Me Myself Milly (6 page)

We pestered Mum for every small detail she could remember about him. Then we bought a big scrapbook and wrote them all down carefully. When we’d finished we had covered half of the
first page. This is what we had:

That was all we managed to get before Mum twigged what we were doing and gave us the lecture on how our father, while important in our conception, was not important in any other respect.
Traditional family units were redundant in this day and age and we were well provided for as we lived in a communal household. This was true, at the time there were seven adults and five children
in the house on King Street, but none of them was our father. What made it harder was the fact that we don’t look like Mum so therefore we must look like him.

In the absence of any information about our real father and the fact that we had a whole scrapbook to fill, we took to finding and cutting out any photographs of men that even vaguely fitted
his description. Which turned out to be pretty much anyone with brown hair. We got pictures of actors and rock stars as these were the easiest to come by. Then we moved on to catalogue models and
politicians and TV presenters. By the time the scrapbook was nearly full I felt I should point out to Lily that our dad might not be in the public eye. He might be a normal man whose photo had
never appeared in a magazine or paper or on the internet. Lily didn’t like the idea but she had to agree it was possible, so we moved to plan B which was to take pictures of likely looking
men with Mum’s camera.

To be honest we didn’t find very many. Lily refused to accept that he’d had any other children, so men with families weren’t allowed. But we got a few; not many people
notice where children are pointing their cameras. Lily would stand as close as possible to the man in question without looking suspicious and then I would pretend to be taking a picture of her.
This had the added bonus that when we printed the picture off we could immediately compare him to Lily to see if there was any family resemblance.

Of course, eventually Mum found the scrapbook and realised what we were doing, so she sat us down for another talk. She looked really unhappy.

‘Listen,’ she said, ‘I’m really sorry that I don’t know who your father is and I’m not proud of the fact. I think you need to accept that there’s no
way of finding him and there’s no point in thinking about him; you’ll drive yourselves mad if you spend the rest of your lives thinking he could be that man in the street or so and so
on telly. Please let it go. You’d be much better off thinking about what you do have, rather than what you don’t have. You’ve got me and each other and that’s enough. It has
to be. Okay?’ She was close to tears and so Lily and I agreed that we’d let it drop. And we mostly did; only I still find myself wondering whenever I see a man with brown, curly
hair.

New school today. At first I pulled the duvet over my head and wondered if anyone would notice if I didn’t get up. Ever again. It just all seemed too much.

When I peered out, five minutes later, Lily was staring at me from her bed. She hasn’t said anything about the fact that I’m going to a different school. I don’t know why; I
don’t know if she’s cross, or jealous, or what. But she must have realised how worried I was and didn’t gloat over my predicament.

‘Don’t think about it, just do it,’ she said.

I grinned. It was Mum’s favourite saying when there’s something unpleasant to be done.

Don’t think about it, just do it.

That got me out of bed, then I focused on the things I needed to do like have a shower, get dressed and take Mum a cup of tea. I was so busy focusing that, when Mum sat up to drink her tea, I
said without thinking, ‘Are you going to do some work today?’ Big mistake. Mum shut down.

She had a deadline on the latest book but she hadn’t done any work on it since April. I knew the publisher had cut her some slack, but it was worrying. What if she had that writer’s
block thing? We might be able to live on the money from the other books, but I didn’t really know. Anyhow, it was obvious that now was not the time to talk about it.

Lily and I parted at the basement gate. She watched me all the way down the street until I turned the corner. I couldn’t believe I was doing this. It hurt. You know when someone loses an
arm or a leg in an accident and you hear stories about how they can still feel it, even though it’s not there any more? That’s sort of how I felt – like I’d lost Lily but
she was still there. Even when I was walking down the street on my own, she was still with me. Which was crazy, because the whole point of this was so I could learn to stand on my own two feet.

What did I expect? That I was going to be able to follow her around for ever more? People grow up. That thought caused a gigantic lump in my throat and I thought I was going to start crying.
That would be great: standing at the bus stop, all alone, crying. I could see a few girls at the bus stop in the same uniform as me, which brought me back down to earth. I tagged on the end of the
queue and tried to look as inconspicuous as possible.

My plan was to stay that way. Inconspicuous. I’d studied
How to Make Friends
, and although the book made it all sound easy I knew it wouldn’t be. So I’d decided not to
bother. Who needs friends anyway?

If things got really bad I could pretend Lily was with me. It couldn’t hurt, just for a bit. Until I’d settled in. On the bus I sat alone and held an imaginary conversation with
Lily. In my head, obviously.

‘That girl over there looks even more scared than you,’ said Lily.

‘Do you think I should go and talk to her?’

‘No. Not your problem. Anyhow, if she’s scared she can’t help you.’

‘I’m not scared.’

‘Yes, you are.’

‘Okay, maybe just a bit.’

‘Try and focus on something else.’

‘Like what?’

Silence. It was a stupid idea anyhow. Lily wasn’t here. I was in danger of crying again. I am so pathetic, I thought. What’s wrong with me? I’ve got to get this under control.
I took a deep breath.

‘I am Emily. I am fourteen. I am a normal girl going to school, like any normal girl. If anyone asks, my name is Emily.’ It felt weird, like trying on someone else’s shoes. But
that’s who I was now: Emily. What was Emily like? Quiet, but not boring, I could be fun, just not yet. I hated getting into trouble so I would be keeping a low profile. And, above all, I
didn’t need anyone else. I would be self-contained.

The bus stopped and all the black-and-white clad girls piled out, chattering like a load of magpies.

One for sorrow.

Stop it!

They wandered off in a flock, towards the school. I followed, but at a distance. So did the scared-looking girl from the bus. She drew level.

‘Hi, my name’s Stephanie but everyone calls me Effy.’

It was as if she’d swallowed
How to Make Friends
whole. I thought about ignoring her but it would’ve been rude and besides I wanted to try out my new name.

‘Emily. My name’s Emily Pond.’

‘So what’s this school like then? I used to go to St Bart’s, but my dad’s business collapsed and he can’t afford it any more. It was me or the house, although
actually we might lose the house as well.’

I didn’t know what to say to any of that. I’d known her precisely two minutes and I already knew her life story. She didn’t sound bitter or sad about it; she was quite chirpy,
like it was all a great new adventure. As it happened we’d reached the school by then so I didn’t have to say anything.

‘I have to go and report to reception, because I’m new,’ said Effy.

‘Same here,’ I said as we went in through the doors.

‘Really? That is
so
brilliant! Which year are you in? I’m in year ten – please tell me you’re in year ten.’ I told her I was. I thought she was going to hug
me so I backed off slightly, trying not to cringe. She was probably just chatting like this because she was nervous, I decided.

Effy’s voice was very loud and I wanted to tell her to keep her voice down and not draw too much attention to herself, or me for that matter.

In fact, I was so concerned about her, I forgot to be scared. I looked around the entrance hall. It was massive, like an airport or something. The whole school was brand new. Or nearly –
it had been built about three years ago and it was all state of the art. Not like my last school, which was old and depressing. Of course, that made me think about Lily again and I really
didn’t want to cry.

‘Wow, look at this,’ said Effy. ‘It’s nothing like St Bart’s. That was practically falling to bits compared to this,’ which made me laugh because I knew that
St Bartholomew’s was a very exclusive, fee-paying girl’s school and was housed in a Georgian mansion in its own grounds on the outskirts of the city.

So I was feeling better by the time we were taken into an office and given maps and a list of rules and stuff like that. There were six new girls, not counting all the new year sevens who were
being dealt with separately. Some looked older than me and some younger. Effy was the only one who looked about my age. Then a woman called out, ‘Stephanie Wright and Emily Pond.’ We
put our hands up and moved over to where she was standing. ‘Follow me, you’re in 10FE. I’ll show you the way, but pay attention. You’ll have to find it on your own
tomorrow.’

We followed her down a corridor, up some stairs, then turned left, through some double doors, down a corridor, turned right, down another corridor, turned right again and there it was. The woman
opened the door and ushered us in.

It wasn’t as bad as I’d thought it was going to be. I think I’d imagined a roomful of fourteen-year-old girls who all stopped what they were doing and stared at me, maybe
whispering behind their hands and giggling about ‘the new girl’. But what actually happened was that, although a few people looked up, they soon went back to what they’d been
doing. I realised that it was a mixed tutor group. In other words they had different year groups from seven to eleven. Years twelve and thirteen must have their own room somewhere. I found a seat
and started to draw on my map the route we’d just walked. I didn’t want to get lost tomorrow.

Effy came and sat next to me. I noticed she was a lot quieter than she had been. She wanted to compare timetables with me to see how many lessons we had together. We’d already made our
GCSE choices at our other schools and they were surprisingly similar so we had most of our lessons together. She looked so relieved I had to laugh. I felt a bit sorry for her; coming from St
Bart’s it was going to be hard for her to adjust.

When we were eight I got an invitation to a party. It was from Becky, the girl I’d been put next to on my first day at school. She thrust it at me as we were putting
our coats on. We knew what it was because there were balloons printed on the front of the envelope and all the way home Lily was getting excited because she loved parties. It wasn’t until we
were at home that I opened it and discovered that it was only addressed to me. Lily wasn’t invited. Her face fell. I started to cry. I was crying because I felt bad for Lily.

Mum came to see what all the fuss was about.

‘Never mind,’ she said when she found out about the party. ‘It can be your first lesson in being an individual.’ I didn’t know what she meant and Lily still
looked cross and upset.

Later, in our room, I said to Lily, ‘I don’t want to go to the stupid party.’ I did but to say anything else would have been disloyal. It was a Pamper Party and we were
going to get our nails painted and our hair done and even try out make-up but how could I enjoy all that when I knew Lily was all alone at home? We were sitting on the bed and Lily had her arm
around me. She didn’t like it when I cried.

‘It sounds awful,’ she said, looking at the invitation.

‘I know,’ I lied. ‘I don’t even like Becky,’ I added for good measure. This wasn’t true; I did like Becky, she was nice but she’d left us alone since
Lily had pushed her off the chair. I only said it because I felt bad about how much I wanted to go to the party, so I thought, if I pretended it was a big ordeal, Lily wouldn’t mind so much
or be cross with me.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Lily, ‘you don’t have to go.’ She was right. It would be better if I didn’t go at all. I tried to keep the disappointment out of
my voice and said, ‘Let’s go and tell Mum I’m not going.’

‘No, we can’t do that. She thinks it’s a good idea and you don’t want her to think that you’re bottling out of doing something on your own. No, it’s simple
– I’ll go for you; Becky will never know the difference.’