Zelah Green (8 page)

Alice is waving something in my direction. Her thin arm holds out a wooden spoon
dripping with cake mix. The arm trembles with the strain of holding it up long enough for me to clap my mouth round the mix without touching the wood of the spoon.

‘It’s gorgeous,’ I say. Alice flushes with embarrassment and disappears under her hair to carry on beating.

‘I wish someone had told me,’ I say. ‘I haven’t even got her a card.’

Alice slops the cake mix from her bowl into a round tin and observes me from behind her right-hand wing of hair.

‘Maybe the Doc thought you had more important things to worry about,’ she says. ‘But actually I’m rubbish at icing, so maybe that could be your present to Caro?’

I leap up, turn the radio up to full blast, and hunt around in the kitchen drawer for nozzles and syringes.

By the time Caro staggers in, rubbing her
eyes and complaining at the racket, a sticky, uneven chocolate cake sits in the middle of the kitchen table.

Caro holds the plate up to the light and inspects the lumpy layers and amateur icing.

‘Random, or what!’ she says. The smile fades from Alice’s face. I flash my eyes at Caro and tilt my head towards Alice.

Caro gets it. She puts the cake down.

‘Thanks, Alice,’ she says. ‘Sorry. I thought that OCD here had made it. In which case she’d still have been counting out the ingredients.’

I ignore the barb and wrap a tissue round the handle of the bread knife.

‘Breakfast cake, anyone?’ I say.

Caro gets a good selection of presents. The Doc and Josh have bought her an art kit, complete with brushes, watercolour pads and paint and little tubes of colour.

She scowls.

‘I thought you didn’t want me to paint,’ she says.

‘Caro, you’ve got a great talent,’ says the Doc. ‘It’s just you don’t always know where to draw the line. Oh blast.’

Caro smirks at the pun.

Lib hands Caro a small square parcel. Inside is a new Slipknot CD.

‘Great,’ I say. ‘So I’ll have to listen to that one through the wall now. Nice one, Lib.’

Sol hands over his parcel in silence. Inside is a folded square of black material. It opens out into a Marilyn Manson T-shirt.

‘Oh, man,’ says Caro, ripping off her green T-shirt and replacing it with the deathly white face of Marilyn.

‘Cheers, Sol,’ she says.

He looks at his hands, unsmiling.

Caro opens a few cards as Josh sets about
scrambling eggs for her birthday breakfast.

‘Did you get one from your parents?’ I say.

Everything seems to grind to a halt.

Josh’s spoon stops stirring the eggs and freezes in mid-air.

The Doc pauses by the cupboard with a half-open tin of cat food in her hand.

Sol keeps his head bowed, but I catch him swapping looks with Lib.

Lib pushes her hands over her face and peeks out from between her fingers.

Alice vanishes behind her hair.

The only sound is that of the cat sneezing in tiny hiccups, over and over.

‘Hairball alert,’ says Lib. She shoos the cat out of its flap and into the garden.

With the tension broken, everyone resumes what he or she was doing with renewed vigour except Caro. She has stopped opening cards and is looking at me. A straight, defiant,
challenging sort of look, chin lifted, eyes flashing.

‘Caro, you don’t have to . . .’ begins the Doc.

‘No, it’s OK,’ says Caro. ‘Zelah wasn’t to know.’

‘Know what?’ I say.

Caro sticks her finger into the chocolate butter icing on the cake and sucks it off.

‘I don’t live with my parents,’ she says. ‘They weren’t the best role models in the world. And I think I’ll shut up about it now, if you don’t mind.’

She cuts herself a massive piece of cake and eats it, even though Josh is spooning yellow egg on to her plate at the same time.

‘Alice is the only one who lives with both parents,’ says Lib. ‘I’m with my grandparents. Sol lives with his dad. What about you, Zelah?’

It’s the first time I’ve been asked. With all eyes on me I can’t be bothered to hide the truth.

‘Dad’s disappeared,’ I say. ‘My best friend hasn’t contacted me once since I got here. Oh, and Mum’s dead.’

Sol, who’s been fiddling with a penknife up to that point, gives me a penetrating glare. I feel the Doc’s hand hovering about ten centimetres over my shoulder as she passes by to make more tea.

‘And I live with foster parents,’ says Caro. ‘And they’re such super-duper posh gits with their petrol-guzzling people-carrier, ruining the environment. And I’m supposed to feel lucky to have them. Except I don’t. And now this birthday stinks, just like all the others.’

With one quick gesture she brings her fist down into the cake left on her plate.

Sponge, chocolate buttons and icing pulp into a flat, squishy mess.

‘Caro!’ says the Doc. ‘Alice spent ages on that cake. Apologise.’

‘I hate chocolate cake anyway,’ says Caro, flashing her evil smile. ‘Ironic, isn’t it? An anorexic making a cake. Bit like me slicing it up, I suppose.’

Josh has sunk further into his chair, shaking his head with a sad expression on his face. Scrambled egg is congealing into orange lumps on the plates in front of us.

‘Get upstairs,’ says the Doc. ‘And let everybody else enjoy their breakfast.’

‘Don’t worry, I’m going,’ says Caro. ‘Bunch of losers.’

She pulls the Manson T-shirt off and shoves it back at Sol on her way past.

He gives a growl of frustration and slams out of the kitchen.

‘Just another day of peace and love at Forest Hill,’ says Lib.

Alice is trying not to cry so we all eat cake instead of scrambled egg and make a great play
of enjoying it. Except for Alice. She pushes a sliver of sponge around her plate and brushes a single crumb on to her lip from the side of a fork prong.

‘Honestly, she’s a little devil, that Caro,’ says the Doc. ‘Did you see the look on Sol’s face? He saved up to buy her that T-shirt.’

‘It’s my fault,’ I say. ‘I mentioned her parents.’

Lib laughs.

‘Yeah, and if you hadn’t said that, she’d have still blown up at something else,’ she says. ‘We’ve all got issues in here, but Caro likes to be a drama queen.’

I wonder what Lib’s issues are. Ever since I arrived last week she’s been friendly and upbeat. I don’t want to risk upsetting anyone else so I keep quiet.

I’ve got worries of my own, anyway.

Therapy at eleven.

*

I leave the breakfast table before the Doc so I can do one hundred and twenty-eight jumps on the top stair without her seeing.

The plan backfires. Sol comes out of his bedroom in a black bomber jacket and stares at me.

Flirt Alert
. That’s a new one.

‘Erm, sorry,’ I say, squeezing up against the wall so that he can get past. Sol slips by. He’s thinner than I thought, and shorter than all the girls in here. All the power is in his dark eyes and scowling expression.

As Sol edges past me I get a whiff of shower gel and tobacco.

He runs downstairs without looking back.

‘Get a grip,’ I say to myself. My cheeks are hot. ‘He’s just a boy. And he doesn’t even talk.’

I start my jumps again from the beginning because once they’re interrupted it doesn’t
count, but little images of Sol’s olive skin and soulful brown eyes keep flashing up and interfering with my counting.

In my head Sol’s grinning at me, one of his rare grins, and closing in on me, all the while pinning me to the wall with those amazing eyes.

I’m being all girly and shy and flirtatious, flicking my hair about and chewing the ends of it.

In the end I have to start all over again three times before I get to the end. The tender soles of my feet rasp against the hard insides of my trainers and I’m out of breath.

I haul myself upstairs by placing a tissue in my hand so that I can touch the banisters.

As I pass Caro’s room I can hear Josh’s gentle low murmur interspersed with Caro’s high-pitched, indignant rant.

The door is shut, but outside in the attic hallway are shreds of cream-coloured paper
and tiny red paintbrushes snapped in two. The wooden box lies like an upturned storm-tossed boat outside my room.

I wrap a tissue round my right hand, pick up all the brushes and bits of paper and put them back in the box; snap the lid shut and put it outside Caro’s room.

Then I head for the sink to scrub the sourness of the morning off my face and hands.

The Doc is waiting for me in the therapy room.

There are no sinks in here, nothing except the pale carpets and wooden furniture.

I relax. Maybe we’re just going to chat today.

‘What a morning,’ says the Doc. ‘Not the happiest birthday we’ve had in this place.’

As if to illustrate her point there’s a shriek of rage and a muffled slam from upstairs.

The Doc gives me a rueful smile.

‘I think you’re settling in well, Zelah,’ she
says. ‘The others certainly seem to have taken a shine to you.’

‘Except for Caro,’ I say. ‘She hates everyone.’

I think of the morning when I saw blood dripping down from her wrists, and shudder.

‘Caro isn’t as angry as you all think,’ says the Doc. ‘Anyway – let’s get back to you. How did you feel after touching the taps last week?’

‘Tired,’ I say. ‘Shocked.’

‘Anything bad happen as a result?’ says the Doc.

I consider this for a moment in silence. Fran still hasn’t rung me. Maybe she was just about to ring when I touched the taps and screwed up my usual routine. That could be the bad thing.

The Doc is waiting for me to reply. I like the way the sun picks up copper highlights in her hair and makes her white shirt look even whiter. I like her little round spectacles and kind bright eyes. I can trust her today, I think.

‘My best friend hasn’t called since I got here,’ I say. ‘Maybe when I touched the taps I put a jinx on her ringing me.’

‘Or maybe,’ says the Doc, twinkling at me, ‘she’s just been busy, or she’s lost her phone, or she’s writing you a long letter instead.’

This is a revelation. My feet feel as if they are unbolted from the floor. I’m flying around the room for a moment.

Fran could be OK.

And, if Fran’s OK, then just maybe . . .

Dad’s OK as well.

The Doc tells me we’re going to use a numbers technique today. She’s going to make me do something I don’t want to do and I’m going to tell her how it makes me feel, out of ten.

‘Follow me,’ she says.

I traipse down the corridor to the bedroom she shares with Josh.

Uh-oh. Bedroom has en suite bathroom.
Germ Alert
.

‘Sit,’ she says, gesturing at her bed. It’s made up to perfection: crisp antique linen pillows plumped like giant ravioli, white cotton sheets folded back over soft pastel-coloured blankets. By her side of the bed is a stack of books with frightening titles like
Discovering the Lost Child Within Your Troubled Teenager
, and
A Select Bibliography of Compendiums Relating to Mental Health Issues
. There are similar books on Josh’s side of the bed, but he has some extra titles like
How to Destroy Slugs Using Organic Processes
, and
Eat Yourself Green: A Guide to Self-Sufficiency
.

‘Tell me how stressed you are feeling right now, out of ten,’ says the Doc.

My heart is racing at the thought of what might happen in the bathroom.

‘Eight?’ I venture.

She pushes open the bathroom door with
her foot, allowing me a glimpse of polished floor tiles and gleaming chrome. Her ankle bracelet jingles tiny silver bells.

‘And now?’

‘Nine,’ I say.

The Doc writes this down.

Then she beckons me inside the bathroom until I am standing inside the doorway. We are facing the toilet.

The Doc points into the bowl.

‘It’s very clean,’ she says. ‘Doris gives it a ruthless scrubbing with disinfectant and she’s been in this morning.’

I get it, quick as that. We’re not doing taps today. We’ve moved on to Second Base.

‘I’m not touching that,’ I say. ‘Forget it. No way.’

The bowl in front of me has stopped being a normal toilet and has morphed into a great gaping chasm of enamel mouth, as big as the
caves I used to hide in when Mum took me on the beach in Cornwall. A faint gurgle comes from deep within the pipes. I swear I can see a hair floating on the surface.

‘Out of ten?’ says the Doc.

‘Eleven,’ I say. ‘Twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, a thousand.’

I’ve backed away towards the sanctity of the bedroom.

‘Zelah,’ says the Doc. ‘I’m going to go first. Bear in mind that I like to be clean and tidy too. Watch what I do.’

In front of my horrified gaze, the Doc plunges her hand inside the toilet and gives the inside a fond pat, just as she did to the cat after breakfast.

She holds the hand out towards me.

‘Wash it,’ I say. ‘You’ve got to wash it straight away.’

‘No, I don’t,’ she says. ‘I can stay like this all
day if I want to. Because nothing bad is going to happen to me just because I touched a toilet.’

I breathe great slow breaths, trying to calm myself down.

‘Phoo, phoo,’ I go, hand on my chest, steadying my racing heart.

‘That’s it, good girl,’ says the Doc. ‘Right, your turn.’

She steps back to allow me to approach the bowl.

I’m so stressed that a weird Olympic-style commentary starts up in my head.

And here we have Zelah Green, the fourteen-year-old champion of rituals, attempting the afternoon toilet-touching event for the first time
. . .

I take my first faltering step towards the rim.

And she’s approaching the target
, booms the voice.
Steady approach, good footwork
. . .

My right hand, naked and trembling, is now hovering over the inside of the toilet.

Will she set a new world record?
screams the voice.
Will Zelah Green take the gold medal for bravery and/or total stupidity?

‘I’m going in!’ I say.

I skim the curved cool surface of the bowl with the fingertips of my right hand and jump back as if I’ve been electrified.