Starting Over (17 page)

And that was it. Like they'd all known each other for ever. Soon they were sitting together on the couch telling jokes, swapping tips about boys and clothes while I sat on the floor
and played with the kittens and felt like a misfit.
This can't be happening,
I thought.
A misfit with my best friend here. This is so weird.

Half an hour later, we were invited up to Leela's bedroom, where the conversation continued and Erin charmed Leela, Brook and Zahrah. We tried on clothes. We played music. Leela even put on a Bollywood movie and showed us how to do some of the dance steps. It was hysterical as the five of us danced down the stairs and into the kitchen, and even Auntie joined in for a few minutes.

When we left about an hour later, after a dish of Auntie's pistachio and coconut ice cream, Erin promised to call as soon as we could with a verdict about the kittens.

‘Cool,' said Leela in an American accent. ‘And don't be a stranger. Let's do lunch.'

Erin gave her an air kiss. ‘OK. Have your people call my people,' she said in her fake USA drawl (which was awful).

Brook laughed. ‘Crap accent,' she said in a friendly way as Leela closed the door.

The minute we were out of the driveway, Erin turned to me.

‘India Jane Ruspoli, I can't believe it. You have been moaning on all term about being lonely and you've found it hard to make friends at your school, but those three are
extraterrestrial.
Why haven't you mentioned them or got in with them? Like, they're even in your year.'

I wanted to kill her. I wanted to kill her even more when I discovered that when I'd been out of the room for three
minutes to use the loo, Leela'd invited Erin to a big family party there on Saturday night.

‘Course I asked if I could bring you and they said OK,' she said as she Bollywood-danced along the street. ‘Wow. I so love London already.'

My feet felt like lead.
Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh,
I thought as I trudged along behind her.
Argh. Argh. Arghhhhhhhhhhhh.

India Jane,
said my inner Sensible Sadie,
you've got to cut this out. You're acting like a pathetic jealous sibling. Now GROW up.

You're right,
I thought.
That is, I'm right - because Sensible Sadie is me too, aren't you? Me? You're me. Oh whatever!

I pulled my pillow out from underneath my head and sat up ready to lean over and bash Erin with it. She was always up for a good pillow fight when we had sleepovers back in Ireland, but the pull-out bed Mum had made up for her on the opposite side of my room was empty.

From downstairs came the sound of Dad's early-morning chanting. I was about to get up to close my bedroom door to shut it out when I realised that the
nam myoho renge kyo
had a distinctly female ring to it.
Oh no,
I thought as I scrambled out of bed, out into the hall and almost fell down the stairs.

When I reached the ground floor, I realised that my suspicions were right. There were Dad and Erin, both in their pyjamas and dressing gowns, cross-legged, eyes closed, chanting away. The room
reeked
of sandalwood incense and it looked as if instead of just lighting one joss stick to put by the fireplace, Dad had lit a whole packet. He never did anything in small measures.

Ohmigod,
I thought as I closed the door to the front room and crept into the kitchen to make tea and toast. Ten minutes later, Dad and Erin came in to join me. They were both looking annoyingly smug and stank of joss sticks.

‘India Jane doesn't approve,' said Dad as he took a piece of the toast I'd put on a plate in the middle of the table. ‘Thinks my method is too noisy.'

‘Me
and
the neighbours
and
Dylan
and
Kate
and
Aunt Sarah. The method I learned involved being quiet and going beyond noise, both internal and external.'

I immediately knew that I'd sounded like the Queen, and Erin and Dad both went, ‘Ooooh,' and Erin pulled a silly face.

‘India never was a morning person,' she said.

‘It's the
inner
noise that one needs to quiet,' Dad started and then proceeded to drone on about meditation like I knew nothing about it, when it was
my
thing.
My thing.
The
one
thing I had done that no one else in the family did. I tried to catch Erin's eye so that we could have a giggle at him like we used to when he got on his high horse about something, but she was listening to him as if he was a blooming expert. Like
the students in Greece used to look at Sensei.

‘Er, I have already heard this, Dad,' I said. ‘You seem to have forgotten that I studied with Sensei in Greece.'

‘Oo-er, get her, Miss Know it All,' said Erin. ‘We can't all swan off to islands in Greece to learn from a master you know.'

‘Actually we can,' said Dad and he produced a leaflet from his dressing gown. ‘Your man Sensei. He's doing a gig on Friday night in Chelsea.'

I rolled my eyes. ‘Spiritual teachers don't do gigs, Dad.'

‘You know what I mean,' said Dad. ‘I picked up details on my way home from the arts centre. Want to go, Erin?'

‘Yeah,
you betcha,' she said.

‘What about me?' I asked.

‘It's for newcomers,' said Dad. ‘And ... as you just told us, you've heard it all before.' For a second, he looked exactly like Dylan does when he has one over me. I felt like strangling him.

‘B . . . but we were going to go and see a movie, Erin,' I protested.

Erin put on a snooty look. ‘Ah yes, but one must tend to the needs of one's soul, don't you think, Mr Ruspoli?'

Dad nodded. ‘Absolutissimo.'

They both cracked up laughing, high-fived each other, then proceeded to polish off my toast. It was blooming hard sometimes being a spiritual being when you lived with such
annoying
people.

‘And course you can come with us,' said Dad. ‘You could
do a refresher. You probably need it.'

‘Thanks a bunch,' I said gloomily.

Seconds later, Dylan burst in and joined the conversation. He wanted to go and learn to meditate too.

‘You're too young,' I said.

‘Says who?' Dylan objected as Mum came in wearing her dressing gown. ‘It's not illegal.'

‘What's not illegal?' she asked as she put out cereal and bowls.

‘Meditation,' Dylan replied. ‘India Jane says I'm too young to do it.'

‘Did she now?'

‘Yeah. Just because she learned how to do it in Greece, she thinks she's the expert,' Dylan continued.

Mum shook her head as she got milk out of the fridge. ‘But you don't practise it, do you, love? It's not enough to learn how to do it, you have to apply it every day otherwise it's like buying an exercise DVD but never doing it.'

‘Or joining the gym and never going,' said Dad as he put more bread in the toaster.

‘Really, India Jane?' said Erin. ‘Don't you do it at all? I distinctly remember you saying just after you'd got back from Greece that, even though you'd found it hard sometimes, you were going to continue with it because it did make a difference, especially when you were stressed. You
did
say that, I remember. And you have been stressed lately, haven't you? So why haven't you been meditating?'

Grrrrr,
I thought.
Grrrrr. GRRRRRR.
I had the distinct
feeling that I was being got at. Well and truly. Four faces were looking at me accusingly like I'd committed some humungous crime. ‘Leave me alone! I
do
do it. Sometimes. In private. Just because I don't make a song and dance about it like Dad does and wake up the neighbourhood, doesn't mean I don't do it on my own.'

‘Which means ... she doesn't do it,' said Dylan and the others nodded in agreement, then everyone looked away as if they'd lost interest.

‘If you don't mind, I've had rather a lot of things going on this term. I . . .'

‘Excuses,' said Erin and tutted like an old lady before helping herself to cereal and fruit.

I looked over at her. ‘You are supposed to be my friend,' I said.

‘I am,' she said and beamed me a smile.

‘Which means that you are supposed to be on my side.'

Erin shook her head. ‘Not if I don't agree with you.'

The door opened and Kate drifted in to join us and she too listened as Dad, Erin and Dylan made plans for the meditation evening.

‘Don't tell me you want to go too?' I asked. Kate had been very anti it all in Greece and I felt relieved when she shook her head.

‘Can girls with boob jobs lie on their fronts? I don't think so. Me, meditate? Yeah, right,' she said, ‘not my thing, but hey, Erin, if you want to hang out in the day, I could show you around a
bit. And maybe later we could watch a DVD and paint each other's nails.'

I felt my mouth drop open. This was Kate. Cool Kate, who needed her space - and now she was offering to take Erin out and about. I felt the evil green snake raise its jealous head again.

‘BUHwagoooooOOO,' I blurted.

Everyone burst out laughing.

‘Anyone got a dictionary?' asked Erin. ‘I know we both speak Shakespearian, but not sure what language that was. What are you trying to say, India?'

‘Nothing,' I said. ‘Just wrestling with one of my inner demons.'

‘Aren't we all, dear?' said Dad and helped himself to
another
piece of toast.

And it
didn't
end there. Lewis came over later in the day and like the rest of them, was captivated. He and Erin had always got on and she'd had a crush on him since for ever. She immediately went all sheep-eyed over him, laughed at his terrible jokes, and sat with him on the sofa, eating popcorn and watching
Celebrity Makeovers.

My friend,
I thought as I watched through what felt like slit eyes from the opposite sofa.
Myyyyyy
friend.

Ethan and Jessica and the twins were over on the Thursday evening.
Hah,
I thought.
She won't win them over. The twins will get her. She won't stand for the ankle-biting.
But of course she did. She was down under the table with them, biting ankles,
pretending to be dogs and Kate and Lewis thought it was
hilarious.

What is happening?
I asked myself as I looked on and felt like I'd taken a course of prissy-knickers pills. I loved her. Course I did. She was my best mate. She
was. So why,
I asked myself,
do I want her to go home?

‘OK, so verily sweet lady, when do I meet yon gorgie-pie, Sir Joe of Notting Hill?' asked Erin. ‘I am away on Sunday afternoon, 'tis already Friday and I haven't even set eyes on his fair features. Let's go and seeketh him out.'

‘Noooooo. It's not like that,' I said. ‘Erketh nonnie nay. I don't know him well enough. Oh
please
don't do an Erin and go and phone him up or anything. That would be so uncooleth and surely lead to calamity.'

Erin gave me her best disapproving look. ‘Me? Uncooleth? As ifith! But we could put Planeth B into action.'

‘Planeth B?'

‘Yeah - I mean, yay. I take it that at least you know wherest he liveth? What walls dost encumbeth his manly limbs?'

I nodded. ‘Yay, yay, and thrice times, yay. His mum helps run
the centre in Greece so Aunt Sarah has her address in her book.'

Erin nodded. ‘OK. So adorn thyself with jewels and lipeth-gloss and let's away. We're going to go and hang about outside his house and then when he comes out, we can accidentally-on-purpose bump into him.'

I shook my head. ‘I don't think so, Erin. I think that might be a bit obvious.'

‘Fie on thy doubt, oh fair maid. Course it's not obvi. I did it
loads
of times when I was into Scott. Oh come on, India, let's do a stake-out. I have to see him in the flesh to see if his hand art worthy of thine heart.'