The Mixed-Up Summer of Lily McLean (7 page)

Things I will miss about primary school:

• Golden Time on Friday afternoons. I don’t think they do that at high school so much.
  
• Library duty with the little ones.
  
• Surprisingly, Mrs McKenzie.
  

The next week drags horribly. Mum lends me her fake Gucci holdall for my holiday clothes and I spend quite a lot of time packing and repacking. I decide not to write any more in my new journal until I’m in Millport and so I pack it along with a new pen, my wee radio, and all my new clothes. Jenna is being almost nice to me. She offered me her not-too-old cardigan for a start, mumbling something about keeping me warm, and she hasn’t had another meltdown since last Sunday’s spectacular.

“It’ll be weird without you mooning around the house,” she says to me on Tuesday as we trail over to Gran’s to collect a chicken casserole. Gran often cooks us meals to be put in our freezer and defrosted in a food emergency. There are frequent food emergencies in our house when there’s nothing in the fridge, and Gran doesn’t want Jenna or me to have to run down to the chippie to get fish suppers every time.

“And it’s going to be hell,” Jenna moans predictably, “having to deal with the little horrors on my own for an entire week.”

I don’t point out that she could have come along if she had
wished. It seems silly to start a fight when things are going so well between us. It’s a warm June evening and the sea air smells salty and fresh. I feel light with happiness.

“You’ll be fine, Jenna,” I say, though I can see that it will be hard at home without Gran. She is a very bossy woman, but always a safe, reassuring presence. There are rarely emergencies of any kind when Gran is around.

“And we’ll be back before you know it. I’ll bring you a stick of Millport rock!” I add brightly.

“Oh thanks. Yum,” says Jenna. “You should feed some of that to Gran. It might shut her up for five minutes.”

“She’s unbelievable isn’t she?” I laugh. “When we went to the supermarket, she stood at the till for twenty minutes telling the girl about the problems she’s having with her swollen legs. There was a huge queue behind us by the time she’d run out of ways to describe how ghastly they looked. It was hideously embarrassing.”

“Lucky you, trapped in a caravan with her for a week,” says Jenna. “I couldn’t bear it.”

I twitter on, trying to keep the conversation flowing. For months, Jenna has communicated with me in grunts and snarls. This seems like progress.

“Do you know that the smell of sea air is caused by a gas called DMS? It’s released by bacteria,” I say, a bit desperately. “Which is a bit yucky, isn’t it?”

“Shut up, Lily,” snaps Jenna, and she marches on ahead. So much for progress.

I should still be feeling happy and excited about the approaching holidays, but the ghost is having none of that. On Wednesday morning she turned up in my actual bedroom, while I was in my
actual bed.

Being haunted definitely brings a person down.

She has a real body now, though it’s creepily faint and, well, ghost-like, and I can’t decide whether it’s more or less spooky now that she isn’t just a disembodied voice. There is certainly no getting away from her. I’m just hoping that she can’t travel over water.

On Wednesday, when the ghost appeared in my bedroom, it was about six o’clock in the morning. I was snuggled under my duvet, woken far too early by Bronx’s loud and revolting snoring, and worrying about missing out on the school service on the last day of term.

We’ve been learning a rubbish song about new beginnings that Mrs McKenzie claims is very touching. She says it’ll have the parents in floods of tears. If Gran was at the service I know she’d be in tears of laughter. She’d say it was a soppy dirge. Gran has no time for soppiness.

As well as learning the song, everybody in the class has to prepare a few lines about what primary school has meant to them and their plans for the future. Well, everybody in the class except me. Mrs McKenzie said it was a bit pointless if I wasn’t going to be at the service. She made me feel really bad about it on Monday, and got me sharpening pencils and tidying the library corner while everyone else got to dream about the future.

It made me wish that my gran had asked me how I felt about leaving primary school before she organised this holiday.

Anyway, when I was lying in bed that morning thinking about school, I got that horrible feeling again that I was being watched.

I turned over in bed and pretended to be asleep, a bit unsure if ghosts can be fooled by stuff like that. With the covers half over my head, I opened my eyes, but couldn’t see anything unusual. I couldn’t actually see very much at all, so I pulled my duvet to the side and was about to sit up in bed when there she was by the
window, grey and fuzzy in the early morning light.

She was so blurry and faint that I didn’t really feel afraid, until she spoke, very softly, in that quiet, strangely familiar voice. It’s what she said to me that was scary: “If you can hear me, please listen. Don’t go away. Don’t go to Millport. Please stay safe, Lily.”

“Who are you?” I asked, springing out of bed as if I’d just touched an electric fence. “Why don’t you leave me alone?”

But I was too late. She vanished. One minute she was there, and the next she wasn’t. I wish she’d stop doing that. I’m sure it’s just for effect. She’s more melodramatic than Jenna in a strop.

So at school I am on high alert, waiting for her to reappear. I am ready, determined to tackle her head on. What am I afraid of, after all? She’s a girl, about the same age as me. Not a terrifying, slathering zombie. My ghost isn’t that scary; she isn’t threatening to eat my brains or rip out my heart. She might not even be an actual ghost.

But she is very persistent.

Unlike Wednesday morning, this morning was a spook-free zone, but I’m keeping my guard up, determined not to be freaked out by an unexpected visit. All this vigilance is making me a bit jumpy, and when David prods me in the back with a paintbrush, I shriek and leap in the air.

David’s so worked up about his latest art installation (a vast model boat) that he doesn’t even notice he has nearly given me heart failure. He hands me the paintbrush, which is dripping with brown paint.

“Lily McLean, do I have to paint this entire Viking longship by myself? Or are you going to give me a hand? It was your daft idea to make it life size, after all.”

“It isn’t life size, you eejit. It wouldn’t fit in the classroom if it was. It’s still impressive, though.”

David surveys his handiwork and nods happily.

“I’ve painted the figurehead to look like Big Cheryl,” he says cheerfully. “It’s terrifying, isn’t it? Now, take this brush and help me paint the hull. It needs to be finished in time for the school dance, otherwise the Viking-themed decorations are going to look a bit pathetic. We’ve only got the shields and that big axe Doug made. And the axe might not be allowed.”

“Sorry, Dave. I can’t just now. Thursday afternoon is library duty. I promise I’ll help you finish the ship tomorrow.”

I give him back the paintbrush and scurry out, relieved to have an excuse. I head straight for the school library. On Thursday afternoons it’s my duty to prevent the younger pupils from tearing all the books to shreds or causing an avalanche as they drag them off the shelves.

Suddenly, I notice my ghost, drifting bubble-like outside a classroom, lying in wait. As soon as I see her flitting down the corridor towards me, I pounce.

“Who are you? What do you want?” I demand in my loudest, angriest voice, which only trembles a little.

“Lily! Is everything all right?”

I spin round and see Mrs McKenzie a few steps behind me, laden with textbooks and jotters. She is looking aghast, as if I had suddenly announced to the class that I hated school and thought teachers were dumb.

I struggle to think of a good excuse for standing in the corridor, shouting at the walls, but this time I am stumped, and the truth isn’t an option. I decide to pretend nothing unusual has happened.

“Hi Mrs McKenzie, I was just heading to the library. Do you want a hand carrying those books?” I ask brightly.

“That would be very helpful, thank you Lily. I’m just going
to the staffroom to get a coffee to sustain me while I mark the spelling tests.”

I’m sure I hear her add, under her breath, that a stiff gin might be more effective.

Mrs McKenzie hands me a pile of jotters and we walk towards the staffroom together.

“You know, Lily, I’ve been meaning to talk with you. I am so sorry that you will be missing the end-of-year service. I think it’s such an important life event, even more than the Leavers’ Dance. It’s your chance to say goodbye to primary school properly, rather than just walking out the door at three o’clock as usual and then never coming back. I wish your family could have organised your gran’s holiday for another time, I really do.”

She stops at the door of the staffroom.

“And we will all really miss you, Lily, in our last week. You have been such an asset to the school, and so patient and kind with the younger pupils.”

I blush, thinking of my grumpiness with Bronx and Hudson recently. They can be such little twerps when they don’t want to get out of their beds.

“You have admirable strength and resilience you know,” continues Mrs McKenzie. “I am absolutely sure you will do very well at secondary and in your future career, whatever you decide to do.”

Mrs McKenzie takes the jotters from me and leaves me standing there, bursting with silent pride. She’s the second person to tell me this week that I’m a strong person, strong and resilient. Maybe I really can be anything, do anything.

All the same, I’m relieved to see that the ghost has vanished from the corridor. I’m not that flippin’ strong.

Reasons I’m glad to be going on holiday:

• I won’t have to wear that ghastly pink dress to the Leavers’ Dance.
  
• I’ll get a week off from Bronx’s snoring.
  
• I might be able to leave the ghost behind in Largs.
  

So today, finally, is my last day of primary school. Mrs McKenzie is right: it isn’t going to feel that special when I’m the only one leaving. But I feel quite excited all the same. And tomorrow, I will be on the ferry to Millport.

Rowan and David are already in the playground when I arrive, dragging a reluctant Bronx, at five to nine. While Hudson seems oblivious to everything but computer games, Bronx is in a mutinous rage because I get to finish school early while they have another week to go.

“It’s not fair, Lily! You always get to do fun stuff with Gran. Nobody takes me on holiday. Why can’t I go too?”

“When you’re a bigger boy, I’m sure Gran will take you and Hudson instead of me,” I say, hoping I don’t sound too doubtful.

Bronx shakes his head. He knows very well that Gran will do no such thing.

I tell him to go and play with his little friends and he stomps off, muttering about the injustice of it all, into the milling throng of tiny P1 kids. I feel really envious of the boys, having all these years
of primary school ahead of them.

But I also feel quite sad for them too, that they won’t be going anywhere on holiday this summer, or any other, probably, unless Mum buys a winning lottery ticket.

“OMG! I can’t believe it! It’s going to be so much fun!”

Rowan is leaping about over by the bicycle racks, shrieking excitedly with Georgia, Danielle and Jade. They sound like a flock of squawking macaws. It doesn’t take long for me to overhear the reason for all the hysterics. Rowan’s mum has given in about the limo, apparently. Some parents have no backbone.

David is standing alone by the fence, running his hands through his unruly hair and looking thoroughly fed up.

“Oh there you are at last,” he says gloomily, when I walk over to him. He points over at Rowan and the other girls, who are still screeching at ear-harming decibel levels.

“This is a vision of things to come at high school, you know. Rowan will be sucked into the popular crowd. She’ll shake us off like fleas.”

“That’s not fair, David!” I argue, feeling stung both on Rowan’s behalf and on my own. “We’ve been friends forever. Nothing’s going to change. You’ll see.”

David looks unconvinced.

“Look at her, Lil. She fits right in. We don’t. We will be lumped in with the geeks and the nerds and the untouchables, or whatever they call the unpopular kids, while Rowan swans off with the populars. It’s inevitable.”

I look over at the girls again. Rowan’s netball friends are giggling frantically as they gather in a celebratory group hug. Danielle is taking mass pouting selfies on her mobile. Mrs McKenzie will have a fit if she sees that someone has brought a phone to school.

Perhaps David is right and Rowan will leave us behind when we all go off to high school. I hope desperately that she won’t. What would I
do without my best friend in the world?

Rowan notices us and comes running over, her face glowing with joy.

“I hear you’re going to the ball in your golden coach after all, Cinderella,” I say. “I take it you didn’t have to kill your mum first. I’m sure she mentioned something about you only getting in a hired limo ‘over her cold, dead body’.”

“No, it wasn’t necessary to go quite that far. I cried, a lot, and that did the trick,” replies Rowan, cheerfully. “My dad folded first. He always does. I’m so happy. It would have been so embarrassing to walk to the dance on my own.”

“Yes, it will be utterly humiliating, but I guess I’ll survive,” says David mock-seriously.

Rowan blushes.

“Oh, you’re a boy, Dave, it’s different. But all the girls are going in limos. I would have felt a complete freak.”

I get that horrible feeling again of becoming disconnected from Rowan. It’s as if the radio signal between us is getting weaker. She sometimes says things that she must know are shallow, things we would have laughed about before, if some other girl had said them. But now she says those shallow things and seems quite serious. In those moments we’re on completely different wavelengths. And if I can’t communicate with Rowan, who do I have left?

“It will be hard for me, all the same, having to walk all that way on my lonesome ownsome,” sighs David, clutching his chest for dramatic effect. “If only I could share a limo to the dance with Big Cheryl and her pals. If my mum would just let me get an orange spray tan like Cheryl’s, maybe it could still happen.”

Rowan and I dissolve in giggles.

“You will have to wear a dress like hers, to really fit in, David,” I laugh. “I believe there are many layers of white netting involved
and a zillion sequins. And do you even own a tiara?”

“Well as a matter of fact I have several,” says David, and we all burst out laughing, though for all Rowan and I know, he could be telling the truth.

All of a sudden Rowan stops laughing and grabs our hands. “Oh, I know I’m being a bit ridiculous,” she says. “Just ignore me, both of you. I know the whole limo thing is stupid.”

So she still has one foot in the real world; we haven’t lost her completely. But she doesn’t offer to walk up to the dance with David.

Everything and everybody is changing, while I’m desperately wishing my school life could stay the same. I don’t want to go to secondary school, with its maze-like corridors, stairs leading in all directions and hundreds of teenagers I don’t know and who won’t want to know me.

The school bell rings and I line up for the final time. Mrs McKenzie comes out to take in the lines, looking grumpier than she usually does on a Friday.

“Is this a line of P7 pupils, or a troupe of baboons?” she asks grouchily. “In a week you will all be leaving this school. Is this the impression you want to create in secondary?”

I will even miss Mrs McKenzie’s sarky comments. I feel sentimental tears gathering and hastily brush them away. It’s completely unlike me to cry without a good reason, like my hand being trapped in a door, or being haunted on Largs’ seafront. And anyway, if I cry I will draw unwanted attention to myself and Mrs McKenzie is clearly in no mood for nonsense this morning.

We pile into the classroom, but it takes a while to get settled into our seats as there is a fight between Doug the Thug and Big Cheryl. She hits him with her bag as she crashes clumsily towards her seat and he takes offence, swears loudly and shoves her.

“You boggin’ pig. You done that on purpose! I’m gonna have
ya!” roars Cheryl, lunging at Doug, fists flailing.

I would have been scared to intervene but Mrs McKenzie is afraid of nothing and nobody. She charges into the fray and sorts it out. They are both on final warnings, again.

I suspect Mrs McKenzie will not be sad to see the back of Doug the Thug and Big Cheryl.

Rowan slides into a seat beside me and grins.

“Are you all set for tomorrow?” she whispers, as we pull our maths homework from our bags and hand it to Mrs McKenzie, whose face is now grim.

“You know me. I am uber-organised,” I reply. “And I can’t wait to see you and David on Friday.”

Rowan’s face clouds over.

“I’m not sure if we’re going to make it,” she whispers. “My mum says she doesn’t want to waste money on the ferry unless it’s a really sunny day. I asked if David and I could go over on our own, but she said ‘No way’. And what are the chances of a sunny day? Realistically, pretty low.”

I sink down in my seat, feeling totally dejected. I had been looking forward to them coming, to showing them both around the island, even though I know they both probably know it as well as I do.

“Oh well,” I mutter. “I’ll cross my fingers for sunshine on Friday.”

“Lily McLean and Rowan Forrest! I’ve already asked everyone to come and sit at the Smartboard. I did not intend for you two to have an exemption. Will you girls stop rudely whispering and get yourselves over here now! Or do you already know everything there is to know about prepositions? Perhaps you could come over and enlighten the rest of the class?”

Mrs McKenzie is in full-on sarcastic mode today. The clock hands seem to move extra slowly and by lunchtime I am thoroughly fed up. My last day is not proving to be as enjoyable as I had hoped.

And then it gets worse.

As normal, I go to stand in the queue for my free school meals (I may have mentioned our cash flow issues). Once I’ve loaded up my tray with pizza, potato wedges and pink milk, I go over to join Rowan and David at the table with their packed lunches. Usually I enjoy my school dinner, but today the pepperoni pizza looks rock hard and the wedges are soggy. Only my pink milk looks appealing, and that’s saying something.

“At least the school dinners should be better at high school,” I say hopefully, jabbing a straw into my milk carton. “We could take this pizza down to the beach and play frisbee with it.”

“We had better go there by limo then,” jokes David. “It’s the only way to travel apparently.”

I giggle, but Rowan’s face flushes scarlet.

“Stop going on about it, you two!” she yells, standing up so quickly that her chair falls over.

She stalks off to another table and sits down next to Danielle, who looks surprised but delighted.

For the rest of the afternoon, I worry about falling out with Rowan and Mrs McKenzie tells me off twice for daydreaming. Rowan isn’t speaking to David or me, and I feel terrible. When the school bell rings, she leaves hurriedly with Jade, Danielle and Georgia. I expect they’re going over to Jade’s house to gasp at the overwhelming gorgeousness of Jade’s new dress.

I didn’t mean that to sound quite so bitter. I guess I’m a little bit jealous.

David and I are left standing at our desks, gathering up our
blazers and bags.

“Are you going straight home?” he asks. “Do you want to come into town first so I can see if there’s any new Star Wars stuff in?”

“Um, ’fraid not, Dave. I’ve got to collect my brothers,” I say, trying to look genuinely sorry. David will be in the shop until closing time, poring over any interesting finds.

“And I’ve got something to do here first. I’ll see you on Friday, with any luck.”

David leaves and I linger in the classroom for a moment, adjusting my bag strap.

“Is everything ok, Lily?” Mrs McKenzie asks, and then her hand flies to her mouth. “Oh, Lily, you should have reminded me this is your last day! I feel awful!”

I shuffle over to her desk, feeling really self-conscious, and pull a card and small box of chocolate mints from my bag, bought with the change from Gran’s tenner.

“These are for you,” I say awkwardly, stating the obvious as usual, handing them to her. “You’ve been a really great teacher. I’ll miss you a lot.”

“Thank you so much, Lily. That’s very kind of you, dear. I have something for you too. I’m so glad I remembered before you left for good!”

Mrs McKenzie goes into her desk drawer and pulls out a small parcel carefully wrapped in pale-blue tissue paper. She places it in my hand. Then she gives me a quick, awkward hug.

“Goodbye, Lily. Enjoy your holiday and good luck in secondary school. Come back and see us all some time.”

The boys are kicking gravel at each other by the school gates, waiting impatiently for me to come out. Hudson has grass stains
on his knees and a sore-looking graze on his arm. Bronx’s polo shirt is smeared in blue paint, tomato from his lunchtime pizza and dribbles of pink milk. Gran will be livid. In his sticky hands, Bronx is holding a junk model of a vehicle – a digger apparently – which is so large and unwieldy that I have to stuff Mrs McKenzie’s parcel in my blazer pocket and help him to carry it.

“Can we stop at the park, for a minute, Lily? Please, please, please. Harry is going with his mum and we want to see who can go fastest on the new zip wire. Can we? Can we?” he begs, pulling at me with a still rather sticky hand.

Hudson shrugs and I sigh and agree. To be honest, none of us is in a huge hurry to get to Gran’s house. She is bound to be preparing a large ‘do and don’t’ list for me to ensure I don’t embarrass her in front of her Millport cronies.
Do answer politely when they ask how you’re doing at school. Don’t roll your eyes when they say how much you’ve grown
…

When we arrive at the park, it’s already busy with small kids eager to try out the new zip wire. Hudson throws his bag at my feet and rushes to the climbing bars to swing arm over arm like a gibbon, while Bronx shakes off my hand and rushes in the opposite direction, waving frantically at his wee pal Harry. Harry’s mum is standing by the swings, chatting to some other mothers. They are all smartly dressed, with shiny well-cut hair and carefully applied makeup. Our mum is nothing like them, with her weird smocks and legging combos, her pointy suede boots and her long, wild red hair. I wonder if the boys mind.

I find an unoccupied bench, place our school bags and the junk model digger carefully on it and flop down. It’s a dull, overcast day, threatening rain. We’ll need to leave in ten minutes in case we get caught in a downpour. I figure that Bronx will freak out if his precious cardboard digger is ruined by the rain.

“I was much faster than you, Harry!” I hear Bronx shriek.

“You were not, you big liar!”

I think this game is not going to end well.

It’s a bit chilly sitting on the bench, and the wood is damp against my bare legs. I’m feeling miserable about the fact that primary school is over, for me at least, and really afraid that I might not see my best friend again until we start secondary in August. And maybe she won’t speak to me ever again. Perhaps David is right and this is the end of our friendship with Rowan. I remind myself sternly that David has a tendency to be dramatic and that I’m doing the exact same thing.

Then I remember Mrs McKenzie’s parcel and slip it quickly from my blazer pocket. I tear at the fragile tissue paper, find a tiny white cardboard box and prise it carefully apart. Inside, there’s a little silver-coloured charm in the shape of a flower. I turn it in my hands and see that it’s a water lily. Once I’ve attached it to my school bag I sit back on the bench and admire it, feeling really touched by Mrs McKenzie’s thoughtfulness.