Glitter (6 page)

M
y hand trembles like jelly when I knock at our front door because I know that Mrs Cobb will have phoned my dad by now and told him all about my fight with Tyler. I’m so stupid! I can’t believe myself! I’ve never had a fight with anyone before and now I’ve gone and ruined everything and made things worse and got myself a bad reputation with my new head teacher before I’ve even had a chance to settle at The Grave. My granny will be furious if she finds out, even if it means agreeing with my dad for once. And my granny when she’s furious is not a pretty sight. I don’t know what’s happened to me. It’s as if some alien monster or something has abducted me and decided to ruin my
life. I don’t even understand what happened. I just kind of evaporated and got lost inside my rage.

When my dad lets me in we don’t look at each other. Disappointment and tears are sitting heavy in his eyes, but there’s no steam left inside him to even begin to talk about my fight. He trudges back to our sitting room, slumps down on the sofa and carries on staring at the telly. I’d prefer it if he’d get cross with me and send me to my room and ground me, or something like that. His silence hurts more. I change out of my uniform and make us both a coffee. I wish I could change things and make my life all better and back to normal. I wish I could get my dad’s business back and all our money too. I wish I could get Tyler his job back and sort everything out. I’ve ruined things for everyone. The food fight wasn’t Tyler’s fault; it was mine for not being quicker at changing my accent. I should have listened harder. Now I can see why Cali was so keen for me to learn. I’m so useless.

Finally, my dad shuffles in to see me. He slumps down on my bed like a sack of old potatoes and then his eyes well up again and he starts blubbing.

“I’ve nothing left to say to you,” he sobs. “I feel humiliated, Liberty, shocked and humiliated by your
behaviour, but I’m too exhausted to do anything about it. Can’t you see I have enough of my own problems to be dealing with, without you adding to them? I wash my hands of you – if you’re going to run wild then you’ll have to face the consequences, alone.”

I stare at the carpet and twiddle my fingers round and round. I don’t know what to say but I know that I’m expected to say something.

“Sorry,” I whisper and again it’s like the word has caught the edge of a flame and whooshed up in my face.

“Sorry doesn’t mean anything,” he storms. His face puffs up all red like someone’s pumped angry air back into him. Although I know he’s going to go on and on for ages, something deep inside me relaxes. His anger is easier to be with than his tears. “You keep on saying sorry,” he rages, “but nothing seems to change. You keep on messing up, Liberty, and I don’t know what to do with you. And violence! At this rate you’re going to end up in serious trouble. It’s a tough world out there. I might have thought that for once you’d think about someone else other than yourself…”

I switch my ears off and imagine my dad shrinking. The smaller he gets, the further away from me he is. Now he’s
just a tiny speck on the skirting board with a very big mouth that keeps opening and closing. I keep my face looking normal so he thinks I’m still with him, but actually I’m far away in a magnificent concert hall with a violin in my hand, ready to play. The orchestra is behind me, the conductor is in front of me and the audience is holding its breath, willing me to begin.

Eventually my dad gets up and leaves the room. I switch my ears back on and close my door. I’m tired, so tired of everything and I wish somebody gentle would pick me up and carry me away. I find Mr Ted, give him a hug and then tell him all my troubles and amazingly he comes up with a very good idea.

All night long I’m tossing and turning. The seed of Mr Ted’s idea starts growing into a very fine plan. I can’t wait for the morning and the chance to at least put something right. When it gets light I’m up and ready and leave the house quietly without waking my dad. I race down the stairs and towards the town. There can’t be that many tyre places round here and I have just about enough time to find the right one and still be in time for school. The first one I find is A.P. and Sons, Tyres and Exhausts. I’m a bit
scared but I have to do this. Like my dad says, I have to start thinking of other people and not just myself. I make my way towards the office where a big hairy man looks up from his desk.

“Does a boy called Tyler work for you?” I ask.

“Not here love,” the hairy man says. “You might try Tyre Right round the back of the market, that’s the only other place that’s local.”

I’m running out of time so I jog towards the market and down the little street behind. There are loads of cars queuing to get new tyres this morning because of the big sign at the end of the road saying “25 per cent Discount Day”.

“Does a boy called Tyler work for you?” I ask a skinny boy who’s using a loud machine to whizz the tyres off fast.

“He did,” shouts the boy, over the machine, “but not any more. Why, who wants to know?”

“I do,” I say. And then the whole story spills out and the skinny boy takes me to his boss who sits me down, makes me a coffee and sits on his desk to listen to me.

“I need you to give him his job back,” I say. “I mean, it’s not fair, is it? It wasn’t his fault he got the detention, it was mine.”

When I start looking for Tyler at lunchtime, Cali can’t believe her eyes.

“You’re crazy,” she warns. “Stay away from him, Libs, he’s bad news.”

“His bark is louder than his bite,” I say and then I realise that the same is true for my dad. He might shout and rage and go on and on at me, but he’s never actually hurt me. Well, not physically, that is. He has hurt my feelings though and I wonder which is worse.

“You really are all right, you are,” smiles Tyler, when I tell him he’s got his job back. “You’ve got spark, you have, I’m sorry I put you in the wrong box, Liberty Parfitt.”

“Never judge a book by its cover,” I brave.

Tyler gives me a high five and laughs, “Don’t push your luck, pipsqueak.”

T
oday is my birthday. I don’t even know if my dad’s actually remembered and I’m delaying getting get up in case he hasn’t, because I wouldn’t know what to do or say and I don’t know if I could actually just go off to school without mentioning it. If my mum were still alive I know she’d never forget my birthday. I think having a baby must be something a mum can never forget, even if they’re far away and don’t even see you. I’d like to think that my mum is remembering me today, even though she’s dead. Maybe she’ll be having a little tea party in the sky to celebrate me being twelve.

Twelve is big. It means I’ve got used to being double
figures and I’m only six years away from being eighteen, which must be amazing! A little flutter of hope is still alive in my heart. It keeps on reminding me that I did see a violin on my dad’s bed and that the only person living in this flat that likes the violin is me. But there’s also a big fat heavy hammer in my head that keeps smashing my hope away. If my dad
had
planned a surprise for me I know that my recent behaviour would have definitely made him change his mind.

I haven’t been with my dad on my birthday since I was six years old. My birthday is always in term-time, so usually I have them at school. My day always starts with Alice leaping on my bed, showering me with presents and glittery cards. Then we always do something special in our boarding house to celebrate, like having a movie and pizza and I
always
have a wonderful lemon cake with tea. My dad usually sends my present through the post and Sebastian always makes sure we eat lunch together or something like that. I wonder if Alice has remembered my birthday or whether she’s so busy now with Thea Quaddy that she’s totally forgotten I exist?

I stay in bed for as long as possible, without making myself late for school. I feel cosy and safe in here with
Mr Ted. When I’m up and dressed I creep out of my room and find my dad sitting at the kitchen table, waiting for me. He’s made coffee and toast.

“Happy birthday, Liberty,” he says, stretching a forced smile on his face. “I’m sorry it’s not going to be a very exciting one, but here, I have this for you.”

On the table is a long, fat box wrapped in pink paper and a pile of birthday cards. It’s the kind of box that would most likely be able to fit a violin inside. Maybe my dad decided to disguise it so it would be a complete surprise. My heart is thumping fast.

“Go on then,” he says, handing me a coffee, “open it.”

“I’ll start with my cards,” I say.

My hands tremble as I open my cards. There’s one from my granny in Scotland with five £20 notes in it and a message for me to buy myself something special and something sensible and to put some in the bank to save for a rainy day. She says she can’t come to visit because she’s off on an autumn cruise to the Caribbean, but she hopes I have a nice day.

“She wouldn’t have been welcome anyway, silly old battleaxe,” says my dad.

There’s another card from our old housekeeper, Maureen, with a funny joke on the front saying, “What happened when the cat ate a ball of wool? It had mittens!” Ha, ha, not funny! And one from Sebastian, with a cool picture of a puppy wearing a tiara, sitting in a flowerpot. The one from my dad says, “To my Special Daughter” on the front. Tears prickle in the back of my eyes, because I know it’s not true. The words should really say: “To my Especially Difficult and a Big Disappointment to the Parfitt Family Daughter” but I guess they don’t sell cards that say those words.

“Go on,” my dad urges in a gentle voice that he rarely uses on me, “open it up or you’ll be late for school.”

I can’t open it. I’d like to ask if I could wait till later, but even then I know it’ll be hard. I take a gulp of coffee and pick at the pink wrapping.

“It’s a family heirloom,” says my dad. “You know I haven’t got any money for presents this year, but I thought you’d appreciate this; something special, to keep.”

My heart leaps. Maybe it is true; maybe it is the violin. I pull the rest of the wrapping off, open the flaps of the box and peer inside. My dad’s smiling, waiting for
my reaction. My heart takes a big dive and lands with a thud in my stomach. I fix a fake smile on my face.

“They’re wonderful, Dad,” I lie, pulling the entire, leather-bound,
Complete Works of Charles Dickens
from the box. They’re all there,
The Christmas Carol
,
Little Dorrit
,
David Copperfield
,
Oliver Twist
, all of them.

“They belonged to your Great-Grandmother Parfitt. You resemble her somewhat, so I felt they should be yours. She was a real bookworm, like you. I hope you enjoy them.”

It’s not until lunchtime that I can bring myself to tell Cali and Dylan it’s my birthday. I’ve felt like bursting into tears all morning, even my own dad doesn’t know that
I’m
not the bookworm, Alice is. If only I hadn’t got into trouble I might actually have a violin of my own by now and I might have it here with me at school and I might be rushing to the
Bugsy
audition asking to play. But I can’t exactly blame anyone but myself, can I? It’s all my own stupid fault. I feel so sad and sorry about everything. I even feel sorry for my dad and
he
must feel terrible about not having enough money to buy me a proper birthday present.

The auditions for
Bugsy Malone
are about happen. Joyce helped Cali prepare her song for her audition piece and she’s so excited that she can’t think or talk about anything else. Even Dylan is prepared. He’s been learning lines and practicing an American gangster accent for days now which is actually getting really irritating, but it’s good to see that at least some people are happy in this world.

“Aren’t you going to audition for anything, Libs?” asks Dylan. “You should go for Lena, you’d be brilliant at her.”

“No,” I sigh. “I was hoping to be in the orchestra, but there’s no hope of that now. I might do backstage or chorus or something, don’t worry about me.”

“Why is there no hope?” Cali pipes up. “You’re so depressing sometimes, Libs. I mean, I know things aren’t going so well for you at the moment, but you’re not the only one, you know. Just take a look around this school; there are plenty of people suffering. None of us have the things we want, let alone the things we need. And I won’t tell you again, remember, never say never, OK?”

“I’m sorry,” I say, “it’s just today is really bad. It’s my birthday and I went and got this stupid idea in my head
that my dad was going to get me a violin. But he didn’t, he gave a set of stupid old books instead.”

“Your birthday!” screeches Cali. “Why didn’t you say?” And then her and Dylan break out into a
Bugsy Malone
style version of ‘Happy Birthday’ which makes me want to laugh and cry at the same time.

W
hile Cali and Dylan are auditioning for
Bugsy Malone
I come up with a brilliant plan. Cali’s words are dancing in my head and she’s right, I’m not the only one with troubles around here and it’s about time I stop whinging and start taking some action. Just like Hanna with her Community Action Scheme. I follow the corridor away from the drama department. I don’t know why it hasn’t occurred to me before but obviously the best place to find a violin to play in
Bugsy Malone
is in the school music centre.

The music centre is quiet and dark. A few keyboards line the wall and a dusty old piano sits quietly in the
corner. Mmmm…maybe this wasn’t such a great plan after all.

“Can I help?” asks a lady with blonde hair, who I assume is one of the music teachers.

“Well,” I whisper, “I was wondering about
Bugsy Malone
and if you had an orchestra playing for it?”

She laughs. “An orchestra! At
this
school? I wish! You must be new around here. My name’s Mrs O, pleased to meet you.” She holds out her hand. I shake it and introduce myself. “Luckily, a local professional orchestra has offered to play for us. Why, were you interested?”

“Yes,” I say. “I’d like to play the little violin part at the beginning, you know, like on the film version, when they’re eating in the Italian restaurant, just before the splurge attack? It’s only a small part I know, but I’d love to have it.”

“Well,” she says, “you’re welcome to it. We were planning on having recorded music for that bit, but in fact it would be wonderful to have a real live player, what a lovely idea. Have you got a violin? How long have you been learning?”

Then I feel completely stupid standing here asking to play, because I have to answer no to both of her questions.

“Well,” I say, blushing, “I can play a bit, but I’d need some lessons to learn the piece properly. And I don’t have a violin, so I’d need to borrow something to play it on.”

“I’m so sorry, Liberty,” she says, “but I can’t help. We’re so short of funding in this place that we don’t have any instruments for people to use, except those old keyboards. And to be honest most of the kids here aren’t interested in orchestral kind of music anyway. But look,” she says, picking up the
Bugsy Malone
music score and leading me to the photocopier, “take a copy of the music and I promise you; if you can get hold of an instrument and learn the piece, then the part is yours. OK?”

Well, at least I tried, and even Cali will have to admit that there’s now, officially, no hope. I will never get to be able to play in
Bugsy Malone
. I’ll just get involved in some backstage stuff. It will be better anyway. There’ll be less chance of my dad finding out.

“Woooooo hoooooo!” squeals Cali after school, punching the air with her fist.

She’s completely over the moon and back again because, of course, she got the part of Blousey Brown and
she’s dancing down the road singing “I’m Feeling Fine” at the top of her voice.

“You see,” she shrieks, “Blousey wants to get to Hollywood, just like me and we’re both gonna get there, I promise you, I just know it! I’m made for the part, I was born to go to Hollywood.”

Dylan isn’t feeling so fine and neither am I. He didn’t get the part of Bugsy but he did get the part of Bugsy’s right-hand man, Knuckles, so he’s busy practicing cracking his knuckles like a gangster and pretending not to care. I try to act pleased for Cali because I know how much this means to her so I join hands with her and make us spin around and around and around and I try to smile, but really I wish I could spin right away and disappear.

Today doesn’t feel like my birthday. I haven’t got that ice cream and birthday cake kind of feeling following me around and I think that with all the excitement of Bugsy, Cali and Dylan have actually forgotten as well. I wonder if Alice will remember and call me later? I hope she does.

“Bye, Libs,” calls Cali, when we get to our flats.

I don’t know why I feel so upset. I mean it’s only a birthday, isn’t it? It’s no big deal. Who cares if I’m twelve now and not eleven? I mean, it doesn’t show on my face,
does it? And I’m not actually any different today, I mean it’s not like it’s a big birthday or anything, just a normal boring birthday and I need to start understanding that there are more important things going on in the world than my birthday.

My dad’s staring at the telly again when I get home. I don’t think he does anything else these days. There’s certainly no evidence that he’s out there searching for a job or getting busy with those pies he said he had his fingers in. I take my
Complete Works of Charles Dickens
into the sitting room and slump down on the sofa to have a good look through them. I superglue a convincing smile on my face; so good that no one would ever be able to read the disappointment that has written itself across my lips and hidden a sore little scar in my heart. So good that no one would ever guess that I’m even bothered one bit that the old books in my hands are not a violin and that I’ll never get to play in
Bugsy Malone
. I wish I were brave enough to tell my dad how I feel. It must be lovely to be able to talk to your dad about things like that.

My dad keeps on looking at me out of the corner of his eye and I keep looking back at him, like we’re both waiting for something birthdayish to magically happen. It must
hard for my dad, in our old life he’d just be able to dig his hand in his pocket and make anything happen. Money could fill the gaps, but now we can’t do that sort of thing and we’re left just sitting here with each other feeling awkward. Even when I was tiny my dad never properly did my birthdays himself. He would just hand out the cash to a nanny or a housekeeper who would try to make things nice. Or otherwise my granny would fly down from Scotland and interfere.

I try to get interested in the telly programmes, but my dad’s obsessed with watching boring history stuff and quiz shows and the news. I don’t like any of those so I make us both a coffee. I’m sure kids my age shouldn’t be drinking so much of the stuff, but today I really, really just don’t care. I guess, just to be polite I need to make a proper, enthusiastic start on Charles Dickens and begin at the beginning of one book and stay with it right the way through to the end. Alice would find this easy; she would eat all of them up in one day. And even Cali would probably be having them for tea right now, making them fun by acting out the old-fashioned characters, getting ready for Hollywood. But I can’t seem to settle down to it. I keep checking my phone in case Alice has sent a text, but
she hasn’t and I feel nervous about calling her. I bet her and Thea Quaddy are best friends now and I’m just a distant memory. I’m not part of the rich-girl club any more; I can’t do the things they do. Tempting birthday memories of Alice laughing and huge fat lemon cakes and thousands of presents keep dancing in front of my eyes.

Since the fight with Tyler my angry feelings have melted into puddle of heavy sludge. I haven’t got the energy for anger any more; I just don’t care. My whole complete self has turned into one big fat, cold, grey day.

At six o’clock someone knocks at the door. My dad and I both jump out of our skins. We don’t have visitors here; hardly anyone even knows where we live. My dad trudges up the hall to answer and I hover in the background curious to see who it is.

“Hi,” says Hanna, all smiles. “I understand it’s Liberty’s birthday and if you don’t have any plans I’d like to invite you both up for dinner.”

Warm sunshine spreads through my body. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you God or Buddha or Allah or my mum or whoever might be watching over me. Thank you Cali and thank you Hanna. Thank you the world and the
universe. I am here. I do matter. I smile back at Hanna and nod.

“Yes, please.”

My dad’s all of a fluster, he’s running his hands through his bed-head hair and rearranging his clothes in an attempt to look smart his jogging pants and smelly old shirt.

“Well,’ he stutters, “I’m not sure, really…Liberty and I…we…”

“Whatever,” Hanna laughs. “See you both in fifteen minutes.”