Hello World (19 page)

My mum painted that
, I think, remembering the odd familiarity that I had felt
radiating off the piece as I had walked towards it.

‘
Wow Red,
you were a fat baby,’ Jay comments. I whip my head up to where he is crouching
on the other side of the attic by the hatch, sorting through a box full of what
looks like photo albums.

‘The
camera adds ten pounds,’ I snap, although move to sit beside him. Jay passes me
the album he’s holding and gets up to search further. The album I hold is a
special baby one, one of those meant to track the baby’s growth and
development, like first word and such.

I flick to
that page and grin at the word.

Originally,
the word
Mummy
had been scrawled
there in swirly writing, although someone had come along and put a line through
the word, replacing it with the word
Daddy
along with a note saying
we know which
one of us you like the most secretly
.
 

I flick to
the front page and run my hand over the writing on it, a message addressed to
me in the same elegant and swirly handwriting.

To my darling, baby girl. You are
everything I have ever wanted, and everything I wished you to be. You are my
light, my dreams and my hope. You are beauty and elegance and love and you will
forever be in our hearts. Love Mum and Dad.

I reread
the message again, a tear rolling down my cheek and splashing onto the page.

‘Huh,
turns out your Dad was also a bit of a rocker in the ol’ days,’ Jay announces,
flicking through a row of old records. Then Jay looks up and catches my
expression. ‘Are you okay?’

I nod and
smile, not needing to force it for once.

‘Yeah,’ I
say quietly, looking back down at the album.

In that
moment it feels as if I have become whole again, like a piece of me has just
slot into place. A piece I didn’t even realise I was missing.

Jay
Ellsworth wakes up with a violent jerk, flying into a seating position and
regretting it immediately. With an audible groan, the boy flings himself back
down onto his pillow, gritting his teeth against the pain radiating throughout
his body.

Excruciating
is the only way to describe the pain he feels. It’s as if Jay
can feel his muscles tearing away from his bones and disintegrating inside him.

For lack
of anything better to hold, Jay grips the edge of his bedding, rubbing the soft
material against his finger tips in a relaxing manner whilst trying to bring
his heart rate back down to normal. Images of what he has just woken up from
flash before his eyes but he pushes those thoughts away.

Nightmares
are what children have, full of make believe monsters and cruel tricks of the
imagination. And after all, nightmares are merely dreams. What he is
experiencing is very, very real.

Desperately,
the boy tries to distract himself, the image of a girl with bright red hair and
a shy smile taking form in his mind. His hope.

The image
soothing him, Jay’s breathing begins to regain regularity again and, after
making sure there are no feelings of nausea, he peels one hand away from the
sheets and gropes around on the table beside him for painkillers.

Coming up
bare, Jay groans again, realising he must have forgotten to restock his room
after the last time he ran out. With a sigh, Jay attempts to pull himself back
up into a seating position, although the simple action causes his body to
convulse in pain yet again.

With each
movement, Jay muses bitterly, his body rewards him with a new punishment.
Tonight is one of the worst.

Filled
with a sudden anger, Jay curls his hand into a fist and brings it across his
body to meet the wall beside him, the action causing both pain and relief.
Suddenly drained, he flops back onto the bed for a second time and puts a hand
over his eyes, willing for all of this to be over.

A moment
later his bedroom door flings open and his older brother, Blake, walks in, his
expression a perfected mask of calm and patience.

‘Carry on
like that and you’ll knock the whole house down,’ Blake smirks, closing the
door behind him. A pang of guilt suddenly runs through Jay as he takes in the
older brother’s jogging bottoms and old T-shirt. He’s just woken Blake up, yet
Blake doesn’t make any motion to support this.

‘I ran
out,’ Jay groans lamely. Blake rolls his eyes and hands his younger brother a
tub of tablets.

The door
opens a second time and the boy’s mother walks in, her face pale and ghostly.
Jay quickly hides the tablets under his duvet.

‘Is
everything okay? I heard a noise?’ Joy asks, her voice catching.

‘I knocked
my light off the table,’ Jay answers instinctively, plastering a smile on his
face. He hates lying to his Mum, but he can’t bring himself to cause her
anymore pain. ‘I didn’t mean to wake you.’

Warily,
Joy looks between her two sons.

‘I just
came to check up, it was just the light,’ Blake assures her with a soft tone.
‘Go back to bed, Mum.’ With one last longing look, Joy finally shuffles out of
the room, although not entirely convinced at all.

With a
sigh, Jay reveals the tablets again.

‘I
promised myself I wouldn’t become dependant on them,’ he says miserably. Blake,
who had been watching as his mother left turns back to his brother.

‘Are you
okay?’ is all he says.

Jay
regards his brother for a moment before shrugging. If he can’t be honest with
Blake, then who can he be honest with?

‘I feel
like I’ve been run over by a train twice,’ he replies lightly. Blake just nods
and slumps into the beanie bag near Jay’s desk, intent on not leaving until his
little brother has drifted off to sleep again.

It’s hard
to keep a neutral expression in a situation like this, but Blake has had plenty
of time to practise so keeps his voice steady. ‘Have you done anything to
aggravate it?’
 

‘It was
probably all of the heavy lifting and moving at Neve’s today. I tried to get a
hatch to an attic open today and it killed like a bitch,’ Jay laughs, closing
his eyes and lying back on the pillow.

‘How is she?’

Jay opens
one eye in amusement and casts a glance at his brother, whose lips twitch
upwards as if trying to hide a smile at her name.

‘Neve is
fine,’ Jay grins. ‘Better I think. Especially after last night,’

Now Blake
does smile. ‘Did she say anything?’

‘I tried
to bring it up but she just gave me a knowing smile and turned to look back out
the window, it was cute really,’ Jay teases. Then a new type of pain washes
over him. ‘You’ll look after, right? When-’

‘Don’t.’
Blake cuts him off with a sudden fierceness before regaining his composure.
‘Now get some sleep otherwise we’ll be up all night. No school for you
tomorrow-’ Blake cuts himself off and checks his watch before correcting
himself, ‘today.’

Jay just
chuckles and closes his eyes again before his stomach suddenly flips.
Recognising the signs, Blake reaches for the emergency bucket and manages to
get it to Jay before he throws up.

At exactly
eight am on Monday morning, I scream, loud enough to wake up the whole town.

Staring
down at my laptop with astonishment, I jump up from my desk chair and start
dancing around my room. Charlie bursts in a moment later, worry plastered on
his face and, Lord help me, a frying pan held high above his head.

‘Who
died?’ Charlie shouts in alarm and I just bounce over and wrap my arms around
him in a fierce hug.

‘I’ve got
an interview!’ I chime, jumping up and down again. ‘In February with Cambridge
Regional College about my art course, I need to bring along a portfolio of my
work and such! What’s with the frying pan?’

Charlie
stares at me with confusion before lowering the weapon, his cheeks reddening
slightly. ‘I thought there might have been an intruder,’ he admits with
embarrassment. ‘But an interview? That’s great,’ he grins. I try to get him to
join in with the dancing but he refuses and goes in search of some breakfast so
I fall back down onto my bed and stare up at my paper cranes, grinning.

My room is
more scattered than usual since I have taken some of the stuff from my old
house and moved it in here, including a few of Mum’s paintings and the pink
bunny which now sits on my chest of drawers.

‘You hear
that, Alex?’ I say softly. ‘I’ve got an interview. I could be going to college
next year.’

I allow
myself to revel in the joy of the news for a few moments before calling Jay and
trying to balance an early morning phone call with getting myself ready.

When he
picks up I scream down the same information I have given Charlie whilst trying
get my jeans on, which is a definite challenge.

‘Aside
from the burst eardrum, that’s brilliant,’ Jay replies. Distantly, I hear him
repeating the news to Blake and then Blake’s own congratulations through the
line.

‘I know,
we’re gunna have to celebrate at school. I’ll even buy you a chocolate muffin,’
I grin, running a brush through my hair.

‘As great
as that sounds, I can’t,’ Jay says with disappointment. ‘This bloody cold has
returned, I’m not going anywhere today.’

I frown
then, suddenly registering the tiredness in Jay’s voice that I hadn’t noticed
before. ‘Oh, sorry for waking you up then. Do you want me to come over later?’

‘Nah,
that’s alright. I wouldn’t want to pass whatever this is onto you and I’ll
probably just sleep for the whole day. I have an exam tomorrow as well,’ he
sulks and I chuckle. Our biology exams were last week and I have a psychology
one next week but Jay still has a whole line up of them.

I instruct
him to get better soon and make my way down to school. I slide into my usual
seat in Biology and get out my phone to find I have a text from Blake.

Congrats again, how about a celebratory
picnic after school?

I raise an
eyebrow and text back.
A picnic in
winter, are you crazy?

Hey, I’m trying to be romantic, here. Meet
you after school?

I laugh
out loud and tell him I’ll be waiting before putting my phone away as others
start filtering in and the lesson starts.

It’s then
that Mr Finnely announces that we will be working in partners for the lesson
and panic floods through me. My partner isn’t here.

I swear
Jay has a gift for bad timing.

Hopefully,
if I’m very lucky, every other person will have a partner so I’ll get to work
on my own and I try desperately to sink into the shadows. When Mr Finnely asks
who doesn’t have one I try and duck down even further without actually falling
off my stool.

‘Cassie
left me,’ Noah Presley groans, raising her hand. ‘Can I join a group with
Stacia and Mike?’

Mr Finnely
takes a quick scope of the classroom, his eyes finally landing on me and I
groan inwardly.

‘Noah, you
can join up with Neve,’ he announces, and a few people snicker at the sound of
my name. Noah herself looks a bit disappointed at not being partnered with her
friends but not particularly bothered about being stuck with the school weirdo
and moves her stuff over to my table without fuss.

Mr Finnely
gives us our assignments and a ball of play-dough each, instructing us to
create models of DNA to start us off. The teachers think this sort of thing
will make lessons more fun.

Now, I
shall clarify this once, Noah Presley is definitely a girl, despite her name,
for which she despises her parents endlessly. Her parents are very religious
yet slightly crazy arty types and you can imagine what their favourite story
from the bible is. Noah used to complain about the fact that her bedroom when
she was younger had pairs of animals walking two-by-two across her room, and
has never appreciated the reference.
 

Noah is
insanely pretty, with olive skin, cascades of dark hair falling down her back
and soft, round, hazel eyes. She’s one of the smartest people in our year too
and she’s in my art class. Noah also has to be one of the most popular girls in
school because everyone just seems to fall in love with her.

Except Kai
and her group, the actual
Populars
of
the year.

Noah isn’t
popular just for her looks, but because she is actually nice to everyone.
Everyone except the Populars of course.

‘How much
of this do you think we will actually need to make this thing?’ she muses,
holding up the blue lump of play-dough. I shrug.

‘Depends
how big the structure is, I guess,’ I say in a quite voice. Her eyes light up
mischievously and she pulls off a bit, rolling it into a ball and then
positioning it on the table. In one perfect flick, she sends the ball flying
into the back of her friend Mike’s head.

I have to
say, a shot like that from this distance is rather impressive.

Mike turns
to scowl at her, giving her the finger when Mr Finnely isn’t looking and she
just laughs and blows him a kiss before turning back to me.

‘That was
fun,’ she says, taking off a bigger lump this time and actually morphing it
into what we are supposed to. I follow her lead and take a piece off for
myself, the odd surface of the dough feeling odd between my fingers.

‘So,’ she
asks after a bit of silence. ‘What’s the scoop with you and Jay? He’s cute,
huh?’

I shift
uncomfortably in my seat, reminders of the anonymous text sending defensive
walls flying up.

‘Look,
about the text before Christmas, its not-’

Noah makes
a face of disgust and waves off my sentence. ‘I’m not talking about whatever
was in
that
text, it was a sick joke
played by some low life. I want to know the
real
scoop,’ she winks. I blink at her.

Not only
did she ignore the text, but the person who had sent it also disgusts her. She
isn’t disgusted by me.

For some
reason, this makes me laugh, and my shoulders relax slightly.

‘There’s
nothing there, I’ll tell you that,’ I smirk. Disappointment fills her features.

‘Well
that’s a shame,’ she sighs. ‘You two make a cute couple. Still, this does mean
he’s on the market,’ Noah muses.

‘I’ll put
in a good reference for you,’ I grin.

Noah
laughs, picking apart another colour and using it to create some of the detail.
‘Thanks,’ then she frowns. ‘He’s getting to be a bit on the skinny side though,
don’t you think? Is he losing weight?’

Now it’s
my turn to frown.

‘Is he?’ I
ask, racking my brain backwards to the last time I saw him. From the image I
conjure up, I can’t see any difference at all. Noah nods, a look of concern on
her face, but then she waves away the idea and shrugs.