It clung onto the branch for life. A child of the trees. The last of a thousand leaves. A destiny of mulchy brown sludge beneath orange skies, beckoned. The last drop to the roots of the slender Silver Birch.
From the first, fresh Spring rains it had blossomed, the earliest bud, yolking the branch of moisture and breathing in the heady energy of divine air. It had seen the warming glow of the summer sun, felt the patter of April showers, heard the drumbeat of hail, smelt the seasons on the breeze. Smelt all but one, all but winter. Its last wish, its dying wish was to see, hear, taste, touch and smell the last season of the year.
Steadfast and resolute, its purpose no longer to feed the tree with life giving breath, it chose to follow its own path. It clung on to the branch and wouldn't be shaken. No galeforce wind, no driving rain, no frost, no fog, no burning heat would make that leaf let go. It wanted to see snow. Then, as luck would have it, when all the trees stood bald and bare, the weather took a turn. A day of Autumn sun suddenly turned to a biting Winter frost-sharp and arresting. The little leaf, yellow with age, trembled in the chill air. And just as it drew its last gasp a delicate snowflake-brilliant, crystalline white-fluttered from the sky and landed on its tip. Now the leaf let go and like a cradle, it gently floated the snowflake to the ground-it's journey complete.
Showing posts with label literary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label literary. Show all posts
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Monday, November 30, 2009
Holly, on ice
Holly raised her hand to stop the badged prefect, striding toward her, from delivering her with another verbal assault. She'd had enough for one day.
"I know, I know," said Holly, preferring to stare at the linoleum than look into the prefect's eyes. "I've just come from the Deputy's office. That's why I'm out of class, so save your breath for someone who's really bunking off."
Holly huffed as she readjusted the strap of her bag on her shoulder, waiting for the prefect to let her continue on to her geography class. An eternity seemed to pass before the prefect finally spoke up.
"Are you okay?"
Holly locked eyes with the prefect; the statuesque girl standing in front of her. Her blue badge glimmered in the sharp fluorescent light of the locker room. She was well turned out with not a blonde hair out of place and her blazer buttoned fully; just the kind of goody-two-shoes that Holly had no time for.
"What's it to you, anyway?" Holly snapped.
"Just trying to help that's all. You seem upset," replied the girl.
"Yeah, well, so would you be if you'd just been given detention."
"What did you do?"
Holly was indignant. What gave her the right to ask these questions?
"Like you care," said Holly. "You're as bad as them."
The girl folded her arms. "You're just sore because you got caught doing whatever it was you were doing," she said.
As much as Holly hated to admit it, she had a point. She wasn't mad at the teachers, she was mad with herself.
"I was caught smoking, in class, if you're that interested," Holly sneered and waited another remonstration. Like she needed to hear it. The Deputy's words were already rolling inside her head: 'disappointed', 'disrespectful', 'bringing the reputation of to school into disrepute'. Every 'dis' word ever invented was laid on top of her like a hundred ton weight, and to add to her burden was the knowledge that her parents were sure to hear about it, if not from her own mouth but most assuredly in letter form from the school. She was 'blackmarked' something that had never happened before.
"Well, if it's any consolation, I was caught smoking once too," proffered the prefect. "It wasn't in class though. I was outside the school grounds. The teacher strode up towards me, snatched the ciggie from my mouth and stamped it out. I was more pissed off that it cost me a quid, than getting caught."
A sympathetic smile curled the corner of Holly's tightly drawn lips.
"When was that then?" Holly asked.
"A few years back. I was in first year," said the girl as she sat down on one of the rows of benches beneath the lockers. Holly sat on a bench opposite her. "You in first year too, yeah?"
Holly nodded. "My folks just moved up here."
"Ooh, that's tough."
Holly nodded.
"What's your name?" asked the girl.
"Holly."
"I'm Janie," said the girl offering her hand.
Holly took it. Janie had a firm, self-assured, confident shake, the kind that gave you comfort, that let you know exactly where you stood.
"You a sixth year?" Holly asked.
"Yep. And still sane. How about that? Though to be honest I've shocked a fair few teachers on the way."
"Why?"
"They thought I wouldn't amount to much. I sure showed them," Janie said, flicking her badge with her finger.
"Why did you change?"
"It wasn't a conscious decision," Janie said with a frown, as though she'd never been asked the question before. "It just happened."
"There must have been a reason."
Janie's shoulders slumped. She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. Her self-assuredness seemed to waver as she struggled to find an answer. "I dunno. I s'pose I was like that all through first year. You know, unsure. I didn't have many mates or at least none I could rely on. They were all deadbeats like me. I s'pose I just gravitated toward them, like a magnet, you know."
Holly felt her skin tingle. What was that? Sympathy? Empathy?
"I was loyal though, to a fault. Like, at the start of second year, this new girl came into the class. A geek, I s'pose you'd call her, you know, hair in pigtails, books clutched to her chest like they were a life preserver. She was an easy target, easy to break. I never teased her, like, but my mates did. Systematically broke her down by daily taunts. She moved schools in the end. Although I never said a thing to her, I s'pose I felt...responsible."
"Then you changed?"
"Not instantly no. By the end of second year most of them had been given so many suspensions from school I hardly saw them. I drifted. Again," said Janie.
Holly was so preoccupied with the resonance of what Janie had confessed to she didn't realise she was staring right into Janie's eyes.
"Looks like I've just scored a turkey!" Janie said, tilting her head to one side.
Holly frowned at her. "Whadda ya mean?"
"Third strike!"
Holly stared, still confused.
"I guessed you were upset, that you're a first year and now I think I've just tapped into the contrite and introspective part of your brain."
"I'm not feeling guilty," snapped Holly.
"Maybe not for something you've done to someone else, but you're definitely feeling guilty for wronging yourself."
Holly jumped to her feet. "How do you know?" she spat.
Cool and calm. Janie smiled at her. "Because you're just like me. Except you're currently on ice. In limbo. You have two choices, head down that clear rocky road you're at the head of, or take a leap of faith into the dark unknown."
Holly readjusted the bag on her shoulder and strode out of the locker room. Janie's voice echoed all around her, "What'll be Holly, on ice?"
"I know, I know," said Holly, preferring to stare at the linoleum than look into the prefect's eyes. "I've just come from the Deputy's office. That's why I'm out of class, so save your breath for someone who's really bunking off."
Holly huffed as she readjusted the strap of her bag on her shoulder, waiting for the prefect to let her continue on to her geography class. An eternity seemed to pass before the prefect finally spoke up.
"Are you okay?"
Holly locked eyes with the prefect; the statuesque girl standing in front of her. Her blue badge glimmered in the sharp fluorescent light of the locker room. She was well turned out with not a blonde hair out of place and her blazer buttoned fully; just the kind of goody-two-shoes that Holly had no time for.
"What's it to you, anyway?" Holly snapped.
"Just trying to help that's all. You seem upset," replied the girl.
"Yeah, well, so would you be if you'd just been given detention."
"What did you do?"
Holly was indignant. What gave her the right to ask these questions?
"Like you care," said Holly. "You're as bad as them."
The girl folded her arms. "You're just sore because you got caught doing whatever it was you were doing," she said.
As much as Holly hated to admit it, she had a point. She wasn't mad at the teachers, she was mad with herself.
"I was caught smoking, in class, if you're that interested," Holly sneered and waited another remonstration. Like she needed to hear it. The Deputy's words were already rolling inside her head: 'disappointed', 'disrespectful', 'bringing the reputation of to school into disrepute'. Every 'dis' word ever invented was laid on top of her like a hundred ton weight, and to add to her burden was the knowledge that her parents were sure to hear about it, if not from her own mouth but most assuredly in letter form from the school. She was 'blackmarked' something that had never happened before.
"Well, if it's any consolation, I was caught smoking once too," proffered the prefect. "It wasn't in class though. I was outside the school grounds. The teacher strode up towards me, snatched the ciggie from my mouth and stamped it out. I was more pissed off that it cost me a quid, than getting caught."
A sympathetic smile curled the corner of Holly's tightly drawn lips.
"When was that then?" Holly asked.
"A few years back. I was in first year," said the girl as she sat down on one of the rows of benches beneath the lockers. Holly sat on a bench opposite her. "You in first year too, yeah?"
Holly nodded. "My folks just moved up here."
"Ooh, that's tough."
Holly nodded.
"What's your name?" asked the girl.
"Holly."
"I'm Janie," said the girl offering her hand.
Holly took it. Janie had a firm, self-assured, confident shake, the kind that gave you comfort, that let you know exactly where you stood.
"You a sixth year?" Holly asked.
"Yep. And still sane. How about that? Though to be honest I've shocked a fair few teachers on the way."
"Why?"
"They thought I wouldn't amount to much. I sure showed them," Janie said, flicking her badge with her finger.
"Why did you change?"
"It wasn't a conscious decision," Janie said with a frown, as though she'd never been asked the question before. "It just happened."
"There must have been a reason."
Janie's shoulders slumped. She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. Her self-assuredness seemed to waver as she struggled to find an answer. "I dunno. I s'pose I was like that all through first year. You know, unsure. I didn't have many mates or at least none I could rely on. They were all deadbeats like me. I s'pose I just gravitated toward them, like a magnet, you know."
Holly felt her skin tingle. What was that? Sympathy? Empathy?
"I was loyal though, to a fault. Like, at the start of second year, this new girl came into the class. A geek, I s'pose you'd call her, you know, hair in pigtails, books clutched to her chest like they were a life preserver. She was an easy target, easy to break. I never teased her, like, but my mates did. Systematically broke her down by daily taunts. She moved schools in the end. Although I never said a thing to her, I s'pose I felt...responsible."
"Then you changed?"
"Not instantly no. By the end of second year most of them had been given so many suspensions from school I hardly saw them. I drifted. Again," said Janie.
Holly was so preoccupied with the resonance of what Janie had confessed to she didn't realise she was staring right into Janie's eyes.
"Looks like I've just scored a turkey!" Janie said, tilting her head to one side.
Holly frowned at her. "Whadda ya mean?"
"Third strike!"
Holly stared, still confused.
"I guessed you were upset, that you're a first year and now I think I've just tapped into the contrite and introspective part of your brain."
"I'm not feeling guilty," snapped Holly.
"Maybe not for something you've done to someone else, but you're definitely feeling guilty for wronging yourself."
Holly jumped to her feet. "How do you know?" she spat.
Cool and calm. Janie smiled at her. "Because you're just like me. Except you're currently on ice. In limbo. You have two choices, head down that clear rocky road you're at the head of, or take a leap of faith into the dark unknown."
Holly readjusted the bag on her shoulder and strode out of the locker room. Janie's voice echoed all around her, "What'll be Holly, on ice?"
Friday, October 30, 2009
The brief encounter
IZZY
She was literally feet away from her idol, Marc Donovan the green eyed, sandy haired god, and could hear his voice. But something wasn't quite right. The voice didn't fit in with the image in her mind. She'd heard him talk on many occasions on TV and radio interviews but the tone was different. It was strained, sharp, indifferent, impatient.
"What's yer name?" he said to one girl without even looking her in the eyes. The girl was too wrapped up in the moment to notice his disaffected manner but it cut through Izzy like a serrated knife through cardboard. Was he going to be so cold with her? His destiny?
As she approached the desk she dug into her bag and pulled out his auto-biography that she'd ordered two months ago.
He gave her a cursory glance and dragged the book across the table toward him.
"My name's Izzy. Short for Isobel," she said. She wanted to say more, to say something interesting, profound, something to get his attention but her mouth was so dry and her mind so fogged that nothing came to her. All she could do was look at him. But again his appearance wasn't what she was used to: his porcelain skin was orange and pitted and caked in so much makeup she couldn't see the real man underneath; his fingers were dry and yellow, and a waft of stale smoke emanating from him drifted across the table toward her. Suddenly her attraction to him waned. She didn't want it to. She tried to grab hold of her previous, bubbling excitement as it dropped through her stomach and into her feet. He hastily slid the book back toward and looked to the girl behind her. Her moment was over. Thirty seconds, nothing more.
As she walked down the steps from the podium she heard him speak to someone behind her.
"How many more have I got to do?" he asked impatiently.
Someone gave an answer she couldn't make out but his response was clearly audible.
"For god's sake," he huffed.
And that was it. Izzy opened her book at the title page and studied his signature. It was so illegible it looked like an army of ants had just crawled across the page. She felt empty, nothing. A huge void had just opened up inside her heart where he had previously taken residence.
As she was guided out by yellow-shirted staff she spotted a large plastic bin filled with plastic bottles, crisp packets, chocolate wrappers and general trash. Without a thought or deliberation she dropped the book into the bin.
"What a waste of thirty seconds!" she said.
MARC
Marc's driver pulled up outside the back of Flick's book store. "You'll need to dash in, Mr Donovan. It's raining pretty heavily out there," he said.
Marc checked his mobile phone-a text from Mike, his manager, flashed up on screen. "Already inside. Make up artist and stylist here too. Hurray up," it read.
'Typical,' Marc thought. 'All he can think about is his damn schedule.'
Marc clicked the car door open and dashed through the puddles and teeming rain toward the open delivery entrance. A tall man with frameless spectacles, wearing a bright yellow t-shirt ushered him inside and into a large, smoky room with soft seats and a small kitchen in the corner.
"Marc, over here, hurry," said his manager as he guided Marc toward a high chair in front of a lit mirror and the tall blonde woman who stood beside it.
Marc choked his way through the foul stench of smoke and checked his watch-11.50am, almost thirty hours since he last slept.
"Just touch him up," Mike said to the woman.
She nodded at Mike before she scrutinised Marc's face and then busily sorted through bottles of foundation, selecting various tones.
"Take a seat," she said.
Yet another layer of tan make-up was smoothed onto Marc's face. His usually milky white complexion took on an ever deepening shade of orange brown. Marc flinched inside, all to aware of how he was starting to look. The bags of sleeplessness underneath his eyes were evident. He felt like he looked eighty not eighteen.
As he slid of the make-up chair another woman handed him a lemon yellow shirt that was rolled up at the sleeves. At least there was something he was being forced to wear that he actually liked.
He'd only just done up the last button when Mike grabbed him by the elbow and dragged him toward the door. "Come on. Show time. You've got to make about five hundred screaming girls' dreams come true," he said.
Marc knew exactly what he had to do. Ordinarily he would have done it without question, without thought as he never once felt like he had short-changed a fan that had taken the time out to see him. But today he had neither the energy nor the compunction to go through with it. All he wanted to do was sleep and it was the one thing he couldn't have.
As he stepped out from behind a black panel the glaring, red-hot lights from the podium shone in his eyes and a cacophony of screams temporarily deafened him.
A girl in a yellow Flicks t-shirt guided him to a solitary chair behind a black desk. He took his seat and waited as the first girl approached him. She was hiding behind her book, giggling and trembling.
"What's your name?" Marc asked her.
"M...Melanie," she stuttered.
Marc carefully wrote her name on the title page and signed it 'love and prayers, Marc' like he always did.
The first hundred girls or so Marc had no trouble giving his undivided and careful attention, but as he approached two hundred and then two fifty his diligence waned. The burning hot lights that beat down on him were making him feel sleepier and sleepier until he lost all willingness to carry on. He didn't care anymore.
When a girl with pouffy blonde hair approached he was close to giving up.
She handed him her book and he snatched it from her.
"What's your name?" he said without even looking the girl in the eye.
She answered and he scrawled her name across the page, barely caring whether it made any sense and slid the book back towards her.
As she delightedly trotted down from the podium, cooing about finally meeting him, Marc felt the sting of guilt in his heart. He looked across at the next girl who confidently strode up to him.
There was something about her that set her apart from all the other girls. He was used to them scream and grabbing at his clothes but she appeared unaffected by all that hoopla. She was cool and confident with long glossy brown hair and a delicate pink sheen to her lips. For the first time in a long time he felt a flutter inside his stomach. He glanced up at her and instantly looked down. It was a totally involuntary response. He hadn't been that shy in the presence of a girl since he fell head over heels for the girl that lived next door to his parents when he was ten.
The girl handed him her book open at the title page.
"My name's Izzy. Short for Isobel," she said.
Marc tried to write her name as carefully as he could but his fingers cramped up like a crab's claw and all he could manage was a scrawl across the page. He couldn't have been more disappointed with himself. Ashamed he skimmed the book across the desk toward her and lifted his head only high enough to smile at her midriff.
As she moved off the podium he walked her walk away. He'd had enough.
"How many more have I got to do?" he asked.
"Another fifty or so," said the book store Manageress.
Marc sighed. He was so exhausted he could barely feel he was in the room.
"For god's sake," Marc's manager hissed. "Just do it, Marc."
Marc looked across the throng of girls and spotted Izzy walking through the crowd. She was looking down at the book he had signed as she passed a large black bin. His heart wrenched when he saw her dump the book inside it. Of all the girls in that room that he wanted to impress she was the one he seemed to disappoint the most. It was a harsh realisation that for some people the line between fantasy and reality was too wide to be ignored, and he couldn't ignore it either.
When he left the book store that afternoon he rang The Times newspaper and gave them an exclusive interview out with the direction and guidance of his manager. He announced to them, and soon to be the rest of the world, that he was quitting the music business, forever.
She was literally feet away from her idol, Marc Donovan the green eyed, sandy haired god, and could hear his voice. But something wasn't quite right. The voice didn't fit in with the image in her mind. She'd heard him talk on many occasions on TV and radio interviews but the tone was different. It was strained, sharp, indifferent, impatient.
"What's yer name?" he said to one girl without even looking her in the eyes. The girl was too wrapped up in the moment to notice his disaffected manner but it cut through Izzy like a serrated knife through cardboard. Was he going to be so cold with her? His destiny?
As she approached the desk she dug into her bag and pulled out his auto-biography that she'd ordered two months ago.
He gave her a cursory glance and dragged the book across the table toward him.
"My name's Izzy. Short for Isobel," she said. She wanted to say more, to say something interesting, profound, something to get his attention but her mouth was so dry and her mind so fogged that nothing came to her. All she could do was look at him. But again his appearance wasn't what she was used to: his porcelain skin was orange and pitted and caked in so much makeup she couldn't see the real man underneath; his fingers were dry and yellow, and a waft of stale smoke emanating from him drifted across the table toward her. Suddenly her attraction to him waned. She didn't want it to. She tried to grab hold of her previous, bubbling excitement as it dropped through her stomach and into her feet. He hastily slid the book back toward and looked to the girl behind her. Her moment was over. Thirty seconds, nothing more.
As she walked down the steps from the podium she heard him speak to someone behind her.
"How many more have I got to do?" he asked impatiently.
Someone gave an answer she couldn't make out but his response was clearly audible.
"For god's sake," he huffed.
And that was it. Izzy opened her book at the title page and studied his signature. It was so illegible it looked like an army of ants had just crawled across the page. She felt empty, nothing. A huge void had just opened up inside her heart where he had previously taken residence.
As she was guided out by yellow-shirted staff she spotted a large plastic bin filled with plastic bottles, crisp packets, chocolate wrappers and general trash. Without a thought or deliberation she dropped the book into the bin.
"What a waste of thirty seconds!" she said.
MARC
Marc's driver pulled up outside the back of Flick's book store. "You'll need to dash in, Mr Donovan. It's raining pretty heavily out there," he said.
Marc checked his mobile phone-a text from Mike, his manager, flashed up on screen. "Already inside. Make up artist and stylist here too. Hurray up," it read.
'Typical,' Marc thought. 'All he can think about is his damn schedule.'
Marc clicked the car door open and dashed through the puddles and teeming rain toward the open delivery entrance. A tall man with frameless spectacles, wearing a bright yellow t-shirt ushered him inside and into a large, smoky room with soft seats and a small kitchen in the corner.
"Marc, over here, hurry," said his manager as he guided Marc toward a high chair in front of a lit mirror and the tall blonde woman who stood beside it.
Marc choked his way through the foul stench of smoke and checked his watch-11.50am, almost thirty hours since he last slept.
"Just touch him up," Mike said to the woman.
She nodded at Mike before she scrutinised Marc's face and then busily sorted through bottles of foundation, selecting various tones.
"Take a seat," she said.
Yet another layer of tan make-up was smoothed onto Marc's face. His usually milky white complexion took on an ever deepening shade of orange brown. Marc flinched inside, all to aware of how he was starting to look. The bags of sleeplessness underneath his eyes were evident. He felt like he looked eighty not eighteen.
As he slid of the make-up chair another woman handed him a lemon yellow shirt that was rolled up at the sleeves. At least there was something he was being forced to wear that he actually liked.
He'd only just done up the last button when Mike grabbed him by the elbow and dragged him toward the door. "Come on. Show time. You've got to make about five hundred screaming girls' dreams come true," he said.
Marc knew exactly what he had to do. Ordinarily he would have done it without question, without thought as he never once felt like he had short-changed a fan that had taken the time out to see him. But today he had neither the energy nor the compunction to go through with it. All he wanted to do was sleep and it was the one thing he couldn't have.
As he stepped out from behind a black panel the glaring, red-hot lights from the podium shone in his eyes and a cacophony of screams temporarily deafened him.
A girl in a yellow Flicks t-shirt guided him to a solitary chair behind a black desk. He took his seat and waited as the first girl approached him. She was hiding behind her book, giggling and trembling.
"What's your name?" Marc asked her.
"M...Melanie," she stuttered.
Marc carefully wrote her name on the title page and signed it 'love and prayers, Marc' like he always did.
The first hundred girls or so Marc had no trouble giving his undivided and careful attention, but as he approached two hundred and then two fifty his diligence waned. The burning hot lights that beat down on him were making him feel sleepier and sleepier until he lost all willingness to carry on. He didn't care anymore.
When a girl with pouffy blonde hair approached he was close to giving up.
She handed him her book and he snatched it from her.
"What's your name?" he said without even looking the girl in the eye.
She answered and he scrawled her name across the page, barely caring whether it made any sense and slid the book back towards her.
As she delightedly trotted down from the podium, cooing about finally meeting him, Marc felt the sting of guilt in his heart. He looked across at the next girl who confidently strode up to him.
There was something about her that set her apart from all the other girls. He was used to them scream and grabbing at his clothes but she appeared unaffected by all that hoopla. She was cool and confident with long glossy brown hair and a delicate pink sheen to her lips. For the first time in a long time he felt a flutter inside his stomach. He glanced up at her and instantly looked down. It was a totally involuntary response. He hadn't been that shy in the presence of a girl since he fell head over heels for the girl that lived next door to his parents when he was ten.
The girl handed him her book open at the title page.
"My name's Izzy. Short for Isobel," she said.
Marc tried to write her name as carefully as he could but his fingers cramped up like a crab's claw and all he could manage was a scrawl across the page. He couldn't have been more disappointed with himself. Ashamed he skimmed the book across the desk toward her and lifted his head only high enough to smile at her midriff.
As she moved off the podium he walked her walk away. He'd had enough.
"How many more have I got to do?" he asked.
"Another fifty or so," said the book store Manageress.
Marc sighed. He was so exhausted he could barely feel he was in the room.
"For god's sake," Marc's manager hissed. "Just do it, Marc."
Marc looked across the throng of girls and spotted Izzy walking through the crowd. She was looking down at the book he had signed as she passed a large black bin. His heart wrenched when he saw her dump the book inside it. Of all the girls in that room that he wanted to impress she was the one he seemed to disappoint the most. It was a harsh realisation that for some people the line between fantasy and reality was too wide to be ignored, and he couldn't ignore it either.
When he left the book store that afternoon he rang The Times newspaper and gave them an exclusive interview out with the direction and guidance of his manager. He announced to them, and soon to be the rest of the world, that he was quitting the music business, forever.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
30 hours: A tale from the other side
Marc Donovan wanted nothing more than to play his guitar for people and make them happy. Ever since his father bought Marc his first guitar at the age of three he'd been addicted to making music. It was what he thought about before he went to bed at night and what got him out of bed in the morning. Over his childhood years he perfected his craft and began to write his own lyrics and music when he turned eight years old. He performed at school concerts, choral competitions, at music nights in the local theatre and even did a spot of busking outside the supermarket in his home town of Camberwell to earn extra pocket money.
It was while he was busking that a talent scout spotted him when Marc was twelve. The scout instantly signed Marc up to a local record label sealing his fate as a soon to be pop megastar.
Marc had no way of knowing how meteoric his rise to fame would be, but his boyish looks and unaffected, humble charm won people over in the music business, the media and more importantly the fans. By the time he turned eighteen he had three platinum albums and millions of female fans all over the world vying for his attention. Although Marc was pursing his dream he quickly realised that that dream would come at a price; loss of privacy and loss of control.
It was 6am on Wednesday morning.
"Wake up, Marc," his manager said, rocking Marc's shoulder to wake him. "You need to get up. We've got a breakfast TV interview to get to."
Marc rubbed his eyes. "Since when?" he said sleepily.
"Since I just got a call from the BBC. They've got a slot and I reckon we should fill it. You got a lot to promote with the new single and the book."
Marc dutifully hauled himself out of bed, unaware it was going to be another thirty hours before he'd sleep again.
Straight after his television interview he was whisked away to a hotel conference room for newspaper and magazine interviews. They dragged on until noon the same questions over and over again, and mostly focussed on his love life. From there he got a twenty minute bite of lunch before being driven to the recording studio to put down new tracks for the album his record company were pressuring him to complete before the Christmas rush. Although it went well, despite a few technical hiccups with sound, and he was pleased with the result, when it turned 4pm he was told that the studio booking time had run out and he needed to get down to Docklands in London to shoot the video.
"Why now?" Marc asked his manager. "We weren't scheduled to."
"I know, Marc, but the weather today has been great and it would be a shame not to take advantage of it. Besides the video editors would really like to get to work quickly on it so we can officially release it on the weekend."
"I don't understand the rush. The single not's going to be released for another month," Marc said as he was ushered out of the studio doors, through a small crowd of screaming girls, to the silver Mercedes waiting for him.
"It's all down to marketing, Marc. If we can drum up enough interest well in advance we can increase our pre-release sales. The single will be platinum before it's even available to download," his manager said with a twinkle of avarice in his eyes.
Marc sighed. There was no point in arguing. He didn't understand the business side of music and didn't really want to; playing his guitar was all he wanted. As long as he could continue to do that he was happy.
But when the video shoot dragged on and on through the night Marc started to flag. By midnight he was struggling to keep his eyes open, so the caterers were instructed to ply him with coffee to keep him awake. Take after take was shot and each one had some problem or other, whether it was lighting, position of props, angle of the camera, misdirection of the dancers, sound, whatever. It just dragged on and on. Marc's manager stepped in at 5am and decided to postpone the rest of the shoot, much to the annoyance of the director, in favour of a live satellite interview with an American chat show host.
"It'll only take half an hour, or so," Marc's manager explained."Just think of the exposure it'll give you across the pond. Everyone knows how hard it is to crack America. They're literally handing us an opportunity on a plate. We'd be, or I should say you'd be, nuts to turn this down."
His manager made a convincing argument that Marc had no energy to refute. So in spite of his fatigue, the fact that he was feeling nauseous from dining on junk food all day and the fact that he was freezing from being in the cold September night air Marc sat through an hour of makeup and then sat under hot studio lights as a broad accented American asked Marc numerous questions about aspirations to dominate the American music charts. Marc tried to answer his questions as lucidly as he could but his brain wasn't engaging. He fumbled his way through his answers and on a couple of occasions had to have questions repeated when they lost all meaning and became just a string of random words floating in his head. When the interview was over he felt dazed and frustrated. His head was so fogged he couldn't even remember what the interviewer had asked him.
"That wasn't good, Mike," Marc said to his manager as he stormed off toward his trailer. "I must've looked like I was stoned or something. I need some sleep I can't go on."
"You can sleep later. Right now we have work to do."
"I haven't slept since 6am yesterday morning. I'm tired!"
"You have a photoshoot. You have obligations. You can't wimp out now. I've been awake just as long as you you know."
Marc stopped and turned to look at his rotund manager.
"Yeah but you're not making an arse of yourself on camera to millions of people. I'm the one that's gonna be gossiped about. I'm the one that's gonna have his picture across the papers with headlines claiming I'm on drugs because I can't string a sentence together," he said just as a paparazzi photographer sneaked out from behind Marc's trailer and took a series of snaps of Marc mid rant.
Marc tried to shield his face but he'd been caught. He dashed into his trailer and slammed the door.
When 9am ticked by Marc refused to come out.
"The photoshoot is cancelled, Mike," Marc hissed through his trailer door. He was so fizzed with pent up anger he paced up and down his trailer. He wanted to rest, to get some sleep if only for a few moments but couldn't calm himself down, and the fact that he knew he had to be at Flicks book store in Lexley for a 12noon book signing made him all the more anxious. He hated letting down his fans. He knew they were the reason he was able to make music and perform.
"Are you intending on going to Lexley, Marc?" his manager asked with barbed directness.
Marc pondered the question. He knew what he was going to say but wanted to make Mike sweat on it.
"Of course I am," he said finally.
The story continues in The Brief Encounter
It was while he was busking that a talent scout spotted him when Marc was twelve. The scout instantly signed Marc up to a local record label sealing his fate as a soon to be pop megastar.
Marc had no way of knowing how meteoric his rise to fame would be, but his boyish looks and unaffected, humble charm won people over in the music business, the media and more importantly the fans. By the time he turned eighteen he had three platinum albums and millions of female fans all over the world vying for his attention. Although Marc was pursing his dream he quickly realised that that dream would come at a price; loss of privacy and loss of control.
It was 6am on Wednesday morning.
"Wake up, Marc," his manager said, rocking Marc's shoulder to wake him. "You need to get up. We've got a breakfast TV interview to get to."
Marc rubbed his eyes. "Since when?" he said sleepily.
"Since I just got a call from the BBC. They've got a slot and I reckon we should fill it. You got a lot to promote with the new single and the book."
Marc dutifully hauled himself out of bed, unaware it was going to be another thirty hours before he'd sleep again.
Straight after his television interview he was whisked away to a hotel conference room for newspaper and magazine interviews. They dragged on until noon the same questions over and over again, and mostly focussed on his love life. From there he got a twenty minute bite of lunch before being driven to the recording studio to put down new tracks for the album his record company were pressuring him to complete before the Christmas rush. Although it went well, despite a few technical hiccups with sound, and he was pleased with the result, when it turned 4pm he was told that the studio booking time had run out and he needed to get down to Docklands in London to shoot the video.
"Why now?" Marc asked his manager. "We weren't scheduled to."
"I know, Marc, but the weather today has been great and it would be a shame not to take advantage of it. Besides the video editors would really like to get to work quickly on it so we can officially release it on the weekend."
"I don't understand the rush. The single not's going to be released for another month," Marc said as he was ushered out of the studio doors, through a small crowd of screaming girls, to the silver Mercedes waiting for him.
"It's all down to marketing, Marc. If we can drum up enough interest well in advance we can increase our pre-release sales. The single will be platinum before it's even available to download," his manager said with a twinkle of avarice in his eyes.
Marc sighed. There was no point in arguing. He didn't understand the business side of music and didn't really want to; playing his guitar was all he wanted. As long as he could continue to do that he was happy.
But when the video shoot dragged on and on through the night Marc started to flag. By midnight he was struggling to keep his eyes open, so the caterers were instructed to ply him with coffee to keep him awake. Take after take was shot and each one had some problem or other, whether it was lighting, position of props, angle of the camera, misdirection of the dancers, sound, whatever. It just dragged on and on. Marc's manager stepped in at 5am and decided to postpone the rest of the shoot, much to the annoyance of the director, in favour of a live satellite interview with an American chat show host.
"It'll only take half an hour, or so," Marc's manager explained."Just think of the exposure it'll give you across the pond. Everyone knows how hard it is to crack America. They're literally handing us an opportunity on a plate. We'd be, or I should say you'd be, nuts to turn this down."
His manager made a convincing argument that Marc had no energy to refute. So in spite of his fatigue, the fact that he was feeling nauseous from dining on junk food all day and the fact that he was freezing from being in the cold September night air Marc sat through an hour of makeup and then sat under hot studio lights as a broad accented American asked Marc numerous questions about aspirations to dominate the American music charts. Marc tried to answer his questions as lucidly as he could but his brain wasn't engaging. He fumbled his way through his answers and on a couple of occasions had to have questions repeated when they lost all meaning and became just a string of random words floating in his head. When the interview was over he felt dazed and frustrated. His head was so fogged he couldn't even remember what the interviewer had asked him.
"That wasn't good, Mike," Marc said to his manager as he stormed off toward his trailer. "I must've looked like I was stoned or something. I need some sleep I can't go on."
"You can sleep later. Right now we have work to do."
"I haven't slept since 6am yesterday morning. I'm tired!"
"You have a photoshoot. You have obligations. You can't wimp out now. I've been awake just as long as you you know."
Marc stopped and turned to look at his rotund manager.
"Yeah but you're not making an arse of yourself on camera to millions of people. I'm the one that's gonna be gossiped about. I'm the one that's gonna have his picture across the papers with headlines claiming I'm on drugs because I can't string a sentence together," he said just as a paparazzi photographer sneaked out from behind Marc's trailer and took a series of snaps of Marc mid rant.
Marc tried to shield his face but he'd been caught. He dashed into his trailer and slammed the door.
When 9am ticked by Marc refused to come out.
"The photoshoot is cancelled, Mike," Marc hissed through his trailer door. He was so fizzed with pent up anger he paced up and down his trailer. He wanted to rest, to get some sleep if only for a few moments but couldn't calm himself down, and the fact that he knew he had to be at Flicks book store in Lexley for a 12noon book signing made him all the more anxious. He hated letting down his fans. He knew they were the reason he was able to make music and perform.
"Are you intending on going to Lexley, Marc?" his manager asked with barbed directness.
Marc pondered the question. He knew what he was going to say but wanted to make Mike sweat on it.
"Of course I am," he said finally.
The story continues in The Brief Encounter
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
30 seconds: A tale from one side
Izzy had been waiting to meet him from the moment she first set eyes on him-a sultry pose on a sunkissed beach that adorned the cover of MegaHits Magazine. That moment was indelibly printed on her brain; the moment she lost all grip on reality.
There wasn't any one thing that drew her to him, it was a combination of things: his green eyes, his porcelain skin, the sweep of his strong yet elegant nose and the air of graceful strength he projected from every photograph of him. He had been carved into perfection by a heavenly artist, that was Izzy's only explanation for the effect he had on her.
"He's coming," yelled Bess one morning as she tore down the locker lined corridor at school towards Izzy, darting between other pupils and waving a magazine in the air. "He's coming to Lexley, to sign copies of his book."
Izzy's heart wrenched and her breath caught in her throat. She knew Bess had just as big a crush on Marc Donovan as she had and needed no confirmation as to who Bess was referring to.
"When?" asked Izzy, snatching the magazine from Bess like a ravenous wolf.
"Thursday. At noon. We'll have to bunk off school."
"No problem. I'll tell mum I'm ill or something," said Izzy.
Frantically she flicked through the magazine to locate Marc's interview: a double page spread. There he was, perched on the edge of a tattered office chair in a disused warehouse; his acoustic guitar resting against his thigh. Oh how she wished she was that guitar.
"He's just a god, isn't he?" said Bess dreamily.
Izzy wasn't quite so vocal or obvious with her infatuation. Marc was her private obsession and only she wanted to know how deep it ran. "Yeah," she replied, casually and handed the mag back to Bess, but not before making a mental note of which magazine it was. She'd stop by Bensons Newsagent on the way home and buy her own copy.
The entire afternoon was lost on her. By the end of the day she couldn't recall any of her classes or what the teachers had taught, all she could see in her mind, with pixel-perfect accuracy, was the photograph of Marc Donovan in that magazine. If quizzed she could've easily recounted its composition: the number of windows in the warehouse, the colour of the chair he sat on, the folds of his shirt. It was an image that stayed with her and was made even more real when she finally got her hands on a copy of the magazine. It was her opportunity and was able to study the photo in minute detail and analyse the interview word for word, grappling for any scrap of new information about him.
What did he mean when he said he wasn't looking for a relationship? Did he mean never? Did he mean not serious? Did he even like girls? She couldn't figure it out, and it was the one thing she wanted to know over all the other stuff she knew about him (what toothpaste he used, the first song he bought, what he did with his toenail clippings).
When Thursday finally ticked around she put her plan into action (a heated flannel to her forehead, translucent powder to her cheeks to wash out their rosy tinge. It worked, perfectly.
"You'd best stay here today," Izzy's mum said. "I'll phone the school."
The moment her mother clicked the door shut Izzy leapt out of bed, already dressed: hipster skinny jeans and white t-shirt. All she needed was lip gloss and her red military jacket and she was ready to go. She grabbed her mobile and called Bess.
"You ready?" she asked. "Okay I'll meet you on the corner of Crompton Street at 9."
By the time Izzy arrived at Flicks Bookshop the crowd of kids was already spilling onto the streets.
"God, it looks like half the school's here?" said Bess. "I bet the teachers have twigged and are down here scouring the shop for truants."
"Well, I'm not about to change my mind," Izzy said resolutely. She'd be happy to get a weeks detention for it. It would be worth it.
"Me neither," said Bess. "What time is it?"
"Nine thirty."
"We've got a long wait then," said Bess glancing up at the leaden sky. "I hope it doesn't rain-my hair'll go frizzy."
"Bess, this is Lexley. It always rains in Lexley."
Sure enough by eleven the heavens opened and down came the rain.
"Told you," said Izzy as she opened her umbrella.
Soon though Izzy could feel the crowd start to move. Ahead of her were bookshop staff dressed in yellow t-shirts guiding kids between metal barricades.
"We'll be inside soon, Bess," said Izzy as the excitement and anticipation began to rise inside her. She imagined what he'd be wearing, wondered how he smelt, dreamed that there would be an opportunity for her to brush her fingers across his peach-skin face.
Once she was inside everything else and everyone around her paled into insignificance. For once in her life she was grateful for being tall, for being able to see across most people's heads and down to the black panelling at the far end of the shop and the long desk in front of it. 'He'd be there soon enough,' she thought.
"What can you see, Izzy?" said Bess.
Izzy barely heard her and grunted a reply. She was in no mood for idle chatter now, all her energy and attention was focussed on that long desk.
When the clock ticked twelve there was a sudden buzz of activity at the front. Bookshop staff appeared at each end of the desk to the delight of the crowd that suddenly erupted in cheers of "We want Marc, we want Marc."
They and Izzy soon got what they had waited in the rain for.
Marc Donovan glided into view from behind the black panels to rapturous screams so loud they temporarily deafened Izzy. She didn't care, she was screaming with them.
As the crowd quietened to a general, excited hubbub, Izzy prepared herself. She dug into her bag for her mirror and checked herself-hair looking smooth and glossy, mascara not running. She re-applied her lip gloss, smacked her lips together and took a deep breath.
The throng of expectant girls inched forward. Izzy jockeyed for position behind a girl whose hair was so wildly back-combed she looked like she'd been dragged through a hedge. Again she was glad she was tall as the girl would've obliterated her view altogether. As the crowd thinned toward the front and was filtered into a lane ready to meet their hero Izzy got her first solid glimpse of him: sandy hair flopping over his eyes, lemon yellow shirt rolled up at the sleeves and unbuttoned just enough to elicit excitement. She could barely contain the beating of her heart that quickened the closer she came to him. She knew her encounter was going to be brief, probably only a matter of seconds but she was going to savour it forever.
The story continues in The Brief Encounter
There wasn't any one thing that drew her to him, it was a combination of things: his green eyes, his porcelain skin, the sweep of his strong yet elegant nose and the air of graceful strength he projected from every photograph of him. He had been carved into perfection by a heavenly artist, that was Izzy's only explanation for the effect he had on her.
"He's coming," yelled Bess one morning as she tore down the locker lined corridor at school towards Izzy, darting between other pupils and waving a magazine in the air. "He's coming to Lexley, to sign copies of his book."
Izzy's heart wrenched and her breath caught in her throat. She knew Bess had just as big a crush on Marc Donovan as she had and needed no confirmation as to who Bess was referring to.
"When?" asked Izzy, snatching the magazine from Bess like a ravenous wolf.
"Thursday. At noon. We'll have to bunk off school."
"No problem. I'll tell mum I'm ill or something," said Izzy.
Frantically she flicked through the magazine to locate Marc's interview: a double page spread. There he was, perched on the edge of a tattered office chair in a disused warehouse; his acoustic guitar resting against his thigh. Oh how she wished she was that guitar.
"He's just a god, isn't he?" said Bess dreamily.
Izzy wasn't quite so vocal or obvious with her infatuation. Marc was her private obsession and only she wanted to know how deep it ran. "Yeah," she replied, casually and handed the mag back to Bess, but not before making a mental note of which magazine it was. She'd stop by Bensons Newsagent on the way home and buy her own copy.
The entire afternoon was lost on her. By the end of the day she couldn't recall any of her classes or what the teachers had taught, all she could see in her mind, with pixel-perfect accuracy, was the photograph of Marc Donovan in that magazine. If quizzed she could've easily recounted its composition: the number of windows in the warehouse, the colour of the chair he sat on, the folds of his shirt. It was an image that stayed with her and was made even more real when she finally got her hands on a copy of the magazine. It was her opportunity and was able to study the photo in minute detail and analyse the interview word for word, grappling for any scrap of new information about him.
What did he mean when he said he wasn't looking for a relationship? Did he mean never? Did he mean not serious? Did he even like girls? She couldn't figure it out, and it was the one thing she wanted to know over all the other stuff she knew about him (what toothpaste he used, the first song he bought, what he did with his toenail clippings).
When Thursday finally ticked around she put her plan into action (a heated flannel to her forehead, translucent powder to her cheeks to wash out their rosy tinge. It worked, perfectly.
"You'd best stay here today," Izzy's mum said. "I'll phone the school."
The moment her mother clicked the door shut Izzy leapt out of bed, already dressed: hipster skinny jeans and white t-shirt. All she needed was lip gloss and her red military jacket and she was ready to go. She grabbed her mobile and called Bess.
"You ready?" she asked. "Okay I'll meet you on the corner of Crompton Street at 9."
By the time Izzy arrived at Flicks Bookshop the crowd of kids was already spilling onto the streets.
"God, it looks like half the school's here?" said Bess. "I bet the teachers have twigged and are down here scouring the shop for truants."
"Well, I'm not about to change my mind," Izzy said resolutely. She'd be happy to get a weeks detention for it. It would be worth it.
"Me neither," said Bess. "What time is it?"
"Nine thirty."
"We've got a long wait then," said Bess glancing up at the leaden sky. "I hope it doesn't rain-my hair'll go frizzy."
"Bess, this is Lexley. It always rains in Lexley."
Sure enough by eleven the heavens opened and down came the rain.
"Told you," said Izzy as she opened her umbrella.
Soon though Izzy could feel the crowd start to move. Ahead of her were bookshop staff dressed in yellow t-shirts guiding kids between metal barricades.
"We'll be inside soon, Bess," said Izzy as the excitement and anticipation began to rise inside her. She imagined what he'd be wearing, wondered how he smelt, dreamed that there would be an opportunity for her to brush her fingers across his peach-skin face.
Once she was inside everything else and everyone around her paled into insignificance. For once in her life she was grateful for being tall, for being able to see across most people's heads and down to the black panelling at the far end of the shop and the long desk in front of it. 'He'd be there soon enough,' she thought.
"What can you see, Izzy?" said Bess.
Izzy barely heard her and grunted a reply. She was in no mood for idle chatter now, all her energy and attention was focussed on that long desk.
When the clock ticked twelve there was a sudden buzz of activity at the front. Bookshop staff appeared at each end of the desk to the delight of the crowd that suddenly erupted in cheers of "We want Marc, we want Marc."
They and Izzy soon got what they had waited in the rain for.
Marc Donovan glided into view from behind the black panels to rapturous screams so loud they temporarily deafened Izzy. She didn't care, she was screaming with them.
As the crowd quietened to a general, excited hubbub, Izzy prepared herself. She dug into her bag for her mirror and checked herself-hair looking smooth and glossy, mascara not running. She re-applied her lip gloss, smacked her lips together and took a deep breath.
The throng of expectant girls inched forward. Izzy jockeyed for position behind a girl whose hair was so wildly back-combed she looked like she'd been dragged through a hedge. Again she was glad she was tall as the girl would've obliterated her view altogether. As the crowd thinned toward the front and was filtered into a lane ready to meet their hero Izzy got her first solid glimpse of him: sandy hair flopping over his eyes, lemon yellow shirt rolled up at the sleeves and unbuttoned just enough to elicit excitement. She could barely contain the beating of her heart that quickened the closer she came to him. She knew her encounter was going to be brief, probably only a matter of seconds but she was going to savour it forever.
The story continues in The Brief Encounter
Friday, October 23, 2009
Soaring
All I saw was white; a veil mist across my eyes, obscuring my vision. I was awake, I was sure of it, but I felt nothing-not the weight of my body, not the air all around me. I was weight-less. I was Lost. Was I dreaming? Was I floating? Was I dead?
Although I had no frame of reference I was moving. Up and down. Side to side. Bobbing like a ship. Or at least that's what my consciousness was telling me.
As the mist dissolved it revealed shapes behind it. They were hazy at first, diluted by the white, then gradually becoming sharper and clearer and crisper in colour. Houses, roads, trees, bushes and a river like a silver ribbon, all below me, all glinting in the pocket of sunlight. I was soaring in the clouds, like a bird, like an angel. Was I an angel?
I looked down at the ant-sized people scurrying about their daily lives and felt not a jot of regret. The freedom of flight was exhilarating. Although I didn't know why I was there or how long it would last I enjoyed the moment for not a care, nor worry nor bad thought entered my head. I was peaceful.
I flew over the town I knew so well, over the tall spire of St Mary's Church, over the patchwork tennis courts, over the candy coloured botanic gardens, gliding with the north wind. Ahead of me I saw flashing blue lights at Gorton crossroads. Police cars and ambulances parked at all angles. Queues of traffic built up. Crowds of people gathered: watching, whispering. Luminous-jacketed paramedics carried stretchers and medical packs. Police chatted to bemused drivers. Across the junction were two cars, one with its bonnet concertinaed, the other with its boot crushed. On the pavement lay a twisted pink bike, with a yellow basket on the front and a red flag on the back. It was mine.
Blank and emotionless I struggled to recall what had happened but either way it didn't matter; it was over and that was that. As I looked to the heavens, smiling with my eyes I waited to drift upwards. But instead of soaring on to the next plane I was pulled downwards, like an out of control kite, toward the earth and into a void of velvet darkness from which I was ejected with a gasp. Around me now I could clearly hear the sound of sirens, beeping noises and worried voices. Once again I opened my eyes and made out the blurry outlines of people leaning over me. I felt them prodding below. I felt their cold hands and their warm breath.
"She's back. She's back," a frantic voice called out. "You're alright sweetheart. You're in good hands."
I was alive.
Although I had no frame of reference I was moving. Up and down. Side to side. Bobbing like a ship. Or at least that's what my consciousness was telling me.
As the mist dissolved it revealed shapes behind it. They were hazy at first, diluted by the white, then gradually becoming sharper and clearer and crisper in colour. Houses, roads, trees, bushes and a river like a silver ribbon, all below me, all glinting in the pocket of sunlight. I was soaring in the clouds, like a bird, like an angel. Was I an angel?
I looked down at the ant-sized people scurrying about their daily lives and felt not a jot of regret. The freedom of flight was exhilarating. Although I didn't know why I was there or how long it would last I enjoyed the moment for not a care, nor worry nor bad thought entered my head. I was peaceful.
I flew over the town I knew so well, over the tall spire of St Mary's Church, over the patchwork tennis courts, over the candy coloured botanic gardens, gliding with the north wind. Ahead of me I saw flashing blue lights at Gorton crossroads. Police cars and ambulances parked at all angles. Queues of traffic built up. Crowds of people gathered: watching, whispering. Luminous-jacketed paramedics carried stretchers and medical packs. Police chatted to bemused drivers. Across the junction were two cars, one with its bonnet concertinaed, the other with its boot crushed. On the pavement lay a twisted pink bike, with a yellow basket on the front and a red flag on the back. It was mine.
Blank and emotionless I struggled to recall what had happened but either way it didn't matter; it was over and that was that. As I looked to the heavens, smiling with my eyes I waited to drift upwards. But instead of soaring on to the next plane I was pulled downwards, like an out of control kite, toward the earth and into a void of velvet darkness from which I was ejected with a gasp. Around me now I could clearly hear the sound of sirens, beeping noises and worried voices. Once again I opened my eyes and made out the blurry outlines of people leaning over me. I felt them prodding below. I felt their cold hands and their warm breath.
"She's back. She's back," a frantic voice called out. "You're alright sweetheart. You're in good hands."
I was alive.
Friday, October 16, 2009
The envelope
It came on a Tuesday. All brown and official looking, with an ink stamp on the back, glaring up at me. I could almost hear its mantra, 'you're gonna fa-il, you're gonna fa-il'.
"Is that it?" mum asked, expectantly.
I nodded.
"Well, aren't you going to open it?"
She looked at me as though the envelope was just another random piece of junk that pops through the letter box, like letters that say you could win a million if you fill in an accompanying form, or party political propaganda, or letters from Glazers offering to replace all your windows for a fraction of the cost of competitors. Could she not sense my inner turmoil? Could she not see the fear on my face, the tension in my jaw? I thought mothers were supposed to be intuitive.
Mine clearly wasn't. My heart beat so hard I swear it was in training for a marathon and my blood pumped so fast I could've whitewater rafted on it. Did everyone in my class feel the same way that I did at that moment. What did they do? Did they instantly tear it open? Did they steam it and gently prise it open, hoping to preserve the perfectness of the moment? Did they throw it in the fire, collapse in a nervous heap, perform a rain dance around it? I never knew. It was everyone's own private secret.
What did I do?
I carried it upstairs to my bedroom, calmly, against the protests of my mother who's own burning curiosity meant she couldn't help but stamp her feet like a defiant child, demanding that she know the contents.
I didn't bow to her demand. This was confidential. For my eyes only. And the fact that it gave me, Mitsy Packer, sixteen year old daughter to an Architect and a Barrister, a sense of power, was another reason not to open it. So I propped it up against the angle poise lamp on my desk and laid down on my bed.
I stayed there pretty much all day, reading, playing snap with the dog (the only opponent I was able to beat at that game given my really rubbish reflexes) and enjoying the frustration on my mother's face when she periodically came into my room and realised the envelope was still unopened. Her excuses for the constant intrusion went from mundane to ridiculous-laundry, lost jewellery, supposed infestation of ants, sniffing for a gas leak (implausible for the simple reason that everyone in the village is on electric!).
Though if I'm honest I used my enjoyment at torturing my mother as a diversion from the real reason I didn't want to open the damn letter. I was too afraid.
It wasn't the contents that scared me it was the finality of them. The fact that this was it. No going back. No resists. The results would be a permanent, indelible record. In a slightly twisted way, I suppose, it was like having a criminal record. No matter how much you redeemed yourself after the event, that past record would always be there.
But I knew I would have to end the suspense, if not for the reason that pretty soon I knew I'd be inundated with phone calls from friends curious themselves to know what grades I got. That was when I reached for the envelope and before I could give my mind a chance to conjure up another reason to abstain I tore it open.
The certificate was laminated: pristine and shiny. I cast my eyes down the right hand side of the page, just registering the grades and not the subject they related to. A,B,B,C,B.
I gave the air a punch, slipped the certificate back inside the envelope and wondered how much longer I could torment mum.
"Is that it?" mum asked, expectantly.
I nodded.
"Well, aren't you going to open it?"
She looked at me as though the envelope was just another random piece of junk that pops through the letter box, like letters that say you could win a million if you fill in an accompanying form, or party political propaganda, or letters from Glazers offering to replace all your windows for a fraction of the cost of competitors. Could she not sense my inner turmoil? Could she not see the fear on my face, the tension in my jaw? I thought mothers were supposed to be intuitive.
Mine clearly wasn't. My heart beat so hard I swear it was in training for a marathon and my blood pumped so fast I could've whitewater rafted on it. Did everyone in my class feel the same way that I did at that moment. What did they do? Did they instantly tear it open? Did they steam it and gently prise it open, hoping to preserve the perfectness of the moment? Did they throw it in the fire, collapse in a nervous heap, perform a rain dance around it? I never knew. It was everyone's own private secret.
What did I do?
I carried it upstairs to my bedroom, calmly, against the protests of my mother who's own burning curiosity meant she couldn't help but stamp her feet like a defiant child, demanding that she know the contents.
I didn't bow to her demand. This was confidential. For my eyes only. And the fact that it gave me, Mitsy Packer, sixteen year old daughter to an Architect and a Barrister, a sense of power, was another reason not to open it. So I propped it up against the angle poise lamp on my desk and laid down on my bed.
I stayed there pretty much all day, reading, playing snap with the dog (the only opponent I was able to beat at that game given my really rubbish reflexes) and enjoying the frustration on my mother's face when she periodically came into my room and realised the envelope was still unopened. Her excuses for the constant intrusion went from mundane to ridiculous-laundry, lost jewellery, supposed infestation of ants, sniffing for a gas leak (implausible for the simple reason that everyone in the village is on electric!).
Though if I'm honest I used my enjoyment at torturing my mother as a diversion from the real reason I didn't want to open the damn letter. I was too afraid.
It wasn't the contents that scared me it was the finality of them. The fact that this was it. No going back. No resists. The results would be a permanent, indelible record. In a slightly twisted way, I suppose, it was like having a criminal record. No matter how much you redeemed yourself after the event, that past record would always be there.
But I knew I would have to end the suspense, if not for the reason that pretty soon I knew I'd be inundated with phone calls from friends curious themselves to know what grades I got. That was when I reached for the envelope and before I could give my mind a chance to conjure up another reason to abstain I tore it open.
The certificate was laminated: pristine and shiny. I cast my eyes down the right hand side of the page, just registering the grades and not the subject they related to. A,B,B,C,B.
I gave the air a punch, slipped the certificate back inside the envelope and wondered how much longer I could torment mum.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Forty winks in forty words
Released from the weight of the day I drift on cotton clouds. I’m five, ten, fifteen. I see warm eyes, smiles, smell cut grass, strawberry lollipops, feel wrinkled kisses, mother’s pride, father’s joy. In the dark I’ve found happiness again.
Monday, September 28, 2009
The 49ers
It wasn't on Lloyd's to-do-list that day to catch a criminal but curiosity got the better of him when he spotted Catherine Macaulay swipe a box of floating candles from Benson's Gift Emporium. If he hadn't been in there buying the usual box of floral soaps for his grandmother's birthday he'd have been none the wiser about her or her blossoming talent for shoplifting.
As Catherine strolled out of door Lloyd hurriedly paid for his gift, tossing coins and notes across the counter, and scuttled out into the rainy car park.
It had crossed his mind to turn her in, to shout thief across the shop, but he was impressed by the stealthy way Catherine swept the box across the shelf and into her open rucksack, as though it accidentally got caught by her jacket sleeve. Instead he decided to follow her, wondering what a fifteen year old could possibly want with six floating red candles moulded into roses. Was it a gift too, albeit a hot one?
He followed Catherine, keeping a safe distance, through a rundown housing estate where every other house was boarded up, and then down to the disused aluminium plant by the harbour. Catherine snuck inside the compound through the corner of a mesh fence that had been peeled back like a lid on a can of sardines and then scurried down the weed-strewn road that snaked between derelict warehouses and office blocks. As Lloyd tailed her he spotted a mobile phone laying on the cracked concrete road. Assuming it was her he pocketed it just as she disappeared through a broken door to one of the blocks. Peering round the doorway he watched her scale a metal staircase that led to a mezzanine floor of offices.
It crossed his mind, briefly, that what he was doing was dangerous, that if she caught him he might be in trouble, but he had seen Catherine round the school before and althoughs he hung about with a bad crowd she seemed pretty harmless, if a bit wimpish.
Brushing his mild concerns aside, he stealthily climbed the stairs and peered over the sill of the office she walked into. Catherine was at the far end of the room. She had unzipped her bag, pulled out the candles and was placing the box on a bookcase filled with a variety of other objects; a picture frame, a teddy bear, a loaf of mouldy bread, a cd player, a vase, a set of glass tumblers and a host of other random objects. Was she living here?
Boldlyhe stepped inside the room and shut the door behind him.
Catherine spun round and glared at him, her eyes wide.
"What are you doing here? Get out," she spat, reaching for a broken chair leg and brandishing in front of her like a sword.
Lloyd held his ground and her voice.
"I saw you steal those candles from Bensons," he stated.
"And what of it," said Catherine.
"You're Catherine Ziane aren't you?" he asked.
"What do you care who I am?"
"I'm just curious why a nice girl like you does something so damn stupid, that's all," he said as he casually strolled over to a dusty red office chair and sat down.
"You better get out of here quick smart of I'll hit you. I'll bash your skull open like a...like a..."
"Like an coconut? Melon? Egg?"
Catherine clenched the chair leg tighter, making her knuckles turn white, and she snorted through gritted teeth. "I will. I swear it."
"Where are you from?" Lloyd asked, swivelling round on the chair's castors. "I mean originally. Where you born in England?"
"Of course I was. I speak English don't I?" she spat.
"I only asked if you were born here."
"Well I was. I'm a Londoner. My mum's a Londoner."
"And your dad?"
"From Morocco."
"That explains a lot then."
"What do you mean?"
"Your funny accent."
Catherine scrutinised him. "If you're gonna come out with some names you can forget it, I've heard them all."
"What makes you think I want to mock you because you're different?" he asked, genuinely curious to know why she was so defensive.
"Because that's what most of you do," she said. "You stick labels on people."
"And what label would you stick on me?"
"Nosey, for one," she said, lowering her baton.
Lloyd laughed. "Well, I can't disagree with you there. I suppose if I wasn't I wouldn't be here."
"Why are you here?"
"Curiosity."
"Curiosity killed the cat you know. Ever heard that saying?"
"I have," he said. "But I'm not afraid of you. If you were Jonny Boyd though that would be a different matter. I know what he's capable of."
"You better watch what you say. He's a 49er."
"Is that what they're called?" he said as he slid his hands under his thighs and continued to swing on the chair. "And you want to be one too?"
"I am one now," she said, puffing out her chest. "This takes care of that," she added holding up the box of candles in her free hand.
"I don't understand," Lloyd said frowning at her.
"My forty-ninth theft," she said, pointing to the bookcase stuffed with items she had obviously pilfered from stores across Wellborough.
"Why forty-nine?"
Catherine placed the candles on the shelf beside a shrink-wrapped box of blank cds. "Jonny said shoplifters get caught once every forty-nine times they steal stuff. He says if you can steal forty-nine times you're in the gang."
"But surely you could just buy forty-nine things and say you stole them."
Catherine shook her head. "They're not dumb you know. They say you have to video yourself stealin'. Happy snatchin' Jonny calls it."
Lloyd felt his mouth go dry. Did she video herself with her mobile phone? He ran a hand over his jacket pocket. It was still there. "I could turn you in you know?" he said
"You've got no evidence. No-one would believe you," she replied bluntly.
Lloyd thought about revealing what he had in his pocket but decided against it. Although she was a bit soft she might be unpredictable. He didn't want to risk it.
"If you're so sick of being labelled why are you so keen to be a 49er?" he asked.
"Because it's the last one people will ever stick on me."
"Aren't you happy being who you are?"
"I'm not anybody," she spat, hurling the chair leg into the corner of the room where it bounced off the wall and left a dent in the crumbly plasterwork.
"That's not what I heard."
Catherine shot him look that suggested he had better choose her next words carefully.
"I heard you entered the Interschool Under Sixteen Art competition for a self portrait you painted."
"I didn't. Miss Browns did. She did it behind my back."
"And you weren't happy about that?"
Catherine shrugged her shoulders. "Don't mean nothin'. I never won anyway."
"That's not the point. Miss Browns obviously saw something in it that made her enter you."
"Well she shouldn't have. It wasn't meant for no-one but me."
"Why only you?"
"To remind me that I'm worthless," she said as she slumped against the wall and kicked a rusty stapler at her feet across the room.
"Why are you so down on yourself?"
Catherine snapped her head round then marched up to him, her face red and her eyes narrowed. Lloyd held his breath. His body stiffened. He actually felt afraid now, afraid that he had chipped away too much of her outer shell and was now exposing a raw, explosive nerve.
"Because I ain't smart like you," she spluttered, showering Lloyd with spittle. "Yeah I know who you are. Lloyd Carter, school swot."
Lloyd leapt up out of his chair and challenged her. With only a hair's breadth separating their faces it was Catherine's turn to be afraid. Lloyd noticed her taught face loosen and her jaw quiver.
"Don't think you know so much about me, Catherine," he said as he barged past her, deliberately knocking her to the side with his shoulder. "I'm not exactly an angel you know."
Catherine rubbed her shoulder whilst he examined the contents of the bookcase.
"So what's your story then?" she asked.
"Oh you're interested in me now are you and not wallowing in self pity."
"Fine, if you don't wanna tell me."
"No, no. You asked so I'll tell you."
"The only reason I'm in state school is because my parents were sick of me being suspended from public school. They were fed up with having to pay for me to be in class when I was actually at home, getting under my mother's feet," he said.
"Why were you suspended?"
"Because I disrupted my classes. I'd throw stuff around, call the teachers names, tear up books."
"Why?"
"I was desperate to be different. In a sea of boring, stuffy, over-intelligent, ya-yas I wanted to be different. So I rebelled."
"We're not so different really, are we?" said Catherine.
Lloyd shook his head. "The thing is I realised when I left Wellborough Girls and enrolled at the Comp that no matter where I go I'm still me. I can get away from that. You just have to accept it and, without sounding really corny, embrace what you've got."
Catherine looked down at herself and across at her loot.
"Sure, I'm a straight A student. Lah-de-dah," Lloyd said. "But I'd trade that in to be able to paint like you."
"I could teach you," Catherine said. "And you could help me with my exams."
Lloyd extended a hand to her. "Sounds like you've made yourself a good deal there," he said.
Catherine took his hand in hers and with a smile gave it a firm shake.
He let go and made for the door of the office.
"What are you going to do? I mean about this stuff," she asked glancing at the bookcase of booty.
Lloyd reached a hand into his jacket pocket, pulled out her mobile phone and skimmed it across the linoleum towards Catherine.
"I'll leave that for you to decide," he said and left her in the office, alone. "See you tomorrow."
As Catherine strolled out of door Lloyd hurriedly paid for his gift, tossing coins and notes across the counter, and scuttled out into the rainy car park.
It had crossed his mind to turn her in, to shout thief across the shop, but he was impressed by the stealthy way Catherine swept the box across the shelf and into her open rucksack, as though it accidentally got caught by her jacket sleeve. Instead he decided to follow her, wondering what a fifteen year old could possibly want with six floating red candles moulded into roses. Was it a gift too, albeit a hot one?
He followed Catherine, keeping a safe distance, through a rundown housing estate where every other house was boarded up, and then down to the disused aluminium plant by the harbour. Catherine snuck inside the compound through the corner of a mesh fence that had been peeled back like a lid on a can of sardines and then scurried down the weed-strewn road that snaked between derelict warehouses and office blocks. As Lloyd tailed her he spotted a mobile phone laying on the cracked concrete road. Assuming it was her he pocketed it just as she disappeared through a broken door to one of the blocks. Peering round the doorway he watched her scale a metal staircase that led to a mezzanine floor of offices.
It crossed his mind, briefly, that what he was doing was dangerous, that if she caught him he might be in trouble, but he had seen Catherine round the school before and althoughs he hung about with a bad crowd she seemed pretty harmless, if a bit wimpish.
Brushing his mild concerns aside, he stealthily climbed the stairs and peered over the sill of the office she walked into. Catherine was at the far end of the room. She had unzipped her bag, pulled out the candles and was placing the box on a bookcase filled with a variety of other objects; a picture frame, a teddy bear, a loaf of mouldy bread, a cd player, a vase, a set of glass tumblers and a host of other random objects. Was she living here?
Boldlyhe stepped inside the room and shut the door behind him.
Catherine spun round and glared at him, her eyes wide.
"What are you doing here? Get out," she spat, reaching for a broken chair leg and brandishing in front of her like a sword.
Lloyd held his ground and her voice.
"I saw you steal those candles from Bensons," he stated.
"And what of it," said Catherine.
"You're Catherine Ziane aren't you?" he asked.
"What do you care who I am?"
"I'm just curious why a nice girl like you does something so damn stupid, that's all," he said as he casually strolled over to a dusty red office chair and sat down.
"You better get out of here quick smart of I'll hit you. I'll bash your skull open like a...like a..."
"Like an coconut? Melon? Egg?"
Catherine clenched the chair leg tighter, making her knuckles turn white, and she snorted through gritted teeth. "I will. I swear it."
"Where are you from?" Lloyd asked, swivelling round on the chair's castors. "I mean originally. Where you born in England?"
"Of course I was. I speak English don't I?" she spat.
"I only asked if you were born here."
"Well I was. I'm a Londoner. My mum's a Londoner."
"And your dad?"
"From Morocco."
"That explains a lot then."
"What do you mean?"
"Your funny accent."
Catherine scrutinised him. "If you're gonna come out with some names you can forget it, I've heard them all."
"What makes you think I want to mock you because you're different?" he asked, genuinely curious to know why she was so defensive.
"Because that's what most of you do," she said. "You stick labels on people."
"And what label would you stick on me?"
"Nosey, for one," she said, lowering her baton.
Lloyd laughed. "Well, I can't disagree with you there. I suppose if I wasn't I wouldn't be here."
"Why are you here?"
"Curiosity."
"Curiosity killed the cat you know. Ever heard that saying?"
"I have," he said. "But I'm not afraid of you. If you were Jonny Boyd though that would be a different matter. I know what he's capable of."
"You better watch what you say. He's a 49er."
"Is that what they're called?" he said as he slid his hands under his thighs and continued to swing on the chair. "And you want to be one too?"
"I am one now," she said, puffing out her chest. "This takes care of that," she added holding up the box of candles in her free hand.
"I don't understand," Lloyd said frowning at her.
"My forty-ninth theft," she said, pointing to the bookcase stuffed with items she had obviously pilfered from stores across Wellborough.
"Why forty-nine?"
Catherine placed the candles on the shelf beside a shrink-wrapped box of blank cds. "Jonny said shoplifters get caught once every forty-nine times they steal stuff. He says if you can steal forty-nine times you're in the gang."
"But surely you could just buy forty-nine things and say you stole them."
Catherine shook her head. "They're not dumb you know. They say you have to video yourself stealin'. Happy snatchin' Jonny calls it."
Lloyd felt his mouth go dry. Did she video herself with her mobile phone? He ran a hand over his jacket pocket. It was still there. "I could turn you in you know?" he said
"You've got no evidence. No-one would believe you," she replied bluntly.
Lloyd thought about revealing what he had in his pocket but decided against it. Although she was a bit soft she might be unpredictable. He didn't want to risk it.
"If you're so sick of being labelled why are you so keen to be a 49er?" he asked.
"Because it's the last one people will ever stick on me."
"Aren't you happy being who you are?"
"I'm not anybody," she spat, hurling the chair leg into the corner of the room where it bounced off the wall and left a dent in the crumbly plasterwork.
"That's not what I heard."
Catherine shot him look that suggested he had better choose her next words carefully.
"I heard you entered the Interschool Under Sixteen Art competition for a self portrait you painted."
"I didn't. Miss Browns did. She did it behind my back."
"And you weren't happy about that?"
Catherine shrugged her shoulders. "Don't mean nothin'. I never won anyway."
"That's not the point. Miss Browns obviously saw something in it that made her enter you."
"Well she shouldn't have. It wasn't meant for no-one but me."
"Why only you?"
"To remind me that I'm worthless," she said as she slumped against the wall and kicked a rusty stapler at her feet across the room.
"Why are you so down on yourself?"
Catherine snapped her head round then marched up to him, her face red and her eyes narrowed. Lloyd held his breath. His body stiffened. He actually felt afraid now, afraid that he had chipped away too much of her outer shell and was now exposing a raw, explosive nerve.
"Because I ain't smart like you," she spluttered, showering Lloyd with spittle. "Yeah I know who you are. Lloyd Carter, school swot."
Lloyd leapt up out of his chair and challenged her. With only a hair's breadth separating their faces it was Catherine's turn to be afraid. Lloyd noticed her taught face loosen and her jaw quiver.
"Don't think you know so much about me, Catherine," he said as he barged past her, deliberately knocking her to the side with his shoulder. "I'm not exactly an angel you know."
Catherine rubbed her shoulder whilst he examined the contents of the bookcase.
"So what's your story then?" she asked.
"Oh you're interested in me now are you and not wallowing in self pity."
"Fine, if you don't wanna tell me."
"No, no. You asked so I'll tell you."
"The only reason I'm in state school is because my parents were sick of me being suspended from public school. They were fed up with having to pay for me to be in class when I was actually at home, getting under my mother's feet," he said.
"Why were you suspended?"
"Because I disrupted my classes. I'd throw stuff around, call the teachers names, tear up books."
"Why?"
"I was desperate to be different. In a sea of boring, stuffy, over-intelligent, ya-yas I wanted to be different. So I rebelled."
"We're not so different really, are we?" said Catherine.
Lloyd shook his head. "The thing is I realised when I left Wellborough Girls and enrolled at the Comp that no matter where I go I'm still me. I can get away from that. You just have to accept it and, without sounding really corny, embrace what you've got."
Catherine looked down at herself and across at her loot.
"Sure, I'm a straight A student. Lah-de-dah," Lloyd said. "But I'd trade that in to be able to paint like you."
"I could teach you," Catherine said. "And you could help me with my exams."
Lloyd extended a hand to her. "Sounds like you've made yourself a good deal there," he said.
Catherine took his hand in hers and with a smile gave it a firm shake.
He let go and made for the door of the office.
"What are you going to do? I mean about this stuff," she asked glancing at the bookcase of booty.
Lloyd reached a hand into his jacket pocket, pulled out her mobile phone and skimmed it across the linoleum towards Catherine.
"I'll leave that for you to decide," he said and left her in the office, alone. "See you tomorrow."
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Seven days
MONDAY
Afternoon
So, I really don't know how to begin today's entry. I suppose if I said that I found a Tesco bag full of money under a tree, by the tennis courts nobody would believe me. I wouldn't believe me either. But there it was, in broad daylight. Naturally the first thing I did when I saw the bag was look to see if the owner was around but the place was deserted, except for me passing through on my way home from school. So who did it belong to, and where did it come from?
I peered into the bag (I'm too damn inquisitive for my own good) and my stomach flipped. Wads of ten pound notes were stuffed inside it. There must have been ten grand in that bag. I'd be lying now if I didn't imagine all the things I could buy with that-a ton of clothes and shoes, that dress I saw in Darcy's for the Christmas ball, a ten speed mountain bike, I might even have been able to pay off my parent's mortgage, or part of it anyway. But I didn't touch a penny of it. No. I took it to the police station. Handed it in. I figured that I'd be rewarded for being honest; not with money, but perhaps luck. I figured that by doing a good deed Johnny Evans might ask me to the ball. Is that twisted logic? Who knows, but a girl can hope, right?
Anyway, I took it to the police and what did they say? They took my name and address and stuff and asked me all sorts of questions about when and where exactly I found it, and then said that unless someone claimed it in seven days, provided it wasn't stolen money, it was mine. MINE. Finders keepers.
TUESDAY
Morning
I was itching to tell people about my discovery but I didn't. The more I thought about it the more I realised that I'm actually on a seven day adventure, a story that as yet has no ending, so rather than tell people half a tale I decided to wait for the outcome before the reveal. All I had to do was occupy my mind until Sunday. That didn't take too long as all I kept thinking was, where did that money come from?
Afternoon
Mrs Carter showed us a video about drug cartels in Modern Studies today, which got me thinking. What if that money was drug money? I mean drugs aren't just in South America, they're all over the place, a seedy underworld that most of us don't notice exists, but it does. Some countries are more relaxed about supposedly non-addictive drugs, like Holland for example, but most want to get rid of them. I don't blame them. That boy in the year above, Mathew Roberts, was an advert on reasons you shouldn't take drugs. He used to be a real sporto. Into Rugby big time. I think he even coached first years at one point. Then he got into a bad crowd and within a year he was high on heroine. He lost a ton of weight; his skin was literally hanging off his bones. He became really spotty, short-tempered, even a little psychotic. Everyone was afraid of him. He'd start fights for no reason. The last I heard he got expelled and spent some time in prison for theft. What a complete waste.
Evening
So did that money belong to a drug buyer? If it was a buyer surely they wouldn't leave a bag full of money in broad daylight. If they were that desperate to feed their habit they'd hold onto that money. No, it couldn't be a buyer.
What about a seller? It's possible. Perhaps the police were onto him or her, perhaps they dropped the bag in a hurry so they wouldn't be caught with it. If that was the case, they'd probably be really mad when they returned and discovered it wasn't there anymore. But then if they were going to drop the bag surely they'd find somewhere a little safer to stash it than just leaving it beside a tree near tennis courts that are usually busy. No. I don't think it was drug money.
WEDNESDAY
Morning
Kasey's getting suspicious about me. She keeps prodding me, wanting to know what's up with me. "Holly, you've been acting weird the last two days. Are you gonna tell me or do I have to tell your mum on you?" she asked. Of course I told her nothing was wrong but she didn't believe me. She says I keep wandering off all the time, even though I'm right there with her. I had no idea what she meant at first, but she does struggle to say what she's thinking. It was only when the bell went at the end of lunch and I realised I hadn't even eaten my sandwich that I got what she meant. My mind was adrift on a sea of curiosity.
Afternoon
My new theory as to the owner of this money is a hitman. Wanna know why? I overheard a conversation today between the Cameron twins. They're sixth years and renowned for being the biggest jerks in the school. They're parents are super rich. I mean so rich they could probably buy my town if they wanted to. I have no idea why they're not at a public school. To be honest I wish they were as they always strut down the halls as though everyone else is like a bug that they can squish. Anyway back to my point. The twins were arguing in the lockers. I'm nosy-I think I've mentioned that-so I couldn't stop myself from earwigging. One of the brothers, Mitch, had taken their dad's car without asking and ended up scratching it all along the side. Something about overtaking road works and hitting some road signs. I don't remember the circumstances, that's not what's important. What is important is what Mitch did to stop his parents finding out. He offered to give his brother money so he would keep quiet. In other words he offered hush money. New theory.
Evening
It's 11.30pm and I'm wide awake. I've been thinking about this whole hush money thing all day. It's been seriously bugging me. I have no leads, nothing I can evaluate, nothing I can breakdown. Could it have been to cover up a shady business deal or to keep someone out of, or in, prison? How would I know?
That's when it dawned on me. The answer was in my theory. HUSH. In other words, quiet, off the radar, undetectable. If it was hush money there was no way I'd ever find out. And if it was hush money nothing screams louder than an open bag full of money in middle of the day. Not hush money.
THURSDAY
Morning
Is there a connection between recessions and an increase in robberies? I have no idea. But after hearing a news report about the recent ten million pound bank robbery, the biggest in town ever, it occurred to me that the money might have been dropped by one of the robbers. When I found out which bank was robbed I checked where it was on the street map and it was literally two streets away from where I found the money. It was so close it made me shiver. Did they drop it by accident? And if so did they see me pick it up? Did they follow me to the police station? Are they following me now?
Afternoon
I really ought to stop letting my imagination run away with me. Pretty much all of today I've been sweating over being jumped by burly guys desperate to get their booty back. From what I read that robbery was pretty violent. Five men turned up with sawn off shot guns. I thought that was a type of gun until dad told me that they actually saw the tip off shot guns to give them a wider spread of shot and make them easier to conceal. Hearing that put me off my dinner. Mum now thinks I've caught something-she not that far from the truth, but it ain't a bug, that much I do know.
Evening
I would personally like to thank Sir Tim Berners-Lee for inventing the internet. What a marvel of useful and useless information! The teachers keep telling us that we should always be cautious when using it for research as a lot of the information out there is rubbish. That may be true but on this occasion it has put my mind and body to rest. Phew! I can sleep tonight. I found out that the money the robbers stole couldn't possibly be what I found by that tree. Banks tellers put a fake wad of cash in bags when demanded to by robbers. The fake wad explodes and covers the notes in the bag with a dye which means they can't be used. My notes were clean. Quite how those thieves expected to get at the cash I don't know and to be honest I don't care. All I know is the money couldn't have belonged to them.
FRIDAY
Morning
There are many things about the 60s that are pretty cool: the mini skirt was invented, a man walked on the moon, the first computer was created. There were also some uncool things; the Berlin wall was built, President John F Kennedy was shot and there was a major baby boom in Britain which means there are loads of oldies around. The 60s was also the era of the famous London gangsters, Ronnie and Reggie Kray. We were talking about them in History class today. They had a reputation for being really violent and supposedly made a lot of money, controlling businesses, pubs and gambling dens the owners of which paid the brothers protection money. I'm sure there are probably a lot of gangsters still in London but for reasons I don't know they're not famous. Perhaps there are more serious problems in the world to talk about. But I'm now wondering if the money by the tree belonged to a gangster. Was it protection money?
Afternoon
Unlike yesterday I didn't get so worked up about my latest theory, with good reason. I come from a small town. It has a population of 16000 people when it's not over run with tourists and screaming kids. It has two shopping streets filled with family run businesses; a tailor who'll fix anything for £5,a chemist that only stocks aspirin, a grocer who smells of cabbage and is at least a hundred years old and a butcher who cut off one of his hands in an unfortunate accident with a pig and a meat cleaver. It's a small town. Ronnie and Reggie Kray controlled fourteen square miles of London. That's three and a half times the size of my town, including all the houses. If a gangster had half a brain about them they'd quickly realise that St Michaels is slim pickings; a lot of work for very little money and certainly not thousands of pounds worth. So that pretty much sums up that it's not gangster money.
SATURDAY
Morning
Today's a pretty sad day. I heard that the head teacher from St David's Boys School fifty miles away was shot by one of its pupils. What would possess someone to do that? Was it hatred? Spite? Did she fail him in a test? How did he get hold of a gun? Did he have some sort of mental illness? I can't get my head around this one. Two lives completely destroyed in a fraction of a second. Then there's the ripple effect; both their families have to come to terms with it and their relatives and their relatives and so on. It's such a senseless waste. What angers me more though is that I heard a group of kids laughing in the supermarket, suggesting that the boy was paid to do it. That there was a whole gang of kids that wanted to wipe her out. That doesn't bear thinking about. Assassinated for money.
Afternoon
With those kids' voices ringing in my head I couldn't help myself. I grabbed the papers from the last seven days from the rack in the lounge and laid them out on the dining table. One by one I went through them looking for candidates for assassination. The idea of a teacher being shot for money was too gruesome to even consider so I wiped that clean out of my head, or as much as I could. It didn't take long for me to find some candidates; a politician who had just passed a very unpopular tax; a man convicted of the unnecessary suffering he inflicted on his ten horses who all died of starvation in cramped stables; a housing developer who managed to get permission from the local council to bulldoze a five hundred year old forest to make way for luxury flats and a shopping centre and a recently freed rapist and paedophile. It made me realise that there is hardly ever any good news in newspapers. It's all bad.
Evening
Mum is now considering whether I have some sort of temporary mental illness. When she saw me flicking back and forth through the papers, making notes in the margins, circling passages, highlighting sentences, tearing out articles she froze. She's actually on the internet right now researching OCD, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I think she needs more help than I do. Then when I asked her if the people on my list were still living she ran out of the kitchen and grabbed the phone. "I'm calling Dr Swanson. You need an appointment." She never did answer my question but as far as I can tell all the candidates I listed are alive. So what else could this money be?
SUNDAY
Morning
When I woke up and couldn't think of any other ideas as to where that money had come from I thought I'd exhausted all the possibilities until I looked over what I'd read and realised that every one of the options I'd investigated were in some way immoral. Why did I automatically think that? What is it about large sums of money that instantly gets people suspicious? Is it because there is so little money around nowadays? Is it because we expect or demand to have too much of it? Is money ever 'good'?
Afternoon
Yes, is the answer to my previous question, or at least that's my opinion. They say 'money makes the world go around' and I can't argue with that. Without it we'd all be living on the streets. So having sufficient money is a good thing; sufficient money to pay your bills, keep a roof over your head, feed yourself and your family. Money can also be good if it helps others; whether it's to help buy equipment for hospitals, to look after abused animals, to provide food and water for third world countries, to research diseases we don't have a cure for. There is good in money.
Evening
All this makes me wonder whether there was never anything sinister about the money at all. What if it was a moral test? What if whoever left it wanted to see what would happen when it was found. Would that person be honest or dishonest? And what would happen to them as a result. Were they watching? I couldn't help but steal a glance outside between the curtains of my bedroom window, just to check. Nobody there, or at least nobody I could see.
MONDAY
Morning
It's Christmas day in three days time. I have a pile of presents that need to be wrapped. All bought and paid for with money I earned working at Simpsons Shoe Store. More Saturdays than I can care to count have I spent working with sweaty, smelly feet, kids that have tantrums about trying on shoes, old people that try on every pair of shoes in the shop before settling on the first pair they tried and a Manageress that makes us wear Day-Glo pink blouses as part of our uniform. But at least my money was earned honestly.
I have another pile in my bedroom too. A pile of money; money found a week ago in a plastic bag beneath the boughs of a Spruce tree. Nobody claimed it. Nobody even reported anything lost.
I'm staring at it now, still wondering where it came from. Perhaps I'll never know. One thing I do know though is I can't keep it. Good or bad, it's not mine to keep.
There's only one thing for it, I guess.
I think I'll wrap up my presents with it.
Afternoon
So, I really don't know how to begin today's entry. I suppose if I said that I found a Tesco bag full of money under a tree, by the tennis courts nobody would believe me. I wouldn't believe me either. But there it was, in broad daylight. Naturally the first thing I did when I saw the bag was look to see if the owner was around but the place was deserted, except for me passing through on my way home from school. So who did it belong to, and where did it come from?
I peered into the bag (I'm too damn inquisitive for my own good) and my stomach flipped. Wads of ten pound notes were stuffed inside it. There must have been ten grand in that bag. I'd be lying now if I didn't imagine all the things I could buy with that-a ton of clothes and shoes, that dress I saw in Darcy's for the Christmas ball, a ten speed mountain bike, I might even have been able to pay off my parent's mortgage, or part of it anyway. But I didn't touch a penny of it. No. I took it to the police station. Handed it in. I figured that I'd be rewarded for being honest; not with money, but perhaps luck. I figured that by doing a good deed Johnny Evans might ask me to the ball. Is that twisted logic? Who knows, but a girl can hope, right?
Anyway, I took it to the police and what did they say? They took my name and address and stuff and asked me all sorts of questions about when and where exactly I found it, and then said that unless someone claimed it in seven days, provided it wasn't stolen money, it was mine. MINE. Finders keepers.
TUESDAY
Morning
I was itching to tell people about my discovery but I didn't. The more I thought about it the more I realised that I'm actually on a seven day adventure, a story that as yet has no ending, so rather than tell people half a tale I decided to wait for the outcome before the reveal. All I had to do was occupy my mind until Sunday. That didn't take too long as all I kept thinking was, where did that money come from?
Afternoon
Mrs Carter showed us a video about drug cartels in Modern Studies today, which got me thinking. What if that money was drug money? I mean drugs aren't just in South America, they're all over the place, a seedy underworld that most of us don't notice exists, but it does. Some countries are more relaxed about supposedly non-addictive drugs, like Holland for example, but most want to get rid of them. I don't blame them. That boy in the year above, Mathew Roberts, was an advert on reasons you shouldn't take drugs. He used to be a real sporto. Into Rugby big time. I think he even coached first years at one point. Then he got into a bad crowd and within a year he was high on heroine. He lost a ton of weight; his skin was literally hanging off his bones. He became really spotty, short-tempered, even a little psychotic. Everyone was afraid of him. He'd start fights for no reason. The last I heard he got expelled and spent some time in prison for theft. What a complete waste.
Evening
So did that money belong to a drug buyer? If it was a buyer surely they wouldn't leave a bag full of money in broad daylight. If they were that desperate to feed their habit they'd hold onto that money. No, it couldn't be a buyer.
What about a seller? It's possible. Perhaps the police were onto him or her, perhaps they dropped the bag in a hurry so they wouldn't be caught with it. If that was the case, they'd probably be really mad when they returned and discovered it wasn't there anymore. But then if they were going to drop the bag surely they'd find somewhere a little safer to stash it than just leaving it beside a tree near tennis courts that are usually busy. No. I don't think it was drug money.
WEDNESDAY
Morning
Kasey's getting suspicious about me. She keeps prodding me, wanting to know what's up with me. "Holly, you've been acting weird the last two days. Are you gonna tell me or do I have to tell your mum on you?" she asked. Of course I told her nothing was wrong but she didn't believe me. She says I keep wandering off all the time, even though I'm right there with her. I had no idea what she meant at first, but she does struggle to say what she's thinking. It was only when the bell went at the end of lunch and I realised I hadn't even eaten my sandwich that I got what she meant. My mind was adrift on a sea of curiosity.
Afternoon
My new theory as to the owner of this money is a hitman. Wanna know why? I overheard a conversation today between the Cameron twins. They're sixth years and renowned for being the biggest jerks in the school. They're parents are super rich. I mean so rich they could probably buy my town if they wanted to. I have no idea why they're not at a public school. To be honest I wish they were as they always strut down the halls as though everyone else is like a bug that they can squish. Anyway back to my point. The twins were arguing in the lockers. I'm nosy-I think I've mentioned that-so I couldn't stop myself from earwigging. One of the brothers, Mitch, had taken their dad's car without asking and ended up scratching it all along the side. Something about overtaking road works and hitting some road signs. I don't remember the circumstances, that's not what's important. What is important is what Mitch did to stop his parents finding out. He offered to give his brother money so he would keep quiet. In other words he offered hush money. New theory.
Evening
It's 11.30pm and I'm wide awake. I've been thinking about this whole hush money thing all day. It's been seriously bugging me. I have no leads, nothing I can evaluate, nothing I can breakdown. Could it have been to cover up a shady business deal or to keep someone out of, or in, prison? How would I know?
That's when it dawned on me. The answer was in my theory. HUSH. In other words, quiet, off the radar, undetectable. If it was hush money there was no way I'd ever find out. And if it was hush money nothing screams louder than an open bag full of money in middle of the day. Not hush money.
THURSDAY
Morning
Is there a connection between recessions and an increase in robberies? I have no idea. But after hearing a news report about the recent ten million pound bank robbery, the biggest in town ever, it occurred to me that the money might have been dropped by one of the robbers. When I found out which bank was robbed I checked where it was on the street map and it was literally two streets away from where I found the money. It was so close it made me shiver. Did they drop it by accident? And if so did they see me pick it up? Did they follow me to the police station? Are they following me now?
Afternoon
I really ought to stop letting my imagination run away with me. Pretty much all of today I've been sweating over being jumped by burly guys desperate to get their booty back. From what I read that robbery was pretty violent. Five men turned up with sawn off shot guns. I thought that was a type of gun until dad told me that they actually saw the tip off shot guns to give them a wider spread of shot and make them easier to conceal. Hearing that put me off my dinner. Mum now thinks I've caught something-she not that far from the truth, but it ain't a bug, that much I do know.
Evening
I would personally like to thank Sir Tim Berners-Lee for inventing the internet. What a marvel of useful and useless information! The teachers keep telling us that we should always be cautious when using it for research as a lot of the information out there is rubbish. That may be true but on this occasion it has put my mind and body to rest. Phew! I can sleep tonight. I found out that the money the robbers stole couldn't possibly be what I found by that tree. Banks tellers put a fake wad of cash in bags when demanded to by robbers. The fake wad explodes and covers the notes in the bag with a dye which means they can't be used. My notes were clean. Quite how those thieves expected to get at the cash I don't know and to be honest I don't care. All I know is the money couldn't have belonged to them.
FRIDAY
Morning
There are many things about the 60s that are pretty cool: the mini skirt was invented, a man walked on the moon, the first computer was created. There were also some uncool things; the Berlin wall was built, President John F Kennedy was shot and there was a major baby boom in Britain which means there are loads of oldies around. The 60s was also the era of the famous London gangsters, Ronnie and Reggie Kray. We were talking about them in History class today. They had a reputation for being really violent and supposedly made a lot of money, controlling businesses, pubs and gambling dens the owners of which paid the brothers protection money. I'm sure there are probably a lot of gangsters still in London but for reasons I don't know they're not famous. Perhaps there are more serious problems in the world to talk about. But I'm now wondering if the money by the tree belonged to a gangster. Was it protection money?
Afternoon
Unlike yesterday I didn't get so worked up about my latest theory, with good reason. I come from a small town. It has a population of 16000 people when it's not over run with tourists and screaming kids. It has two shopping streets filled with family run businesses; a tailor who'll fix anything for £5,a chemist that only stocks aspirin, a grocer who smells of cabbage and is at least a hundred years old and a butcher who cut off one of his hands in an unfortunate accident with a pig and a meat cleaver. It's a small town. Ronnie and Reggie Kray controlled fourteen square miles of London. That's three and a half times the size of my town, including all the houses. If a gangster had half a brain about them they'd quickly realise that St Michaels is slim pickings; a lot of work for very little money and certainly not thousands of pounds worth. So that pretty much sums up that it's not gangster money.
SATURDAY
Morning
Today's a pretty sad day. I heard that the head teacher from St David's Boys School fifty miles away was shot by one of its pupils. What would possess someone to do that? Was it hatred? Spite? Did she fail him in a test? How did he get hold of a gun? Did he have some sort of mental illness? I can't get my head around this one. Two lives completely destroyed in a fraction of a second. Then there's the ripple effect; both their families have to come to terms with it and their relatives and their relatives and so on. It's such a senseless waste. What angers me more though is that I heard a group of kids laughing in the supermarket, suggesting that the boy was paid to do it. That there was a whole gang of kids that wanted to wipe her out. That doesn't bear thinking about. Assassinated for money.
Afternoon
With those kids' voices ringing in my head I couldn't help myself. I grabbed the papers from the last seven days from the rack in the lounge and laid them out on the dining table. One by one I went through them looking for candidates for assassination. The idea of a teacher being shot for money was too gruesome to even consider so I wiped that clean out of my head, or as much as I could. It didn't take long for me to find some candidates; a politician who had just passed a very unpopular tax; a man convicted of the unnecessary suffering he inflicted on his ten horses who all died of starvation in cramped stables; a housing developer who managed to get permission from the local council to bulldoze a five hundred year old forest to make way for luxury flats and a shopping centre and a recently freed rapist and paedophile. It made me realise that there is hardly ever any good news in newspapers. It's all bad.
Evening
Mum is now considering whether I have some sort of temporary mental illness. When she saw me flicking back and forth through the papers, making notes in the margins, circling passages, highlighting sentences, tearing out articles she froze. She's actually on the internet right now researching OCD, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I think she needs more help than I do. Then when I asked her if the people on my list were still living she ran out of the kitchen and grabbed the phone. "I'm calling Dr Swanson. You need an appointment." She never did answer my question but as far as I can tell all the candidates I listed are alive. So what else could this money be?
SUNDAY
Morning
When I woke up and couldn't think of any other ideas as to where that money had come from I thought I'd exhausted all the possibilities until I looked over what I'd read and realised that every one of the options I'd investigated were in some way immoral. Why did I automatically think that? What is it about large sums of money that instantly gets people suspicious? Is it because there is so little money around nowadays? Is it because we expect or demand to have too much of it? Is money ever 'good'?
Afternoon
Yes, is the answer to my previous question, or at least that's my opinion. They say 'money makes the world go around' and I can't argue with that. Without it we'd all be living on the streets. So having sufficient money is a good thing; sufficient money to pay your bills, keep a roof over your head, feed yourself and your family. Money can also be good if it helps others; whether it's to help buy equipment for hospitals, to look after abused animals, to provide food and water for third world countries, to research diseases we don't have a cure for. There is good in money.
Evening
All this makes me wonder whether there was never anything sinister about the money at all. What if it was a moral test? What if whoever left it wanted to see what would happen when it was found. Would that person be honest or dishonest? And what would happen to them as a result. Were they watching? I couldn't help but steal a glance outside between the curtains of my bedroom window, just to check. Nobody there, or at least nobody I could see.
MONDAY
Morning
It's Christmas day in three days time. I have a pile of presents that need to be wrapped. All bought and paid for with money I earned working at Simpsons Shoe Store. More Saturdays than I can care to count have I spent working with sweaty, smelly feet, kids that have tantrums about trying on shoes, old people that try on every pair of shoes in the shop before settling on the first pair they tried and a Manageress that makes us wear Day-Glo pink blouses as part of our uniform. But at least my money was earned honestly.
I have another pile in my bedroom too. A pile of money; money found a week ago in a plastic bag beneath the boughs of a Spruce tree. Nobody claimed it. Nobody even reported anything lost.
I'm staring at it now, still wondering where it came from. Perhaps I'll never know. One thing I do know though is I can't keep it. Good or bad, it's not mine to keep.
There's only one thing for it, I guess.
I think I'll wrap up my presents with it.
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