Over the Moon (14 page)

“No!”

“Soothing day cream
?”

I open my mouth – and then close it again. Mum says, “Scarlett, you didn’t?”

I desperately want to say no, but I hesitate just a fraction of a second too long.

“For crying out loud!” Mum’s holding up the jar, squinting at the list of contents.
“Fragrance.
It’s got perfume in it!”

She unscrews the lid and takes a sniff. “That is disgusting!
Totally artificial. No wonder you’ve made such a mess of yourself! You used it last night, didn’t you?”

Guiltily, I nod. It hadn’t seemed to me that the witch hazel was doing anything very much, so yes, I’ve been using the cream.

“It said it was soothing! I thought it would be good for me!”

“Not,” says Mum, “with perfume in it. Not with skin like yours.”

Now I’m sobbing again. Dad’s like really scared.

“It won’t have done any permanent damage, will it?”

“No, but it’ll probably take a while before it settles down. She’ll need to get it out of her system.”

Dad rises up at this, in a rage. He says if this is what the product does to people, it shouldn’t be on sale. He’s shouting and striding about the room and threatening to sue. And he still wants to take me to A & E. Mum stands firm. She says, “At least we’ve discovered what’s causing it.”

It’s the only comfort I have, that at least now I
know.
Dad’s still muttering about the hospital. He says, “We can’t leave her in this state!”

In the end he lets Mum talk him out of it on the grounds that she’s the expert when it comes to skin care. She’s always had to be careful what she puts on her face and it looks like I’m going to be the same. Mum gives me a pot of her extra special and hugely expensive, antiallergic skin lotion to use, and promises me that “It will clear up … just be patient.”

Unfortunately, being patient is the last thing I’m any good at. I take after Dad. Mum always says that “Your dad’s like a child … wants everything right now, like immediately.” I am exactly the same. When Mum said it could take a week or two before my face was back to normal, I just nearly freaked. I was still waking up five or six times a night to look in the mirror and check I hadn’t swollen up again. By the end of the week most of the puffiness had gone, but I was back to elephant skin.
Red
elephant skin. All rough, and lined, and wrinkly. Mum said that give it time and it would start peeling off. She said that underneath my skin would be smooth, just like it was before. I told myself that Mum knew what she was talking about, but I still couldn’t help waves of terror engulfing me, specially in the
middle of the night, because suppose Mum
didn’t
know? Suppose she was wrong?
Suppose I was always going to be like this?

Hattie rang to check my progress and to ask if she should come round, but I said not yet. I didn’t even want Hattie seeing me with elephant skin. Matt rang, too, and I told him I was getting better. I assured him I would be all right for Founder’s Day, cos I didn’t want him giving up on me and arranging to go and do something else. Especially not with another girl. Jokingly he said that he would “Send Si round to check … unless I’m allowed to come and check for myself?”

I wanted to scream “NO!” at the top of my voice, but forced myself, instead, to giggle and say, “Well, if you’re into horror movies!”

“Bad as that?” said Matt. It is actually not funny, having to tell a boy you fancy like crazy that you look like something in a pickle jar, but it was either that or
bursting into tears and I just had this feeling Matt was not the sort of guy who could deal with tears.

On Friday in the local paper there was a report of our fundraiser, with a big syrupy picture of Tanya being crowned beauty queen.

“Not a patch on you,” said Dad.

“Oh, never mind that!” said Mum. “How about all this money they’ve raised? Scarlett, it’s wonderful! Don’t you think so?”

I said that I did, to keep Mum happy, but really it didn’t mean anything. I told myself that I was now being
truly
shallow, worrying about the way I looked when there were poor little children who had lost their mums and dads, and mums and dads frantic with grief cos of having lost their children. I mean, I did
try
to put things in perspective, I really, really did. I felt so ashamed of myself! But every time I looked in the mirror it just seemed like totally unimportant. The only thing that seemed important was me and my face. How could I go on living like some kind of freak?

After about ten days, Mum wanted me to go back to school. I refused, point blank. I wasn’t going back to school with bits of skin hanging off me!

“And look at my eyes … they’re like an old person’s!”

Mum said, “It’s really not that bad any more. Certainly not bad enough to miss all this schooling. You’ve been doing so well this year! We don’t want you falling behind.”

I said, “What does it matter?
Really
?”

“It matters,” said Mum. “Believe me!”

And then told me to sit down. She said, “Scarlett, we have to have a talk. There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you. I didn’t want to do it while you were still in such a state, and I don’t want you to be too
upset, but the fact is your dad and I have been doing a lot of soul-searching these last few weeks and we’ve finally come to a decision. That is … I’ve come to a decision. And your dad has agreed. I’m going to be moving out for a while. Just for a while! We’re not getting divorced, we’re not splitting up. It’s not even a proper separation.”

In this small, tight voice I heard myself say, “So what is it, then?”

“It’s more like a – a
trial
separation. Not even that! Your dad and I haven’t quarrelled, we still love each other, it’s just … I need to be on my own for a bit. I need my own space. Just to get myself sorted. You know?”

I said, “No! What are you talking about?”

“I want an education,” said Mum. “I want to go to college. I want to get a degree!”

I stared at her, blankly. “What for?”

Mum said it was something she just had to do. “I suppose … I don’t know! I suppose I just feel the need to exercise my brain. I never used it, all the time I was
at school … total waste! So I’m going to enrol for classes, and see how I get on.”

I said, “But why do you have to leave home?”