The Twice-Lived Summer of Bluebell Jones (11 page)

 

 

11.
The Red Dragon

 

I dream of home.

In my bedroom, the tessellating photographs have grown across my walls like slimy moss. More pictures than I could take in a year, snapshots from the future. I try to get closer, to see what's in them: to see what's coming. But the pictures turn their backs and hide.

My head stays under the pillow as I hear Tiger shift around, hunting for trainers; Mum and Dad getting up, flooding the caravan with coffee smells. I fake sleep when muffled voices offer me a cup. If I stay here with Milly, in my little cave of warmth, nothing will go wrong. Nothing will hurt. My future can't be messed up if I stay in bed instead.

I really do go back to sleep, though. It's almost eleven when I wake up. I shower, get dressed. The caravan's quiet: a scribbled note from Dad on the table,
Gone to the shops, lazybones. See you for lunch? x
.

Merlin's coat is draped over the shoulders of a kitchen chair. I slip it on, breathing in: smoke and minty gum.

I feel like a weirdo. Is that pervy, sniffing someone's coat?

If Red were here, she'd be laughing at me. But she's not. I don't know where she's gone. I walk to the edge of the cliffs, where the iron railings lean out, groping towards Mulvey Island and the Bee rock. I take the short-cut path to the Prom, to The Bench. It's where she always goes when she's not with me, to sit and watch the tide go in, the tide go out. I always thought it was because she was waiting for something.

But she can't have been. My summer isn't her summer. She didn't have herself hissing in her own ear, telling her the future, some of it true. By being here, she had to be changing her own history.

But what does that mean for her?

What happens to her now? To the year she's already lived? To the girl who wished herself back on her fourteenth birthday?

The wind ripples the grey sea, rolling in, rolling out. It licks the pebbles, tumbling them into a new order. It washes me with sadness, as I begin to understand.

By the time I get back to the caravan park, I can smell burnt toast and there's music filtering out through the thin walls: Johnny and the Hurricanes. It's from Tiger's favourite CD. Through the windows I can see Dad twirling Tiger, while Mum drums on the table with butter knives.

Red's outside, looking in.

“I think it's called a predestination paradox,” I say quietly. “Is that right?”

“Knew I could count on you to know the right technical term,” she says, with a laugh like a sigh.

“It's impossible,” I say, slowly, still working it all out. “I have to become you, so you can come back in time to change things. But because you've come back in time to change things, I'll never become you. Impossible.”

Red shoots me a wan smile. “I recommend not thinking too hard about it. It's like the wish. I mean, how was any of this possible? Even I don't know. But here we are. Reckon you just make the best of wherever you've ended up.”

“But—” I can hardly bear to look at her. “But what about you? If I don't turn into you, what happens? Where do you go?”

Red pushes her hand against the caravan wall, wisps of smoke trailing up as it disappears. Solemn, she watches her fingers as they gradually re-form into a solid hand-shape.

“Where did my hand just go? Don't know. Guess I'll just . . . stop.”

“And you're OK with that? You don't mind?”

Red takes a very deep breath, and says nothing, and I think about her not taking any more deep breaths, ever; not shaking her hair over her eyes or flashing her grin or tap-tap-tapping the side of her nose. I want to hold her hand but I can't. She'll never hold anyone's hand again, ever.

“I'd mind,” I say, my voice very small and choked.

Red breathes in deeply again, and sniffs. “I mind,” she says, her voice small too. “I think it's all right to mind.”

There's a beep-beep-beep from the smoke alarm, and the caravan door springs open, pouring out music, giggling, and the smell of charred bread. Tiger doesn't see me: she's too busy wafting a grill pan billowing grey smog out of the door at arm's length, shouting, “Water, water!” between fits of laughter.

The song changes: Link Wray, something slinky and slow. Dad whoops and cranks up the volume. Mum appears in the doorway, and empties a bowlful of water over the black toast. It sizzles, sending up more smoke. Then she takes the pan from Tiger and whips it sharply to her left, keeping tight hold of the handle, and sending the squares of black wet toast arcing into the sky.

I hear a slap-slap-slap, as they land on the roof of the chalet opposite.

“Mum!” yelps Tiger, and the two clutch each other as they stumble inside, senseless with giggles.

The door slaps closed behind them. Link Wray gets quieter, though the caravan still quivers and creaks as they dance across the crack in the curtains.

Red steps up closer, and peers in: her nose pressed as close against the glass as a wishgirl's can be.

“Hey,” I say quietly, my heart aching for her; for me, when I was her. “You can come in, you know. You don't have to hide out here.”

She shakes her head.

“I like watching.” She sighs as Tiger dumps Dad on the sofa and pulls Mum out of her seat, rock and rolling around her while she taps the beat on her belly. “I like seeing that they're all right without me.”

They're not without me. I'm standing right here.

But I know what she means.

Red's a girl made of smoke, and might-have-been, things I didn't do and never will. But she was me once.
She's my mum too
, she said at the hospital. This is her family.

She's starting to say goodbye.

“I'll look after them,” I whisper. “I promise.”

There's a red wing of hair in the way, so I can't see her face. But she nods, and I know we understand each other.

I go inside and eat cheese on toast, version number two. I join in the dancing, Merlin's tailcoat twirling out behind me, knocking cups off the table. I let my brain tick-tick-tick.

I can't save Red, not really. I can't save her from wisping away into smoky nothingness when this summer is over – but I can follow her lead, do things her way: brave, and fabulous. That way even when she's gone, she'll still be a part of me.

And I realize: I know exactly what I need to do next.

Dad drives Mum off for her four p.m. hospital check-up.

Tiger changes her clothes, little skirt, big shoes, off to see Catrin.

I walk, and walk, the long way round, building up my courage. I go to the fairground, to face my fears.

The Shed is closed up early, for Fifties Fest preparation: boxes of hot-dog buns, a tower of stacking plastic chairs outside. I'm disappointed. I want to see Fozzie, even if I can't explain. I want Fozzie to see this.

But maybe it's something I need to do on my own.

The fairground is packed: jerky music, flashing lights, food and screaming. Chaos. Happiness. I feel it buzz through me, the rattle of the Rock'n'Roller like a bass line up my spine. My hands tingle as I weave through the crowds, feeling curious eyes on me. A girl in an oversized black tailcoat, on a sunny early evening in August. I suppose I look a little odd. I smile back, hands in Merlin's pockets. I like being a little odd, I think.

The towering iron loop of the Red Dragon looms in the sky. The plume of flame shoots in the air as the shining red carriages make the loop, and the gathered crowd gasp.

I'm not scared.

Red wouldn't be scared.

I'm not going to fall.

Red wouldn't fall.

I am Bluebell Jones, thirteen years old, and I don't need to be rescued. I can rescue myself.

The queue shuffles slowly forward as the Dragon makes its journey round the tracks, over and over. Its yellow eyes blaze, daring me to quit. It puffs out smoke, spits its flames.

I pay my money, and let them strap me in.

There's a pause, before we set off: long enough for me to wonder what the hell I was thinking and feel a stab of panic. I can see a flash of red hair in the crowd. Red is watching from below, head cocked, her mouth half-open in a curious smile as if she can't believe what she's seeing.

I cling to the safety bar over my shoulders with both hands, adjusting my grip again and again.

Then with a jolt, it starts.

I'm tipped back as we crank our way up the first slope, my regret rising notch by notch, high above the fair to linger, terrifyingly, on the brink – what have I done,
what have I done
– before we plunge, super-fast, down the first drop and then curve left, up, over and on to our sides, corkscrewing to a slow level section that suddenly drops down, twists sickeningly fast to the right and then hurls us up, up, upside-down.

We hang in time and space.

The fairground lights are tiny flashes below us, the ground impossibly far off. My forehead feels cool, my fringe dangling off it – then suddenly a shocking burst of fire shoots towards me, so fast, so close, licking at my face till I'm sure it'll singe my hair, set me alight.

But we're already moving again, out of the loop, up and around one more, gentler curve till we suddenly slow, and jerk to a stop.

I did it.

I feel sick and dizzy and I'm not sure my legs will work enough to get me out and down to the ground – but I did it. By myself. For both of us.

It feels like my birthday all over again. The one I always imagined, where I'm a butterfly. I'm not Red yet; there's so much more I need from her. But I've taken the first big step.

Red's waiting for me as I stumble queasily past the screens showing the snap of my face: eyes wide, mouth set. Then her eyebrows lift, and her lips form a secret smile.

“Impressed?” I say, twirling.

“Hell yeah!” she says, as if she can't quite believe it. “And I'm not the only one.”

She steps back, so I can see.

Merlin is leaning against Madame Soso's painted booth, watching me. He's wearing his usual magician ensemble – top hat, tight black jeans, smudgy eyeliner – but his bare arms look thin and pale, wrapping awkwardly across his chest as I approach.

“You look cold,” I giggle, still giddy from the ride.

“Yeah? Some girl stole my coat,” he says, smiling.

“Sorry. I didn't mean to run off with it like that, last night.”

“Nonono,” he says, wagging a long finger as I start to shrug it off. “Please. If you give it back now, then
you'll
be cold.”

“I can't keep it. It's yours.”

It's part of you, I mean: part of your Merlin-ness, like Red's wing of hair.

“True,” he says. “All right, I'll make you a deal. You can give it back to me on Saturday.”

“Saturday?”

“When I take you to the Fifties Fest.” He coughs. “I heard there's this excellent band playing, about twelve o'clock: Joanie and the Whales, I think they're called? And, um.” He coughs again. “I'm sure you're probably going anyway, like. But I thought you might come with me. We could, you know. Go together.”

He sucks on his lower lip, hands twisting nervously.

“Oh,” I say. “
Oh
. Like. Sort of. Like a date?”

Merlin coughs again, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Yeah. Sort of like a date. If that was a thing you wanted to do.”

I picture the face Red must be making behind me, and giggle again.

“Yeah,” I say, grinning like my face'll split while that bird flaps madly in my chest. “That's a thing I want to do.”

Merlin lifts his hazel eyes up, as if to check I'm not kidding, then lets out a huge huff of breath. “Bloody hell, that was hard. Is it always that hard, asking people out?”

“No idea. But I said yes, so you must have done all right.”

“Yeah,” he says. “You said yes.”

He just stands there, nodding and smiling, as if he's only planned up to this part, not beyond. Then he checks himself, looks at his watch, and scowls.