Lilah May's Manic Days Read online

  Text copyright © Vanessa Curtis 2012

  The right of Vanessa Curtis to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 (United Kingdom).

  First published in Great Britain and in the USA in 2012 by Frances Lincoln Children’s Books, 4 Torriano Mews, Torriano Avenue, London NW5 2RZ

  www.franceslincoln.com

  All rights reserved

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electrical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying. In the United Kingdom such licences are issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978-1-84780-246-0

  eBook ISBN 978-1-78101-053-2

  Set in Palatino

  Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY in November 2011

  1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

  To Mum, with love

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Q & A

  ‘You should ring Bindi, love,’ Mum says. ‘It’s the right thing to do. You two were such good friends!’

  I sigh. It’s nearly the half-term holiday and I don’t know what’s right or wrong any more.

  I’m not even sure who I am.

  It’s been a rubbish start to autumn. Mum and Dad are a bit stressed at the moment and, although I know why, it’s starting to make me angry. I have a slight problem with anger, you see. It doesn’t take much for me to flare up into a rage or to start snapping at Mum or sulking with Dad.

  My parents are not, and never have been, exactly ‘normal’.

  My mother is a clown. Yes, really. She entertains kids at children’s parties and she used to be good at it until our family kind of fell to pieces. Then recently she decided to spend more time with me and go to extra yoga classes to keep herself calm, but over the last few weeks I can see that she’s getting restless and really wants to go back full-time to her job as a clown.

  My dad tames lions and he’s quite good at ‘taming’ me when I get angry, but he spends most of his waking hours obsessing about big cats. Sometimes I wish I had a furry mane and a big set of teeth and claws because then he might pay me more attention.

  We got a bit hopeful because my brother – Jay – rang up after two years of us not knowing whether he was alive or dead.

  I asked him if he forgave me for what I did and the line made this loud humming noise and he wasn’t there any more.

  We couldn’t call him back but the police have been trying to trace the phone box he called from.

  Jay still hasn’t come home.

  And Bindi?

  She let me down.

  Big time.

  Imagine the worst thing that a best friend could do to you, and then triple it. Well, that’s what Bindi did to me.

  Groo.

  ‘Why won’t you just ring her up?’ Mum says again. ‘Friendship is really important, especially at your age.’

  We’re in the kitchen and Mum has come back from her yoga class and is ready to go to work later. She’s standing at the cooker in her clown outfit – today it consists of black-and-white-checked baggy trousers, big, black, lace-up shoes, a frilly white blouse with giant black buttons on and a frizzy red wig which sticks out in tufts on each side.

  I glare up from where I’ve been staring at the television guide for about half an hour. I couldn’t actually tell you what’s on. All the time I’ve been staring at the black print there’s been a boiling feeling of heat rising up from my feet to my head whenever I think of my so-called best mate Bindi. Even though we’ve been distracted because of Jay calling, all the time it’s been burning away beneath the surface.

  I’m fuming.

  Maybe I should start keeping my Anger Diary again. I’ve been too angry to write it for the past fortnight.

  ‘Lilah,’ my mother is saying. ‘Did you hear me? I said you ought to ring Bindi and talk it through with her. She was always such a nice little friend to you.’

  I grit my teeth and take a deep breath like Dad has taught me to. I’m supposed to count before speaking in an effort to stop the anger bursting out of my mouth like water from a broken tap.

  ‘Yeah, a nice little boyfriend-stealing friend,’ I mutter down at my lap.

  Mum hears me and turns around with a fish slice in one hand and the other hand on her hip. It’s kind of weird having a clown giving you a serious look. Mum’s lipstick is painted on in the shape of a big, red, smiling mouth but her eyes behind the white panda circles look stern and concerned.

  ‘Adam Carter wasn’t your boyfriend, Lilah,’ she says. ‘I think you’re being a bit unfair.’

  I scrape my chair back and huff off upstairs to my bedroom and slam the door. Then I feel guilty because Mum was making my favourite, fish pie, for dinner and I know she’s all worried about losing work during the recession so I creep back downstairs a few minutes later and shuffle sideways back onto my chair in the hope that she won’t comment on it.

  Benjie turns round three times under my chair, bites the end of his tail and goes to sleep. Sometimes I think that Benjie is my only true friend. Dad got him for me to help with my anger and it’s true – I’d never, ever take out my anger on this sweet, furry puppy.

  Mum spoons out the pie, covers it with peas and we sit at the kitchen table with the lamp on, steam wafting up from our plates and the radio blabbering away in the background.

  ‘Dad’s on his way home,’ she says. ‘Samson hurt his paw.’

  Samson is one of my dad’s lions at the zoo. Dad says that lions keep him sane – that and going out every Friday for his boys’ night out at the pub.

  Mum goes to her yoga class every Wednesday evening and comes home all tired and bendy.

  And me?

  I write in my diary or look at old family photos or listen to Slipknot turned up way too loud.

  When I was twelve I used to confide in Jay, until he went all strange and stopped wanting to hang out with his little sister.

  After Jay disappeared I talked about my feelings to Bindi.

  But that seems a long time ago now.

  I know I ought to speak to her but even looking at her makes me feel sick.

  There’s so much uncertainty lurking about everywhere.

  I worry that Jay won’t come back.

  I worry that I’ll hate Bindi forever after what she’s done.

  I worry that my anger will get out of control again.

  ‘Lilah,’ says Mum. She throws our plates into the sink and pulls off her itchy, red wig to rake her fingers through her short, blonde hair. It stands up on end like a demented hedgehog. ‘Give Bindi a call. Talk it through. For me?’

  She has picked up the phone and is holding it out in my direction.

  I take it, grit my teeth and try to calm my pounding heart.

  Then I take the phone upstairs, with Mum wishing me luck and making thumbs-up signs in my direct
ion.

  I sit on my bed and look at the picture of Bindi and me at last year’s school ball.

  She’s got her arm round my shoulders and we’re grinning stupidly. I’m in a blue, strappy, silk dress and she’s wearing a gorgeous red sari that her mum made for her.

  I look carefully at the photo to see if I can spot anything in Bindi’s eyes that might give me a clue as to what happened only a few months after that photo was taken.

  I can’t see anything there, though, other than friendship and laughter. She just looks the same as always, eyes sparkling and that big, wide grin and perfect white teeth.

  I bury my head in the pillow and throw the phone across the room.

  It’s getting tough at school.

  I used to sit at the back next to Bindi and we’d spend loads of time giggling and passing notes back and forth. Somehow she still managed to get straight As whilst my work went downhill like a mole on a pair of skis, and yet it never made the slightest change to our friendship.

  But with Adam Carter it’s different.

  I’ve got a thing for him. He’s got this cool blonde wing of hair which he gels up into a peak and when he slings a guitar round his neck and stands on stage in his leather biker jacket with a fag (unlit – he actually packed in smoking after I gave him a major lecture about death) hanging from his lip and a bored kind of expression on his face it makes me feel all hot and awestruck by him.

  I only once went on a date with Adam and it was a complete and utter dumptruck. (That’s a Lilah-ism. I have loads of them for different occasions). Anyway, the date sucked. I got angry and climbed up onto a high wall in the cemetery and Adam looked at me as if I were a stranger he didn’t want to get to know, and ever since then he’s been hanging around more with Bindi than with me.

  Groo.

  So school is kind of difficult now.

  I’m sitting in Chemistry at the back of the class. Bindi’s sitting right at the front next to Lola Rodriguez – the class swot. She knows the answers to everything and is another straight-A student, which makes me sick. Adam isn’t in my Chemistry class, thank God, or else I would die of embarrassment.

  ‘Right!’ barks Mrs Adamson. ‘Get into pairs and grab a Bunsen burner, please.’

  I see Bindi half turn round and give me a quick look. We used to pair up for everything. Our eyes meet for about a nanosecond and then I grab the arm of Daisy Morrison, the geekiest girl in class, and drag her over to the workspace that runs along the side of the chemistry lab.

  ‘You have to get a Bunsen burner,’ says Daisy in her strange, nasal voice. She blinks at me over the top of thick, black-rimmed glasses. Her hair is tied into two neat blonde plaits by white ribbons with strawberries all over them.

  Vile.

  ‘Why can’t you get it?’ I hiss. I run my hand through my own shaggy black hair, making it wilder.

  ‘You’re nearer,’ says Daisy.

  The girl is just so annoying. I mean, I’m about two centimetres nearer the equipment cupboard than she is.

  ‘OK, OK,’ I mutter. I make for the cupboard and grab a burner from the top shelf, but Bindi’s heading there at the same time and we sort of collide in an embarrassing mess of arms and hair and horror.

  ‘Sorry,’ she mutters, ducking under my armpit to grab a Bunsen burner and then rushing back to her seat.

  I sit down with Daisy and do my best to try and calm down my burning cheeks and thumping heart but it’s not easy.

  Bumcakes.

  Is this what my school life is always going to be like for evermore – me ignoring Bindi and her muttering at me? An endless round of tension and sulking and bad feeling?

  As I light the Bunsen burner and watch the blue-orange flame whoosh up into the air I think about what Mum said last night.

  Maybe I should speak to Bindi properly and try to sort out this mess.

  The trouble is, I just hate her so much for having sneaked around with Adam Carter behind my back and if I think about the two of them together it actually makes me retch as if I’m going to be sick.

  Daisy’s turning down the flame on our burner with a patient sigh.

  ‘You’d have the chemistry lab burned down,’ she says.

  I glower at her and fiddle with my nose stud. The teachers have given up asking me to remove it because I always put it straight back on about five minutes later.

  It’s kind of who I am – that angry girl with the nose stud.

  I’m not the girl I was three years ago.

  It’s all because of what happened with Jay.

  And now we’re waiting – to see if he’ll ever come home.

  When I get home Mum is sitting on the steps in the hallway with no lights on.

  ‘What is it?’ I say, alarmed. She never sits there in the dark. ‘Is Dad OK?’

  Mum sniffs and flicks the light switch on.

  ‘Yeah, don’t worry,’ she says. ‘He’s fine.’

  She’s wearing normal clothes, which is a bit of a shock because usually when I get home from school she’s either just back from a party or is about to go and do one.

  I hardly recognise my mother in jeans and a black jumper and boots. She looks young and sad without all the make-up on. Her blonde hair is lank and shapeless and her face is yellow under the harsh light.

  I can see all the sadness of the last few years etched into her skin and for a moment I forget about my anger and want to give her a big hug, except I can’t, because we’ve sort of forgotten how to do these things in my family, so we make do with passing head-pats and brief touches on the arm instead.

  I place my hand lightly on Mum’s shoulder for about three seconds but it’s enough to start her off crying again.

  I throw my black satchel into the hall and sit down on the step next to her. There’s a mirror there so I survey the two of us sitting with our knees hunched up, one of us with dark hair and a scowling expression, the other all tragic and pale and I realise that I almost look older than my mother. I try a smile instead and although my face feels like it might crack I do look a bit more like my real age so I try to hold the smile, but it’s no good, the corners of my mouth start trembling so I stop and resume my usual glare.

  When Mum has finished crying she blows her nose on a piece of toilet paper and masses of bits of white paper spiral up into the air and then settle like snow on the brown stair-carpet.

  ‘Is it Jay?’ I say. It’s even hard to mention his name. I never know what reaction I’m going to get.

  Mum shakes her head. ‘No – well, yes, of course. It’s always Jay. But today it’s just about me being a useless entertainer.’

  I wait. Actually I’m starving and there’s no smell of dinner which means we’re going to have to wait ages to eat, but I guess I owe it to Mum to listen to her woes, seeing as how she only does all this clown work to be able to help with my school fees.

  Mum brushes tissue off her knees and assumes a bright smile. I know it’s not real and that she’s doing it for my benefit.

  Seems that another mother has complained about me,’ she says with a loud sniff. ‘She said I didn’t look as if my heart was in it any more. Well – I almost asked her if her son had gone missing, but I didn’t because I’m scared of losing any more clients.’

  She hangs her head and starts sniffing again. Oh raddlewitch. Visions of mince and potatoes and carrots start to waft past my eyes.

  ‘Tell you what,’ I say. ‘Why don’t we get fish and chips? A surprise for Dad?’

  I reckon if I get on my bike and down to the fish and chip shop in five minutes we could be eating in less than half an hour.

  Mum nods and gets up. ‘Good idea,’ she says. ‘Sorry, Lilah. I haven’t had the energy to cook tonight. I’m a bit worried about all the work I’m losing in this blasted recession.’

  I nod but I don’t really understand why adults keep wittering on about recession. I mean – we’re still going shopping and putting the heating on and booking holidays in this family. So it can’t rea
lly be all that bad? Right?

  Mum is ferreting around in her purse. She hands me a twenty-pound note with another large sigh.

  ‘Go on, then,’ she says. ‘Plaice for me, haddock ‘for Dad, whatever you like for you, except a battered sausage.’

  My mother has a morbid fear of battered sausages. She says you may as well wrap your heart in lard and then ring for the ambulance.

  I get my bike out of the shed and put the lights on before whizzing off into town. The lights in the fish and chip shop are very bright and the hot greasy smell makes my stomach lurch with hunger. The staff are overworked and rushing about shouting orders to the back of the kitchen where a sullen-looking youth in a black-and-white-checked apron is dumping shovel-loads of white frozen chips into hot oil and prodding a few fish about.

  I get in the queue and am about to put in my order, so I’m thinking about whether I can afford mushy peas as well as the three fish. Then I get a whiff of something that’s so familiar that at first I don’t notice it, and then I know at once what it is and my stomach starts to jump with fear, and I turn round as slowly as I can, all the time hoping that it’s not who I think it is, and there she is, wrapped up against the cold in a dark wool coat and with a red sparkly Indian scarf around her throat. Of course I knew, because she’s always worn this vanilla-smelling ‘Soir de Paris’ perfume, even though ‘Soir de Morley’ would be more appropriate, really, since that’s where we live.

  ‘Hi Lilah,’ she says in a soft, apologetic voice.

  ‘Hi Bindi,’ I say in a strangled squawk.

  Then I realise that she’s not alone and I want the ground to open up and gulp me down quicker than I’m going to gulp this takeaway if I ever get it.

  But it doesn’t.

  ‘Erm, hi, Lilah,’ says the husky deep voice that I know so well.

  I lose my appetite.

  Just like that.

  Mum finds it hard to believe that it’s taken me an hour to pick up three lots of fish and chips from the local takeaway.

  She’s got a point. I would have only been fifteen minutes, except that after I ran into Bindi and Adam I ordered all the wrong stuff in a moment of insane temper and started coming home with a battered sausage, a saveloy, a chicken and ham pie and three cans of cherry coke. I realised that my parents would go mental so I had to cycle back to the shop, lurk outside until Bindi and Adam had left, go to a cash machine to take out some of my own money and then go in and start ordering haddock and plaice all over again.