, muttering. It set the hairs on the back of my neck on end. I knew this script, but Mum had said don’t wander off.

They came over, swaggering more the closer they got.

‘You a gyppo?’ one called. He was shorter than me, but stockier.

I shook my head.

‘You look like one. Don’t he look like one, Rhys?’ He turned to the boy nearest.

I balled sweaty hands into fists. I didn’t look like them, for sure, in the tie-dyed crap Mum made me wear back then.

‘Can’t you speak?’ the third asked, stepping closer.

‘Yes.’

‘Ha! He’s English. An English gyppo.’

‘I’m not a gyppo.’

The five surrounded me. The one called Rhys slapped me on the head. I scrambled up, meaning to make a dive over the back of the bench and run into the shop, but the stocky one grabbed me and kicked me in the knees.

Crunk!

I hit the pavement hard and brought my arms up to protect my face. The first kick wasn’t as hard as I expected – a taster. Maybe they hadn’t done this before. But it landed in my stomach and winded me all the same.

‘Go on, Huw! Boot him!’

The second kick slammed into my arms as the boy aimed at my face.

I heard them laughing.

‘Gyppo!’

‘English bastard!’

‘Kick his head in!’

Feet hit into me from every angle, in my back, my legs, my arms still curled around my head, my chest, stomach. I never got a chance to hit back.

Please don’t let Mum come out and see this. Please.

But please make it stop . . .

The feet kept kicking. Above the sound of their laughter, I heard another roar. An engine. Coming closer.

The kicks to my front stopped suddenly.

‘Brave little shits, aren’t you? Five on one.’

The kicks behind me stopped as well.

‘Get out of here. Unless you want to take me on too.’

Feet slammed on tarmac, running away. Big hands hauled me up.

‘You all right, kiddo? Let me see.’

He pulled my arms away from my face. A big man in leather trousers and a vest, tattoos down both arms – bands of Celtic knots, brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, and a beard. His chest hair poked over the top of his black vest. The Harley engine thrummed next to us.

‘Getting a bit of hassle?’ He grinned at me and wiped blood away from my nose with his hand. It was hot from the sun and as hairy as the rest of him.

I nodded.

‘No harm done?’

‘No, I’ll be OK.’ I sat up properly. ‘Thanks.’

‘No worries.’ He held out his hand for me to shake. ‘Cole.’

‘Ryan!’ Mum shrieked as she dropped her bags and ran towards us. ‘What happened?’

Cole stood up. ‘He had some trouble with the local kids, but he’s fine.’

Mum stopped in her tracks.

He looked at her. She looked at him. And that was that.

A week later he moved in.

I walked through the town, keeping an eye open for craft shops for Mum. There were a few potentials. I scribbled the names down. Better give her something to sweeten her up because when she found out what I was planning, she’d go mental.

The town looked like most of the country towns we stopped in, except for the lake on the edge of it – the mere that gave it its name. There were a few streets of shops and a mixture of houses, from the big, posh places to pokey cottages. You could probably walk from one end of it to the other in under half an hour. I passed the edge of a council estate and then I turned into a lane with a sign pointing to Whitmere Marina.

The boatyard was bigger than I expected, but there didn’t seem to be much going on there considering how many boats they had in. A ginger cat eyed me from its sunbathing spot on top of a van. There was an old guy in the dock area working on a flue on the roof of a narrowboat, his bald head burnt red. He looked up as I went over, squinting his eyes before he shielded his face from the sun.

I decided to get in first. ‘Excuse me, is the boss about, please?’

He looked me up and down. ‘Aye, lad, over there, back of that shed sorting a delivery.’

‘Thanks.’

The shed turned out to be the size of a small barn. There was no sign of life at first so I stepped inside and spotted a man at the back bending over a crate and counting out rope fenders.

‘Hello?’ I called.

He straightened up. ‘Yeah?’

‘Sorry to disturb you. Um, have you got a minute?’

He laughed and put the fender down. ‘That depends on how much you’re spending.’ He strolled over, dusting his hands off on his jeans. ‘What can I do you for?’

My stomach steadied when I saw the tattoos up his arms and the ring through his eyebrow. He was around Cole’s age, with a big build like him.

‘I’m looking for work. I wondered if you needed any help.’

He looked around. ‘I don’t see any sign up advertising a vacancy, do you?’

‘No.’ I shrugged and tried a smile. ‘Thought I’d ask though, just in case.’

He snorted. ‘How old are you?’

‘Sixteen.’

‘Ever worked in a boatyard before?’

‘No, but –’

‘Ever worked before?’

I hung my head. ‘No.’

In the pause that followed I got ready to apologise and get out of there. There were other yards I could try, but this was the closest. He broke the silence in the end with another laugh.

‘Guess you won’t have picked up any bad habits then.’ I looked up quickly and he winked. ‘Come on, convince me.’

I took a deep breath. ‘Um . . . er . . . I’m looking for work with boats because they’re what I know about. This is the first place I’ve tried and it’s a big site so I thought there was a chance you might have some jobs that needed doing. I’m good with narrowboats. We’ve had one all my life and I’ve been brought up around them and I do all the work on ours and I’m not scared of hard work or getting my hands dirty and –’

‘Woah! Slow down!’ He held up a hand to silence me, but he smiled. ‘Are you a local kid?’

‘Ah . . . no . . .’ This would be the difficult bit.

He frowned. ‘Moved here recently?’

‘Yeah.’

‘So where did you come from?’

I heaved a sigh. Might as well leave now. ‘Nowhere. We move around. We’re here for the winter.’

He rubbed his chin. ‘You’re a traveller?’

I nodded.

‘You got a police record?’

‘No.’

‘Cautions?’

‘No, nothing like that.’

‘So you said you had a boat. You mean you live on it?’

‘Yes, me and my mum. She makes jewellery. Good stuff, not rubbish.’

His lips pursed together in thought. ‘You were honest about it. You could’ve lied,’ he said finally.

‘I don’t lie.’

‘I wasn’t looking for any help, but now it’s sitting here offering itself up, I could do with another pair of hands around the place. Tourist season’s nearly done and I’ll have boats coming in for full maintenance soon. I can take more if I’ve got someone who knows what they’re doing.’ He nodded slowly. ‘You don’t look like you’d faint at pumping waste out or fall over with a bit of heavy lifting.’

I shook my head, and then wondered if I’d got that the wrong way round. Maybe I was supposed to nod.

He got the message though. ‘Can’t give you a contract. You’ll be casual labour, but I’ll send you on your way with a good reference when you leave, if you’ve proved yourself.’

‘That’s fine with me.’

‘You’re polite enough too. I could use you in the shop on Saturdays. We get a good bit of passing trade in at the weekend. Can I trust you with the till?’

I set my teeth together. ‘Yes, you can.’

He laughed. ‘I see you can keep your temper too. That’s important with customers, especially some of the stuck-up sods you get round here. Peace, lad, I’m not stupid. I can spot trouble when I see it and I don’t see it in you. I’ll give you a go if you want. It’s good to see someone your age getting off his arse and looking for work.’ He held his hand out. ‘I’m Pete, and that’s Bill over there.’

A grin broke over my face as I shook hands with him. ‘Ryan. And thank you!’

My first job! Yes!

7 – Jenna

On Monday morning, Charlie and I waited for the school bus at the crossroads on the edge of the village. He nudged me with his elbow as the bus came into view.

‘What?’

‘Will you look after my case for me on the bus?’

His trumpet case – he had a lesson today. Mum and Dad wanted him to learn an instrument so, of course, he’d picked the noisiest one he could. ‘What do I get in return?’

He grinned at me, the blond curls he hated plastered down with gel because Mum wouldn’t let him cut his hair short enough to get rid of them. ‘I’ll wait until you go to feed the ponies to practise tonight.’

‘You’re on.’ Charlie was not a natural musician. When he practised, we all suffered.

The bus drew up and Charlie abandoned me to sit with his friends. I made for a window seat at the front, putting my bag and Charlie’s case beside me so no one could sit there, and I took out a book. Now I didn’t have Lindz to talk to, I always read on the bus. The journey from Strenton to school took forty-five minutes, the bus winding down narrow country lanes to pick up in Whitmere and all the villages. I looked out of the window occasionally to see where we were, but otherwise I kept my head down.

Charlie paid me no more attention as he got off the bus than he had when we were on it, except to grab his trumpet as he went past. Big sisters were fine to play with at home, but were to be ignored at school in front of mates. The Prep department was in a different building to the Upper School and he and his crew ran off to play football in their yard before the bell went. I headed round the side of the building to the girls’ locker rooms. The noise hit me as soon as I went in, all the post-weekend chatter about who’d done what, with who and when. I hung my coat up and collected some textbooks I needed for the morning. This area was only for Year 10 so everyone here knew me; it was safe.

Walking out into the corridor was different. A bunch of younger girls stopped at the sight of me, their mouths screwing up before they turned away. And then the whispers . . .

When would it stop? We’d only been back a couple of weeks and I was still a novelty – Shrek Goes to High School. But would they ever get used to me?

A couple of Year 8 boys pushed into me, not looking where they were going, and I shoved them out of the way before they knocked me over. ‘Eww, that’s disgusting,’ the geeky spotty one muttered to his friend. ‘She should put a bag over her head or something.’ Even a minger like him found me repulsive.

The second boy sniggered and I couldn’t stand the idea of them following me down the corridor so I veered into the girls’ toilets and locked myself in a cubicle.

I leaned on the door for support as I waited for my pulse to slow and the usual choke of anger and humiliation to die away. Walking down that corridor was the hardest part of the day and every time I did it, I had to fight back the memory of the first day back at school after the accident.

The locker room had been bad enough as girls from my year rushed over to say, ‘Hi! We missed you . . .’ before their voices tailed off. Their eyes widened in shock, even though they all knew what had happened to me. But knowing it isn’t the same as seeing it. I saw the thoughts flash through their heads: if that happened to me . . . oh God, I’d die . . . it’s . . . it’s . . . They tried to pretend they weren’t horrified, but they couldn’t hide it. I didn’t know what to say to them. I wanted to run out of the building and phone Mum, then sit in the field and cry until she came to get me.

But she’d talked me through this so many times and I didn’t think she’d come for me anyway. She’d call the school and they’d send a teacher to find me. They’d already offered to get my form tutor to meet me from the bus, but I didn’t want that. To be escorted down the corridors would only make people stare even more – Exhibit One, Fugly Scarface with Mrs Barker as bodyguard. Instead Beth had met me at the lockers and linked her arm through mine to march me to the form room.

When a new girl gasped at the sight of me, Beth’s face set as stiff as the plastic mask I’d discarded only the week before. My heart raced so fast I felt faint and I needed her arm to stop me falling. The corridor went quiet – a Mexican wave of silence spread along it as people saw us coming.

Stop looking at me! Leave me alone! I screamed it so loudly in my head that I was scared for a second I’d yelled it for real.

Everyone around me took on that blurry quality as if I was sleepwalking through a nightmare. Fuzzy blobs of faces, staring bulbous eyes. Beth half-dragged me down that corridor; I couldn’t have done it by myself.

I took a deep breath and opened the toilet door, remembering just in time to look away from the mirrors. Another deep breath, and I stepped out into the corridor again.

Beth was sitting on the desk in the form room changing the cartridge in her fountain pen. She looked up as I walked in and I sensed she had news. Big news.

‘Jen, hi!’

‘Hi, good weekend?’ I sat down on the desk next to her.

‘Yeah, the battle re-enactment was brilliant! The best I’ve ever been to.’ Beth’s parents were members of a historical society who dressed up and did role plays of famous events in the area. This meant Beth wasn’t exactly the coolest girl in school. Tramline braces, glasses and hair that wouldn’t be tamed out of a frizz by even the hottest straighteners didn’t help her case either – Lindsay used to be really catty about that – but we’d been friends since our first day at school and I liked Beth no matter what anyone said. ‘I had this amazing costume – an amber underdress and a blue one over the top with this neat belt made of rope. Mum did my hair in plaits with ribbons wound in them. It looked totally authentic.’

She was not this excited just about a costume. There was more. ‘And?’

She giggled. ‘I met this boy . . .’

‘Yeah?’

‘Mmm, and he’s a really nice guy.’

Well, good for her. I’d met the biggest jerk on the planet myself.

‘His name’s Max and he’s in Year 11. And he’s asked me to go to the society’s harvest dance at the end of the month. I told you about it, remember? The one with the medieval theme.’

She still had more to spill, I could tell. ‘Yes, I remember. And?’

Beth went red. ‘Oh . . . he kissed me.’

‘No way! You jammy cow. Is he fit?’

‘I think he is,’ she said guardedly. That meant no, I decided. That meant Natasha Green and her friends – the bitch queens of our year – wouldn’t think he was. They’d raise perfectly plucked eyebrows at him and laugh when Beth was out of sight.

‘What’s he look like?’ After all, she could lie if she wanted. I’d probably never see him.

‘About that height.’ She pointed to an averagely tall boy chatting to a girl outside the classroom door. ‘Brown hair. He’s got a lovely personality.’

Which meant he must be hideous. Not that Beth and I were in any position to be critical because neither of us were likely to trouble the modelling world any time soon.

‘Is he local?’

‘He lives near Whitmere, but more your side than mine. He goes to Badeley College – boards in the week and comes home at weekends.’

‘Badeley?’

‘Um, yes. I asked him if he knew Steven Carlisle and he remembers him from before he got excluded. His older brother’s on the rugby team with Steven, but Max says he doesn’t like him much.’

I sniffed. ‘Max’s brother has good taste.’

‘Have you seen him around lately?’

‘No, but I think it was him vandalising cars at Dad’s campaign group meeting.’

‘What’s he doing now?’

‘Still working for his dad. Anyway, I don’t want to talk about that loser. So, you haven’t met Max before?’

‘Not exactly. I’ve seen him at other events, but I’ve never had a chance to talk to him. Parents around – just too embarrassing. But it was so mad on Saturday with the battle going on that we ended up spending loads of time together because my lot and his lot were on the other side of the field. We got on really well and when our side was celebrating at the end of the battle, he kissed me.’

‘Properly?’

‘Not at first. He snuck it in like it was part of the re-enactment. But I didn’t object, so . . .’

‘And how was it?’

She grinned. ‘Awesome!’

I prodded her. ‘Bitch! I told you you’d get there before me.’

‘Jen, maybe you should come to the next one. I know it’s not your thing, but . . .’ She hesitated. ‘It’s something to do. Get out, go somewhere new, you know.’

‘Yes, I’d go down a storm.’ I pointed to my cheek. ‘Authentically blown up with a musket ball.’

Beth flinched. ‘Don’t say that. I didn’t mean that and you know it.’

‘Sorry,’ I mouthed at her as our form teacher came in and we scrambled off the desks hastily before she went mental at us for sitting on the furniture.

8 – Ryan

On Monday morning, I lifted the bike off the boat with my ears still ringing from the sound of Mum crashing about in the kitchen. She hadn’t said a word to me since I got up, not even when she slammed a bowl of soya milk porridge under my nose and shoved a tub of salad in my rucksack. I cycled the eight miles to Whitmere and freewheeled down the long hill towards town, rattling over the last stretch of cobbles. As if my nerves needed any more jangling.

Eight fifty. I was early.

Pete stuck his head out of the office. ‘Mornin’. And a filthy one it is. Come in for a brew before we get started.’

I parked the bike up by the side of the Portakabin. Pete handed me a mug of tea when I went inside. Bill nodded to me, puffing up a cloud of blue smoke from his pipe.

‘See that semi-trad outside?’ Pete pointed out of the window.

I looked out at a yellow and black narrowboat hauled up into dry dock. ‘Yes.’

‘Needs an overhaul – do the works on her. You any good on the painting side?’

‘Yeah, not bad.’

‘The arty stuff?’

I nodded.

‘Good, because I’m not. Bill normally takes that side of things, but he’s got a lot on so I’ll let you have a go with this one. You give me a shout to check your work regular, mind. I can’t afford for you to be making a mess.’

I hovered by the sink, gulping hot tea and agreeing.

He threw an amused glance up to the ceiling. ‘Sit down and drink it, lad. You’re making Bill nervous.’

I shuffled over to the spare chair. I’d never seen anyone look less nervous than Bill did, sucking away on his pipe.

Pete’s mouth twitched. ‘Got first-day jitters, eh? I still remember my first day at work. Apprentice in a car plant in the Midlands. I was bleedin’ terrified.’

Bill laughed, a phlegmy rattle. ‘Aye,’ he said, stretching his legs out. ‘I were an electrician. Big firm up north of here. They used to torment us new lads something chronic.’ He stared at me, eyes narrowing in weather-beaten skin as he took another draw on the pipe. ‘Let’s hope this ’un’s better than the last, Pete. Terrible trouble, he were.’ He took his pipe from his mouth and leaned closer to me. ‘Drove us to beyond what a man can endure. Drove us there over and over again until we couldn’t stand no more. We ’ad to do something! We buried him under the storage shed,’ he said in a croaky whisper. ‘His bones is still there.’

My mouth fell open, until I caught his eyes crinkling up with laughter and I snapped my jaw shut again. Bill winked.

Pete slapped the desk and his laugh boomed out. ‘Your face . . . priceless!’

Bill creaked to his feet and patted a heavy hand on my shoulder as he took his mug to the sink. ‘You’ll do all right, lad. Never worry.’

All the same, it was stressful that morning. I was desperate to get everything right and just as desperate not to be a nuisance. I kept thinking of Cole too. I guess that was from being around Pete and Bill. They reminded me a bit of him and his mates. And they loved those boats. Cole had been like that with the bike.

After he moved on to the boat with us, he decided he needed to take a trip over to Shrewsbury and he took me along riding pillion. Mum was so loved-up that she let him talk her into letting me go as long as he rode slowly. It might have been slow to Cole, but to me it was like we were an arrow flying through the air. He’d bulked me up in his spare leathers so I didn’t look so much like a kid to any passing road cops who might pull us over to check he had permission for me to be on the bike. We travelled down country lanes for miles, my arms round his waist for balance, and I learned which way to tilt as we cornered and how far to lean out.

We stopped at a council cottage in a large plot just outside Shrewsbury. ‘This is Jeff’s place,’ Cole said, holding the bike while I scrambled off. ‘Jeff!’ he hollered to a small man fiddling with a bike engine outside the house.

The guy came over. ‘Cole, mate, how’s it going?’

They clapped each other on the back and chatted for a few minutes about people I didn’t know, until Jeff asked, ‘So, who’s this then?’

Cole slung his arm over my shoulder. ‘This is Ryan. He’s part of why I’m here. Me and his mum have a thing going and we’re together now. But she lives on a boat. Moves about.’

‘Ah!’ Jeff said, and I couldn’t understand why he sounded so sympathetic. ‘How much do you want?’

‘Nothing, man, nothing. Just look after her for me. Take her out. Keep her ticking over.’ He looked like someone taking his dog to the vet for the last time.

‘Cole, what are you doing?’ I interrupted.

‘Must be a special woman,’ Jeff said.

Cole’s arm tightened round me. ‘Yeah she is, eh, Ryan?’

‘Er, yeah, of course. But what’re you doing?’

‘Can’t take a Harley on a boat, son.’

‘You’re leaving it here . . . no, you can’t . . .’

‘Jeff’s an old mate. I wouldn’t want to see her with anyone else.’

Jeff wheeled the Harley towards the garage. ‘Any time you’re around, you drop in and take her for a spin. She’s still yours. And when you want her back –’

Cole held up a hand in warning.

‘Oh, yeah,’ Jeff said, glancing at me. ‘No, you won’t, course.’

‘Are you sure?’ I asked.

He smiled briefly. ‘It’s only a bike, kiddo.’

But I think he left a piece of his heart in that garage. I hope he went back for it when he walked out on us.

Pete sent me into town to the bakery at lunchtime. He told me to get something for myself too and there was no way I was getting that tub of quinoa and lentil salad out of my rucksack in front of them. Sorry, Mum . . .

She hadn’t talked to me properly since I told her about the job. Said she hadn’t raised me to be part of The System. But I didn’t care. I was finally having a go at real life.

It felt like a rebellion too. Especially as I watched the woman slapping greasy bacon on to white baps. I’d eaten meat before, but not since Cole went. He used to fall off the vegan wagon sometimes and take me with him for a burger. On my birthdays, he’d take me down the pub for a meal. We’d eat a packet of Polos between us on the way home so Mum wouldn’t find out.

When I got back with the food, Pete took the change from me without checking it and shoved it in his back pocket. I wondered if he’d count it later when I was out of sight. ‘Your tea’s on the side, lad.’

This time I sat down without being told.

‘You’re travelling people then,’ Bill said, licking his fingers as he finished the roll.

‘Er, yeah.’

He filled his pipe with tobacco from a cracked leather pouch. ‘All boat people was travelling folk once,’ he remarked. ‘The barge men. Used to carry goods all over this country on the canals. Lived on the barges with their families. The kids used to work too. Back in them days, the barges was pulled by horses. No engines then. So when they got to a tunnel, the horse couldn’t tow them through, see. One of the little ’uns would unhook it and lead it round and the other kids would lie on their backs on the wings of the boat with their dad and push against the tunnel wall with their feet. Legging, it were called, and they shoved the barge through that way. Damned hard work. My granddad grew up on one of those barges. Told me some fine tales about it.’ He smiled. ‘Aye, all the boatmen was travellers once.’

Mum had a face like she was chewing on a rancid nut when I ducked my head in through the door and came down Liberty’s wooden steps. She didn’t say a word.

‘Hey, you’ve been busy!’

She had rows and rows of finished necklaces, earrings and bracelets laid out on the folding table, and a pile of the dragon torcs. She must’ve been at it all day without a break. A twitch ran up my spine. Not a good sign . . .

‘I had to do something to keep busy instead of sitting here worrying about you,’ she snapped.

I thought of the food she’d made me, cast on the roadside halfway between here and Whitmere for the birds to peck at. She’d been on her own all day. I couldn’t remember the last time she’d been alone for so long – not since before Cole left. I thought of how never being away from her suffocated me and how I’d felt free today. And then how different it must have been for her, sitting here polishing stones until I came home . . .

I sat down beside her, guilt knifing me. ‘Today went fine. It’ll bring in some extra money anyway. Mum, these are great. Really great. Want a hand with anything?’

She took a breath in and combed her fingers through her mess of hair to loop it back. ‘I’ll start dinner. Tidy up for me and bag the finished ones.’

‘Want me to put the price labels on?’

‘Yes . . . yes . . . OK.’ She hesitated and forced a smile. ‘It was strange here without you today.’

I fished in my pocket and pulled out the bus timetable I’d picked up in Whitmere on the way home. ‘Got this for you. There’s a bus that runs through the village. Maybe you could go into town tomorrow and give those shops I told you about a try. And you could find out about the market. Do some shopping too?’

She nodded and put the timetable on the pinboard.

‘It’s an OK town,’ I said as she got a pan from the cupboard and took ingredients from the fridge. I thought I saw tofu and shuddered. ‘Plenty to look at and you’ll like some of the shops. Bet there’s even somewhere you can get some new supplies . . .’

I wittered on while she got dinner ready. The more I talked, the more she relaxed, so in the end I babbled on about nothing just to drive the day’s silence away for her.

9 – Jenna

Thursday was Charlie’s football night so I came home from school alone. I picked the letters up from the doormat and went to put them on the hall table, but a folded sheet of paper caught my attention. It was an A4 sheet folded in half, with the shadow of dark lettering showing through. I opened it.

Letters cut from a newspaper were glued on in a message:

UR A DEAD MAN

Steven – I knew it was from him. I headed for the hall chair before my legs gave way under me. Don’t overreact – this is typical of him. Always shouting his mouth off. It didn’t mean anything, I told myself, trying to calm down. He was trying to scare us, that’s all. For all Steven Carlisle thought he was a big man and not a stupid boy, when the car had crashed, he’d lain crying on the grass. It was left to Rob White to pull me and Sarah out while Steven whimpered and did nothing. He’d never have the guts to do anything to Dad, no matter how much he might hate us.

I tried to put it out of my mind and focus on my homework. If only Dad would drop this stupid campaign. It’d alienated most of the village against the Carlisles and while I didn’t care how that affected Steven one little bit, I did care if it kept people talking about the crash. All I wanted now was for it to be forgotten – as much as it could ever be possible for the village to forget Lindz and Charlotte’s deaths.

I never did understand what Lindz saw in Steven, apart from the looks of course. He thought the world rotated on its axis for him alone and treated everyone as if they should agree with him.

The scrape of a key in the front door lock meant Dad was home. I ran downstairs. Mum was with him. I handed him the note. He read it and passed it to Mum. His face didn’t flicker. He picked up the phone from the hall table.

Mum’s hand flew to her mouth as she read the note. ‘Clive, what are you doing?’

‘Calling the police. I’m not having that little thug try to threaten us.’

‘Are you sure that’s a good idea? Maybe it would be better to ignore him.’

‘Dad, let it lie, please.’

He dialled the number for the police station and walked off into his study with the phone.

‘Come on, let’s go and pick some apples,’ Mum said. I knew she was only trying to distract me, but I didn’t mind being distracted right then.

We walked down the garden to the two apple trees by our vegetable patch. Mum held the basket while I reached up and picked the ripe ones from the lower branches.

‘Get that one. No, up a –’ Mum stopped suddenly.

I followed the direction of her eyeline over the hedge and into next door’s garden. Lindz’s dad was standing there, staring into space. We watched him for a while, but he seemed frozen to the spot. Mum put her arm round my shoulders. ‘Come inside,’ she whispered.

‘Do you think we should say hello?’ I whispered back.

She shook her head uncertainly. ‘I think we’d better not, Jen. Last time Dad and I tried to speak to him, he got very upset. I don’t think he’s well at all just now. We might make him feel worse and we don’t want to do that.’

Maybe I was like Lindz’s pony – too much for him to see. I sort of understood that. I think perhaps I understood it better than anyone.

Charlie’s friend’s mum brought him home after football practice, and he came stomping into my bedroom, mud-spattered.

‘I got dropped from the team for the next game,’ he said, flopping on to my bed. Normally I’d have yelled at him for messing my duvet up, but he looked too upset.

‘Why?’

‘Doh – someone else was better than me.’

I put my homework down. This was going to take a while. ‘You’ve trained loads. Maybe you had an off day.’

He prodded my teddy bear in the eye with a stiff finger. ‘I was beyond bad, and anyway, it’s not the same now.’

‘Don’t do that to Barney. It’s not his fault. Why isn’t it the same?’

‘Because you used to be in goal for me before and I could practise shooting better.’

‘You said I was rubbish in goal!’

‘Yeah, you are, but it’s still easier when you have a goalie to aim around, even if they are useless.’ He prodded Barney again viciously. ‘You never do anything with me now.’

That was true. I’d hardly spent any time with him since the accident. ‘I was worried about getting my face hit by the ball.’

He pouted. ‘It’s better now though and you still don’t do stuff with me, even other stuff, not like we used to.’

I hadn’t realised he’d missed that. Maybe I had been too wrapped up in me. Most little brothers would have sulked like anything over how much attention I’d had over the past months, but Charlie hadn’t. ‘OK, so tomorrow night when you get home, we’ll practise your shooting. How about that? And we’ll keep doing it until you’re so awesome, they can’t wait to get you back on the team.’

His face lit up. ‘Thanks, Jen! Maybe you’re not the suckiest sister ever.’

‘Thanks, Charlie. Your compliments slay me.’ I laughed and shoved him off the duvet. ‘Now go shower – you’re minging.’

He stuck his tongue out and tried to rub his sweaty, muddy shirt on me, then trotted off to get cleaned up.

I finished my homework when he’d gone and went for a long soak in the bath before I went to bed. I fell asleep almost immediately.

A couple of hours later, something woke me with a start. I saw the landing light go on under my door. Dad shouted, ‘Stay in bed. I’ll sort it out.’ He thundered down the stairs. I heard him swear briefly and throw the front door open. Mum yelled, ‘Clive, don’t go out there,’ but I heard the crunch of his feet on our gravel drive, then Mum’s feet running downstairs too. When I crept to the top of the stairs and looked down, I saw the hall carpet was covered in broken glass. A brick lay on the floor by Mum’s feet and the window beside the door was smashed.

Dad came back in. ‘No sign of them now. And no sign of a car. That proves it was someone local.’ He snatched the phone up. ‘I’m calling the police again. Friendly chat, they said. Warn him off. That didn’t do much good. He needs locking up.’

‘I’ll go and check on the kids,’ Mum said. ‘Ask the police to keep the noise down if they come out. It’s school tomorrow.’

I scooted back to the bedroom. Charlie had slept through it all. If the roof blew off, he’d not wake. I pulled the covers over my head and pretended I was asleep because I was too angry to talk to Mum about it now. Angry with Steven Carlisle for being walking, breathing scum, and angry with Dad for getting us into all of this. The police wouldn’t find any evidence that Steven was involved – he’d have an alibi for sure.

Mum hovered in the doorway for a few minutes. I could sense she was unconvinced by my act, but she closed the door quietly and left me.

I burrowed my head into the pillow.

The helicopter engine buzzed loudly in my ears. Lindz laughed. ‘Come on, do it! Do it!’

I’d had this dream before. Always the same. She always laughed. Always ran forward to the open side of the helicopter with a big grin. Flung herself out into the sky, shouting ‘Come on!’ as she fell away from me.

And I always followed. Sick, knees weak, but I followed.

We fell through the sky together, pulling the cords of the parachutes at the same time. Hers never opened, but she still smiled, that same wild grin as she plummeted down to the deserted forest beneath, the canopy of the trees a rippling ocean of green.

It looked peaceful. I always thought that.

Until Lindz hit the first tree. She died a different way each time. Sometimes she hit her head. Sometimes she fell feet first. This time her neck snapped back like a broken doll as she plunged into the trees and disappeared.

I floated after her until my parachute got caught in the branches and I hung from the harness. The canopy snapped back into place above me – nobody would see me from the air.

Below, far below, Lindsay’s body lay on the ground. But me, I dangled there. Suspended in the trees where nobody would ever find me.

10 – Ryan

Does any pay packet feel as good as your first? Especially when you get a ten quid-bonus for keeping the shop customers happy. Pete was impressed with how patient I was with the old ones and how that made money land in his till. I tried to tell him it wasn’t difficult, talking to them about all the bargeware stuff because Mum was into all that, but he waved me off with a laugh and told me to enjoy the rest of the day.

I cycled into the town square and went into a craft shop with a jingly door curtain made of metal bells. Some of Mum’s jewellery was on sale in a locked counter on the desk and two women were bending over, examining it. ‘Ooh, Sandra, these are lovely. New in?’

‘Yes, I’m rather impressed with that range too. Very high quality and all handmade locally,’ the woman behind the counter answered. She looked up sharply as she noticed me. ‘Can I help you?’

‘I’m looking for a present,’ I said. ‘Joss stick holders?’

She smiled, the kind of smile a security guard gives you when they’re watching you, and she pointed me to a rack at the back. ‘You’ll also find a wide selection of fragranced sticks,’ she added, sounding like an advert.

I ignored the usual brass holders – boring – and rooted around until I found a painted one Mum would like. Her old one had got broken a few months ago and she’d been sticking incense sticks in a blob of Blu-tack ever since. I picked up two packets of joss sticks to go with the holder.

‘Do you gift-wrap?’ I asked the woman at the counter when I went to pay.

‘Yes, an extra pound if you want curling ribbon and handmade paper.’

‘Yes, please.’ It’d cost me more to buy the stuff myself and I’d probably mess it up.

‘Are they selling well?’ I pointed to the jewellery display as she made curls of silver ribbon with the scissors. How did women know how to do that stuff? I’d cut my finger off or something if I tried that.

She gave me a strange look. ‘Yes.’

‘My mum makes them.’

Her face changed – a smile spread over it. ‘Ah, you’re Karen’s son! She told me about you. Working at the marina, aren’t you?’

‘Yes, just finished for the day.’

‘Are these for your mum?’

‘Yeah, I thought I’d get her something with my first week’s wages.’

She got that cooey expression like the old ladies in the boatyard did when I helped them. ‘No charge for the wrapping then.’ She dropped her voice to a whisper and nodded over at the two women who were now looking at sequined cushions in the corner of the shop. ‘Those two have just spent fifty pounds each on your mum’s work. That’s a nice profit for both of us. Tell her to bring more in on Monday if she has any.’

I couldn’t wait to see Mum’s face when I got back with a present and good news, and I belted back to Strenton. I stopped at the bottom of the hill up to the village to strip my T-shirt off. Summer seemed to be lasting forever this year and the afternoon sun beat down on my shoulders as I powered up the hill, standing up on the pedals for better leverage.

Strenton came into view and I pedalled harder. I whizzed over the crown of the hill and then zoomed down the narrow lane that wound along to the canal cut-off at the bridge.

I saw something move by the hedge in a field to my left.

What the . . .?

Shit!

A flash of orange scudded in front of my wheels.

I swerved the bike across the road away from it, fast as I could. Jammed on the brakes. The tyres hissed on the road and I sailed over the handlebars.

The bike went sideways and I carried on forwards. I hit the road on my side and yelled in pain as bare skin ground against tarmac.

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