The Taming of Lilah May (13 page)

‘Oh!' I say. My eyes are wide as frisbees.

Dad passes it into my trembling hands.

Two very big brown eyes look up at me, and a small pink tongue comes out and starts to pant.

‘He's yours,' says Dad. ‘But there are two conditions. Number one, you don't ever, ever take out your anger on this puppy. OK?'

‘Of course,' I say. I've melted into a pile of slush
in the corner of the duvet. I can't stop gazing down at the bundle of golden fur in my arms.

‘And number two,' says Dad, ‘when you get angry, you take this little animal for a good run. That way, he gets his exercise and you get to feel better. Agreed?'

‘Agreed,' I murmur. I've buried my head in soft puppy fur.

‘And one more thing,' he says. ‘Your mother might work with children and animals for a living, but she isn't actually that keen on them as a combination. So try to keep him and you out from under her feet, OK?'

I smile a bit at that.

He gets up and goes over the door.

He looks back at us on the bed when he gets there and he gives me a big wink.

‘Dad,' I say, as he heads off downstairs. My voice is cracked with joy. ‘Thanks.'

I spend the next three weeks walking Benjie, playing with Benjie and rushing home from school to stroke Benjie. He's adorable.

Mum mutters a bit about puppy puddles on the floor and fur all over her best white sofa, but she can see that Benjie is making me happy, so she grits
her teeth and gives him a rather forced pat from time to time.

And I kind of feel less angry. I'm even OK at school, and things with Bindi are a bit better too, although I still get the feeling there's something she's not telling me.

Then one night a policeman comes to our front door just as we're eating supper.

I hear his low voice on the front door stop and then Dad shouts out, ‘Oh no! Oh God, no!' and Mum leaps up from her chair in the kitchen and rushes to his side and her voice rises up into a panicking shriek, and I go dizzy and clutch onto the sides of my chair while the kitchen seems to whizz around in a circle.

Dad comes back into the kitchen with a grey face, and he's staggering like he's seen a ghost.

He sits down next to me.

He takes hold of my hand.

The night after I find Jay slumped against his bed with the needle, I don't go to sleep at all.

I think I know what he was doing, but just to make sure, I log onto Dad's PC in the dead of night and google what I saw.

When I switch off the computer, I'm feeling like I'm in the middle of a nightmare.

How did this happen?

How has my lovely, fun big brother ended up hooked on drugs?

I sit on the edge of my bed all night and I think.

From time to time, bits of information pop up into my head, and I realise that Jay's been lost and lonely for quite a long time.

Some of the boys at school have started to laugh at him for having black hair and a white face and being obsessed with guitars.

He didn't tell me that, but I overheard a bunch of them talking outside school and using Jay's name, so I ducked behind a wall and crept closer so that I could eavesdrop.

‘Reckons he's going to be a rock star,' said one boy.

‘Yeah, he reckons he's really hard,' said another.

‘Jay May, superstar,' said yet another. ‘NOT. Have you seen his eyes? Wears more make-up than my mum.'

‘He's such a loser,' said the first boy.

I think about all the times that Jay and I have been on our own at home while Dad's been on emergency call at the zoo and Mum's been out entertaining kids, and I realise that having a little sister to talk to hasn't been enough for Jay.

This thought hits me like a flying boot.

He's lonely,
I think. No friends, no parents, only me.

And I wasn't enough to stop him doing drugs.

It's so awful realising this that I spend the entire night perched on the edge of my bed, chewing my nails and wondering what on earth to do next.

Jay warned me not to tell Mum and Dad

If I tell them, he'll never speak to me again.

But if I don't?

What will happen to him then?

In the end, I need to talk to somebody about it, so I wait until it's breakfast time the next day and I text Bindi and ask her to meet me early before school.

‘If it's about that English essay forget it,' she says as we walk towards the school gates together. ‘I didn't even understand the question.'

Then she takes a closer look at my pale face and places her slim brown hand on my arm.

Bindi's always been very kind and sensitive. She's not even thirteen at this point in our friendship, but her big eyes are full of concern, just like an adult.

‘Spill,' she says, as we perch on a low wall outside the school.

I tell her about last night and what I found Jay doing and the things I read on the internet, and her eyes widen with shock. For a moment she just
stares at me, like I'm some weird freak in a circus or something, except I know that's not why she's doing it, and I can see a hundred little brain wheels cranking into motion as Bindi tries to work out what on earth she can say that's going to help me.

In the end she says, ‘It's kind of your decision, Lilah. I mean, he's not my brother, so it's not up to me to say what I would do.'

Oh.

I hoped she might be more helpful than that but I can see what she means.

‘Maybe you could try and talk to Jay again first?' she says.

I've thought of that. Except that he scares me now.

My own brother scares me.

But I'm going to have to talk to him.

Soon.

It's hard to find the right time to talk to Jay.

He's hardly ever at home, and when he is, he's usually sleeping off the late nights he has nearly all the time now.

Mum's been down to his school to see the headmaster after they rang up and said that they hadn't seen Jay in lessons for over a week, and there's a huge scene at home with her screaming and him refusing to speak, and Dad banging on about how disappointed he is, and how the older child should set an example to the younger one. I hang my head and try not to catch Jay's eye. I hate being referred to as the little kid in all this, because after what I've seen in his bedroom I'm not feeling much like the innocent little sister any more.

I don't get to speak to him alone for almost a week, but then at last I get my chance because Mum and Dad decide that they need to go out to dinner alone and talk everything through, so they leave me in charge and head off to the local Indian.

I don't much want to be in charge.

I want things to be like they used to, with Jay looking after me and not the other way round. I'm only twelve, and I feel kind of sick and scared about all this.

And as if I'm totally on my own.

Jay stays up in his room for most of the evening, but in the end even he has to eat and drink sometimes, so he comes downstairs ravenous and I grill him
some cheese-on-toast and he sits slumped at the kitchen table, sucking in the strings of yellow Cheddar in a way that makes me feel a bit sick.

I put a mug of tea in front of him and he empties the sugar bowl into it and gulps it down.

Gross.

I wait until he's finished, and then I take a deep slow breath.

‘Jay,' I say. ‘You know what you were doing the other night up in your room?'

Jay gives a brief nod. He's all wired up and shaky and can't sit still. Any moment now, he's going to bolt back upstairs. I have to be quick.

‘Well, I think you should tell Mum and Dad,' I say. ‘They might be able to help you.'

Jay gives an abrupt snort of laughter and gets up so fast that his chair falls over onto the kitchen floor.

‘Get lost, Lilah,' he says. ‘Like any of you bunch of losers can ever help me. They don't even notice whether I'm here or not most of the time.'

I swallow back a big lump of pain in my throat as my brother leaves the kitchen and goes upstairs to bang his bedroom door.

About an hour later I hear him throwing up in the bathroom, and then he comes downstairs walking in
a wonky line, and slams out of the front door without even looking at me.

I sit at the table watching the clock for the rest of the evening, and have my second experience of the anger that's going to move into my life as a permanent guest.

It's like something rising up from my guts and making my breathing faster and my face tighten into a scowl.

By the time I hear my parents' key in the front door, I'm not the sweet little sister any longer.

I'm like a fired-up stick of rage-dynamite.

I've made my mind up.

I know what I have to do.

When I tell Mum and Dad about Jay and the drugs it feels like a relief for about, oh, thirty seconds.

‘You did the right thing telling us, Lilah,' they say. Dad puts his arm around my shoulders and gives me a hug.

‘Don't worry,' Mum says. Her voice is firm. ‘We'll get it sorted out. The main thing is that we know what we're dealing with now.'

They pack me off to bed and I can hear the low hum of their voices in the kitchen as they discuss what they're going to say when Jay comes home.

I've got an awful sick feeling.

It doesn't feel right now, me telling Mum and Dad.

I wish I could rewind the whole afternoon and erase the words that came out of my mouth but it's a bit late for that.

I try really hard to stay awake, but I'm tired, so I drift off to sleep, and by the time I wake up it's the next morning and Jay's obviously been home because there are loads of messy plates and cups and things in the kitchen. I wait until Mum comes downstairs and starts tidying up, and I say, ‘Did you talk to him about it?' and she says, ‘Yes. It wasn't as bad as I thought, actually. He seemed a bit quiet, but he was taking in everything that Dad and I said to him.'

Dad's making toast and coffee to take up to Jay in bed.

‘He's probably had to do a lot of thinking,' he says. ‘He'll be wanting something to eat.'

I pour cereal into a white bowl and fill it up to the brim with milk. I've got tennis practice before school and I'm wearing my new white and green plimsolls, and I think that maybe things are actually going to get better now that it's all out in the open.
I'm just about to pack my bag and head off to school when Dad comes bolting down the stairs, taking them three at a time.

He runs to the front door and out into the drive, staring up and down our street, and then he comes back inside, sits down at the kitchen table and buries his head in his big, lion-taming hands.

‘Jay's bed hasn't been slept in,' he says. ‘He's gone.'

Jay doesn't come back at all that day.

Or the one after.

Or the one after that.

By then, my parents have already called the police and reported him missing.

I'm ashen with shock.

There's a huge space in the house where he ought to be.

My brother.

Gone.

And it's all because of me.