Midnight (5 page)

‘Gone,' he said, but he handed the book back, laying it down carefully beside me on the bed.

‘You're crazy,' I said, opening the book again.

Will pulled a crazy face, eyes crossed, tongue lolling, nid-nodding his head in front of me.

I always found it weirdly frightening when he pulled faces. It was as if he'd really turned into someone else. I tried to take no notice, concentrating on the fairies in the book. Will started making mad gibbering noises, capering round my bed.

‘Now who's being childish,' I said. ‘And there's mud all over your shoes. Take them off. Go and have a bath. They'll be back soon.'

‘Don't be daft. The old man will be out half the night getting sozzled,' said Will – but as he spoke we heard the car draw up outside.

‘Oh cripes,' said Will, losing all his cool.

He pretended he couldn't care less about Dad
but he was still a bit scared of him. We all were.

‘Quick!' I hissed. ‘Get into your bed with your clothes on. Pull the duvet right up so Mum won't see. Oh help, wait!' I sat up and wiped a muddy smudge from Will's cheek.

I was still mad at him but it was always Will-and-me against the parents, no matter what.

‘Thanks, Vi,' Will whispered, and then he ran off to his own room.

I hoped he wasn't making any more muddy footprints. The landing light was off so maybe they wouldn't show. I switched my own moon-globe bedside lamp off and lay in the dark, listening. I heard the key in the front door, then footsteps and voices. They were whispering, but Dad's voice got louder as he went into the living room. I heard him opening the cupboard where he kept his whisky. Mum murmured something and Dad started yelling at her. The big night out had obviously not been a success.

I heard footsteps on the stairs and then my bedroom door opened. Mum put her head round the door and moved quietly into the middle of my room.

‘Violet?' she whispered. ‘Are you awake?'

I shut my eyes tight. Mum waited. Then she came padding over to my bed and bent over me. I lay still, heart thudding. After a few seconds Mum sighed and carefully felt her way back to my door.

‘Night night,' she whispered on her way out.

Did that mean she knew I was faking sleep? I turned over on my tummy, feeling mean. I knew Mum longed
for a proper girly daughter to confide in. But I never knew what to
say
to Mum. We didn't have a thing in common. It was almost as if
I
was the one who was adopted.

I listened to see if Mum would check out Will. She paused outside his bedroom, but then walked past to her own room. So there we were, all in separate rooms, each wide awake in the silent house.

I stared up at the ceiling. I thought about the loft up above me. Then I thought about the adjoining loft, under the same roof, where the bats were flying, their leathery little wings beating the air.

I burrowed right underneath my duvet. Phantom bats pursued me, tangling in my hair, diving down the neck of my nightdress. I huddled up tight, clasping Little Growl close to my chest for comfort. I felt so babyish, still needing to cuddle my little teddy. It was a wonder I wasn't still sucking my thumb. I dropped Little Growl overboard and lay tensely on my own, telling myself to grow up.

What was I doing, still playing these weird games with Will? Why did I always let him control me? He didn't really have any power over me. He couldn't make me do anything, not if I stood up to him. I just didn't know how to do it.

I kept to myself most of Sunday. I had a lie-in and then I had a long bath and washed my hair all over again. It's so long and thick it always takes hours to dry. The damp weight of it made my neck ache. I twisted it back in a fat
plait, but I looked younger than ever then. I untied it and started experimenting, plaiting little strands of hair and tying tiny purple beads to the ends. Violet beads.

I got out my Casper Dream books and flicked through all the fairy plates. His painting of the Violet Fairy was so dark I could barely make out her hairstyle, and she was half hidden anyway behind long blades of grass. But some of the other Casper Dream fairies were very big and bright. The Sun Fairy, the Rainbow Fairy, the Rose and the Fuchsia and the Willow were all fairy princess figures with long curls flowing way past their knees. I could never decide which was my favourite. Maybe the Rose Fairy. She had little plaits amongst her golden curls, coiled intricately to form a crown around her head, studded with tiny rosebuds.

I peered hard at the painting and tried to copy her hairstyle. I didn't have any rosebuds but I had some old daisy slides from Claire's Accessories. I wove my crown of plaits, skewered them with slides, and went to look at myself in my long mirror. I sighed. I didn't look
remotely
like a Casper Dream fairy.

I pulled all the slides out, brushed my hair hard, and tied it back in one plait. I pulled on my oldest, comfiest jeans and a big baggy sweatshirt.
Will's
big baggy sweatshirt. I plucked at the soft material and then tugged it off again. I'd been wearing Will's clothes ever since I was little, his check lumberjack shirts, his navy sweaters, his stripy T-shirts. Why did I always want to wear his old cast-offs?

I put on my own blue butterfly top. It was small and
showed my stomach, but that didn't matter as I've always had a flat tummy. But the rest of me was still flat as a pancake too. That was the really depressing part. My chest was like a little girl's. A little
boy's
. I'd tried wearing a bra and stuffing it with tissues but it just rode up under my armpits because there was nothing to anchor it. I was a totally undeveloped freak.

Mum even took me to the doctor's to check there was nothing wrong. I had to unbutton my school blouse, nearly dying of embarrassment. The doctor just said I was a late developer, but suggested I might try exercising. I tried bending my elbows and sticking out my chest and whirling my arms around for weeks, but nothing whatsoever happened.

I tried the windmill exercise now, but my fingers kept colliding with the fairy dolls hanging from my ceiling. They bobbed about my head, doing their own aerial exercises.

Mum bought me a proper manufactured Casper Dream fairy doll one Christmas but I shut her in my cupboard. I hated all the mass-produced Casper Dream trademark fairies in gift shops and toy shops and W. H. Smith. They were horrible pouting plastic creatures with prawn-pink skins and nylon hair. They wore cheap net dresses and matching clip-on wings in stinging shades of magenta and turquoise and emerald and acid yellow.

I leafed through my books, looking at Casper Dream's subtle shades of soft purple and sea-blue and olive and primrose. I stroked the book fairies' skin, silver and sand and pearly green, and brushed their long wild curls with
my fingertip. I knew Casper Dream would hate those horrible fairies flocked in their plastic cases on shelves in shopping centres. He'd hate the television cartoons too. I'd burst into tears when I saw what they'd done to Casper Dream's delicate designs and switched the set off straight away. I knew Casper Dream wouldn't be able to watch them either.

I knew him better than anyone. He knew me too.
I had
a letter from him
.

Dad had bought me Casper Dream's first book,
The
Smoky Fairy
, when I was six. I don't know why he chose it. He likes to say now that he had a hunch it was going to be really special, worth a fortune in the future. I think that's rubbish. Dad probably rushed into a bookshop in a hurry and picked the first little-girly book he came across.

The Smoky Fairy
wasn't a big brightly coloured picture book. It's a small slim square book. I carried it around in my pocket, pretending the Smoky Fairy herself was nestled up in the silky grey lining. When all the other Casper Dream books started to get popular and Dad saw the price
The Smoky Fairy
was reaching on the Internet he made me put the book in a cellophane wrapper and store it upright on my bookshelf. Casper Dream's letter to me is carefully folded up inside it.

I wrote to him to tell him I thought
The Smoky Fairy
was the best book ever. I'd read it again and again, pointing along the lines with my finger and muttering the words until I knew them by heart. I can't properly remember everything I said in my letter. My printing
was pretty wobbly and my lines wavered up and down the page. I was only six, remember. I wasn't up to giving him a detailed analysis of why I liked
The Smoky Fairy
so much.

The story was relatively simple, about a little fairy who flew in a blue-grey smoky cloud above fires or candles or cigarettes. When the flame was blown out the Smoky Fairy faded until I could barely see her glimmering on the page and I got scared she would disappear for ever, but then she made friends with a baby dragon who puffed smoke with every breath. The Smoky Fairy perched on his green scaly back and they flew away together, off the end of the page, out of the story. And I flew with them. I tried to fly literally, flapping my arms and galloping round the bedroom in my furry slippers. I must have looked such an idiot, but in my head I was the Smoky Fairy, in my own grey silky fairy dress with gossamer wings.

I have a horrible feeling I might have told Casper Dream that
I
was a fairy. I can feel my cheeks flushing even now just thinking about it. But Casper Dream was so kind. He wrote back to me, a proper letter in the same italic black handwriting as on the title page of
The Smoky
Fairy
.

I unwrapped my precious copy of the book, cellophane crackling, and very carefully opened up the letter.

Dear violet,

What a lovely name! I'm particularly fond of violets too. I Shall have to invent a very special tiny violet fairy in a deep purple velvet dress. I'm so glad you like my smoky fariy she Fairy. She pleased too.

Then he'd drawn me my very own Smoky Fairy picture. The Smoky Fairy was flying, wings outstretched, her toes delicately pointed. She was waving her tiny hand at me.

I wished it too. I was most impressed with my message from the Smoky Fairy and treasured Casper Dream's letter. Dad said it was nice of the chap to write back to me but he didn't make too much of it. No one had heard of Casper Dream in those days.
The Smoky
Fairy
didn't attract any attention until a teacher complained that it was encouraging young children to smoke. The publishers quickly withdrew the book from the shelves. But Casper Dream's second book, a big omnibus of flower fairies, was an unexpected enormous success. It won all sorts of awards and made the best-seller lists. Lots of people started collecting Casper Dream books. Everyone wanted to find a copy of
The
Smoky Fairy
, but they were few and far between. One
sold for £1,000 on E-Bay. I think a signed copy sells for £5,000 now.

My copy isn't signed, but I've got my special letter. Casper Dream doesn't write letters now. I tried writing back to the address at the top of his letter but my envelope came back with ‘not known at this address'. He'd obviously moved to some grand mansion with all the money he'd made. You can write to him via his publishers but you just get a fairy postcard with a printed message on the back: ‘
I'm very pleased you like my
fairy books. With best wishes from Casper Dream
.' It's in italic handwriting but it's not hand-written. I understand. Hundreds and hundreds of people must write to Casper Dream every week.

I write to him every day. But I don't send my letters. I hide them in a big silver box at the back of my wardrobe. I squash the letters down flat but the box is nearly full now.

Dear C.D.,

I can't stop writing to you. I feel as if you're my dearest friend.

It isn't as if I've made you up. You really did write me that letter. You maybe don't remember but it doesn't really matter. I know you even if you don't know me. I've pored over every shimmering page of your books so many times it's as if I know everything about you.

I wish we could meet one day.

I wish you were a real friend.

With love from

Violet

XXX