Scarlett Part 6

'Don't know where else I can go,' I admit. 'I was aiming for London, the other night, but Mum doesn't want me there. n.o.body wants me here either, not really. Maybe Holly, but then she's nuts to start with.'

'Who's Holly?' Kian asks.

'My stepsister,' I explain, trying out the feel of the word in my mouth. It's weird, alien, like the piercing when I first got it. Like the piercing, I guess I'll get used to it.

'So happy families, right?' he says. 'Think you'll settle in?'

'They don't need me,' I tell him. 'Dad's moved on, got his new wife, new daughter, new baby on the way. What do they want me for?'

'No idea,' Kian grins. 'Can't see the attraction, myself. Bad-tempered, skinny kid with ketchup hair and poor taste in footwear...'

'Hey!' I protest. 'I have great great taste in footwear!' taste in footwear!'

He raises one eyebrow, his gaze flickering over the scary Velcro walking sandals. 'Sure you do,' he laughs.

I know he's teasing me, but I want to be cool, I want to be wild. I want to be a million miles away from a nice family girl in sensible shoes. I want Kian to know that.

I let the gold stud click against my teeth, so that he sees it. He doesn't look disgusted, like Mum when she first saw it, or horrified, like Miss Phipps. He isn't shocked or impressed, like Holly, Ros and Matty. He just looks curious, maybe a little sad.

I wish I'd kept my mouth closed.

'OK,' he says. 'Why d'you do that?'

'Don't know' I shrug. 'It seemed like a good idea at the time.'

Like about a million other good ideas I've lived to regret. What are you meant to do when you're crying inside and n.o.body even notices? You can shout and swear and stamp your feet, get into trouble at school, dye your hair paintbox-red. You can stay out late, skip school, tell lies, break things. You can even pierce a hole through your tongue and scare old ladies on the bus, but don't expect anyone to see what's happening inside. They never will.

'Whoever you were trying to shock, I hope it worked,' Kian says.

'Fat chance,' I reply.

There's a silence, and I flop back on the gra.s.s, watching the ink-black sky through the branches of the wishing tree. Kian is beside me, a whisper away through the rustle of long gra.s.s.

'It'll be OK,' he says into the dark, so softly he could almost be talking to himself. 'Everything'll be OK.'

I close my eyes, shutting out velvet skies and silver stars and wizened hazel branches silhouetted against the moon like gnarled fingers. The ground is cool, the gra.s.s soft, and I can hear Midnight chewing gra.s.s and Kian breathing and the sound of the lough sighing gently against the sh.o.r.e. It feels like home.

When I wake, the sky is lighter, streaked with apricot and peach. Kian is shifting too, stretching and yawning, and Midnight stands a little way off along the loughside, drinking, swishing his tail, making little huffing noises through his nostrils.

'It's daylight!' I panic. 'I have to get back. If they think I've run off again, they'll just about kill me.'

'OK. No problem.'

Kian whistles softly and Midnight lifts his head, shakes his mane and strolls lazily towards us, round belly swaying.

The woods are waking up, birds singing in the trees, red squirrels darting through the branches. The light is cool and dappled green, and there's a sharp, fresh smell of morning. We ride through the woods and come out into the lane, just a little way from the cottage.

'It's early' Kian says as I slip down from Midnight's back. 'Well before six. They won't be awake.'

'Did we really stay out all night?' I ask, amazed.

'Not all all night. I didn't call for you till after twelve.' night. I didn't call for you till after twelve.'

'You're a bad influence,' I tell him. 'Dad wouldn't approve.'

'How about you? Do you approve?' He reaches down from Midnight's back and drops a kiss right on the tip of my nose, so light, so quick, it's no more than a little breath of air.

'Did I dream you?' I ask him as he wheels Midnight round in the lane. 'Seriously. Are you sure you're real?'

Kian laughs. 'I'm not sure of anything,' he says, turning down the lane, back straight, shoulders level, tanned fingers knotted into Midnight's tangled mane. He looks back over his shoulder, grinning. 'So long, Scarlett. Dream on.'

I creep under the covers at dawn, feeling warm and shivery and full of hope. I can't stop smiling because I've never known a boy like Kian before, a boy who makes me feel safe and special, a boy who wants me to stick around.

I don't know much about him. I don't know his surname, his age, his address or phone number. I don't know the name of his favourite band, his hopes, his dreams, his likes, dislikes. I don't know if any of this matters.

I'm falling for him anyway.

I know Kian is a bad-news boy anybody who calls for you at midnight with a handful of gravel is unlikely to be a boy scout. Mum and Dad and Clare would not approve, but then, I don't approve of them either, so what does it matter?

I close my eyes, and my head fills with pictures of a black-haired boy with sunbrown skin, a boy who laughs easily, talks softly. I can see the sunrise painting the water silver, see a big, black horse wading out into the water to drink. It happened, and it was magic, it was mine.

I can hear people moving about downstairs, laughing, talking. Sunshine peers through the crack in my curtains, warming my face and arms, and there's a gorgeous cooked-breakfast smell in the air.

I rub my eyes.

'Scarlett, breakfast's ready!' Dad shouts up. 'Don't let it go cold!'

I roll over, burrowing down beneath the quilt. I don't do family breakfasts, especially not with this patched-up excuse for a family. But isn't it kind of a waste of sunshine to lie in bed all day?

I wash quickly, drag on some clothes and hobble downstairs. In the kitchen, Dad is frying eggy bread like he used to do when I was little, and Clare is dishing out baked beans, grilled mushrooms, tomatoes, fried onions, potato cakes. There's not a sausage or a bit of bacon in sight, and my mouth twitches into a smile before I can hide it. It's a vegetarian brunch, and it looks fantastic.

'We're eating outside,' Clare says. 'Go on and sit down.'

I mooch out into the garden, where Holly is setting the table with a red spotted cloth and pouring orange juice into gla.s.ses. I look around for evidence of Kian and Midnight, but there's nothing. It's like last night never happened.

Dad and Clare come out, carrying mismatched china plates laden with food.

'French toast!' Holly exclaims. 'Yum!'

'Eggy bread, we used to call it,' Dad says, trying to catch my eye. 'It was your favourite, Scarlett, remember?'

'Think you're mixing me up with someone else,' I say coldly. Does he think he can buy me with a cooked breakfast and a shared memory?

'Well, it's definitely my my favourite,' Holly says chirpily. 'From now on, anyhow. I think I might go vegetarian, like Scarlett. I wouldn't miss meat, except for sausages, and you can get ones made out of tofu or something, can't you? Do smoky bacon crisps count?' favourite,' Holly says chirpily. 'From now on, anyhow. I think I might go vegetarian, like Scarlett. I wouldn't miss meat, except for sausages, and you can get ones made out of tofu or something, can't you? Do smoky bacon crisps count?'

'Let's not do anything hasty.' Dad frowns.

'Why not?' I chip in, just to bug him. 'If Holly wants to give up, I'd say the sooner the better. The average person eats over a thousand chickens, twenty-three lambs, eighteen pigs and four cows in a lifetime. Think of the lives you'd be saving, Holly!'

'Right,' says Holly, looking slightly alarmed. 'And do crisps count, did you say?'

'Absolutely,' I say with conviction. 'Everything counts.' I spot a couple of chickens scratching about under the table for sc.r.a.ps. 'Why would anyone want to eat these little guys?'

'I don't,' Holly decides. 'I won't. I'm going to do it go veggie. Will you help me?'

'Of course I will,' I tell her, and I'm rewarded with the kind of bright-eyed, adoring look I've only ever seen on spaniels before. 'It'll be cool you won't regret it, Holly.' But Dad and Clare will, and that, of course, is half the fun.

Dad scoffs the last of the eggy bread, eating it spread with strawberry jam, the way we used to.

'Jam?' says Clare. 'Disgusting.'

'You'd be surprised.' Dad grins, winking at me.

Holly rinses the empty jam jar with the garden hose, and wafts around the garden picking flowers to arrange in it. She has some seriously sad habits. 'Mum,' she calls up from the end of the garden. 'Something funny's happened to the flower bed!'

Everybody wanders down to take a look. The flower bed is full of crater-like holes where Midnight's hooves sank into the soft soil last night, and the flowers are either eaten or trampled. It looks like a small herd of elephants has been to visit.

'What on earth...?' Dad exclaims, baffled.

I could tell them all about the carnage, of course, but would they believe me? No. Would they blame me? Yes.

'I told you to fix that broken bit of wall down by the workshop,' Clare huffs. 'Something's been in here cattle, or deer, or something.'

'A horse,' I chip in helpfully.

'Don't be silly, Scarlett,' Dad says. 'There are no horses nearby. It'll be deer.'

'I don't care if it was wolves or wild boar,' Clare grumbles. 'It's ruined my garden. Get that wall fixed, Chris. Today.'

Dad sighs, and I remember that DIY was never his strong point. I think of the pine shelves that he put up in the kitchen in Islington. He huffed and grumbled all afternoon, making me hold the spirit level and find the right Rawlplugs, and after all that Mum still said it was wonky. It didn't look so bad once we'd camouflaged it with pretty plates and dishes, though. And then, at half-past two in the morning, the whole shelf collapsed and every single plate was smashed to pieces. I remember the three of us standing there, in pyjamas, surrounded by broken cups and dishes and serving bowls, laughing till the tears ran down our cheeks.

'Don't worry about it,' Dad says now. 'I'll get it sorted, Clare. It's all dry-stone work, isn't it? How hard can it be?'

He looks at me and catches the glint in my eye. 'Don't, Scarlett,' he whispers. 'Don't say a word.'

And somehow, both of us are smiling.

'Scarlett,' Dad shouts out into the garden, where I am painting Holly's toenails with a glittery green nail polish called Lime Pickle. 'Your mum is on the phone again.'

'Don't want to talk to her.'

It's the sixth time Mum has called since the night of my Great Escape. It's the sixth time I have refused to come to the phone.

'Scarlett, please,' Dad appeals from the kitchen doorway. 'You have to talk to her sometime.'

'Do I?' I ask. 'Why, exactly?'

'She's your mother,' Dad huffs. 'She's worried about you. And besides, she's giving me a really hard time. She thinks I've turned you against her.'

'Nope, she managed that all by herself,' I tell him.

'Go on,' Holly chips in, wiggling her shimmery green toenails in the evening sun. 'You'll hurt her feelings.'

'No chance,' I reply. 'She doesn't have any.'

Dad trudges back inside, defeated. 'Serves her right,' I tell Holly, and she looks at me sadly with those spaniel eyes.

Clare is sitting in a garden chair a few metres away, st.i.tching at a small piece of patchwork, a work in progress. It looks like a cot quilt for the new baby, little sc.r.a.ps of fabric pieced carefully together with bright, decorative st.i.tching over the top. I wonder if my mum ever sat up late st.i.tching patchwork for me? No chance.

'That's cool,' I whisper to Holly. 'The quilt, I mean.'

'It's for the baby,' Holly says. 'It was my idea. It's got bits and pieces from all our favourite things, Chris's old jeans, my dresses, Mum's flowery skirts...'

Clare hears us talking and looks up from her sewing. 'The idea is to give a little bit of something we each love to keep the new baby safe and warm,' she explains. She looks at me and her eyes light up. 'I don't suppose...?'

She looks at me keenly, like she might be about to ask for a slice of my red fluffy rucksack, but I glare at her and she thinks better of it, gathers up her patchwork and heads inside. She's learning.

Holly, by contrast, doesn't know when to shut up. 'Talk to your mum,' she wheedles. 'You can't ignore her forever!'

I frown. 'Look, Holly, my mum doesn't want me. Nor does Dad really, and I know I'm just a nuisance to you and Clare. Don't expect me to start playing happy families, OK? My life's not like that.'

'We do do want you!' Holly squeaks. 'Mum really likes you, and I've always wanted a sister sorry, a want you!' Holly squeaks. 'Mum really likes you, and I've always wanted a sister sorry, a step step sister. As for Dad...' sister. As for Dad...'

A cold silence falls down around us, and my scalp p.r.i.c.kles. 'Holly' I say quietly. 'He's not not your dad, OK?' your dad, OK?'

Holly bites her lip, dragging a hand across her eyes, but not in time to stem the tears. She makes a little strangled noise, jumps up and runs inside, tipping the Lime Pickle nail polish over. It makes a little puddle of glittery goo on the gra.s.s, then seeps slowly away, and I'm left wondering why it's me who feels like I'm the one to blame.

In honour of Holly's first veggie weekend, Clare makes banana curry with poppadoms and onion bhajis. Holly kicks my foot under the table, giving me a sad, wide-eyed look designed to say sorry. I wink back, relaxing a bit. She didn't mean to upset me.

'Good to see you two girls getting on,' Dad says, snaffling yet another onion bhaji. 'It's been a good weekend.'

'Don't know how I've lived through the excitement,' I say.

'I liked it,' Holly argues. 'This is the weekend I went vegetarian! And we fixed up the wall, we played Cluedo, I got my toenails painted. You even helped me dye my bedsheets orange!'

'Bedsheets?' Dad echoes, looking alarmed, but Clare hushes him. She picks up a bowl of ripe strawberries, fresh from the garden, and sets it on the table along with a dish of thick, yellow cream. Everybody digs in.

'You'll need to talk to your mother sometime, though,' Dad says, biting into a strawberry. 'And to us, come to that. We need to get things sorted, talk to the school, get you settled properly.'

'No,' I say. 'I won't talk to Mum and I won't go back to that school, OK? It's not happening.'

'It's only a fortnight until the end of term,' Clare says lightly. 'Perhaps a fresh start, after the summer?'

Dad wavers for a moment, unsure whether to stick with the tough-dad att.i.tude or grab on to Clare's suggestion. He hates fighting, I remember that much. He's way better at the fun stuff.