“Jade? Have you hurt your neck?”
“It's … just a bit stiff.”
“And I'm a big stiff and you're not going to get involved with all that dreary drama stuff! That wasn't part of the deal at all! It was because of the drama stuff that—”
I can't let her say it.
“I'm sorry,” I hiss at Miss Gilmore, and then I rush off. Vicky runs beside me, doing aerial ladder steps of triumph.
I run till I turn the corner and then collapse against the wall.
“What's the matter?” Vicky asks.
“I feel awful.”
“You feel awful! What about me?”
“I know. I'm sorry.”
“You haven't been acting very sorry. All that huffing and puffing with stupid Fatboy Sam!”
“I'll stay away from Sam.”
“Fatboy Sam.”
“Absolutely Grotesquely Ginormous Fatter-than-fat-boy Sam.”
“Right! That's better,” says Vicky, grinning. “Shall I come back to your house? I'll race you.”
She spirals up in the air and leaves me way behind.
So now I know how it has to be. It's not really so very different from the way it was when Vicky was alive. She wanted all my attention then. She's got it now.
It takes a little while for people to cotton on. Especially Fatboy Sam. He hangs around waiting for me after lessons, he tries to sit next to me at lunch, he's there waiting when I walk home from school.
“Get rid of that creep!” Vicky commands.
“I'm sorry, Sam,” I say. Vicky's frowning, furious. I take a deep breath. “Sorry, Fatboy. I want to walk home by myself.”
He stares at me. I feel bad when I see his face. I can't look him in the eye. I stare past him at Vicky's flowers. They're running rampant now, crowding the gutters and clogging the drains so that there's a little flood whenever it rains. Someone started to clear the old rotting bouquets but there were violent protests. People meekly cross the road now and walk on the other side so that Vicky's flowers stay unsullied. She's the only one who walks there now, tiptoeing through her tulips, dancing on daisies, romping all over her roses. Sometimes she pauses, reading some of the letters, looking at the photos, bending to touch a teddy. I've seen her cry, mourning herself. Other days she swaggers around counting the tributes, crowing that she must be the most mourned girl in the town, the whole country. There's been a one-minute spot on local television. Dad videoed it for me. Whenever I watch it Vicky is there too, admiring herself. But sometimes she's in a mad mood and she kicks the flowers, shuffling and stamping as if they're autumn leaves, reading out, “Vicky, I'll always be dreaming of you,” in a silly scoffing voice. “Well, dream on, darling, I'd never have wasted my breath on you when I was alive.”
She's in that mood now, pelting Fatboy with phantom teddies and transparent roses. She's yelling obscenities at him, dodging backward and forward.
“What are you looking at?” Fatboy says.
“You!”
“No. It's as if … Do you pretend Vicky's still here sometimes?”
“No!”
“Just walk away! Who does that creep think he is? Nosy old Wobbleguts. Say it to him. Say it!” Vicky insists.
So I say it and run past, though I feel so mean.
“Why do we have to be horrid to him, Vic?” I ask when we're nearly home. “He likes you. That's why he's hanging round me. To help me. He acts like he understands.”
“Who cares?” says Vicky. “Honestly. What is it with you and Fatboy? Do you fancy him, is that it?”
“Don't be stupid.”
“I'm not the one acting all cow-eyed and crazy whenever that pig comes grunting near me.”
“Don't! Don't talk about him like that. Why are you so angry?”
“Why? I'm meant to be thrilled that I'm dead, yeah?”
“OK, OK, keep your hair on.” I look at her, expecting her to send her entire head of hair spinning into space, but she droops suddenly, leaning against me.
“Sorry, Jade. I don't mean to go on like that. It just gets to me sometimes. Especially when you're chatting to people and I'm stuck with no one to talk to.”
“You can always talk to me. It's OK, Vicky.” I put my arm round her as best I can. “I don't want to talk to anyone else. Just you.”
Fatboy Sam seems to have got the message. He doesn't follow me round school or wait for me afterward. When he sees me coming he walks smartly in the opposite direction. Well, as smartly as shambling Sam can manage.
But there's still the Fun Run Friday Club. He's there and I'm there and Mr. Lorrimer expects us to jog along together. Sam pretends he's having trouble with his trainers and hangs back while I walk on, and then he walks about twenty paces behind me, though Mr. Lorrimer keeps gesturing toward him to catch me up. I start running and Sam runs way behind, though he has to jog on the spot when I stop with a stitch.
“Hey, Jade, what's with you and Sam?” Mr. Lorrimer asks.
“Nothing,” I say, clutching my side.
“Bend over. The stitch will go in a minute. What do you mean, nothing? You can't kid me. Have you two had a tiff?”
“No! Look, he's nothing to do with me, Mr. Lorrimer. He's just Fatboy Sam.”
Vicky cheers.
Mr. Lorrimer frowns.
“Come on, Jade, give the boy a break. I didn't think you'd be one of the name-callers.”
I feel awful. I care what Mr. Lorrimer thinks of me. I care what Sam thinks of me too. It's just that I care about Vicky more.
I start running again though the stitch is still there. Mr. Lorrimer runs along beside me. I slow down. He slows too. There's no way I can run faster than him. I can't shake him off.
“Why do you think Sam joined the club in the first place?”
“I don't know,” I puff.
Because he wanted to lose weight? Get fit?
“Because he wanted to keep you company. He saw your name on the Fun Run list. He knew it would be hard on you without Vicky.”
“My heart bleeds,” Vicky interrupts rudely. “Puh-lease! Don't you dare soften, Jade. You are not getting stuck with Fatboy Sam.”
I'm not stuck. He lags behind like a long-distance shadow. Mr. Lorrimer gives up and dashes off. I run. I walk. I run. I walk. Vicky flies and cartwheels, flies and cartwheels. She's having fun. I want to have fun with her. She's the reason why I'm doing this stupid running. But it's not like last week. It's boring.
“How can you possibly be bored when you're with me!” Vicky says indignantly.
She won't leave me alone now. She's there all the time. She squashes up beside me in lessons and won't let me listen. When I try to write she seizes the pen.
“Give it a rest, you sad little swot! It's OK, they're not expecting you to do any proper work. You're still grieving, right?”
It's Vicky herself who's giving me grief. Every time a teacher stops and tries to have a quiet word she behaves outrageously. Sometimes I have to bend my head and hide behind my hair to stop laughing.
Sometimes I feel like crying. Madeleine is being ever so kind to me, especially now poor Sam is keeping his distance. She's spotted I'm not doing any work so she keeps offering to let me copy hers. Then at break time she snaps her Kit Kats in half and shares with me.
“No, Maddy, please. You have it all,” I say, but she won't listen.
“I shouldn't be eating chocolate at all,” she says, punching her own plump tummy. “I'd give anything to be really thin like you, Jade.”
She's mad. I hate my knobbly wrists, my sharp elbows, my bony knees. It's so embarrassing having a flat chest and no hips at all.
“Yeah, you look a sight,” Vicky jeers. “But you're marginally better than that pink blancmange. Why do you want to hang out with all these pudding people? Get rid of her!”
“I don't know how,” I say out loud without thinking.
Madeleine blinks at me. “Well, I suppose I could diet, couldn't I? I really need to. My sister brought me these incredib
le trousers on Saturday and yet they're really just a bit too tight. They're OK if I sort of suck in my breath. Hey, do you want to come round tonight and give me your honest opinion, Jade?”
“Just tell her her bum's so big she shouldn't wear any trousers,” Vicky shouts.
“I'm sorry, Maddy. I can't.”
“How about tomorrow after school?”
“No, I have to go straight home.”
“Well, what about Saturday? Jenny and Vicky Two and I were thinking of going swimming. Do you want to come?”
I think of a turquoise pool and swimming up and down. It seems such a soothing idea that I nod before I can stop myself. But Vicky won't have it.
“You're not going swimming with that lot! What's the matter with you?”
I know what the matter is.
“So you'll come?” Madeleine says, smiling.
“No. No, I can't. I'm sorry, I've got to go. Please don't keep asking me to do stuff, Maddy. I can't.”
“I'm only trying to be friendly!”
“I know. But—but—I can't be friends with you,” I say, and I brush her away.
I feel so bad. It's terrible the next day at break. Madeleine turns her back on me and eats her chocolate all herself. I try to think of some way I can explain but she goes off to join Jenny and Vicky Two for a hairdressing session before I get a chance.
Fatboy Sam is lurking nearby too, but when I look in his direction he sticks his nose in his latest Terry Pratchett science fiction book and diverts himself in Pratchett's Discworld.
“You're not disappointed?” Vicky says, giving me a thump, though her hand glances off me like a shadow. “Get a grip, Jade!”
I feel Vicky has me gripped, even though her hands have no strength. I trail indoors and hide in the loos. I want to hide from Vicky too but she follows me in.
“Vicky! Wait outside!” I try to push her.
“You can't push me around,” says Vicky.
I try slamming the door on her but she walks straight through it and ends up practically sitting on my lap.
“Can't you leave me alone just for a minute?”
“Watch it now. I'll clear off altogether.”
“Why do you always have to be so difficult?”
I can't remember if Vicky was always as bad. She always got her own way, but she wasn't so relentless. We had fun together, we always had such a laugh …
“Oh yes, being dead is one big belly laugh,” says Vicky.
“Stop reading my thoughts!”
“Stop reading mine!”
“I wish you weren't so fierce. You're so angry with everyone now. Even me.”
“But it's not fair! You're alive and I'm dead. Why does it have to be this way round?” She dives right through me and back again, making me shiver. There's a scary moment when she seems to blot out my brain, taking over my mind altogether.
“Stop it. I hate it when you do that.”
“It's OK for you. You're safely anchored in your skinny little body. I hate having to drift.”
“What about when you kept away? You know, after your funeral. Where did you drift to?”
“I hung round my mum and dad for a bit. And then …” Vicky looks oddly embarrassed. “If you must know I tried …” She gestures in the air.
“Going up?”
“You sound like you're in a lift! Yes. I went up.”
“What was it like?”
“I didn't really get anywhere. I just wafted about in this sort of nothingness. I started to feel I wasn't me anymore.”
“Isn't that what's supposed to happen?”
“Search me. I don't know anything about all this stuff. I never even went to church or anything. Maybe if you want to get to heaven you have to know about it. Will you find out for me, Jade?”
“How? I mean, you don't get the Lonely Planet Guide to Heaven, do you?”
“I don't even know if there is a heaven. People believe all different stuff. How about angels? Let's look them up on the Internet.”
I let her drag me off to the library. I do my best to access angels. There are thousands of references flying around in cyberspace, but most seem to be dippy accounts of angels appearing in unlikely places like launderettes to help old ladies load their washing or skipping out of the blue on top of multistory car parks to save potential suicides from jumping.
“Is this my role in death now?” says Vicky. “Helping old dears wash their knickers and yanking nutters back to safety? Not very glamorous, is it?”
I try to find more upmarket angels. I have to go way back in history. I find some weird stuff about someone called Enoch who was an eyewitness to three hundred angels in the midst of the heavens.
“So what were they doing?” Vicky asks, squinting over my shoulder.
“Singing.”
“And?”
“Just singing. With sweet and incessant voice.”
“Oh dear, how boring,” Vicky sighs. “Oh well, I'd better practice.”
She throws back her head and starts bellowing her version of the Hallelujah chorus.
“Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! What very silly boring lyrics! Hallelujah!”
“Shhh! Do shut up, Vicky!” People are staring. Then I realize. They can't hear her. They can only hear me.
Two Year Sevens sniggering in the biology section nudge each other and screw their fingers into their foreheads. A couple of Year Elevens look concerned. Mrs. Cambridge is staring too, peering over the library counter to see what's going on.
“You nut!” says Vicky. “You're bright red in the face, did you know that?”
I try to ignore her, staring at the computer screen. A host of angels smile at me serenely, gold halos at an angle like straw boaters, white wings sensibly folded so they don't get entangled, feet hidden by their gold-encrusted hems.
“Angels, Jade?”
Oh God! Mrs. Cambridge is standing behind me.
“I'm doing this project,” I mumble.
Mrs. Cambridge pauses.
“Jade, are you having any counseling?”
“Sorry?”
“Bereavement counseling.”
I shake my head. I don't even know what it is.
“I think it would be a good idea. Maybe we should have suggested it earlier. Would you like me to have a word with your mum and dad?”
I nibble at my lip. I know what Mum and Dad think of counseling.
“They'll think I'm in trouble at school.”
“No, no, of course you're not in any trouble. We just want to help.” Mrs. Cambridge bends down so her head is on a level with mine. “Can I help, Jade? I know it must be so hard for you, having to do all the everyday ordinary things without Vicky.”
I can hardly tell her I still do everything with Vicky. She obviously thinks I'm barking mad as it is. She keeps glancing worriedly at the little row of angels on the computer.
“Do you think Vicky's gone to heaven?” she asks, going red herself.
“No, Mrs. Cambridge.”
“It's certainly hard imagining Vicky as an angel,” she says, smiling.
“Cheek!” says Vicky over her shoulder.
I will myself not to look at her. I try to concentrate on what Mrs. Cambridge is saying. She still seems set on this counseling idea.
“I'm OK, Mrs. Cambridge, really,” I insist.
Mrs. Cambridge is persistent. There's a ring at the door at half past seven, just as my favorite soap is starting.
“Who on earth is that?” Mum says crossly, gathering up our supper trays.
My plate is still full.
“Oh, Jade, why aren't you eating? You're getting anorexic! It's the doctor's for you if you don't watch out. Ted, get the door.”
“You're already on your feet,” says Dad, not shifting from the sofa.
“You lazy lump. Jade, you go. And if it's those useless kids selling dusters tell them we don't want anything, right?”
It's not kids. It's Mrs. Cambridge, though I hardly recognize her. Thi
s time she's in a tracksuit and T-shirt, her hair loose and damp, hanging way past her shoulders.
“Hi, Jade. I've been to my health club, and I thought I'd just pop in and see you on my way back.”
“Oh.” I appreciate that this response is inadequate. I don't know what to do. I don't want to ask her in. It'll be so embarrassing, especially with Dad spread out all over the sofa still in his pajamas. But I can't keep her standing here on the balcony. The rubbish chute is blocked again so potato chip bags and chocolate wrappers are blowing round her ankles, and there's a nasty smell.
“Jade, is it them boys?” Mum calls.
“No, Mum. It's Mrs. Cambridge,” I whisper back into the dark flat.
“Who? ”
Mrs. Cambridge is pretending to be deaf. I look over her shoulder and there's Vicky turning cartwheels in thin air, having a great laugh at my expense. Then Mum joins me, looking baffled.
“This is Mrs. Cambridge, Mum,” I say. “You know, from school.”
“What have you been up to, Jade?” Mum frowns at Mrs. Cambridge. “It's not really her fault, whatever it is, she's had a lot on her mind. She's taken Vicky's passing very badly.”
“I know, I know,” Mrs. Cambridge says earnestly. “That's why I've popped round. So we can chat about it.” She looks hopefully at the flat behind us.
“You'd better come in, though you'll have to excuse us. We weren't expecting company.” Mum shows Mrs. Cambridge into the flat, shaking her head at the peeling wallpaper in the hall. “We're getting it done. My husband keeps promising to make a start on it,” she mumbles, pushing past into the living room.
Dad is still sprawling, making all the sofa cushions slump, his pajama jacket half open showing his grubby undershirt.
“Ted!” Mum says.
Dad slides straight, covering his chest, feeling the bristles on his face.
“I'm sorry. You'll have to excuse me. I'm on nights. I'll go and get shifted now.”
“No, please, if you've got a moment, Mr. Marshall. Mrs. Marshall. I'd like it if we could talk for a few minutes.”
Dad's looking baffled.