“You don’t need him, Tess. You don’t. You already have a—”
“Don’t you dare say that,” I shout. “Don’t you dare!”
“But it’s true. You have someone. He might not be perfect but he is still your—”
“That’s enough!”
My hand is clumsy with fury as I grab Mr. Goldfish from my pocket, turn him off, and fling him into a dustbin with all my might.
“I don’t have Jack. I don’t have Mum. They lied to me for years. Do you know how that feels, to be let down by the two people you trusted more than anything in the world? You think I can forgive them? You think I can just forget that blog, the words Jack wrote about hating me, finding me disgusting, ugly? Are you even aware of how impossible that would be? The ridiculousness of what you’re asking me to do?”
There’s no reply because Mr. Goldfish is lying between an old beer can and a Styrofoam cup, small again, and lifeless, half-hidden among the rubbish.
The drizzle turns into rain that splatters against Mr. Goldfish—the flashlight, I correct myself, because that’s all he is.
A children’s flashlight.
Made of plastic.
Not even dead to me because he was never alive.
I grab the milk from the fridge and splash some into a glass, spilling some on the side.
“You want a cloth?” Jack asks. It’s dripping down the fridge so I snatch the blue rag and throw it on the puddle that’s forming on the floor. “Come on, Tess. You can do better than that!”
His tone is strange—half-reprimand, half-joke—trying to make his point but wary of causing conflict after I stormed into the house and slammed the door. I wait it out, daring him to pick a side because he can’t be all things to all people now, can he, like he can’t ask me to stand out and fit in, to take the road less traveled while keeping my nose to the grindstone, to ignore the rat race at the same time as trying to win it. It doesn’t make any sense. He makes no sense, so yeah, I let the milk seep off the work surface and wait for him to make a choice.
A creamy swirl oozes over the tiles.
“Are you waiting for it to clean itself up?” Jack asks in the same odd voice but a knot has formed in his cheek where he’s clenching his jaw. He stares at me. I stare at him. And then in pretty much the world’s most perfect timing, Jedi trots into the kitchen, making a beeline for the milk. Lick goes his fat pink tongue. Lick lick.
On the floor.
Up the cupboards.
On the work surface as he rises on his hind legs.
“For crying out loud, get your nose out of there!” Jack says, finally losing it, giving Jedi a nasty tap. “It’s not hygienic. We still have standards, you know.” Jedi hops down and skulks away. “Sorry,” he says to me or the dog, I’m not entirely sure. “Sorry. It’s just…” He sighs, too weary to talk is what I think at first, but then he gives me this look—the same look he gave me in my bedroom yesterday evening. Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but he seems burdened more than exhausted, breathing heavily under the weight of so many secrets.
I start to scrub. The tiles. The cupboard. Anything I can get my hands on. Jack opens his mouth as I go for my pocket, reaching for Mr. Goldfish, my heart sinking when I realize he’s not there.
Before Jack can say anything, Jedi barks loudly. He scampers to the patio door to see Bobbin, our next-door neighbor’s dog, leaping over our wall. Jedi howls in outrage then throws himself against the glass, and suddenly it’s funny, how serious this whole thing should be and how ridiculous Jedi is making it, spinning round in a mad circle. I can’t quite believe it, but I smile, and Jack does too. Our eyes meet for an instant, very bizarre and unexpected, then Jack walks across the kitchen to open the patio door.
40
Miss Gilbert wears heels on Wednesday, but by Thursday her feet are back in her usual dark green boots, and why is that I wonder, as she stays behind her desk even after she’s finished taking attendance. She isn’t working, or messing about with paint, or doing a sketch to add to her random collection dotted around the classroom walls. She’s just sitting, hands in her lap, totally still.
Everyone else has noticed too, the weather of the art room very different without Miss Gilbert shining away in the middle of it.
“I know what you’re about to say,” I whisper inside my head. “And no, I don’t think Miss Gilbert’s bad mood has anything to do with Mr. Richardson. They’re friends, aren’t they? Good friends. Nothing’s changed as far as I can see.”
I wait for a reply that doesn’t come.
It’s a moody kind of morning. Even the bell seems to screech more bad-temperedly than normal. Miss Gilbert lets us into the hallway, her expression vacant—until I pass, that is.
“Tess, wait a sec, will you?”
She leads me into the shadow of a large display cabinet containing rows of garden gnomes made out of clay. There’s a sea of misshapen pink faces watching Miss Gilbert fiddle with her moon earring.
“It’s just, Tuesday. The note.” Her winky eyes are unusually serious. “I know you gave it to Mr. Richardson, but how did he seem when he read it?” I’m glad of my silence and the fact that there’s no need to answer. I feel it, wrapped tightly around me, a thick winter coat against a wind of the most chilling kind. “Sorry. I know you can’t… Sorry. Can you nod?” She waits for me to move my head, staring at me so closely I get an itch by my eyebrow. “Was he pleased? I don’t know, did he smile or something? Was he happy to receive it?”
Yes, he was happy. Very happy. Maybe a bit too happy for it to have been a note about a room swap. I wait for Mr. Goldfish to say I told you so, but nothing happens.
“I’m sorry,” she says again, and she sounds as if she means it. “You can go. I shouldn’t… Forget I said anything. Go on. You’re free. I won’t hold you hostage by these monstrosities any longer.” She rolls her eyes at the garden gnomes. “Art, obviously. It isn’t important—the note, I mean. Art is vital. The lie that makes us realize the truth. Picasso said that. I love it, don’t you? These gnomes, for instance: they reveal the truth that most Year Sevens can’t do clay work for toffee, not that you heard me say that.”
She winks now, joking around, and then it’s gone. “Don’t tell Mr. Richardson I was asking about the note, will you? Not that you can. Sorry. It’s just—the room swap. It didn’t go all that well. He was—anyway. Details.” She flashes a smile that’s all effort and pretense. “Won’t bore you with them. Have a good day, Tess.”
“You’re in here too, Patrick. Did you know Isabel thinks you’re an orc with the rancid breath of a stray dog?”
Anna peruses the notepad in Math, leaning back in her chair at a casual angle, putting up her feet on the table. Mr. Richardson is nowhere to be seen. I can’t tell if I’m relieved or not, like I keep peeking at the doorway, wanting to see him and not see him, desperate for him to appear to alleviate my distrust, terrified of him walking into the room and saying something that will make it grow.
There’s a war in my brain, all right, and the doubts are winning. I push them back, picturing it clearly, two hands driving back a black army of termites demolishing certainty and hope and joy and the only bit of security I have left. I preserve it, protect it, surround it with a moat and a barrier and a barbed-wire fence because actually I believe in Mr. Richardson.
I say it again in the silence of my mind.
I believe in Mr. Richardson.
Anna scans Isabel’s notepad, rocking her chair onto its back legs.
“I’ll give you the exact quote, shall I, Patrick? May as well hear it from the horse’s mouth. Isawynka had led Patrock on—that’s you, obviously, Patrick—duping the orc most horribly, and she wasn’t proud of it; nay, she was ashamed most wholeheartedly of her actions, but saw in them a necessity if she were to be reunited with her sword, The Great Blade of Turner.” I stiffen at this, glancing at Isabel, who’s staring, white-faced, at Anna. “She endured Patrock’s dull talk and his rancid breath akin to that of
a stray dog, comforting herself with the knowledge that her duplicity, though not kind, was—”
Patrick’s on his feet, kicking over his chair and swiping Isabel’s pencil case off the table where it clatters to the ground.
“Hey!” she cries.
“I thought we were friends.”
“We are friends.”
Anna snaps the book closed. “Some friend, Isabel. Dull talk, was it? Rancid breath? Not that I don’t sympathize. He does stink.”
“Listen to me,” Isabel says frantically. “That’s fiction, Patrick. Fiction. Words. A story. And anyway I wrote that stuff ages ago before I got to know you.”
“Dull talk?”
She cringes. “I’m sorry.”
“I thought you liked hearing about my pet lizard!”
“I do!”
“And my breath is not rancid!” He rounds on Anna. “I floss!”
She lets out a whoop of amusement.
“Don’t listen to her,” Isabel says. “I’m sorry. I should never have written it, but that was before. Now that we’re friends I’d never say something like that. Honestly.”
I can tell it’s the truth. She likes him, and she’s upset that he’s upset because they’re symbiotic, no doubt about it, staring at each other with tears in their eyes.
“I can’t believe you wrote those things.” His voice is strangled.
“Oh, Patrick. They don’t mean anything, especially not now. Things have changed.”
“Yes, they have because this friendship is over.”
It’s melodramatic and people jeer, but I wouldn’t join in even if I could join in. My heart goes out to him, this boy who’s been betrayed by words he didn’t expect, written by someone he thought he could trust. I know how it feels. He packs up his things and moves desks, kicking Isabel’s pencil case under Mr. Richardson’s desk, which beeps.
At least, the phone on top of it beeps.
“Mr. Richardson’s got a message!” Tara exclaims, racing forward to have a look. She doesn’t pick up the phone, just gives it a prod so the screen appears as two tiny squares in her pupils. “He does have a friend, after all. Someone called”—she squints and I pray for Julie to emerge from her lips—“Laura.”
“Let me see!” Sarah says, darting to the front of the classroom too. “Laura is not the wife we met at his house.” My gut twists painfully. I don’t want to hear this, not now, not when my faith in Mr. Richardson is already wavering. She takes the phone off the desk then chucks it to Tara who chucks it right back.
“Bloody hell, put it down!” Anna snaps. “He’s probably just gone to the bathroom.”
“Relax,” Sarah says. “I can’t open it. There’s a password.” The knot in my stomach lessens then retightens when Sarah giggles. “But there’s a bit of message on the lock screen.”
“Read it then!” Tara squeals. She tries to peer around Sarah, who shoves her out of the way.
“Oh, it’s good. It’s really good.”
“What does it say?”
I charge toward Sarah, needing her to stop, but it’s too late. The private words thunder in my ears—I never want to see you again—as I snatch the phone and Mr. Richardson walks into the room.
41
This is what he sees: me holding the phone while Tara and Sarah loiter a few steps away because they leapt to one side when he opened the door.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
I drop the phone as if it’s burning my fingers. It clatters horribly on the desk, lighting up to reveal the snippet of message. Mr. Richardson stuffs it in his pocket.
“That is my private property, Tess.”
His eyes are a different brown now, a paler brown, hard and frosty like the ground in winter. We are on the same wavelength, but it’s flatlining in my chest that aches and aches as he shakes his head. Pushing back my hair, I try to tell him with no words that I was saving his phone, not stealing it, willing him to hear me once more.
I hear you, Tess. I hear you even though you’re not saying a word.
Well, not anymore. My silent plea falls on deaf ears and he gives me this look, all too familiar, because I’ve done it again. I’ve disappointed another Jack.
“See me after class. This is serious, Tess. I’ll have to let your parents know about this.” That can’t happen, no way, so I take a step toward him, willing him to realize that it was Tara and Sarah, not me, his favorite student, the girl tucked beneath his wing. He shoos me away. “Go back to your desk. We’ll talk about this later.”
No one intervenes. Isabel doesn’t come to my rescue this time. She’s scared and upset, glancing from Mr. Richardson to me to Anna, who’s pulling at her collar.
“Is it me or is it hot in here?” Batting her eyelids at Isabel, she fans herself with the notepad as her friends sit back down, looking dazed by their good fortune. “I am boiling.”
“I’m waiting, Tess,” Mr. Richardson says. I’m back at my desk, but I’m still standing up because I’m boiling too, anger surging through my veins at the casual way Anna is flicking through the notepad. It isn’t hers. And I didn’t take the phone. None of this is fair. “For goodness’ sake, Tess. Are you deaf as well as mute?”
My legs give way like maybe I’ve been shot. He looks at me coldly from the other side of the room. “Can I get on now, please? Is that okay with you?” He goes to the whiteboard. “I’ll see you at the end of class. Your behavior today has been unacceptable.”
His voice sounds oddly far away.
There’s half an hour left.
Twenty-seven minutes.
Twenty-three.
The more the clock ticks, the farther away I float. The whiteboard shrinks to the size of a piece of paper, the size of Isabel’s little notepad, the size of a phone with a message I can no longer read from this distance. I’m vacant, drifting away from myself because there’s nothing to tether me to the ground. Without Mr. Richardson I have no roots, no past and no future, and no dad.
I want a dad.
More than anything, I want a dad of my own. He doesn’t have to be anyone special, just someone reliable and predictable, a man who weighs his words before he uses them. He might even say the same thing at the same time every day but it would never get boring. I’d know where I stand and I’d look forward to his catchphrases, enjoying the repetition of them, the predictable lyrics that would be music to my ears.
Mr. Richardson calls me over at the end of the lesson and I obey, wanting to make amends and also leave the classroom with everyone else. I’m scared of him and I trust him and I hate him and I love him in a mix of emotion that curdles in my stomach. Isabel disappears quickly, no doubt to escape Anna, who’s strolling along, reading from the notepad. Tara and Sarah hesitate, fully expecting to be asked to stay behind, but Mr. Richardson lets them go.
He knits his fingers together, surveying me over the crisscrossed tips. “What happened today was extremely serious, Tess. You know that, don’t you? From my point of view it looked as if you were either trying to break into my phone or steal it.” My lips part, but no words of protest come. “The incident has to be reported. I can’t let something like this slide. I need to tell your homeroom teacher, really. Who is it again?” he asks, standing up and scratching his chin as if he’s trying to remember. He answers his own question much too quickly. “Miss Gilbert, isn’t it?”
I make no sign that I’ve heard him. He moves to the door and waits.
“Come on, Tess.”
No, I say in my head, loudly and firmly. No.
My mouth doesn’t move, but neither do I. Mr. Richardson beckons me with one finger that curls slowly in the air.
“Come here.” His face is different. I can’t see him, the Mr. Richardson I thought I knew, the man whose DNA I thought I shared. “Fine. Have it your way, Tess. But if I don’t tell Miss Gilbert, I will have to tell your parents. Is that what you want? For me to phone them now? Or would you prefer to accompany me to the art wing?”
Th
ere’s nothing I can do but follow, five steps behind Mr. Richardson. Ten. We’re not in sync anymore. He’s racing ahead, desperate to see Miss Gilbert, and I’m hanging back. I think of Henry and Julie and the cozy house they share and the man Mr. Richardson seemed to be in that bedroom, joking around with his wife and his son. Clasping my hands, I pray for something to happen, like a lightning bolt or what have you, striking the art wing, blowing it up so I can go home. I want to go home, back to Jedi and the WELCOME doormat and the pig mug and the heart water bottle that I’d fill up from the kettle and clutch to my chest all warm and comforting.
“Hello?” Mr. Richardson says when we reach the art wing. “Hello?”
Miss Gilbert’s room is empty. I can hardly believe it, rejoicing as Mr. Richardson frowns. He pulls out his phone and presses the Call button as we stand next to her easel. A phone starts to ring and we look up in surprised unison to see Miss Gilbert through the door, face framed in the glass—silver moons, red hair—and then she enters the room just a little bit, staying close to the edge.
“I’m calling you,” Mr. Richardson says unnecessarily. He holds up his phone, something shining on his fourth finger beneath the skylight. The gold ring winks smugly like maybe it’s making a point. He hasn’t taken it off and that’s a surprise, I have to admit it, to see it on his hand in front of Miss Gilbert, who doesn’t seem shocked by its presence.
“So my vibrating pocket keeps telling me. Can you stop that thing?” Mr. Richardson complies at once. He holds it out to show that it’s done, that her wish is his command. “Tess isn’t in trouble, is she?”
“I’m afraid so, Miss Gilbert.”
“What is it? Lack of homework again?”
“Worse than that, I’m afraid.”
“Oh dear.” They’re being polite. Civil. Completely and utterly aboveboard. I stare at them both, feeling wrong-footed. “What have you been doing, Tess?”
“I caught her at my desk, looking at my phone.” For the first time, something real passes between them. “There’s a password.”