Phoebe Finds Her Voice (9 page)

“So come on then, who are you?” Mum said, the next morning at breakfast. “I meant to ask you yesterday when you got back from Ellie's.”

“I'm just Lolly – one of the Sweet-Dreamers. I told you I would be. Ellie's a Sweet-Dreamer as well, she's Fizz-Wiz, but Sam got one of the biggest parts, she's Ice Bomb.”

“What exactly is a Sweet-Dreamer?”

“Oh, they make everyone's
sweet
dreams,” said Sara, butting in. “But then there are the Jelly-Skulls, yeah? They turn the sweet dreams into—”

I put my hand over her mouth. Whose show was it, for goodness' sake? “Anyway I've got to sing a solo, which is like the biggest joke, so I don't even know if I'm going to carry on.”

“Talking about big jokes,” mumbled Sara, sinking her teeth into my hand. “The biggest joke is you putting gel on your hair to impress your boyfriend. And don't deny it because you know it's true.”

She was going to have to go, my little sister – and quick!

I spent most of the day up in my room trying to learn my lines, but it was really difficult to concentrate. Every time I thought about singing my solo, my palms got sweaty, and the words on the script started to swim about in front of my eyes. It's like part of me was thinking I
would
be able to do it and everything would be fine, but part of me was convinced I'd collapse in a heap or die if I even
tried
to sing in front of the others.

If only I was more like my character, Lolly, I'd have the guts to sing my solo
and
stand up to Polly Carter. Lolly's easily the bravest Sweet-Dreamer in the whole show. Even though she's dead scared of Gobstopper, she finds out what he's up to, reports him to the dream-police and helps Sabine escape from the factory. Just imagine if there really was such a thing as the dream-police, it would be brilliant. I'd be able to phone them up, report Polly for bullying, and get rid of her for good.

On Wednesday when I came out of school, Dad was there to meet me. He was wearing a white T-shirt with
Life
written across the front, the oldest, scruffiest pair of jeans I've ever seen and his awful brown sandals. He looked as if he'd just come back from a music festival or something. I tried to get him away as fast as I could before anyone else came out and saw him.

“I'm pleased I caught you, Phoebe,” he said. “I missed you on Saturday and there was something I wanted to talk to you about.”

I turned round to make sure no one was coming up behind us, but the coast was clear.

“How was school?” he asked, as we started to walk home.

“Okay, I guess. What did you want to talk about?” I wondered if it was something to do with Mum, or if he'd finally managed to get a new job.

“Well you know how Miss Howell has been asking parents to come in and talk about their professions or hobbies to the class, erm…if they're unusual or a bit different? Well…I've been thinking it might…”

I stopped dead and looked at him in horror. “Oh no, Dad, please don't say what I think you're going to say.”

“It's just I thought it might be nice if I came in to your class and gave a talk about the
Life
centre and the sorts of things we do there.”

“But Dad!” I grabbed his arm. “You can't. I'll die! Don't you care about me at all? You can't come in to my class and talk about spiritual journeys and stuff like that. I mean you only joined the stupid group so that you wouldn't have to spend any time with me on Saturdays.”

Dad swung me round to face him. He looked really upset, but I didn't care. “Come on, Phoebe, you know that's not true. You mean everything to me, you and Sara.”

“
But Dad!
”

My hands were trembling. I wanted to grab hold of him and shake him hard till he realized what a nightmare this was.

The whole
Life
thing started when we went on holiday to Cornwall, a few months after Dad lost his job. We were down at the beach on the first day and Dad got talking to this man called Spirit who was out walking his dog. Spirit was a member of
Life
and he told my dad that if he learned how to look
inwards
or something then he'd be able to transform
his
life. They ended up in the pub, sitting there for hours talking and drinking coffee, their heads bent close together. I remember Mum kept trying to get Dad to come back down to the beach and spend some time with us, but he didn't want to.

On the last day of the holiday I found this incredible shell. It was really smooth and it had a sort of shiny, rainbow-coloured fossil embedded in it. Before I went to bed that night I left the shell on my dad's pillow but I don't think he even noticed it. When I went into their room the next morning it was shoved under the bed and he never said thank you or mentioned it or anything. It was as if he could only see Spirit and the rest of us had become invisible.

As soon as we got back from the holiday Dad joined a
Life
centre near us and bit by bit he started to change. He began to wear different clothes for a start – tie-dyed T-shirts and those horrid, brown sandals, and then a few months after that he became a vegetarian. He even tried to get rid of the TV because according to him it was “quenching our creativity”.

Then one morning he came into the kitchen while Mum was making us breakfast and said, “Maxine, my love, I can see your aura and it's very dull. Please, Max, you need to let go of your negativity. Just take a deep breath and watch it float away.”

Mum, who was holding an empty saucepan at the time, took a
really
deep breath, bashed the saucepan on his head
really
hard and stormed out of the room.

A few days later, well nineteen to be precise, they broke up. He moved into his flat on the other side of town and that was the end of that. I've still got the shell though, from the holiday. I sleep with it under my pillow every night.

I looked at Dad now. He was staring down at the pavement and I could see this little talk wasn't going the way he thought it would.

“What are you going to say anyway?” I muttered. “‘Hi, everyone. My name is Eagle Dust and I'm on a journey?' I'm not going in that day; I swear I'm not. And you can't make me.”

“Come on, Phoebe, it's not that bad is it? It might be quite interesting. I could talk to your class about meditating and about how everyone is surrounded by their own special aura.” He started to get excited; his voice growing louder by the second. “I could even talk to them about past-life experiences and hands-on healing.”

Hands-on what?
Sometimes I wondered if aliens didn't come down to Earth one day and beam my pretty ordinary sort of a dad up into their spaceship to reprogram his brain. Maybe he was just part of some weird outer-space experiment.

Suddenly I heard sniggering from behind us. I whipped round and there was Polly Carter with her stupid friends gazing at Dad as if he did come from a different planet and I could feel myself start to burn up. I pulled Dad away from them and we walked home in silence. What would I say anyway?
Thanks for humiliating me in front of my arch-enemy – good one, Dad.
I was so angry I could feel my hands itching to punch him.

“You know, you shouldn't care what everyone else thinks, Phoebs,” he said suddenly, as if he could see right inside my head.

“That's easy for you to say,” I whispered, clenching and unclenching my fists. “And anyway, why did you join your stupid group in the first place?”

Dad didn't say anything for ages. I wasn't even sure he'd heard me or that I'd actually said it out loud. But then halfway down our road, he stopped walking and turned me to face him again, bending down so that our faces were practically touching. I squirmed away, embarrassed. I didn't know what he was going to say but whatever it was I didn't want to hear it. My stomach was in knots and I wished I'd kept my mouth shut.

He pulled me back towards him and I could feel his hands digging into my arms.

“I
had
to join the group, Phoebs,” he said. “I
had
to join because the centre was the only place where I didn't feel I was going mad; the only place where I could make sense of things. The
Life
group literally saved
my
life.”

I didn't know what he was on about. When I was younger he used to say
we
were his life, me and Sara; that he couldn't live without
us
– but as soon as he started going to the centre it was like we didn't even matter any more.

“Look, Phoebe, I know it's difficult for you to understand at your age but when I lost my job at the nursery it was like something inside me died. That job was part of me. It was who I was. When they took it away I didn't know what I was going to do. Your mum didn't understand – she thought I could just go out and get another job in a factory or a shop, but it wasn't as simple as that; my work at the nursery was special. When I turned up for interviews, dressed in a suit, trying to be something I wasn't, I didn't feel right. I felt like a fish out of water. Do you know what I mean?”

I nodded. I did know what he meant. It was just how I'd felt ever since I started at Woodville. Like a fish out of water. I wanted to go back to my old pond at Merryhill Primary more than anything.

“Do you think you'll ever come home?” I said, tears pricking at the corners of my eyes.

He stared at me for the longest time. He looked so sad and I knew what he was going to say.

“Do you?” I whispered.

He shook his head.

I yanked my arms away from him and tore down the road, straight past Mrs. Bolton who gave me one of her stupid interfering looks. I banged on the front door over and over until my hands hurt and when Mum let me in I pushed past her and ran upstairs to my room.

I felt awful the next morning; about Dad
and
about Polly Carter and her manky mates overhearing him outside school. Dad actually called to say he wouldn't come in and talk to my class after all – not if it was going to upset me, and even though I was relieved I couldn't help feeling bad, like I should've had the guts to stand up to Polly Carter – and not feel so ashamed of my own dad.

The week dragged by. I learned my lines and practised my solo and tried my best to stay out of Polly's way. Eating breakfast the following Saturday, I thought about all the things I
could've
said when I saw them standing there like that, sniggering and pointing. I bet Neesha would've thought of something in a second if someone was laughing at
her d
ad. She's always got something quick and funny to say – but my brain just doesn't seem to work that fast. Maybe I could get her to give me some special,
Put Down Polly Carter
lessons or something?

“What on earth are you thinking about, Phoebe?” said Mum. “You've been staring at that bacon roll for ages with a very strange expression on your face. Hurry up and finish, will you, I want you by the front door and ready to go to drama when your dad gets here. Oh, and Gran's coming over later so tell him he needs to bring you straight home.”

I wanted to say, “Tell him yourself,” but Mum and Dad were barely speaking these days.

Walking up the stairs into the hall, Polly was just ahead of me when she called out over her shoulder, “I hear your dad's going to buy you your own special aura for Christmas, Phoebe,” and then burst out laughing, clutching hold of the banister as if she was in danger of falling down. I could feel myself shrivel up inside as I tried to think of something to say back,
anything
, but just then Tara came over and grabbed my arm.

“Thank goodness you're here, Phoebe!” she cried, pulling me into the hall. “You've got to test me on Act One – I've been practising all week but for some reason I still seem to be getting my lines mixed up.”