In Sarah's Shadow (3 page)

I feel ridiculous.

According to the book, I need: a beeswax candle (is there any other kind?); a fresh sprig of lavender; an object sacred to me; and a peaceful, quiet room. The trouble is, I don’t have any of those. What I
do
have is a cinnamon-scented room freshener candle (unused, unloved Christmas present); some lavender aromatherapy oil (ditto); a copy of PJ Harvey’s
Songs from the City, Songs from the Sea
(my favourite rock staress, my all-time favourite CD and therefore my sacred object); and a room that is anything but peaceful, thanks to my dad roaring at the Manchester United versus Someone-or-other football match on the telly
downstairs and Sarah twanging away on her guitar in her room across the hall.

“Come on…just do it,” I whisper to myself, trying to block out the noise and my feelings of total silliness. The point is, I don’t believe in magic, but I
do
believe in doing something symbolic, so if I go through the motions of this – with my reject Christmas presents and
Songs from the City
blaring on my CD player to drown out Manchester United and Sarah’s twanging – then I’m being positive. I’m saying if change is going to happen then I’m ready and waiting, not sulking in the corner while good stuff passes me by…(Wow – what would Mum make of that, if she could hear what I’m telling myself?)

First, light the candle…

Great – what with? I don’t want to spoil the moment and go trekking downstairs searching for matches. I’ll only get the third degree from Mum, hassling me about what exactly I want them for (to light the bonfire under the witch I’ve got stashed in my bedroom,
obviously),
so instead I just place the candle exactly in front of me on the carpet and stare at it intently, like I’m meditating or something. And then I realise that’s pretty stupid, because I need to look away at the book for my next set of instructions.

Move the sprig of lavender above the candle flame in anti-clockwise circles: not close enough to burn it, but enough to let the smell of the lavender infuse the room with its cleansing scent.

OK, so all I have is a small, brown bottle. I twist the cap off and it seems to make more sense to waft it (in anti-clockwise circles, of course) under my nose, so I can actually smell the damn stuff.

Next, hold your sacred object to your heart…

Easy peasy: I grab the empty CD box, with its cover of PJ Harvey striding through a night-time, light-strewn Times Square in New York, and clutch it to my chest. In the background, PJ growls above the roar of guitars.

Now, recite the thing you most want to change in your life.

Wow. How do I choose? Ever since I got the book home and studied this particular spell at close range, it’s all I’ve been able to think about. All through tea tonight, all through Mum and Dad twittering on to Sarah about her day’s rehearsal, I just drifted away, trying to figure out my options. And out of a long list of changeable situations (stuff like teachers realising I’m a shy genius rather than an underachieving loser), I settled on the main contenders, which just happened to be…

1. Boobs. Boobs would be good. Two of those – matching, please.
   
2. Sarah vanishing into thin air – that’d be nice.
   
3. My parents noticing I exist would be quite a novelty.
   
4. Conor. Just…Conor.
   

So how can I choose just one out of all of those? I stare hard at the cinnamon candle, the scent of which – even unlit – mingles headily with the lavender I’m wafting, hug hard on my CD, and whisper…

“Can you
please
let me in there?”

See? This is what it’s like. I’ve only been in the bath five minutes – a bath I announced to everyone that I was having, so no one could complain about no warning and full bladders – and now here’s Sarah, banging on the door with yet another loud, bleating demand for me to get out, to make way for her Royal Highness to get in here and floss her Royal Teeth, or whatever, before she goes out for the night. It’s not enough for her to rub my nose in it about the great Saturday night she’s got planned (some amazing party, I bet, in someone’s amazingly huge house in the west end, with the amazingly beautiful Conor to keep her company). Oh no,
it doesn’t matter that the only thing I’ve got planned for tonight is a long, lazy bath, with Jim Carrey – courtesy of a DVD – for afters. Sarah
has
to edge her way into my privacy just that
little
bit more, making out like I’m selfish or obstructive or something, lying here among the steamy bubbles. It’s got to be for Conor’s benefit; Dad’s still roaring at the never-ending football match and I can hear Mum cackling away with Auntie Kelly on the phone.

Conor is in Sarah’s room right now…when I first ran the bath, I heard them chatting as she let him in the front door and led him up to her room. After that, I turned the taps off and had a deliberately shallow bath, just so I could listen through the walls as Conor began to sing along to the track Sarah was strumming on the guitar.

But now, shallow bath or not, I have to get out of it. I can’t relax with her hammering on the door every ten seconds.

“OK, so you’ve got your way! Satisfied?” I blink at her, hauling open the door and shivering as the chilly January air seeps in through the gaps around the front door and slithers up the stairs to slap my bare, wet skin. Against that, no amount of towelling fabric can keep you warm.

“Yeah, yeah! I just need in for two minutes!” Sarah
glares at me, all pretence of niceness gone – as usual – when Mum and Dad aren’t around.

Yeah, yeah. Two minutes, two hours…it doesn’t make much difference. Sarah’s point was to get me out, to ruin my moment, and she’s done it. She wins again,
as
usual.

The bathroom door slams shut behind me and I find myself shivering miserably on the spot, too cold and dejected to move, suddenly too weary of waiting for my ‘life change’ to do anything but stare off into space, zombie-ing out to the background soundtrack of Dad and the telly roaring, Mum yackety-yacking, and…and…a soft, comforting voice.

“Megan? Are you OK?”

In my frozen moment, I turn my head (a mistake – rapidly cooling beads of water trickle uncomfortably from my wet hair to my goose-pimpling back).

But my bones warm up to centre-of-the-Earth temperatures when I see Conor, perched on the edge of Sarah’s bed, arms resting on his knees, those soulful brown eyes staring right at me, reducing me to the shivering, vulnerable mass of jelly I am underneath.

“Yeah…” I nod, feeling my teeth start to chatter in time to my head-nodding.

“C’mere,” he motions to me, leaning over to switch on the small convector heater in Sarah’s room.

Instant warmth – in two ways. How can I refuse? Even if shyness is practically paralysing every stilted step I take towards him.

“You and Sarah,” he smiles at me as I crouch down in front of the heater and, coincidentally, at his feet, “do you always bicker like that?”

He’s got a very fine silver chain around his neck, I notice. Whatever’s on the end of it is unseen, hidden behind the neck of his dark-blue top. Has Sarah seen it at close quarters…?

“Hey, what can I say?” I shrug, not looking him in the eye.

And what
can
I say? “See that beautiful, talented, exciting girl you’re going out with? Well, you
do
realise she’s a manipulating bitch, don’t you?” Hey, it may be the truth, but while his vision is currently (unfortunately) clouded by the rose petals of romance when it comes to my sister, it’s easier to be vague.

“I know what it’s like. Me and my big brother fought like crazy till he went away to university. Best thing that ever happened to us – now I have a great time when I go to visit him, and we always go out together when he’s home. Before last summer, we’d have been
more likely to kick each other’s heads in than go for a pint together!”

I realise what he’s trying to do; he’s trying to comfort me. Big wow. And I don’t mean that sarcastically: no one in my family – Mum, Dad, Sarah – has ever tried to rationalise it; none of them has ever suggested that what goes on between me and Sarah is normal and will pass. That’s because Mum and Dad keep their heads in the sand, and because what goes on between me and Sarah is anything
but
normal, even if it does seem like harmless bickering on the surface. Oh, no – I don’t expect any cosy chats over a few glasses of wine in some student union in the future. The sooner me and Sarah have enough independence and money, I can guarantee that the two of us will keep as far apart from each other as the occasional enforced family get-together will allow.

“How old’s your brother?” I ask, flicking a shy look Conor’s way.

Worn, grey cord jeans, Kicker boots, fleece-lined denim jacket, dark-blue top, that glint of a chain at his neck, the floppy, slightly unwashed hair, a grin that brings his whole face to life, big, brown eyes with a fluttering of sandy lashes all around them. In the computerised filing section of my brain, it’s all noted, all bookmarked.

“Twenty-one. Three years older than me. He’s aiming to do a Masters degree in Financial Regulation and Compliance Management.”

“Whatever
that
is,” I hear myself saying as I start to thaw out in front of the heater.

“Exactly!” I hear Conor laughing and, self-consciously, I start laughing too, feeling slightly hysterical that I’ve inadvertently cracked a joke with the one person I’d wanted to make an impression on since the moment – freeze-framed forever in my memory – that I saw him.

Of course it all gets ruined. It has to, doesn’t it? Knowing
my
luck?

“Ready already?” Conor smiles at something over my shoulder. That something being Sarah. I turn and see she has red-rimmed eyes, probably from ramming her contact lenses in too quickly in her rush to get back here once she heard me and Conor talking.

Filthy.

That’s the only word to describe the look Sarah gives me with her reddened eyes. But hey, what’s new?

I stumble to my feet, and with a quick wave ‘bye in Conor’s direction, pad barefoot across the hall towards my own room, feeling the warmth of the heater
and Conor’s friendliness being replaced by icy prickles on my skin, courtesy of the wisps of draughts in our house and the frosty glare I can still feel emanating from my ice queen of a sister.

“You sat next to him, practically
naked?!”

That’s Pamela, whispering, even though the classroom is almost empty. I say almost: Miss Jamal, our English teacher, is in a bit of a huddle over at her desk with Mr Fisher, the music teacher. Wonder if there’s anything going on with the two of them? Miss Jamal is kind of OK-looking and Mr Fisher is pretty cute for someone who must be about thirty, so it’s not like it’s a totally wild, out-of-the-question idea.

Hmm – and how would Sarah feel about that? I know she’s seeing Conor, but ever since she first mentioned this Battle of the Bands stuff, it’s been “Mr Fisher” this, and “Mr Fisher” that every five seconds. You know, it
really wouldn’t surprise me if she had a bit of a thing for him…

“Didn’t you just want to
die
of embarrassment, Megan?!” Pamela gasps.

“I wasn’t
naked!”
I whisper back, handing a pile of muddled textbooks down off the shelf to Pamela’s waiting hands and peering out through the door of the walk-in cupboard at the two teachers. “I told you, I was wearing a
towel!”

Me and Pamela are on volunteer tidying duty, spending our precious Monday morning break trying to make sense of the jumble on the shelves here. I really mean it about the volunteer bit; we haven’t been forced into it and we’re not complete mugs or anything, it’s just that when you’re a stunningly average student, teachers tend to give you a hard time. Unless, of course, you prove yourself to be an exceptionally accommodating and pleasant pupil. So when Miss Jamal asked for help with this deadly dull task, me and Pamela (my equally average accomplice) offered our services straight away. If earning Brownie points with your teacher gives you an easier ride, then hell: I say, go for it. (I did spot a ‘How To Study Better Spell’ in my new book yesterday, but as it involved geranium oil, a bird feather and a piece of coal – none of which I
happened to have handy – I never got round to trying it out.)

“Yeah, OK, so you were wearing a towel, but
still,
Megan! Weren’t you
mortified?!”

“No,” I shrug. “I wasn’t. I know I should have been, and I know normally I absolutely
would
have been, but somehow…he just didn’t make me feel uncomfortable.”

It was true. However shy or weird I felt sitting with Conor for that little while on Saturday night, the one thing I didn’t feel was awkward. Or embarrassed. It’s like a miracle, really – normally, I hate my pear-shaped body so much that I’ll wrap a huge beach towel around me when I go swimming and only drop it at the last minute when I get to the poolside. On holidays abroad, I’m happier in long shorts and T-shirts than the micro-bikinis Sarah flaunts herself in.

“But, my God,” Pamela goggles her eyes at me. “Wearing next to nothing in front of someone you fancy…I’d just
die!”

She’s imagining herself and Tariq, I can tell. You know, I’m really beginning to wish I hadn’t told Pamela about what happened on Saturday
or
that I fancied Conor in the first place. For a start, she’s pissing me off by making the whole thing sound seedy, and second, I’m not doing it to titillate her and get her mind working
overtime about being in the same situation with Tariq. As if
that’s
ever going to happen. They’ve never even been in the same room alone together, never said anything apart from shy “hi”s (still!) to each other. I mean, there’s something fundamentally nuts about flirting by text and then acting too timid to talk to each other in the (fully-clothed) flesh, isn’t there? OK, so I’m no super-confident ladette, who has a posse of male buddies and would think nothing of asking a guy out – I’m just the exact, polar opposite. But even
I
know Pamela and Tariq are goofing around pathetically. She’s in a win-win situation: she likes him and knows for a fact that he likes her, so what are they waiting for? Some kind of matchmaker, like they had in Victorian times – or like they have in arranged marriages – to formally introduce them? God,
I’m
going to have to end up doing it, aren’t I…?

“Look, Pamela, me and Conor talking – it only lasted for about one minute, till my sister came scurrying in,” I say to the top of my friend’s bowed head. I try to bring her wandering mind back to the conversation by thunking a particularly huge pile of books down into her arms…

“Oww!”

“Oops! I’m sorry!” I gasp as Pamela clutches the top of her head and tries to rub the pain away with the palms of her hands.

“Are you OK in there?”

Close up, Mr Fisher has the look of an older David Beckham about him, but maybe that’s just because he’s got that Number One buzzcut that Beckham made famous once upon a time. Behind him, Miss Jamal frowns at Pamela’s whimpering and at the scattering of books over the cracked lino floor.

“I dropped them…only she, um, didn’t catch them,” I mumble uselessly in explanation, scampering quickly down the stepladder and immediately crouching down to gather up the mess.

“Come out here where it’s brighter, so I can check you haven’t been cut,” Miss Jamal motions to Pamela, who shuffles past me, her scuffed, black, school brogues sending textbooks skimming off to the farthest corner of the cupboard.

“It’s like an episode of
Itchy and Scratchy
in here!” Mr Fisher says wryly, squatting down and helping me gather up everything. “What was going to happen next? Was Pamela going to hit you in the face with a giant frying pan?”

“No – I was going to hide a bomb in a copy of
David Copperfield
and then ask her to read it out loud to me while I ran away!”

Mr Fisher laughs and I get that same spine-tingling thrill as when Conor laughed out loud at something I
said on Saturday night. People –
male
people – finding me funny; this is a real novelty. The only one who’s ever found me remotely funny up till now is Pamela, and that’s ‘cause it’s in her Best Friend contract. (Just like it’s in the contract that I have to listen to endless tales of longdistance longing from
her.)

It’s fair to say that my family have never found me funny. You know how you get a certain feeling that people have a set opinion of you, and no matter what you do or don’t do, they’ll always think that way? Well, my family probably think I’m a lot of stuff: difficult, moody, psycho even (hey, don’t forget the scars –
they
never let me), but I can safely say that it would never occur to them to find me remotely funny. Funny peculiar maybe, but funny ha ha? You’ve
got
to be kidding.

“Listen, I’ve got a bit of a problem…” says Mr Fisher, suddenly getting kind of serious on me.

It’s on the tip of my tongue to say, “Well, shouldn’t you see a doctor?” but I bite my lip and hold myself back; there’s only so much fooling around you can do with a teacher, even one who laughs at your jokes.

Instead, I raise my eyebrows in what I hope comes across as an expression of intelligent questioning, but which probably looks more like the look on a bunny’s face two seconds before the juggernaut splats it.

“You know this Battle of the Bands competition that’s coming up?”

I nod. Of course I do. Haven’t I been singing the words to Ash’s
Girl from Mars
every spare minute of the day since it dawned on me that
that
was what Conor and Sarah were rehearsing together in her room on Saturday night?

“Well, there’s only two weeks to go and there’s a hell of a lot of work to do with the school band that’s entering—”

Wow! You mean something involving my sister
isn’t
gold-plated perfection?!

“—actually, it’s more a case of sorting out everyone else, like the lads who are doing the lighting for them, and the crew in the art department who are supposed to be coming up with a backdrop…”

Whatever. But why exactly is he telling me all this? I don’t think Mr Fisher even knows my name – he only joined Bakerfield at the end of last summer, long after I’d opted out of Music.

“Anyhow, the point is, it’s like spinning plates, and I can’t manage to co-ordinate everything, and put the band through their paces, all on my own. I need help.”

“Oh,” I mutter, open-mouthed, for lack of anything else to say. Now I must look like a cross between a startled bunny and a
cod,
for God’s sake!

“Yeah, so I was having a moan to Miss Jamal about it just now, telling her that what I
really
need is a runner – someone to zoom around and help me sort everything out – and she suggested either you or…”

He’s bumbling now, throwing a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of Pamela somewhere out there in the brightly-lit classroom. Told you he didn’t know my – or my friend’s – name.

“Pamela,” I reply, helpfully filling in the blank. “And I’m Megan.”

“Megan. Yes, of course,” he grins, knowing he’s been caught out. “Anyway, Miss Jamal said that you two are always very willing to offer your services, and usually—”

He glances around at the general untidiness swamping the floor.

“—very efficient. So what about it?”

“Um…what?” I mumble, knowing
exactly
what he’s saying but too stunned to believe what I’m hearing.

“What about helping me out? Being my runner? It means sitting in on every after-school and weekend rehearsal, and then coming to the Battle of the Bands competition too. You’d need the afternoon off school, but I’d sort that if you’re up for it.”

“I’m up for it,” I mutter, hardly able to move the frozen muscles in my face to make the words come out.

He must take my lack of facial expression to mean I’m not keen.

“Are you sure? Because I can always ask Pamela – if she doesn’t have permanent amnesia after these books scoring a direct hit on her head!”

“No!!” I squawk a little too loudly. “I mean, yes, I’d love to help out. And, um, my sister’s actually in the band.”

“Yeah? You mean…Sarah?” I see Mr Fisher frown, instantly ruling out Angel and Cherish as obvious relations and settling on Sarah by a process of elimination.

I can see he’s struggling to see the resemblance. But I don’t care. I’m not offended; I’m elated – already a change is happening in my life, and it seems to be a change of luck. OK, maybe that’s not the exact change I wished for over my PJ Harvey plastic CD cover a couple of nights ago, but it’ll
more
than do.

And who knows, maybe even
that
wish will come true too, if I keep positive (and keep
everything
crossed)…