lowlife
Jon Jacks
Other New Adult and Children’s books by Jon Jacks
The Caught – The Rules – Chapter One – The Changes – Sleeping Ugly
The Barking Detective Agency – The Healing – The Lost Fairy Tale
A Horse for a Kingdom – Charity – The Most Beautiful Things (Now includes The Last Train)
The Dream Swallowers – Nyx; Granddaughter of the Night – Jonah and the Alligator
Glastonbury Sirens – Dr Jekyll’s Maid – The 500-Year Circus – The Desire: Class of 666
P – The Endless Game – DoriaN A – Wyrd Girl – The Wicker Slippers
Heartache High (Vol I) – Heartache High: The Primer (Vol II) – Heartache High: The Wakening (Vol III)
Miss Terry Charm, Merry Kris Mouse & The Silver Egg – The Last Angel – Eve of the Serpent
Seecrets – The Cull – Dragonsapien – The Boy in White Linen – Porcelain Princess – Freaking Freak
Died Blondes – Queen of all the Knowing World – The Truth About Fairies
Coming Soon
Elm of False Dreams
God of the 4th Sun
Text copyright© 2015 Jon Jacks
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Chapter 1
Why do I feel lost?
So confused by the things that happen around me?
Things I have no control over.
What have I done to deserve this?
Am I really so bad?
I don’t really feel at one with this world.
Sometimes I don’t even know who I really am.
I feel like – as crazy as it sounds – I’m not really me.
I feel…like I’m from another time.
A better time.
Maudling thoughts, that’s all they are.
Self pity.
Foolishness.
I splay out the cards before me.
Looking for answers I don’t even know the questions to.
‘The tarot?’
It’s the new boy. The new boy everyone’s going crazy over.
The boy who can’t really have any interest in me.
What’s he want? Has he been put up to this?
To make a fool of me?
I glance about me nervously.
Nervous that anyone might be watching.
Giggling at the ineptness I feel and show whenever a good-looking boy makes an effort to talk to me.
I nod. Sullenly.
‘Perhaps it’s not true what they say about you then?’
‘Say about me?’
I’m curious. Even though I know it will be bad news.
‘That you’re a loner; that you’re…sorry, these are their words, not mine…a little bit boring?’
Yeah, that’s what I’d figured they’d say.
I look back towards my cards. I’m not going to cry.
I’m not a wimp.
I don’t care what anybody thinks anymore.
They’re the ones at fault.
They just don’t understand me.
‘I don’t think they really know you, do they?’
That’s him; not me.
But it could be me.
I’ve said it to myself often enough.
I glance up at him, eyeing him suspiciously.
‘What do you want?’
‘Could you read my cards for me? I watched you dealing them out; you look like you know what you’re doing to me.’
‘Why, what am I doing to you?’
I don’t want him here.
Sure, he’s gorgeous. The leader of the pack without the pack to lead. But give him time; he’ll soon have his following. His gaggle of excitedly clucking girls. The boys who want a piece of his magic to rub off on them.
Me, I’ll never be allowed to be a part of that pack. I might as well show right up front I’m not going to be fooled into thinking I might have a chance of being invited into the in crowd. The cool, effortlessly beautiful kids.
He ignores my rudeness, tries another tack.
‘I like your hair; is it natural?’
Sure, dark red runs in the family, going way back!
‘Yes; it’s hair.’
You might think I’m blowing this; that I deserve to be lonely if this is how I talk to everyone.
But I don’t talk to everyone like this; just the guys who’re quite clearly out of my league. Guy’s who’re just playing around with me for a bit of fun.
‘They’re not the usual kind of pack, are they?’
Hmn, so he does know something about the cards.
‘They’re my own set: I painted them, cut them into shape.’
‘Really? That must have taken ages.’
‘Computers: it helps you replicate most things. So you’re not constantly having to paint the same things over and over.’
‘They’re beautiful. Amazing colours. Could you read mine for me?’
Why would he need his future reading?
It’s pretty clear cut isn’t it?
A life of few problems; especially when it comes to making friends, getting out on dates.
The boy who could have anybody he wants.
Why’s he wasting his time on me?
Thing is, he’s obviously not that interested in the cards. Otherwise he’d know I was already setting out the cards to see how he features in my life.
And how can I tell him this?
It seems he needs to stay away from motorbikes.
*
The way he dresses, like he’s wasting his life watching too many James Dean and Marlon Brando movies – they’re old hat now, didn’t you know? – it, well, interests me.
Like he sees himself as living in a different time.
Not this one.
And my interest, of course, has got nothing to do with the fact he’s got hair that could sell a g-zillion bottles of shampoo if he ever got into commercials. Which, going by the easy way he carries himself, like he hadn’t got a worry in the world, isn’t actually that inconceivable.
So, once again, the cynic in me – and boy, does she play a big part in my character – has got to ask that sixty million dollar question: why’s he pestering me? When he could be pestering Helen Golsworthy or Rebecca Frond and they’d be lapping up every second of it. Like the cat who’s got the cream, and is going to let every other poor stray know about it.
‘I don’t do cards for just anyone, you know,’ I say to him even more sourly than I intended.
Give the poor guy a break can’t you, sourpuss?
He’s being nice.
You’re the one being offhand!
‘That makes sense,’ he replies, still managing to keep the smile in his voice despite a relentless rudeness that’s beginning to irk even me.
Maybe he’s genuine. Maybe he really is interested.
Not everyone wants to set you up for a fall, to humiliate you.
Just because you’re different.
Just because you don’t want to blend in.
Don’t want to play the game of ‘let’s all look alike’.
Let’s all do exactly the same things
Let’s all like exactly the same things.
Let’s make fun of anyone who doesn’t.
Like they’re some weirdo. Some idiot who doesn’t understand the latest fashions. The latest music.
Hey, don’t you realise you’re not allowed to be an individual anymore?
You’re not allowed to be different!
Gawd, I am miserable, aren’t I?
*
&n
bsp; I look up at the poor guy at last, give him a smile
I regret it straight away.
I haven’t got the world’s best smile.
I haven’t got the best smile in the back row of our class.
If he really had been interested in me, I’ve just killed that interest stone dead.
By letting him get a clear view of my face.
My dad’s face; not my mum’s. Which I would have preferred.
Thing is, he’s still grinning. Maybe a little sickly, but yeah, his grin’s still there.
A grin and bear it grin?
‘What’s troubling you?’ I ask. ‘What would you like to know about your future?’
This is it; the test.
Is he about to crack out laughing? Turn to his hidden friends. Say, ‘Hey, you were right guys: she really does believe she can tell your future!’
Thankfully, he doesn’t.
He says, ‘I want to know if witches really exist.’
*
Chapter 2
‘Is this some sort of joke?’ I snort.
He looks surprised, even a little shocked.
‘No, no: I’m deadly serious!’
‘Are you implying that I’m a witch?’
‘Of course not! Sheesshh! I’m sorry, we’ve go off on completely the wrong–’
‘Did someone set you up to make fun of me?’
He looks genuinely apologetic. All soft eyes, down-turned mouth.
‘No,’ he says calmly, adamantly. ‘I swear.’
I ponder this, stare into his eyes; looking for the truth.
It’s all innocence in there.
‘Okay,’ I grant him magnanimously. ‘Sorry I over reacted. It’s just that…that most kids here, well they…’
‘Make fun of you for believing in this? But I believe in it. And that’s why I seriously wanted to know if witches exist too.’
*
‘Why would you think witches might really exist?’
I almost add, ‘You look like a sensible enough guy to me.’
See, even I believe I’m a little crazy for believing in all this stuff.
‘I think,’ I add instead, ‘they only exist in our imagination.’
‘Then they do exist, you think?’
Is he hard of hearing? All that luscious hair, getting in the way of his ear canals?
‘We imagine them: we’d like to think they exist. To add a bit of magic to our dull lives.’
‘But if we imagine them, and they’re magic; then aren’t we in danger of conjuring them into life?’
There’s a deep deep flaw somewhere in that statement: but I like the way he’s thinking, I’ve got to admit.
I grin; at last.
I’m amused, and that, I’m afraid to say, isn’t an emotion I experience often these days.
‘Be careful,’ I say. ‘If anyone catches you thinking like that, even you might end up being avoided.’
*
Chapter 3
I slip my cards away. We take a walk.
Everyone in the schoolyard is staring at us.
Gawping at him, for his stupidity in being seen with me.
Glaring at me, for daring to sully his coolness by being within a bus length of him.
Then there’s Helen Golsworthy; she looks like her head’s about to explode.
That I’d like to see!
Although it would mess up her otherwise perfect hair.
Rebecca, now she looks like she going to rush over and start riving out my hair.
My natural hair. With its only slightly unnatural tints of darkest night and fresh blood.
Strange, really; the way I’m upsetting everyone like this.
See, sometimes I have this really bizarre feeling that I’ve upset someone. Even though I don’t quite know who.
And I don’t why.
In fact, I feel like it may be a lot of people I’ve upset.
Upset for different reasons.
Mainly because, deep down, they don’t like me all that much.
They think I’m…a bit strange.
Not quite normal.
Not at one with them.
Just like I’m not at one with the world.
Like I’m a bit false. A fraud.
Like my so called character is just something I put on to try and be liked.
Because I’m not sure they’d like the real me.
I just wish I knew what it was I’d done to upset them.
Then I’d apologise.
I don’t like being disliked.
Not usually, anyway.
But today? – well, I’ve gotta admit; I quite like it!
*
‘It would be like really weird if witches really existed,’ I say to him as we walk.
His name’s Dean. I haven’t asked him, but of course I know.
Every girl knows.
‘One of my ancestors; he worked with the Witch Finder General.’
‘Seventeenth century, right? But all those cases were made up; they used fake, retracting knife blades to supposedly prove they were witches. They were just in it for the money.’
He nods, like he agrees; like he’s figured this one out for himself.
‘Mass hysteria, right? People getting their own back on neighbours. Girls playing along with the accusations, just because it made them seem important.’
‘Poor storage of their crops too; the damp weather caused an hallucinogenic fungus to grow on the corn.’
He glances my way with, I’m sure, an impressed smile.
‘So; all in their imaginations then, you’re saying?’
‘Yeah – but still no real witches.’
‘And you wouldn’t consider that you yourself have any sort of powers either, then?’
‘The cards, you mean?’ I grin; is he determined to catch me out here? ‘They might work, they might not; I like to consider that they just might work a little bit.’
He makes an exaggerated sigh of relief.
‘Thank God. So, you think I’ll be safe on my motorbike after all then, right?’
*
Chapter 4
‘You were looking? You knew? You can read the cards as well?’
I jab him playfully with a fist to his lower chest.
I don’t know if I’m angry, shocked or overjoyed.
Amazed, probably; yeah, that’s it.
Amazed someone as cool as Dean is interested in something I’m interested in.
‘Well, it didn’t specifically say motorbikes, naturally; but I got that that was its general drift.’
‘How could you read my cards? They’re my own design.’
‘Sure, they’re very clever; they make them easier to read, you ask me. You’ve taken the Rider pack as a base, the best around – and then you’ve made the devices even more obvious to interpret. You should try and sell your designs to someone.’
‘Hmn, they’re a bit personal to me, to be honest,’ I say doubtfully.
‘It’s that, I think, that makes them work so well. They reflect your…’
He pauses, searching for the right words, searching my face for clues as to how I might take it.
‘…individuality. Is that the right word?’
I chuckle.
(Wow, new experiences are coming thick and fast today!)
‘If by individual you mean kooky, maybe not!’
‘And what’s wrong with being kooky? The way you dress; all that dark lace, the high boots, the flashes of bright purple, red, blue and green – it all comes out in the cards.’
I nod. I appreciate his honesty, his flattery.
You don’t think…?
Nah!
There’s no chance of anyone like me dating a guy like this!
*
Still, that night, I check the cards.
It isn’t easy reading your own cards.
You know what you want them to say.
You know what you don’t want them to say.
You know that y
ou just can’t trust what you’re reading there!
I scoop them up. Frustrated.
They weren’t good cards, let’s just say that, shall we?
I should know by now not to get my hopes up.
Just keep your hopes way, way low girl; that way, you can never be disappointed!
Though those bloody witches of his: they seemed to be in there too!
How crazy is that?
That I was not expecting!
And that, that…that just makes him seem even more amazing.
That he believes in witches!
That he can read the cards!
It all just raises him even higher in my estimation.
Makes him even more wanted
Even more unattainable.
Someone like that, how can anyone resist him?
Sure, Helen and Rebecca might be as shallow as a discarded contact lens: but when it came to elbowing their way to the front of the queue where looks were being doled out, they were Olympic standard.
All the guys, they all make out they’re not interested in Helen or Rebecca at some point; you know, coming out with all these whispered sneers that the girls are all too concerned about their looks, too worked up about fashions, music, that kind of thing.
Yet soon as these supposedly silly little girls look their way: why, suddenly they’re the world’s most captivating, interesting girls.
Helen and Rebecca, they reel the guys in like they’re caught on a fishing line. They throw them back later, when the guy’s hide their tears behind all this ridiculous bravado; like they don’t care, like they knew all along the girls were just silly little things.
Is that going to be me, too, when Dean ignores me tomorrow?
Making out, Hey, who cares: I tried to get rid of him from the word go anyway, didn’t I?
That wouldn’t have helped, would it?
Wouldn’t have helped him thinking well of me, I mean.
What else did I do wrong?
Everything probably.
What did I do right?
Well, er…nothing.
As usual.
A big fat nothing!
I always mess up. Always make a fool of myself.
The harder I try, the more I try and make a good impression – well, the worse I am.
Everything I said – it was probably all stupid. Where it wasn’t, he probably misheard me, misinterpreted it.
‘Yes; it’s hair!’
Why did I say that?
What was I thinking?
Sure, I get to look like I’m pretty smart.