Invisible Girl (2 page)

Later in bed, my duvet is tangled and I’m hot, sticky and sweaty with sleep, when I hear Amy in the kitchen. I hear the microwave ping. I hear her fork clink, clinking on the plate.

“Chang’s rubbish at getting his orders right, but this crispy duck is gorgeous, Dave,” she says. “Totally gorgeous!”

I snuggle into Blue Bunny and stroke the soft silky label on his ear, the bit where Beckett wrote his name in red biro before he left.

I
hate my room. It’s so tidy because of Amy. She does this inspection thing every day, checking round the flat, making sure no germs are lurking like swamp monsters in the shadows. I wish they were. I wish armies of them would creep out of their hiding place and eat her. I wish they’d pull her down to their dark red cauldrons and mix her up to make poison. There are so many words on my lips for Amy. Bad words that would scorch your ears and make the lady in the sweet shop shoo the big boys out. But I’m not stupid enough to say them, so my tummy makes a big fist around them and holds them safe inside. When Amy’s done her inspection I close my bedroom door and mess things up again.

She’s mean to my dad too. I feel sorry for him. Last week while I was on the green drinking creamy hot chocolate with Grace and the Play Rangers I caught him staring out of the window with this pale face, looking so lost and sad.

After, I made him a coffee and we sat quietly together listening to the football results on the telly. And I loved him smiling when Arsenal won. I loved that we did a high five and I felt the warmth of his hand for the first time in ages. But then Amy came in and threw us off the sofa so she could plump up the cushions and put them neatly in pairs.

Before Amy, we only ever vacuumed the floor on special occasions. Now she makes Dad push the vacuum cleaner around every day and do all these stupid exercises at the same time. He looks stupid in the pink rubber gloves and plastic muscleman pinafore she got him for when he does the washing-up.

“Dave!” she says, inspecting the sink. “You haven’t even bleached it yet, have you? We’ll all get salmonella at this rate.”

And then she sprays the whole world with Spring Breeze
air freshener that stings our eyes and chokes our throats.

When Amy’s out at Zumba class I get the chance to sit close to Dad and watch the telly and feel like it’s just him and me again. And I want to tell him everything. I want to say it all out loud, all the words twisting through me, getting tangled up inside. But I don’t know where to start. I’m too scared of making him cross or upsetting him.

“Do you like Amy, Dad?” I whisper. “Like, really like her?”

Dad sighs and stares at
Top Gear
. He snaps open his next can of lager and I watch the foamy bubbles fizz up through the opening and dribble down the sides.

“I mean, we don’t really
need
her,” I say. “Do we? I think we were much better without her. And I’m worried about money. The landlord said if you miss the rent again he’ll evict us, remember, Dad?”

Dad flicks the TV from channel to channel. He sips and sips and sips.

“Don’t you start on at me as well,” he says, without looking at me. “It might be hard for you to understand, but I don’t just
like
Amy, Gabriella, I
love
her. I’m a man possessed by a beautiful woman. I’m sorry if you don’t like it, but I can’t help myself.”

His words fly at me like a football in the park, punching me with a cold hard thud in the tummy. I think I might be sick. He’s never said he loves
me
. He’s never said anything
that
nice about me,
ever.
I rub my face. I bend over to re-tie my laces.

Dad pats his wobbly tummy and peers at me from under his fringe. He sip, sip, sips his lager. “I reckon…” he says.

Then he stops talking. The air between us pulls tight and makes me hold my breath. Suddenly it feels just like the day he said Mum and Beckett were leaving.

“I reckon,” he says, “if I can shed a few pounds, Amy might even marry me. What d’you think of that, eh? And I promise you Amy’ll let you be a bridesmaid if you keep your room tidy and start doing the stuff she asks. The pair of you could dress up all posh and lovely. Don’t worry about the rent, Gabriella. I’ve got it all under control. You just have to learn to trust your old dad.”

He rummages in his pocket then pulls out a small square box and opens it up. “And when she sees this little baby,” he chuckles, holding a diamond ring between his fat finger and thumb so it glitters in the light, “she might not even care about my tummy!”

I fly into my room, slam the door and bite back the sour tears that are rising in my throat. I can’t let myself think about what Dad’s just said, so I pull out my box of art scraps and scatter them across the floor.

I cut and rip shiny sweet wrappers and bits of paper, making them into tiny bricks. I draw the outline of a house on a fresh clean page and glue the shiny bricks on one by one. I make little red roof tiles out of material I found at a car boot sale and a trail of grey smoke coming from the chimney out of a pair of Dad’s old pants. I colour in a bright blue front door and put loads of sunflowers in the garden like in the Italy programme. I cut a girl’s face from a magazine and stick her on the picture so she’s looking out of the window at the flowers.

I pick up my little photo of Beckett that lives on my bedside table with the special book I won in the school art competition about famous artists. I stare at his face and wish he would leap out and talk to me.

“I wish you were here, Beckett,” I whisper. “Where are you?”

In the photo he was twelve, same as I am now, which means he’ll be nineteen now. Nineteen is so old! I flick through my magazine and I find a picture of a man with brown hair just like Beckett’s. I cut him out, glue him in the garden and bend his arm so he’s waving up at me. Then I hear the door slam and Amy’s voice screeching like a parrot in a cage.

“Are you ready, Dave, or what?”

I hear Dad shuffling into the hallway.

“What?” he says. “Ready for what?”

“That’s typical,” she spits. “You men are all the same. Total let-downs!”

“Babe,” he says. “Come ’ere, darling. Wassup?”

“Wassup?” she screeches. “I’ll tell you ‘wassup’, Dave. You
promised
to take me out. You
promised
me a romantic night, you stupid fat bum. Just the two of us, without Miss Untidy Ungrateful Flappy Ears butting in, remember?”

I put my headphones on and fill my brain with tunes. I make some lovely grass with scraps of green thread on my picture and some soft white clouds from cotton wool. I stick more white pages around my picture and start filling them up too. I add a swimming pool and an outdoor cinema. I build a treehouse out of matches and make a swing from bits of string. I add a village with pavements and little stone cottages in a row. I add a dog, a shop, a hairdressers, a chippy and a Chang’s. I cut out cars and a lady on a bicycle and loads of smiley people walking down the road.

When the front door slams it’s so loud the floor shudders under me. I pull my headphones out and listen. I peep into the hall.

I don’t even care if they’ve gone. It’s better here without them.

I make myself cheese on toast, leaving the butter and the knife and the crumbs all over the worktop and I stretch out on the sofa with my shoes on, snuggling in front of the telly.

It’s mostly boring stuff until this murder thing comes on. It’s exciting at first, but then knives start flashing and the man’s big black boots send shivers down my spine. I wish Dad were here with me, and then I could watch it, no problem.

When it gets really gory and this woman’s voice is screaming I cover my face with my hands. I wish I could switch it off, but I can’t move. I can’t switch to another channel because I have to make sure that they catch the murderer in case he’s actually real, in case he’s actually lurking about outside our flats.

It’s not until I feel chilly that I look up at the clock and notice it’s half-past twelve. The murderer man is stalking around in this underground car park, hiding in the shadows. A lady is heading towards her car, but she can’t see him. I scream at her to hurry up, to run away, to lock herself in her car and call the police. She’s walking so slowly, her high-heeled shoes clip-clopping, scraping on the concrete.

“Run!” I shriek. “Run, you stupid lady, run!”

Something creaks in the hall. I freeze. My heart pounds in my ears and ripples through my skin. The murderer man’s eyes glint in the moonlight.

“Dad!” I call out. “Is that you?”

The murderer music starts howling and the lady is all shrieking voice and clip-clop running, panting, out of breath. But the murderer man is faster. His boots are slapping the ground in long strides, quickly catching her up.

“Dad!”

I flick the telly off and my ears thump as I drown in the silence.

“Dad!” I whisper. “Dad, where are you?”

I grab Blue Bunny, hold him close and stroke the silky label on his ear. Beckett gave him to me the day I was born and even though he’s a bit battered he’s still the best thing in the world. I wish Beckett were here now. He would know what to do.

I stay frozen in the chair for hours, watching the clock tick, tick, tick on the wall. Someone is stalking round the flat, I’m sure of it. They’re creaking the floorboards, shuffling into my room, humming a scary tune. I pick up one of Amy’s heavy ornaments and creep around the flat, shuffling silently behind the noise, following it from room to room. When I’m in the bathroom I hear it clinking in the kitchen. When I’m in the kitchen I hear it thudding in the hall. I walk round and round for ages, too scared to find it, too scared that I won’t. Then I think about Mum. What if it’s her? What if she’s come back and she’s hiding in the shadows, waiting for me?

My heart’s pounding so loud in my ears I run to my room and hide. It’s the only safe place left.

When I wake up the morning sun is streaming through the window, filling my room with a soft, pinky light. And for a while I can’t work out why I’m on the floor, tucked right underneath my bed, as close to the wall as I can get. Then the murderer’s face looms in my brain and Mum’s mean smile flashes shark teeth in my eyes.

“Dad!” I shout.

I know it’s stupid, because our flat’s really small and he would have heard me shouting if he were home, but I can’t help racing from room to room to check.

“Dad! Dad! Where are you?”

My heart starts thudding. I lie down on his bed, rest my face on his pillow and breathe in the greasy stink his hair has left behind. It’s not a nice smell, not anything you’d want to put in a bottle and sell, but it is my dad. Then I remember all the empty lager cans on the front room floor. I leap up and count them. I peer out of the window searching for his car, and then the hospital programme sneers in my eyes. What if he’s had a car crash and died? Seven cans of lager are too much to drink when you’re driving. What if he’s really hurt and lying in hospital somewhere? Or what if he’s run someone over and they’re dead and Dad’s at the police station? How will I know? If he goes to prison, then what about me?

I try calling, but his phone’s switched off. I try Amy’s and it’s the same. I switch on
Daybreak
to fill the flat with the sound of laughter. I huddle on Dad’s chair with my knees hunched up to my chest, biting a scab on my arm until it bleeds.
Please come home, Dad, please! I’ll be really good forever. I’ll do all the washing-up for you. I won’t even complain about Amy any more, I’ll do everything she says, just please come home!

I open the front door and pace up and down the balcony that connects all the flats in our block together. I peer over the edge, stretching my eyes across the green where the Play Rangers go, past the cars, as far as I can see.

I go back indoors. I put the kettle on and make a cup of tea with two sugars and watch it turn cold. I pour a bowl of cereal and stir it round and round until the milk has melted it to mush. I put my uniform on and pack my school bag in a daze. Should I go to school? Should I stay home? Should I call 999 for help?

Fear is nesting inside me, curled up tight in the fist-sized pit where my ribs meet at the front. It’s sitting there with its jaggedy hair and its bright eyes, watching. I lie on Dad’s bed again and count to a thousand. I whisper to Blue Bunny that it’s all going to be OK. I go outside again and peer over the balcony.

And that’s when I can’t believe my eyes!

They’re there.

Standing in the middle of the green! Kissing!

“Dad!” I call. Tears, that I blink away, gather and twist like a hard knot of wood in my throat.

“What happened, Dad? Where were you all night?”

Amy stares up at me. “What are you then, Gabriella,” she snaps, “his keeper or what?”

She clatters up the stairwell; Dad puffing up behind her with his head drooped low.

“If you hadn’t noticed,” Amy says, “we’re grown-ups and grown-ups don’t have to ask to go out. Let alone from a twelve-year-old with manners like scum! And I hope you haven’t messed the place up, Gabriella. I hope your bed is made. It might be nice if just occasionally you appreciated me for bringing a bit of order to your life instead of nagging on about where we’ve been.”

Mrs McKlusky opens her front door and scuttles outside. “What’s the racket?” she says, twitching her eyes. “It’s not even eight o’clock. Some of us like to drink our morning cup of tea in peace! It’s not too much to ask, is it?”

Amy turns on her. “And you can shut it!” she sneers. “D’you hear me? Keep your sharp beak out of other people’s business, you nosy old bat!”