“I know. I am a hashtag-hypocrite.”
“Yes, you are. You know what it’s like when something’s so gross you just have to watch it? I can’t stop staring at his grubby little fingers.”
Four months later and she’s letting him borrow her ruler.
Mr. Holdsworth enters the room. “Settle down, folks. Let’s get started.”
I write down the wrong date by mistake. I still haven’t got used to it, my new unfamiliar life where my dad’s not my dad and my friend’s not my friend, choosing to sit next to a boy she finds repulsive rather than share a desk with me.
There’s a knock.
“Latecomers,” Mr. Holdsworth says. He opens the door to reveal Tara and Anna. Tara’s flustered and even Anna has two pink spots on her pale cheeks.
“Sorry. Sorry. We had to—”
“You’ll stay behind at lunch.” They don’t argue because you don’t argue with Mr. Holdsworth. I smile without meaning to and Anna notices, giving me a look that makes me nervous. “You know the rules, girls. Every minute you’re late for me is quadrupled and taken from you at lunch. How late were you?”
“Five minutes.”
“So how long will you be staying?”
“Twenty minutes.”
“Precisely. And what is the square root of five? Get it right, and I’ll take it off the time.”
“Twenty-five?” Tara blurts out.
“That’s the square of five. Try again.” Tara’s eyes roll back in her head as she tries to figure it out.
“It must be two something,” Anna guesses, sounding not really bothered about the answer. “Below two point five. Two point three?”
“Not a bad effort. I’ll give you that. So, what’s that… You now owe me… seventeen minutes and…” He goes quiet for a few seconds, muttering under his breath as he works it out in his head, and it’s impressive how he comes up with the answer almost as fast as I do on my calculator. “Seventeen minutes and forty-five point eight four seconds.” The same number shines up at me. “I’ll let you off the point eight four, girls. I am in a good mood today.”
“Is that because you’re leaving, Mr. Holdsworth?” James asks from the back of the room.
I almost drop my calculator.
Mr. Holdsworth nods. “I’m afraid so.”
I do drop my calculator.
“You’re leaving us?” Mazra asks. “When?”
“Today’s my last day.” There’s an audible gasp that I accidentally join in. “But don’t look so worried, folks. It isn’t for long.” Mr. Holdsworth returns to his desk and takes a swig of coffee. Isabel’s head twists slightly in my direction because she’s clocked it too, I’m sure of it, the incredible color of his new pink mug. I can feel the effort it takes for her to resist turning around to catch my eye, and I will her to give in to the impulse. I miss her already, and it’s only been a couple of hours. “I’ll be back next term. It’s a back operation, not a job move.”
“What’s wrong with it?” Patrick asks.
“You really want to know? It’s decidedly dull. Very well, then. It’s a lumbar decompression. I get a lot of nerve trouble in my lower back. I need it fixed. I know the timing’s not ideal, but that’s the National Health Service for you. I had a date scheduled in August, but that was canceled. There’s nothing I can do about it.”
“Who will we have instead?” Isabel asks. “Are we having a substitute teacher?”
“You are. He’s in today, actually. Just having a meeting with the head of the department but he should be along—oh, look. Here he is. Mr. Richardson is his name.”
A face peers through the glass in the door.
It’s a large face with blond hair and brown eyes and a very strong chin. Mr. Holdsworth turns the handle, letting in our new teacher, then stands with his arm outstretched like he’s found it after all, the mysterious value of D, the solution to the biggest puzzle of my life.
16
“Hello.” It’s a quiet voice. The right sort of voice. And he waves a hand that looks just like mine. He’s dressed head-to-toe in black, the buttons of his shirt straining over his stomach. “I’m looking forward to working with you until Christmas.”
“I’m sure they will make you welcome,” Mr. Holdsworth replies. “Right, folks. Page fifty-two of your textbooks. Cubic graphs. We’re going to plot one first. I don’t suppose you could hand out some graph paper, Mr. Richardson? You’ll find it in the drawer by Tess. Thanks. Most kind. Tess.” He points me out. “Just over there.”
Mr. Richardson sets off, weaving through the maze of tables and chairs with all this determination to find me, quite possibly his long-lost daughter. As he gets nearer, my cheeks get hotter and isn’t that amazing, how we appear to be two axes on the same graph with our variables directly proportional to each other. He stops by my desk as I reach boiling point.
I look up shyly.
We are carbon copies, no doubt about it.
“The graph paper?” Mr. Richardson says in his quiet, quiet voice because I’m sitting in the way of the drawer.
I want to plot our axes and show him the line that links us together because we are definitely related, I am absolutely sure of it. I pass him the paper, but don’t let go right away, and he doesn’t tug it out of my hand either. We hold the paper and we hold the paper and we hold the paper, and then he gives me a shy smile that hides in a dimple.
I don’t have one of those.
I let go in disappointment. As he leaves me behind, I dig my finger into my flesh. No matter how hard I press, the hole doesn’t stay in my cheek. Mr. Richardson disappears to the other side of the classroom, and the farther away he walks, the more my temperature cools until I shiver with the cold, stark realization that he probably isn’t my real dad at all.
It’s lunchtime before I know it. Isabel stands up as I do too, and there’s this pulse between us, this beat, as we both try to decide where to go for lunch after two years of sitting together on the bench outside the science classrooms.
We move at the same time, but I’m taking a step toward Isabel and she’s walking toward the door.
“Lunch in the cafeteria, Patrick?” she says loudly. “I fancy a change.”
I need a friend. As soon as I’m home, I take Mr. Goldfish out of my pocket. It’s mental, I know, but I need someone to talk to, even if it is in my head with a flashlight that—
“Can hear every word you say,” Mr. Goldfish tells me as soon as I flick the switch. The light shines out of his mouth and onto my mouth, forging a silent connection between us, actually very warm and comforting. “And less of the flashlight, if you don’t mind.”
“What are you, then?” I ask after a pause. If some people pray to an invisible being in the sky and Isabel talks to a hobbit, maybe it isn’t all that strange to speak to Mr. Goldfish. I gaze into the light, feeling silly but determined to continue because it’s nice to talk after so long, even if it is with—
“God?” Mr. Goldfish asks hopefully. “Or a god, at least. I suppose you could just call me Lord, or something?”
“I’m not going to call you that.”
“Sir?”
“Mr. Goldfish, that’s your name,” I say, relaxing into the conversation the very instant the front door bursts open.
Jack strolls into the living room.
Flustered, I switch off Mr. Goldfish and hide him behind my back, but Jack is distracted by Jedi. He jumps up to put his paws on Jack’s knees and for one crazy second I am jealous of my dog. His whole body wags, his tongue lolling out of his mouth as mine sits rigidly behind gritted teeth.
“Hello, boy. Hello. Hello, hello, hello,” Jack says, sounding happier than he has for a couple of days. He sinks to his knees to scratch Jedi’s ears. “Ah. You like that. You like that, hey? That’s nice, isn’t it? Oh, which doggy loves their daddy, huh? Which doggy loves their daddy?”
It doesn’t seem fair, the fact that Jedi is still Jack’s dog and Mum is still Jack’s wife but I am not Jack’s d
aughter. Nothing about us is similar, not the way we look or the way we sound or the way we move. His body language is easy and open as he play-fights with Jedi. Mine’s the opposite, awkward and closed as I lean back against the cushions, crossing my arms to make myself small. Not small enough though, because Jack notices I’m not doing anything productive.
He pushes Jedi away.
“Have you forgotten the rules, Tess? Homework out, as soon as you get home. That’s not changing, you know. Just because of—” He waves his hand vaguely in my direction as a euphemism for my silence. “Come on. I’m feeling positive today. I made a plan at work. I need to write my own stuff. That’s the thing. I had an e-mail from my agent saying he won’t be able to make it to the play this weekend. But that’s fine. I get it. He’s a busy man. I’m going to take matters into my own hands now. Write my own scripts.” He beams. “Come on. Let’s do this, eh? I’ll bring you up a cup of tea and then we’ll both get cracking on our work.”
I slump farther down the sofa.
“Up you get, Tess. I’m not having any more of this moping-about nonsense. Get your work out of the way now then you’re free to do whatever else you want this evening.”
Whatever else he wants, let’s be clear about that. I might have got out of the play on Saturday, but there’s still tap class this evening. He signed me up a few months ago without even asking my permission, and it might be half a year too late, but tonight I am going to take a stand.
“Your old man was right, huh? You loved it, didn’t you?” he asked when I climbed into the car after the first lesson. “I did a bit of tap in Singin’ in the Rain. First year of drama school.”
We drove through a summer evening the color and texture of golden syrup. People were hot and sticky, spilling out of bars and restaurants to sit outside with sun oozing over their toes. I watched them through the window, these alien creatures having fun on a school night.
“Shuffle hop step, shuffle ball change, and slide-to-the-left and slide-to-the-right. Shuffle hop step, shuffle ball change, and slide-to-the-right and slide-to-the-left.” Jack performed the routine in the car as we waited in traffic, thrusting a hand in my face. “Left arm, right arm, stamp, stamp. Right arm, left arm, pick-up pick-up. Tap-spring, tap-spring, tap-spring, toe-hop. Tap-spring, tap-spring, tap—all right, all right, I’m going,” he muttered when a car behind us beeped because the gridlock had cleared.
“Some people,” I sighed because Jack liked it when I said exactly what he was thinking. “Rush rush rush. Caught up in the rat race, even on a nice evening like this.”
“Precisely.” He rolled his eyes and I rolled mine a second later, copying his expression, and then we both pretended to be scrabbling rodents with very sad faces until we started to giggle. I loved it, the way his lips danced as he nodded approvingly then patted my knee. “Precisely, Tessie-T. No sense of fun. No sense of creativity. I couldn’t live like that—a wage slave. Life’s too short, Tess, I’m telling you. Do like your dad and take the road less traveled, eh? Robert Frost got it right. I shall be telling this with a sigh, somewhere ages and ages hence: two roads diverged in a wood and I—” He jabbed a finger at his chest before holding it out in the air to point at the mysterious path he had taken through life. “I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” I’d heard the poem a thousand times before, but I squeezed Jack’s knee in a show of false emotion. “Inspiring stuff. A rallying cry to get out of the rat race and really live, you know?”
“So why am I at school again?” I joked.
“You need your education, Tess.”
“Yeah, I need my education to get the career I am not going to have because life’s too short to be a wage slave.” It was supposed to be funny, but Jack didn’t laugh.
“Are you making fun of me?”
“No! Of course not.”
“Getting an education makes life so much easier, Tess. Trust me.”
Feeling wounded, I said, “Well, you didn’t get one.”
He didn’t reply for ages, his thoughts traveling to some place I couldn’t follow, returning in a sigh that sounded weary of the world and everything in it. “I know I didn’t.”
“Sorry, Dad. I didn’t mean… Sorry.”
“Why are you sorry? I’ve done all right, haven’t I?”
“Yeah,” I said, baffled by his tone. “Yeah, Dad. You’ve done really well.”
“I know I have,” he snapped. “I don’t need you to tell me that. I could have got an education, Tess, but my parents let me drift. My head was too easily turned by what else was out there. I always knew I wanted something bigger, something better, but I should have knuckled down. My parents should have made me knuckle down. They were too lenient. That’s why I didn’t do very well at school. There was no other reason. I was more than capable of it.”
“I know,” I said, which wasn’t true. Jack rarely spoke about his childhood. He turned left, taking the corner too sharply, riding up onto the curb as he swore under his breath. “I’m sorry, Dad. I didn’t mean… I just meant that sometimes school feels like a rat race. All the lessons. The homework. There is more to life. You were right. Like those people outside the pub, having fun and—”
“Wasting time, you mean. You’ve totally missed the point, Tess. School is important. So is university. So is getting a job.”
“But—”
“But nothing. You misinterpreted me. Take the road less traveled by sometimes. And other times stick to the path that will lead you to success and a decent career. That’s what I meant.” I nodded as if this made total sense. “You need to listen to what your old man is saying, eh? Anyway, did you enjoy the tap lesson? Tell me about that. You loved it, didn’t you?”
“Yeah. It was great.” We grinned, relieved to be back on solid ground. “It was brilliant.”
“You’re going to stick at this hobby?”
“Definitely,” I say somewhere in my memory as somewhere in the living room Jack nudges me with his foot.
“Earth to Tess. Are you in there?”
Well, no, actually, because I am Pluto, thousands of miles away in my own dark orbit, inaccessible and in awe of the change that is occurring right now. I can feel it. I hold Jack’s gaze and it isn’t even difficult anymore. I stare into his blue eyes with my eyes the same color as Mr. Richardson’s. He could be sitting in his living room, wondering if he has found me after years of searching because why else would he choose to be a substitute teacher visiting different schools is what I am asking myself without listening too hard to the answer. I don’t want to hear the voice of reason so I block it out and focus on our meeting in the classroom. Something more than graph paper passed between us today, I am absolutely sure of it. Okay, I am only about sixty percent sure of it, but all of a sudden I can’t wait for sixth period on Thursday to see him again.
“Come on, Tess. It’s time to do your—No boy! No! That’s not yours!”
He’s off in a flash as Jedi savages something in the kitchen. It’s a furious tussle because the dog is not giving it up without a fight. Jack swears and Jedi growls and Jack tugs then finally grabs whatever it is and holds it high above his head. He returns to the living room, panting and victorious, waggling the taped-up skull.
“Got him back! Yorick will give us the luck we need, eh, Tess?” He thrusts it in my direction as if the mascot might work some peculiar magic and make me talk. “Let’s get to work. We’ve got a lot to do tonight and not a lot of time to do it in. We’ll have to leave early with that construction on Chorlton Road. For tap,” he says, in case I’ve forgotten.
I don’t make any move to get up. The skull falls to Jack’s side and he stares at me staring into the space forming between us, getting bigger by the second.
17
Isabel isn’t in the library on Wednesday morning. I look around, crestfallen—the straight rows of desks, the neat signs, the organized shelves. There is order here. Everything has its place according to the Dewey decimal syste
m. I take mine at a desk by the window, trying not to care that I am the only person sitting in the category 1.0 LONER.
“Charming,” Mr. Goldfish says when I open my schoolbag. “What about me?”
“No one else can see you. To the rest of the world I do look like a loner.”
“Get me out then. Go on. It’s not like Isabel’s going to come and sit with you.”
“She might. Not that I care either way.”
“Oh, really?”
I ignore him, taking out my English essay, not even glancing at the library entrance to check for Isabel. Okay, maybe glancing at it a little bit. The door opens and two boys walk in, deep in conversation about something definitely rude that makes them chuckle. It opens again to reveal three girls. Then a couple holding hands.
Where the hell is she I try not to wonder because, let’s face it, she chose to side with Jack and she chose to sit with Patrick rather than share a desk with me. I refocus on my Othello essay, writing a conclusion with more passion than I normally show in English, full of sympathy for Othello, who was betrayed by his friend Iago. Finishing with a flourish, I declare that Othello was in no way responsible for his own downfall because he was an innocent victim of Iago’s deceit. He trusted his friend because you’re supposed to be able to trust your friends is the point I make at the end with a very determined ballpoint pen, throwing in a couple of quotes before dropping my pen to flex my left hand and stare up at the sky.
It’s completely white. The bit of world I can see through the window looks simple, just a brown rectangle of school above a square of gray courtyard that stops at a straight line of black fence beneath an expanse of blank sky. Maybe it looks simple because it is simple. Othello is good, and Iago is bad, and I am in the right, and Isabel is in the wrong, and anyone who was analyzing us in an essay would no doubt come to this conclusion after a couple of paragraphs.