Invisible Girl (10 page)

T
hat does it. I can’t help snapping.

“It’s really important you tell me, Connor!” I say. “I think Beckett gave you the bunny and I need to find him.
Urgently!
”

“Stop asking me questions,” Connor yells. “I told you! I don’t know him. I’ve never heard of him!”

“Does a man with brown curly hair ever come over?” I ask. “He looks a bit like me. A bit like you, Connor! You must have seen him. Your mum
must’ve
mentioned him.”

“My dad’s got curly hair.”

“Yes, but I don’t mean your dad,” I say. “I mean someone younger than your dad, but older than me. I wish I had his photo. Think hard, Connor, it’s really, really important.”

He suddenly stands up and makes a leap for a red metal pole.

“I’m not allowed to say,” he blurts out, his hands squeaking on the wet metal. “I promised.”

My heart bangs on my ribs, my tummy twists in a knot.

“So you do know him then?” I ask. “You know who Beckett is?”

Connor swings his legs high. He jumps back on to the platform and stretches out, tummy down, in the wet.

“I told you, I’m not allowed to say,” he says, launching his scooter clattering down the slide. He follows it headfirst landing in a heap at the bottom.

“Don’t go, Connor!” I say, panicking.

He stares up at me through the raindrops dripping from his eyelashes. Just crumpled there he looks so small.

“Does she hit you?” I ask in a tiny voice.

A shadow falls across Connor’s face. Then he scrabbles himself up, hops on his scooter and scoots away.

“Come back,” I say, whizzing down the slide, running to catch him up. “Please, Connor! Please tell me! I need to know!”

He skids to a halt, scuffing the toe of his trainer along the ground, spinning round to face me. “I’m not allowed to say!”

“Not allowed to say what, Connor, not allowed to say what?”

“I’m not allowed to say anything!” he shouts, punching my face with his words, scooting away from me fast. He shouts over his shoulder, “No one must know! He’s dead, Connor, remember, he’s dead, he’s dead!”

I climb on a swing and pump my legs so fast I can see the wet rooftops shining over the fence. My brain is whizzing at a hundred miles an hour. A lump as big as a hard-boiled egg has swelled up in my throat. Beckett’s not dead! He can’t be! I’d know if he’d died. Mum would’ve called Dad, she would!

I swing higher and higher, the rain splashing my cheeks, the wind whipping my hair in my face. I leap off and land on the ground with a thud, a dart of red-hot pain firing from my ankle up my leg.

I need to think. I pick up my bag and start walking. I dig in my pocket for Blue Bunny’s ear, scuffling my fist in the soft empty space. My heart clatters like mad.

I drop to the ground and tear open my bag, pulling out the neat pile of stuff, searching for Blue Bunny. I’m not a baby. I just need him.

I turn it all upside down, a kaleidoscope of coloured pens rolling away, my clothes soaking up the puddles like sponges.
Blue Bunny, where are you?

I check in the side pockets. I hold the empty bag upside down and shake. I peer inside, hoping like a birthday party magician, he’ll appear. Then I stuff everything I own back in the bag and, avoiding the cracks, retrace my steps to the bin.

He’ll be in the bin; I know it. He’ll be all droopy and wet from the rain, sad and angry at being left alone. I fill myself up with my special silver searchlight power and send it shimmering ahead of me to let Blue Bunny know I’m on my way.

On top of all my discarded stuff are loads of soggy chips and half-eaten burgers. I dip my hands in and scuffle through the rubbish trying not to get ketchup slime on my fingers. Please, Blue Bunny,
Please!

I dig right in, my heart thumping, picking out my books and scraps, my throat closing up and gagging at the rubbishy stink.

He is here; I know it.

I can feel it in my bones; I can feel him getting closer.

I look up through the grey thundery clouds searching for God and I send him a little wave. I feel around in my pocket again just to make sure, one last time that Blue Bunny’s not there.

I blink away the tears pinching my eyes. I look around to make sure no one’s watching and start pulling everything in the bin on to the pavement. I don’t care if I make a mess. I just need to find him. I sink my arms, elbow deep, into the rubbish, rain dribbling down the back of my neck, melting the bits of scattered paper to mush. The stolen tiara winks at me, spinning my tummy into panic. But I don’t want that! I don’t care about tiaras. I just want Blue Bunny!

“You all right, pet?” asks a lady walking by with a little brown dog, straining on his lead.

I keep my eyes on the pile of rubbish, quickly covering the glinting tiara with the scraps. I want to say,
I didn’t steal it, I’ve never stolen a thing in my life before Manchester, it’s just…

Her kind face reminds me of the cupcake lady in the park, and makes a waterfall gush through me, almost spilling me over the edge.

I shrug my shoulders. I shake my head. “M’OK.”

Her little brown dog stops. He sniffs the burger. He licks the ketchup and tugs away the meat. I smile and pat his head. I wish I could bundle him on my lap and hold him there forever. Then he lifts his leg to wee and the hot yellow stream splashes my jeans and runs through the rubbish like a river.

“Ooops! Sorry, pet,” laughs the lady, snapping at the dog’s lead and pulling him away. “You cheeky thing, Bruno! What to do with you, eh?”

I try to find a little smile to plug up my tears because it is kind of funny what the dog did. It’s the kind of thing people video and send in to one of those telly programmes. But I can’t find a smile anywhere. And the pee bleeds through my jeans and makes me think about all the germs touching my skin. I can’t stop the tears from shuddering out, shaking my shoulders, stinging my eyes, salting my lips. I peer into the bottom of the bin at the thick layer of black sticky gunge, hoping to see two bright bunny eyes peering up at me.

I shove the rubbish back in the bin and throw more of my own stuff away too. I’m tired of my heavy bag. I stoop down, resting my back against the hard, damp wall, balancing my sketchbook on my lap, and draw a beautiful rainbow arching up over a really pretty house with white roses round the door. I draw a Beckett-like man, and a girl and a white pony with soft brown eyes, and a bright red scooter. For a moment my picture looks perfect and I’d like to show it to Mrs Evans. Then a big raindrop sploshes from the gutter and smudges the colours so it looks like it’s crying.

I wonder about Beckett being dead, about Blue Bunny being lost. I wonder about Dad and Amy getting married and Connor and Mum and that toddler girl, Jayda. I think about everything horrid and sad in my life and it all starts building up inside like this huge vat of volcano lava gushing towards me, threatening to swallow me whole.

Then this cool minty feeling sweeps over me. It’s like when you have a filling in your tooth and the dentist gives you an injection and then drills a hole so big all the nerve endings in your teeth are raw and waving to the world. But because of the injection you can’t feel one tiny thing. And he’s talking about what you like to do at school and you’re there with your mouth open wide, dribbling. And you’re watching the little mobile of butterflies swinging in the breeze, not feeling the sharp bits of tooth swilling about in your mouth.

Suddenly, I don’t even care about the dog wee touching my skin. I imagine Beckett dead, dead, dead under the dark, wormy earth. I imagine Blue Bunny munched up by the bin men. I imagine Dad spending all the money, Amy laughing at me. I remember Mum hitting me and imagine Connor telling on me. I think about that girl Jayda and her chunky little leg waiting for Mum’s big, hard hand.

I stop caring about the CCTV cameras, about my tummy rumbling like mad, about my ankle throbbing.

I stop caring for anything.

At all.

I
walk in the grey rain for years, getting soaked right through to my skin. I sit in a shop doorway and watch everyone’s feet slap the wet ground. They pass by without noticing me. All walking to somewhere dry. I wander through the dripping maze of streets, feeling invisible, looking for the angel-tattoo lemon man and the silver statue people.

But everyone’s run for cover.

Everyone’s gone home.

When it’s late and I can’t walk any more I tuck myself behind a skip in an alleyway and make myself a home from a soggy cardboard box. I try drawing roses on it, making them climb up the sides. But my pens don’t work so well because everything’s too wet.

I don’t let myself think about anything. Especially not Beckett. Instead I let the cool minty feeling sweep over me and numb it all away. All the next day no one notices me. No one smiles or catches my eye. I’m a half-dead ghost pacing the streets with aching bones, looking for somewhere comfy to rest.

In the evening, I shelter in the Cathedral doorway and listen to the voices of the choirgirls and boys flying up to the sky like doves. I’d like to go in and sing with them in their special clean, dry choirgirl clothes. I open my mouth wide and wish a beautiful sound could fly out of me.

“Hey, kitten,” says Henny, coming towards me. She leans against the big wooden door and rolls her eyes up at the singing.

“I like it,” I say. “They sound like angels.”

Henny laughs. She folds her arms in front of her chest and makes a big pink bubble with her gum. “D’you believe in God and all that stuff?” she asks.

I shake my head. “Don’t think so, I’m not really sure.”

“If he was true,” says Henny, “then why is life so crap?”

“Maybe he has too many prayers to answer,” I say. “Maybe there’s just too many people. Maybe the prayers are all lining up in a queue, waiting for their turn, like people in the supermarket.”

I think about Grace and all the tasty things her mum gets from that counter. The things she spreads out on the table for us to pick at. Like salami and special cheese, and those little chicken things on sticks that you dip in peanut sauce.

“Where did you go?” I ask.

Henny tears a loose thread of skin from her thumb and a little trail of blood leaks out. She licks it away with her tongue. “Around,” she says.

“But you left me,” I say, “at the cinema. They started chasing me and I couldn’t find you anywhere. I might’ve got caught.”

Henny shrugs.

“What about Beckett?” I ask. “You promised you’d help me find him. I saw that boy again, my little brother, Connor. He said B… B… Beckett was dead. What do you think, Henny? I think I’d know it if he was. I think I’d feel it inside.”

“I think your little brother’s talking sense,” she says.

“Have you got family?” I ask.

She shakes her head and presses her lips together so they make a thin white line.

“You’re my family now,” she says. “Me and you, kitten.”

“Yes, but we can’t keep getting into trouble, can we?” I say. “And we can’t just hang around here forever. We need to do something.”

“Do what?” she says. “There’s nothing to do.”

We stand there, sheltering from the rain, listening to the singing, until the choir file out and the vicar man snaps off the lights.

“Let’s go,” says Henny, dragging me by the sleeve. “There’s this little job we need to do for you know who.”

I pull away and shake my head, searching in my pocket, wishing Blue Bunny would appear. “No,” I say, “I’m not coming. I’m tired, Henny, my ankle’s killing me, and I can’t keep running.”

She pulls a bar of chocolate from her bag and opens the golden wrapper. She breaks off a chunk, pops it in my mouth and my tummy growls. I haven’t eaten for years.

“Come on, it won’t take a minute,” she smiles, snapping off another chunk.

I stand firm. “I’m not doing that stuff any more, Henny,” I say. “I can’t. It’s too scary. I don’t like it.”

Then she turns on me, her brown eyes pleading. “Just one last time, kitten,” she says. “
Please!
”

The panic in her face burns my heart. But then the minty feeling washes over me, numbing everything out.

“I’m sorry, Henny,” I say. “I can’t.”

Henny’s face twists up, making her look ugly. She bites a nail; she hugs herself with her arms. I shake my head and turn to go.

“Don’t leave me on my own, kitten,” she says. “
Please?
”

“Look, I’ll come back for you,” I say. “I promise. Once I’ve found Beckett I’ll come and find you. He’ll know what to do. It’ll all be OK.”

Henny slides her back down the huge door until she’s sitting on the cold hard stone with her arms wrapped tightly round her knees. A single tear rolls down her cheek. She wipes it away with her sleeve and I wish I could run over and make her better.

“Come with me, Henny!” I say. “We’ll hide somewhere until we find Beckett. Somewhere safe, far away from Kingdom.”

She tucks her head under her arms, her shoulders shaking with tears. I run over and put my arm around her. I kiss the top of her head. She holds on to my hand, squeezing so hard, like if she lets go she’ll slide off the edge of a cliff.

She sniffs and wipes her nose on her sleeve. She looks up at me, mascara smudged down her face. “S’OK,” she laughs. “You go, kitten. I’ll be all right. You go and find Beckett. But come back for me when you’ve found him, yeah?”

I nod. I squeeze her shoulders, kiss her again and run away faster than the wind.

The elastic band pulls me to Tia’s, but once I’m there I feel weird.

I feel stupid. I don’t even know if she’s still there, if she’ll let me in. I don’t know if she’ll want me. Her road is empty except for a man walking his dog, his shoulders hunched against the rain, the dog sniffing the puddles. I tuck myself behind a big bush outside her house and sit there for years, yawning. The lights in the flats blink at me, the rain twinkles like glitter, and I wonder if she’ll ever look out.

“Quick,” Tia whispers, peeping her nose out of her door.

I untangle myself from the bush and splash through the puddles that shine like mirrors in the road. Tia bundles me into her room. She flaps her arms around, shushing me, pressing her finger on my lips, mouthing for me to stay quiet as a mouse. She pulls a wet rat-tail of hair from my cheek, holds it up high and drops it down, smothering a giggle. She twists my jacket sleeve like a dishcloth, making a big grey puddle on the floor. Then she mimes for me to take off my clothes.

Tia hands me a thin yellow towel and pulls some clean, dry clothes from a drawer. We lie on her bed in silence, looking up at the cracks on the ceiling, feeling the sounds from the telly in the next room vibrating against the wall. My fingers slide across the bed, finding Tia’s, and we plait them together like hair.

When the place goes quiet and she’s sure everyone’s sleeping, Tia creeps into the kitchen to get some food.

I lie on her bed with the minty numbness washing over me, thinking about that pink bath of hers and the hot water and the fruity shampoo. I close my eyes and imagine I’m back at home, with Dad in the next room sipping beers, with me making pictures of cosy houses from scraps.

Then a cold dark shadow falls on my face.

I think it’s Dad coming in to say goodnight, but when I flick my eyes open my heart stops beating.

“What the blinking hell have we got here?” says a deep, gruff voice.

This huge, hairy man wearing nothing but boxer shorts, with tattoos all over his arms, is leaning over me. Tia appears at the door, twitching nervously, panic lights flashing in her eyes.

“Tia!” the man hollers, turning to face her. “If you think you can smuggle your street trash into this house you’ve got another think coming! D’you hear me?”

Tia shrinks back against the wall, trembling as his huge tattooed hands grab my arm and yank me off the bed. He closes his fat fingers around my waist, picks me up like an insect, opens the front door and throws me back outside in the rain.

“And don’t even think about coming back!” he growls, as I land on the ground with a thud. “Do you hear me?”

And it’s not until I’ve run faster than the speed of light, away from Tia’s, and back to the Cathedral, that I notice. My feet are bare.

I stand in front of the Cathedral with my eyes closed and the rain falling heavy on my face. I stretch my arms out wide like Jesus on the cross and pray.

Dear God,

Please, please help me!

Amen.

“You all right, love?” says a voice.

When I open my eyes a young man is peering at me through the pearly raindrops on his lashes, the radio thing in his pocket crackling and buzzing. I stare at him, blinking.

“Are you God?” I whisper, reaching my hand up and touching his stubbly face.

He gently takes my arm. I flinch, remembering Tia’s Dad’s fat fists around my body. The policeman speaks into his radio, saying he’s found a girl with no shoes on and I wonder who he’s talking about.

“Where d’you live, sweetheart?” he says, leading me towards a police car. “What’s your name?”

I snap myself together and my brain starts spinning.

I can’t tell him. I’ll get Dad into trouble.

And where exactly do I live?

I don’t even know the right answer any more.

“I’m Gabriella,” I say, “and I’m trying to find my big brother, Beckett Midwinter. Do you know him?”

He speaks into his radio thing and puts a search out for Beckett.

“Sorry, Gabriella,” he says, shaking his head, “we’ve got nothing on him. Where’s your mum? It’s too late for you to be out alone. We need to get you home, you’re soaking.”

Mum’s face looms in my eyes as I reluctantly give him her address. Her evil shark teeth gnashing at me. I don’t know what else to do. I’ve got nowhere else to go except to Henny and the police won’t leave me with her.

I look up at the sky, through the glittering rain and wish a hand would come down and pluck me up and take me somewhere safe. The policeman bundles me into the car, my body moving like a puppet, hanging limply from a string.

“We’ll have you home and dry in a flash,” says a police lady with kind blue eyes, sliding in next to me.

I lean my head against the window and watch the raindrops dance through the sky as we drive up and down the streets. The car tyres swish through puddles, my breath makes steam on the glass. I see a big black car down a side road and Henny climbing inside. We pass the old warehouse building and I think about all the kids huddling on the rooftop, trying to stay dry. We pass Tia’s and I wonder if she’s sleeping.

“Where have you been, love?” says the police lady.

I turn to her. “I don’t know,” I say. “Everywhere, I’spose.”