Paper Aeroplanes (22 page)

And there it is. My biggest remaining problem ironed out, giving me the moment of clarity that I have been waiting for. Julian will never want me – he made that perfectly clear at the garage. I either lose my best friend trying to make him, or I concentrate on the person who I care about the most. I have to tell Flo the truth and save our friendship. It’s the most important thing. Julian isn’t worth losing Flo over. I just hope I’m not too late.

As I walk to school I wonder if today will be the day that Renée comes back. It’s only been a week but Tudor Falls feels empty without her. Renée is the one who brings everyone together. Without her people just get on with school. I’ve missed her so much.

When I walk into the classroom Sally is already at her desk.

‘Oh, morning, Flo. How are you?’ she asks cheerily.

What’s she playing at? She is being nice. I don’t like it.

I open my desk. She has put a Wagon Wheel in it.

‘I know they’re your favourite. I have a multipack in my bag. You can have one every day this week if you like.’

What? No lecture about how chocolate makes me spotty? What is going on?

She smiles at me. A freakishly wide smile showing no teeth. She is scaring me.

‘Sally, why are you being like this?’ I ask suspiciously.

‘What? Can’t I give my best friend some chocolate?’

‘You are not my . . .’ I think better of carrying on. I can’t be bothered to go through it again. The unfortunate rule that we are not allowed to change seats in our form room means that I have to be next to her for twenty minutes every morning during registration. After that I can avoid her all day. I take a deep breath and sit tight. I can cope with her for twenty minutes, just. Miss Anthony comes in.

‘Good morning, everybody. Ah, and good morning, Renée. Welcome back.’

I turn around. Renée is standing at her desk. She looks happier. I smile and will the next twenty minutes to go really quickly so I can tell her how much I’ve missed her. As I gather my books for the morning’s classes, a note hits me on the head. Sally sees it but ignores it. Finally we have progress.

I’ve missed you. We need to talk. Can we meet after school? R x

I reply immediately.

I missed you tooooooo! I’ve been so worried ab

A gasp from the back of the room makes me stop writing and look up. Miss Anthony has pulled down the blackboard and on it, in large chalky letters, I see the words ‘Dear Julian’. My eyes fixed on the board, I continue to read.

Dear Julian,

The night I met you I’d found Flo passed out at Gem’s house about to have her period all over the floor. I had to stuff loo roll into her pants and then pretty much carry her home. It was gross, but when I saw you I didn’t mind any more. I wouldn’t have met you if she hadn’t got so wasted.

Then that time in the kitchen when you kissed me, and you touched me the way that you did, I think that’s when I fell in love with you. I kept making excuses to come to your house after that.

And then that night when I lied to Flo about feeling ill and we had sex in your car, that was one of the worst and best nights of my life. But I worry that I wasn’t good enough, that I didn’t do it right. I worry about all the blood. My white jeans were stained so badly I had to throw them away. I know that might have put you off, but please give me another chance. Maybe Flo never needs to know?

‘OH MY GOD! My jeans!!’ screeches Gem from the back of the class. ‘My mum is going to flip out!’

I feel like a piano is stuck in my throat.

‘Is this a joke?’ I say, standing up and rising above Sally, who is sitting at her desk. I’ll make her tell me this isn’t true if is the last thing I do. She hands me a piece of paper. My eyes go straight to the end.

I know you will think I’m too young to say this, but I think I love you.

Renée

I’d recognise Renée’s writing anywhere. I stare at the letter. I have to remind myself to breathe.

‘OK, ladies, let’s all keep calm. Sally, did you make this up?’ asks Miss Anthony.

All eyes turn to Sally. Every single person in the room is expecting her to admit to making this up. Everyone knows she is capable of it.

‘No, no, she didn’t,’ I eventually say, turning to Renée. ‘I have the letter here in my hand. It’s true. Renée wrote this.’

I watch Renée fall into her seat and drop her head into her hands.

‘I don’t feel very well, Miss Anthony,’ I say like a zombie. ‘Can I go home?’

Miss Anthony thinks for a few seconds then excuses me. I bolt for the door and run all the way home, where I shut myself in my bedroom and pull the duvet over my head. I never want to go back to school, ever ever again.

I wait outside the toilet cubicle.

‘Come out, Sally. The least you can do is face me after what you just did to Flo.’

The door flies open.

‘What
I
did to Flo? Um . . . I think you’ll find you did that all yourself,’ she says, strutting past me.

She goes over to the sinks and stares at her spiteful face in the mirror.

‘How did you get the letter?’ I ask, trying to keep my cool. ‘It was in my bedroom, how did you get it?’

‘You’ll never know,’ she says smugly.

‘Tell me, Sally, how did you get it?’ I push, really trying to stay calm.

She laughs. An evil laugh, the kind of laugh a baddy in a cartoon would do. I reach forward and grab the back of her hair.

‘Maybe your mental, anorexic sister gave it to me?’ she says, acting like it doesn’t hurt.

I automatically pull harder.

‘Tell me, Sally. How did you get that letter.’

I pull more of her hair. I swear I won’t let go until she tells me how she got it.

‘Why should I tell you any—’

I twist the final twist before we both know the entire handful of hair is coming out.

‘All right, all right. Let go, I’ll tell you,’ she says, before I give her a bald patch.

I release my hand. A few strands of her hair remain wrapped around my fingers. She reorganises herself in front of the mirror.

‘Your gran’s a bit thick, isn’t she?’ she says calmly.

‘What?’

‘Your gran. I went round to your house. I was going to warn you off Flo, tell you exactly how I feel about you stealing my best friend, but you weren’t there. Next thing I know I’m sitting at your gran’s dirty kitchen table eating crap biscuits and drinking tea that tasted like stale water. She was banging on about your aunty, what a special person she is, and about how she was out with you looking for a new house, like I cared. I got so bored I asked to go to the loo. When I saw your bedroom the temptation was too much, even for a person with as much self-control as me. I opened your bedside drawer and hey presto, the last six months played out on paper. The way you stole Flo from me right before my eyes, the entire lie on paper. Her notes to you were so pathetic.
I’ve never had a friend like you. I didn’t know girls like you existed.
What are you, lezzers?’

‘No, we are friends.
Proper
friends.’

‘Ha, that’s a joke. She’s totally disillusioned by you. I read through all her drippy, soppy notes to you and I found the one you had written to Julian. Right in amongst her fantasy was your big fat lie.’

The idea of Sally reading those notes, being in my bedroom, in my house, talking to Nana is horrible. I feel totally invaded, and even though I have known her for all these years I’m still shocked by how evil she really is.

‘So I took it. Something that beautiful can’t go to waste. Finders keepers and all that.’

She goes to walk away but I pull her back towards me. I am possessed by such extreme anger that the whole thing feels like a dream. I drag her by her hair into a cubicle, push her head down into the toilet bowl, and flush.

‘You did WHAT?’

Even Aunty Jo is struggling to see how I am going to get out of this one. We are in the kitchen cooking dinner that night and trying to keep our voices down so Nana and Pop don’t hear us from the living room.

‘I was so angry. I couldn’t bring myself to punch her in the face so bog washing was the next best thing. Now everyone knows about me and Julian and Flo will never forgive me. I lost it, I totally lost it. And now Gem’s mum is going to kill me for ruining the jeans, and everyone knows about how I stuffed loo roll in Flo’s pants, and Flo will hate me for that as well, even though I was just trying to help,’ I say, slightly hysterically.

‘I’ll call Gem’s mum and explain about the jeans. You just focus on Flo,’ Aunty Jo says, giving me a reassuring look.

The doorbell rings.

‘Here, keep your eye on the rice and I’ll get the door,’ she says as she goes to the front door.

I hold a wooden spoon in my hand and stare at the rice. A pan of chilli is bubbling next to it but I don’t think I could mange even the smallest mouthful. Aunty Jo comes back in. Miss Anthony is with her.

‘Turn the heat off for a minute, Renée. Miss Anthony needs to talk to us.’ Aunty Jo pokes her head into the lounge. ‘It’s OK, Mum, it’s someone for me.’ She shuts the door behind her and joins Miss Anthony and I at the table. I brace myself for a good telling-off.

‘What you did to Sally was very dangerous, Renée. People have been drowned that way,’ Miss Anthony says with a very serious face.

I nod.

‘Sally was wrong to write your personal letter on the blackboard, though. What she did was very cruel. That infringement of your personal feelings is understandably going to be very upsetting and I do appreciate that, but to push her head into a toilet and flush it really was a very extreme reaction.’

I nod again. Aunty Jo looks at me as if she still can’t believe I did it.

‘Sally’s mother has made an official complaint to the school about the incident, and we have had to act accordingly,’ says Miss Anthony. ‘I am sorry to have to tell you this, Renée, but we have no choice but to suspend you until the exams start.’

‘Is that completely necessary?’ asks Aunty Jo, shocked.

‘I’m afraid so. We can’t be seen to have any sort of tolerance for this sort of behaviour. Do you understand that, Renée?’

I nod again.

‘I want you to know that I don’t take what Sally did to you and Flo lightly either. I believe that you were provoked and I have insisted to Miss Grut that she is also punished for her behaviour, and also suspended.’

‘What about lessons? Won’t Renée miss out on important work for her exams?’ Aunty Jo asks.

Miss Anthony shakes her head. ‘All the coursework is done now, and what with the Easter holidays she will only actually miss three weeks of school. If you study hard, Renée, there is no reason that when you come back next term everything won’t have settled down and you can move on into your A levels with confidence. Does that sound OK?’

I nod again.

‘OK, well, I’ll leave you to it. I’ll post a full timetable of your exams to you this week, but I am sure your first one is maths on the 21st of May. So I’ll see you there, OK?’

I nod one final time and thank Miss Anthony. This could have been a lot more horrible if Miss Trunks was my form teacher. Aunty Jo sees her out. I turn the stove back on.

‘Right, well, I suggest you take a plate of food upstairs and hide yourself in your bedroom until the morning, yes?’ Aunty Jo says as she comes back in.

‘Can’t I start revising tomorrow?’ I ask. My head feels battered after today.

‘I don’t mean to revise, I mean so you can get out of the way. I’m now going to have to explain to your grandpa that you shoved a girl’s head down a toilet and that you are suspended from school. I don’t think you want to be within reach of him when he finds out, do you?’

I leave my food and get up to my room as quick as I can. I get into bed and hide my head under the pillow. What a massive mess I’ve made now.

How is it possible to go from feeling so good to feeling so devastated that no matter how hard you try you can’t even remember how it feels to be happy? I’m sure just a few months ago I thought my life was as close to perfect as it could be, considering what has happened to me and who I have to put up with. Renée was the reason for all of that; she helped me cope. The two of us were indestructible, or so I thought. Sally must have felt so smug when she found that letter, like all her Christmases had come at once.

I keep going over and over what the letter said. The night Renée walked me home after the party, the fact that she put loo roll in my knickers. I thought I had done that myself. Oh my God. We’ve told each other everything since then – she could have told me about that. I might even have laughed. Actually, what am I talking about? We haven’t been telling each other anything at all. She had sex with my brother and never told me that. What other lies are there? I feel so stupid. How could I have trusted her, the class’s biggest joker, known for having no real friends and not taking anything seriously? Why did I ever think our friendship was any different?.

I hear the front door open and slam shut again. Julian is home. Over a week has passed since I found out about him and Renée and he still doesn’t know that I know. I haven’t been able to face it. I feel different now. I stand at the top of the stairs.

‘Hey, Julian,’ I say firmly.

‘All right. Why you being weird?’ he asks, continuing to walk through the house.

‘Can’t I say hello to my big brother without being called weird?’

‘Guess not.’

He goes into the kitchen. I follow him. I imagine him and Renée in it kissing while I was with Abi in the lounge. It gives me goosebumps. I stand behind him.

‘So, I know you shagged Renée.’ I’m past being subtle now. No one else seems to be able to control themselves, so why should I?

He jumps up to sit on the work surface and crosses his arms. I can’t tell if he looks nervous or proud.

‘Oh yeah? Tell you, did she?’

‘Don’t you have enough girls your own age to seduce, rather than ruining my friendships?’ I ask him.