Me Myself Milly (8 page)

‘Are you okay?’ Anil asked me when Hayden had gone.

I nodded. ‘I don’t . . . What does he want?’ I managed.

‘Payment.’

‘What for?’

‘For not hurting you. Remember last year when Oliver broke his arm?’

‘You mean when he fell off the wall?’ There’d been a big fuss about it and nobody was allowed to play on the wall any more; Oliver hadn’t been too popular for a
while.

‘He didn’t fall off the wall – it was Hayden.’

‘But that’s . . . How come no one knows? I mean, shouldn’t we tell someone?’

‘You are kidding, right?’ said Anil, looking at me like I’d gone crazy. ‘How come you don’t know, anyhow? Everyone has to bring Hayden something every
week.’

Which reminded me I didn’t know what I was supposed to bring.

‘Well,’ said Anil, when I asked him, ‘he prefers money but it has to be over fifty pence. If you can’t get that then he’ll make do with sweets, but if he
doesn’t like them you’ll get a Chinese burn. Mars bars are his favourite or most things in that line. Just don’t bring Jelly Babies or you’ll regret it.’

That night I was so worried I couldn’t sleep. Lily knew there was something wrong but I wouldn’t tell her what had happened at school. She’d stopped throwing up and told me
she’d had a nice day at home with Mum and she was going to have another day off just to make sure she was better.

That did it. I knew Hayden had said I mustn’t tell anyone and I’d held out for ages, but in the end I had to tell Lily. She looked furious.

‘So I have to take something tomorrow. Have you got any money?’

‘I’m not giving my money to Hayden.’

‘Please, Lily. If I don’t have it he’ll break my arm.’

Lily laughed.

‘You don’t understand!’ I was close to tears now. ‘He broke Oliver’s arm because he forgot to bring something.’

‘No he did not,’ said Lily. ‘Oliver fell off the wall because he’s a clumsy idiot.’

‘He didn’t,’ I whispered urgently. ‘It was Hayden.’

Lily laughed again. How could she! Now I was crying, not only because I was scared but because Lily was being so heartless.

‘Oh Milly! Don’t,’ said Lily. She got out of bed and climbed in beside me. ‘Stop worrying,’ she said, giving me a hug. ‘I’ll go to school with you
tomorrow and it will be fine, okay?’

So Lily convinced Mum she was well enough for school and at break time we went into the playground.

‘Right,’ said Lily, leading me to the old loos, ‘you stand here and when Hayden comes, tell him you’ve got something. Then I’ll come out and you run
away.’

I stood there while Lily disappeared round the side of the building. I felt like that goat in Jurassic Park; the one they tie up to try and lure the biggest dinosaur.

Then Hayden arrived and motioned to me to follow him round the side of the loos. As soon as he’d gone round the corner Lily appeared from the other side.

‘Don’t worry,’ she said and followed Hayden.

I stood and waited. It could only have been about a minute but it felt like for ever. I wanted to look to check that Lily was okay, but at the same time I couldn’t bring myself to look.
I was just about to go and fetch someone to help when Hayden came round the side of the building. He was limping. I shrank back against the wall but he didn’t even look at me.

Lily came out looking grim but perfectly unharmed.

‘He won’t bother you again,’ she said.

‘What happened?’

Lily grinned. ‘I told him that, if he so much as looked at you, then I’d get Mum to put him in one of her books. I said she’d draw him as the ugliest, meanest boy in the
school who everyone hated and the whole world would know it was him and it would be on the telly and everything.’

‘Really? Is that what happened?’

‘No,’ said Lily, linking arms with me. ‘It’s a nice thought, though.’

I can’t believe that I kissed Hayden Bailey when he was demanding money with menaces. I never did tell Lily that part. It still makes me cringe.

I couldn’t get out of bed this morning. Not that I needed to because it was Sunday,; but it wasn’t a nice Sunday morning feeling, like I knew I could have a long
lazy lie-in. It felt more like I’d lost the use of my arms and legs. Or at least I knew they worked, it was just that the connection between my brain and my body had broken.

I didn’t need to open my eyes to know that Lily wasn’t there; it’s a twin thing.

I couldn’t even move my arm to turn on the bedside light and it’s dark down here in the mornings. I could feel the weight of silence from the house above pressing down on me. I felt
like I’d been buried alive in some subterranean tomb, surrounded by all my worldly possessions. One day an archaeologist would dig me up and wonder why I’d died so young. They might be
confused about the significance of the doll’s house, buried alongside me.

Mum poked her head round the door.

‘Milly, you’d better get up. You’ve got a visitor.’

I shot out of bed, but Mum had gone so I couldn’t ask her who it was. Who would be visiting me? For a moment I thought it might be the Americans. Perhaps they’d arrived last night
and come visiting. Yeah, like that’s the first thing they’d do. It was probably only Carmel, come to see how I’m getting on at the new school.

I could hear voices and laughter coming from the kitchen. Was that Effy? She’d asked for my address and phone number last week and I’d given them to her reluctantly. I hadn’t
expected her to call round without any warning. What if Lily had been here? I’d never hear the end of it. She wasn’t going to like Effy.

It was strange seeing her in our kitchen talking to Mum, like nothing was wrong. We don’t often have friends round. What am I saying? We never have friends round. The girls who like me
never like Lily and the ones who like Lily get irritated with me. It’s easier not to bother.

‘Effy’s been telling me how your new school is so different from her last one,’ said Mum. I took that to mean that Effy had been relating her life story again.

‘I thought we could go out, round town or something,’ Effy suggested.

‘That’s a good idea,’ said Mum. ‘I’ll give you some money.’

Mum went off to find her purse. I didn’t really feel like going out, but it looked like I didn’t have a lot of choice. We couldn’t stay here and risk Lily turning up.

Like I said before, it’s easy being with Effy. We went off into town and I didn’t have to think because Effy organised everything. She decided which shops we’d go into and
where to go for coffee. It was almost fun. It’s not that she’s bossy; I wanted to go to the Sunday market and she was happy to come along.

I needed some things for my hair. It’s long and unruly and I wanted some more ties because I wear it in a ponytail most of the time. Effy asked me if I’d thought about having it cut.
I couldn’t tell her that it would be like insulting Lily, because she doesn’t know about Lily and even if she did it would sound silly. Lily was talking about having hers cut a while
back but she never did it. If I had mine cut it wouldn’t be right.

Anyhow, I explained to Effy, if I had it cut it would have to be really short because otherwise it would just stick out all over the place because of the curls. At least if it’s long the
weight pulls the curls out a bit. Once, Lily and I tried to straighten our hair with some hair straighteners Lily had borrowed from a girl at school. It didn’t work; it made us look like
witches. Mum said there was a time in the 1980s when our hair would have been dead fashionable. That didn’t help.

When we got back I didn’t invite Effy in. I hope she didn’t think I was being rude.

The new neighbours had arrived while I was out. I could hear them moving about upstairs. Mum said we should bake some biscuits and take them up as a welcome. I refused but Mum insisted
we’d have to go up and introduce ourselves tomorrow because it would be rude not to.

I lay in bed trying to hear them but it had all gone quiet. They must have gone to bed. Lily wasn’t bothered.

‘I don’t know what all the fuss is about,’ she said, turning over.

‘What fuss?’ I said crossly. ‘Nobody’s fussing.’

But then, at three o’clock in the morning, I heard someone moving about. It’s nice to know that someone else is awake at that hour. I was trying to fall asleep while reading a book.
I’ve discovered that if I read really slowly I can sometimes fall asleep without realising it. I expect the Americans have got jet lag and it’s messed their body clocks up.

School’s getting better. I like going now, even though the mornings are getting darker and sometimes I feel so tired I can barely function first thing. I’ve started drinking coffee
in the morning to try and wake myself up.

The best thing about Effy is that she’s good at making friends. The first few days we stuck together and had lunch by ourselves in the canteen. Then Effy said, ‘Let’s go and
sit with them,’ indicating some girls from our year. I wasn’t so sure because I could see that one of them was Amy and I could tell a mile off that she’s bad news. But before I
could warn Effy she’d plonked herself on the end of their table and started talking to them. I kept quiet; I had a bad feeling about this. You’d have thought the girls were being
friendly but I could detect an undercurrent and when they started asking Effy about her old school, St Bart’s, I tried kicking Effy’s ankle to warn her to shut up but she just said
‘Ow,’ and carried on talking.

I didn’t tell Effy that I wasn’t happy about Amy and her friends because I didn’t want to come across as paranoid but the next day, at lunchtime, I could see her looking around
for them so I steered her towards a different group. I’d had a few lessons with some of them and while they were nice I’d never have dared approach them if I hadn’t been so
desperate to keep Effy away from Amy. That’s the trouble with Effy: she’s not very street-wise. She thinks everyone is as nice and uncomplicated as she is.

So we ended up with Molly, Harriet and Katy. They were really friendly but I didn’t say very much because they were talking about what they’d watched on television last night and we
don’t have a telly to speak of. It’s not like Mum’s said ‘no telly’ or anything; it’s just that the one we’ve got is really old and small so it’s
hardly worth bothering with. I had heard about most of the things they watch though so I just listened. No doubt my how to make friends book would have advised me to try and change the subject, to
steer it onto something I could have joined in with, but I didn’t feel ready for that.

When we were twelve Mum took us on holiday to Cornwall. We were going to visit Mum’s friend Matt who used to live in the house but had moved to a commune on an
organic farm. It wasn’t until we were halfway down the motorway that Mum said it wasn’t exactly a holiday –, we’d be expected to help on the farm.

‘What?’ said Lily.

‘Sorry,’ said Mum, ‘but it will be all hands to the deck.’

‘Don’t you mean, “all hands to the plough”?’ I said.

Mum laughed. ‘Very true,’ she said, ‘serves me right for using platitudes.’

‘What’s a platitude?’ I asked. Lily gave me one of her ‘don’t encourage her looks’.

‘It’s a trite, worn-out, clichéd expression,’ said Mum. ‘Politicians use them all the time. See if you can think of one that’s relevant to the
situation.’

Mum does this all the time; tries to get us to think – especially about language.

Lily was sulking. I don’t think she could think of anything.

‘How about, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch”?’ I said.

‘Very good,’ said Mum. ‘We can’t expect to stay there and not help out. There’s a big farmers’ market coming up soon so there’ll be plenty to
do.’

‘What doesn’t kill you will make you stronger,’ said Lily.

‘Let’s hope so,’ said Mum.

Lily didn’t like it much on the farm. She soon got bored with feeding the pigs and the chickens and hated it when we were asked to do the weeding between the rows of vegetables. There
were other kids on the farm but they were all younger than us, except for Mark, who was fourteen. I liked Mark. He didn’t say much to start with. I think he was shy, like me. But when he
realised I was interested in the animals and liked the work, he was a lot more friendly. He didn’t live in the main house where we were staying. He lived above the old stables with his mum
and dad and little brother. I always tried to get the jobs where I could work with Mark and of course Lily noticed. She started teasing me. ‘Mark and Milly sitting in a tree,’
she’d chant if she saw me looking for him. It wasn’t like that at all. I was only twelve and I didn’t really fancy him, I just liked him. Maybe that’s what annoyed Lily. I
don’t know. Maybe she did fancy him and was annoyed that he obviously preferred me.