Miss Gilbert’s feet tap across the floor. They don’t normally tap. They squeak like mine because we both wear boots.
“Not today,” Mr. Goldfish whispers as Miss Gilbert appears in front of me. Red dress. Red heels. She’s dressed up for something. Someone. “A date?”
The room goes massive then shrinks to the size of pretty much a coffin. I grip Mr. Goldfish tightly, needing the power stored in his batteries as I fade and fade and almost faint.
“I don’t suppose you could do me a small favor, could you?” Miss Gilbert asks. Her voice is too airy. No one talks like that unless they’re trying to appear relaxed. “Just a little thing. It will only take two minutes.” She scribbles something on a bit of scrap paper then darts back to her desk to grab an envelope, sealing it tightly. “Take this to Mr. Richardson, will you?”
She holds out the envelope, but I don’t accept it.
“Come on, Tess. It’s important. A room swap, second period. He won’t know where he’s going unless you give him this and—look,” she says, gesturing to the group of students congregating outside the door. “I’d do it myself if my next class wasn’t waiting.”
I take it.
I don’t know what else to do.
“Thanks, dude. I’m much obliged.”
“Tess. Great. I’m glad you’ve come to see me.” Mr. Richardson is sitting at his desk in front of a newspaper, holding a cup of tea in his left hand. I stand by the door, the note hidden in my pocket. “Free period for me first thing on a Tuesday. Not bad, eh?”
I can’t help noticing that his hair is unusually neat and a nicer jacket than the one he wore home yesterday evening is hanging on the back of his chair.
Mr. Goldfish nudges his nose out into the classroom. “Is he wearing the ring?” I crane my neck ever so casually in an attempt to see around the mug. The tips of Mr. Richardson’s fingers are visible, but nothing else. “Damn it.”
“Look, Tess.” Mr. Richardson’s talking more to the Prime Minister, on the front page of the newspaper, than to me. “I wanted to clear something up. Several things, actually.” He looks at me at last. “Have you got a minute?”
I’ve got all the time in the world if he’s about to say what I need to hear. He beckons me closer, but I’m already on my way. As I get nearer, my conviction that he’s innocent grows stronger, this judge in a funny wig declaring it loudly as he taps a gavel in the courtroom of my mind. There is an explanation and I cannot wait to hear it, practically running the last two steps to Mr. Richardson’s desk where he puts down the tea to reveal that he’s wearing the wedding ring.
“No!” Mr. Goldfish cries.
“Yes!” I reply as the judge in my head throws off his wig and dances a jig of pure joy.
“Yesterday evening. My wife,” Mr. Richardson starts, and I nod even though it’s not allowed, my head too buoyant to care, too free and easy on my neck all aquiver with delight. “She confused you with someone else.”
It’s irritating, how loudly Mr. Goldfish snorts.
“I’ve been staying behind to give another student a bit of extra help after school. Someone without your talent for math, obviously.” I beam, my face out of control. I am drunk on relief, the delicious bubbles of it fizzing in my blood. “When I said you were conscientious, she assumed—wrongly, of course—that you were the girl I’ve been tutoring. Easy mistake.”
That does make sense.
“Does it?” Mr. Goldfish asks.
“And as for the other thing. What she said about that, you know, that—the whole Meet the Teacher Night malarkey.” His eyes are back on the Prime Minister, who looks up at him warily. “I had to tell a bit of a white lie. I hope you understand.”
I wait.
The Prime Minister waits.
The whole country, maybe even every person on the planet, holds their breath as Mr. Richardson opens his mouth.
“It’s just, well, it’s her birthday tomorrow so I’m going shopping this afternoon.” A huge exhalation drifts across the world, this soothing wind that blows any doubt from my mind. “Romance isn’t my strong suit, I’m afraid to say. Birthdays. Anniversaries. I usually forget, so I wanted it to be a surprise.”
He grins at me and I grin back, our brown eyes locking together.
“I knew you’d understand. We’re on the same wavelength, you and I.” Our identical DNA emits an electric charge that crackles in the space between us. “We get each other, don’t you think?” My heart skips a beat then stops working altogether. “Share more than just a love of black sweaters, that’s for sure. Listen. I don’t know why you’re silent, Tess, but I have to say I do relate. The impulse to be quiet. Withdraw. I understand it, that’s all I’m saying.” He leans in close. “I hear you, Tess. I hear you even though you’re not saying a word.”
I flush the happiest pink of my life as Mr. Goldfish remains steadfastly orange. I reach for the envelope because there’s no reason to hide it anymore.
“No, Tess!” Mr. Goldfish grabs a corner as I try to pull it out of my pocket. “No. Don’t do it. You don’t know what’s in there!”
I yank the envelope free and thrust it into Mr. Richardson’s outstretched hand.
“What do we have here then?”
He tears it open with his thumb and pulls out the note, reading it with a smile, half-biting his bottom lip.
Mr. Goldfish shakes his head. “That’s quite a reaction for a room swap.”
38
I don’t get much done in my morning classes because Mr. Goldfish will not shut up, forecasting doom, which let’s be clear is completely ridiculous when there is nothing but hope on the horizon. I luxuriate in its warmth, feeling myself melt, my emotions dripping back into my blood as they gradually unfreeze—happiness and excitement and optimism—
“—and delusion and naïveté and general pigheadedness,” Mr. Goldfish finishes as I draw a diagram of a heart in Biology, labeling the chambers with Mr. Richardson’s name. Jack, I write, over and over again. Jack. “What about that café in Didsbury? The Cupcake Kitchen place? He obviously went there with Miss Gilbert.”
“So? They’re friends. Like me and Henry.”
“But you kissed Henry.”
“You know what I mean.”
“That’s the whole problem, Tess. I don’t.”
I ignore him, shoving him in my bag when the bell rings for lunch. I still don’t have much of an appetite, but it’s different now. I’m full, not empty—stuffed to the brim with all this Content that makes eating pretty much pointless.
Swiping my card, I enter the library, wandering up and down the neat rows, enjoying the quiet and the sense of order that cannot be disputed. If there was a shelf marked FAMILY, that’s where I’d be, slap-bang in the middle of it with Mr. Richardson. I hear you even though you’re not saying a word. I caress the wood, loving how cool it is, how solid.
“And that’s the psychopath he chose, if you can believe it.”
Anna, Tara, and Sarah must have followed me in here, and now I’m trapped, a wall behind me, shelves on either side, the girls up ahead. Anna folds her arms slowly, back in control. I don’t know what’s more terrifying, a drunk Anna, or a sober one.
“If Henry wants you,” she says, her tone light but dangerous, “I don’t want him. Just so you know.” Her dark head tilts to one side and her black eyes don’t blink. “If he has a fetish for girls who are boys, he won’t want me. You’re welcome to him. I always thought he was a bit different. Looks pretty enough, I’ll give him that, but he’s clearly wrong in the head if he wants to hook up with someone as fat as you.”
“Shut up, Anna.”
“Thanks,” I tell Mr. Goldfish because miraculously Anna has stopped talking.
He shakes his head. “It wasn’t me.”
Isabel appears around the corner, bag on both shoulders, notepad clutched in her hands. I can’t believe she’s here, and at the same time I’m not at all surprised. I gaze at her in delight. She juts out her chin, nervous but de
termined, and it’s Isawynka she’s thinking of, I just know it, as she stares Anna down.
“Leave her alone.”
“Or what?” Sarah asks. “What are you going to do, Isabel? Hit us with your pencil?”
Tara snickers. “Poke us with a pen?”
“Whack us over the head with that stupid little notepad you’re always carrying around?” Anna turns her back on me and moves closer to my friend. That’s the label Isabel would get in the Dewey decimal system, no doubt about it—1.0 TRUE FRIEND. Anna swipes the notepad out of her hand. It flies into the air, pages fluttering like a frightened bird, this rare, precious species, not often seen in public. It hits the floor, where it bounces twice then lies still. Anna reacts first, gliding over to it. Isabel’s too scared to move. She’s rooted to the spot, hands in tight fists, her mouth falling open in dismay.
“That’s mine.” Her voice is smaller now. “Give it back.”
“Oh, this is brilliant,” Anna says in genuine glee, riffling through the pages. “This is—girls, you have to see this.”
“Give it back,” Isabel says again, and I go to her side. She looks grateful and I give her arm a squeeze.
Anna presses her heart, all touched by our reunion. “Isn’t that just lovely? I tell you what. How about this? Isabel, I’ll give you the notepad if your friend here asks for it in a man-voice I can record on my phone. What do you think?”
Isabel’s quiet for a few seconds. “That’s stupid.”
“It isn’t. It’s a fair trade. I love this notepad, but what I love even more is the idea of Balls giving us a little taste of his postpuberty voice. Everyone’s dying to hear it, Man Skull. And I’ve promised people evidence.” She sniffs. “Blaise has quite a following, as I’m sure you’re aware. I don’t want to let my public down. What do you say—in your deepest voice, if you please?” Her phone beeps as she points it at me, a white light appearing in one corner. “I’m filming.”
Isabel looks from me to the phone.
“You can put a stop to this, Tess,” Anna drawls. “You just have to say the word. Well, maybe more like ten words in the right sort of way, but your friend is worth that, surely? Come on. What are you waiting for? Don’t be shy. Say hello in your new voice.”
I won’t do it. No way. And Isabel would never ask me to.
The light of Anna’s phone is dazzling. “Come on, Man Skull. Ten tiny words.”
Tara clears her throat, getting ready to read from the notepad.
“Please, Tess.” It’s so quiet, I think I might have imagined it, but no—Isabel is tugging on my sleeve. I stare at her in disbelief. “Please.”
“And then the brave elf, Isawynka, wielded her sword, The Great Blade of Turner, and together the unconquerable pair, the formidable twosome struck down their foe, the foul troll Anspog Beltchum, known in—oh my God”—Tara giggles—“the foul troll Anspog Beltchum, known in the common tongue as Anna!”
“Do you really think I care what some geek has written about me in a notepad?” Anna asks, but she thrusts the phone so close to my face it almost takes the skin off my nose. “Smile, Man Skull. You’re on camera.” I blink into the white light, no idea what to do.
Mr. Goldfish wiggles out into the open. “Radical idea, I know, but how about saying something?”
“I can’t do that. I’m not going to talk like a man so Anna can put it on the Internet.”
“I’m not asking you to. But tell Anna no. In your own voice.”
I swallow. “It won’t work. I can’t just—what, you think I can just open my mouth and talk? That it’s that easy?”
“Yes, I do. Absolutely. Give it a go!”
Isabel shakes my arm. “Please, Tess.”
“Anspog Beltchum roared, its peculiarly long neck twisting and turning like a serpent, the black head of the ugly beast wafting through the air.”
“I can’t do it,” I tell them both. “I’m sorry but I can’t.”
“I’m getting impatient,” Anna sings.
“Come on, Tess!” Mr. Goldfish cries.
“Leave me alone!” I bellow in my head to Mr. Goldfish and Anna, and Isabel most of all because I can’t bear it, the way her shoulders are drooping in disappointment. “My silence is the only thing I have left and I am not about to sacrifice it. Do you hear me?”
Anna seems to.
“You’re not going to do it,” she says flatly. “Well. You got me. I really thought you would.” The white light vanishes. “I guess we overestimated her, Isabel. I think we both thought she valued your friendship more than she obviously does. Well, no matter.” She takes the notepad from Tara and drops it in her bag. “Sorry, Isabel—but a deal’s a deal and someone failed to deliver.”
39
I speed through the bus lot at the end of the day, hoping to escape quickly. There are things I don’t want to see.
“You should wait for Isabel. Apologize,” Mr. Goldfish says. “You let her down at lunchtime, and for what? Mr. Richardson? Because he said you’re on the same wavelength? Is that it?”
“She let me down too, all those times she didn’t meet me for lunch and went off with Patrick.”
“I know. But you hurt her, Tess.”
“And she hurt me. She betrayed me to Jack, telling him about the text.”
“You told lies! On purpose! You pretended you were friends with Anna because you were ashamed of Isabel, and then you suspected her of being Blaise. You’re not exactly innocent, are you?” A blue car similar to Mr. Richardson’s roars past and I almost leap over a wall to avoid having to look at it.
“I wasn’t ashamed.”
“Embarrassed then, nervous about Jack’s judgment, and Isabel realized it. How awful is that?”
My stomach twists guiltily. “About as awful as it’s been to see her laughing with Patrick. It’s… it’s…”
“Understandable after you humiliated her?” Mr. Goldfish says gently.
“Maybe. I don’t know. But I couldn’t do it in the library, okay? I couldn’t speak.”
“You wouldn’t speak. There’s a difference, Tess.” Another car that looks like Mr. Richardson’s purrs down the road. I flinch, and Mr. Goldfish clocks it. “Hang on a minute, you’re scared!”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are!” He jabs a fin in my face. “You’re terrified. You don’t think he’s shopping for his wife at all.”
“That’s crazy,” I reply too quickly.
“You’re frightened of seeing him with Miss Gilbert,” he says, swimming in front of my eyes. I blink to get rid of him, but he stays where he is. “That’s it, isn’t it? Admit it! You know they’re meeting up tonight. You saw it too—the dress and the heels and the hair and the nice jacket. You know he’s lying.”
“I don’t,” I growl.
“You do.”
“I don’t!” I snatch Mr. Goldfish out of the air and thrust him in my pocket with a hand that maybe even does it for real.
“Prove it, then.” Somehow he’s back in front of me. Right in front of me. I can’t make out the pavement or the road or the trees or the shops so I swipe frantically and shove him back in my coat. “I have to make you see, Tess,” he says with no irony at all as he reappears, blocking my view. I panic, swinging my arm—in my imagination or real life, I can’t be sure. “Go back to school.”
That stops me in my tracks. “What?”
“You heard me. Turn around and go back. Let’s wait for Mr. Richardson in the parking lot. If you’re so convinced there’s nothing to worry about, prove it. Come on. Let’s go right now.” He pulls my arm. I can actually feel it, this insistent tug tug tug on my sleeve. I shake him off. He tugs harder. I shake him off again and a boy looks at me strangely so I pin my arms to my side and square up to Mr. Goldfish, whose eyes flash as dangerously as my own. “You’re a coward.”
“And you’re a bully.”
“You know he’s a cheat, Tess. You know it. You’re not stupid and you’re choosing to walk away. To deceive you
rself. It’s pathetic.”
“Oh, I’m pathetic? You’re not even real. You don’t exist.”
“So why can you see me?”
“I can’t!” I snarl, but it isn’t true. He’s floating before me, bigger than ever, his body a fiery orange, his eyes a fierce black, and the light from his mouth so blinding I have to shield my face.
“Is everything okay?” a man asks, pausing with a large poodle on a leash. The dog sniffs at my feet but ignores the fish floating above his head.
“Look at that,” I say, more to myself than Mr. Goldfish now. “You’re not even real. The dog… the dog would be able to…”
“Whoa,” the man says as my legs buckle beneath me. “I’ve got you.” He catches my arm and leads me to a bench, but that’s the very last thing in the world that I want. I need to get away from this bit of road, not sit here and stare at it. There’s a blue car. And another one. And two more trundling past with couples in the front who may or may not be my teachers.
“Check them,” Mr. Goldfish urges, but I close my eyes. At first, there’s nothing but darkness, but then a pinprick of amber flickers in the distance, moving toward me, getting larger and larger—the dot becoming a circle becoming a creature becoming a fish with determined fins, hurtling through the black choppy ocean of my mind. “You have to face the truth.”
I fling open my eyes and race off, away from the man and the poodle who’s straining on his leash, trying to follow.
“There, boy. Stay there. Good dog. She doesn’t want to play.”
I do, actually, more than anything. I want to find out what he’s called and really care about the answer. I want to delight in things again, like the soft fuzz of a poodle’s ears and the cold tingle of drizzle on my cheeks and the reassuring warmth of a cup of tea that I could drink at the kitchen table all relaxed in my house because it was still my home.
“I have nothing without Mr. Richardson!” My feet pound against the pavement, my hair whipping back off my face. “He is everything now. Why can’t you understand that?”