Vicky Angel (6 page)

“Did you see me fly all the way up?” she says. “Pretty cool, yeah?”

“Amazing.”

“Wish you could do it too?”

“You bet!”

“Well, it's easy. Just follow me.”

“What?”

“Open the door and leap out.”

“But I can't fly. I'd fall.”

“Sure, and
then
you'd fly, right?”

“You mean …
kill
myself?”

“It's no big deal, Jade, truly. Just one little leap. Then you'll be with me for ever. That's what you've always wanted, isn't it?”

“Yes, but—”

“Come on. I'll hold your hand and help you.”

“But I don't think I want to die. It's different for you. It was an accident.”

“Was it?” says Vicky, narrowing her eyes.

“Tickets, please!”

The ticket inspector opens the door of my carriage
and then stops, staring at me. I feel my face. I've got tears running down my cheeks. I sniff, swallow, hunt for my ticket.

“Are you all right?” he asks, though I'm obviously not.

I nod anyway. What else can I do? I can't tell him the truth. The men in white with the strait-jacket would be waiting for me at Waterloo Station.

“I wouldn't have the window wide open like that. You'll be blown away.” He shuts it tight. Then he clips my ticket and walks off, leaving me alone.

Vicky's gone.

I sit there, crying. I'm scared she might never come back now. Or maybe I'm scared that she will.

I don't know what I'm doing here on the train. I'll go straight back once we get to London. But when I creep out of the carriage at Waterloo, still weeping, Vicky's there on the platform. She runs to me and gives me a big shadowy hug.

“There you are! Oh, don't cry, you dope. I didn't mean it. I don't really want you to top yourself. You're not mad at me, are you?” She puts her weightless arm round me and tries to wipe my tears with the back of her hand.

“I'm not mad,” I say. A woman getting off the train gives me a startled glance. She clearly thinks I'm barking mad.

Vicky giggles.

“Come on, Jade, let's have a good time. We'll find our way, easy peasy. We'll get the tube, right?”

We go to Piccadilly Circus because we're both sure that's the middle of London. We wander arm in arm round the Trocadero and then we find a Ben and Jerry's. I've got enough cash for a double cone of Cherry Garcia, our all-time favorite. We once ate a whole giant tub together when I was sleeping over at Vicky's. She licks at my cone appreciatively.

“Can you taste it?”

“Sort of. Well, I get the flavor.”

“But can you eat properly now?”

“Don't think so. I don't need to go to the loo either.” Vicky gives a twirl. “I am a truly ethereal being now, with no gross bodily needs whatsoever.” She giggles. “I don't know, though. I might try swooping up to Mr. Lorrimer and giving him a quick kiss just to see what it feels like.”

We wander up Regent Street and spot Hamleys.

“Remember when we went there that Christmas—when we were five? Six? We both got Barbie dolls. I called mine Barbara Ann.”

“And mine was Barbara Ella! I
loved
her. Only remember you made us play hairdressers? You said it would be great to give our Barbies short hair.”

“Oh yeah! And yours ended up with the Sinead O'Connor haircut. I thought she looked seriously cool.”

“I didn't. And it wasn't fair, you didn't cut
your
Barbie's hair after all.” I can still feel cross about it. Barbara Ella looked scarily ugly with her bright pink scalp inadequately dotted with gold stubble. I'd crocheted her a little cap but I could never feel the same about her. Vicky seemed to do nothing but comb Barbara Ann's long lavish curls.

“You're not
still
huffy about it, are you?” says Vicky. “Tell you what, I'll make amends. Whip your pencil case out.”

“What?”

“You've got scissors in there, haven't you?”

“You can't cut the dolls' hair in Hamleys!”

“I'm not going to, you nut. Get the scissors out. Now, cut
my
hair.”

“No!”

“Go on, get your own back. Cut it all off. It's OK, I've always wanted to see what I'd look like with really short hair.”

“I can't. Your hair's beautiful. You know I've always longed to have hair like yours instead of my old rats' tails.” I gesture with the scissors at my own hair. Two Japanese tourists stare at me in alarm as if I'm about to commit a British version of hara-kiri.

“You snip some of yours off too,” says Vicky, her eyes gleaming.

I know that gleam all too well. I don't want her to trick me again. And there are more people staring anxiously at the scissors.

“I'm putting them away,” I say, shoving them back in my schoolbag.

“I'll get my own then,” says Vicky. She reaches out and takes a shining pair of scissors out of thin air, as if she was just passing the haberdashery section in the Other Side Department Store. They flash as she flicks her hair forward and—

“No! Don't! Stop it!”

A woman jumps, and another clutches her bag protectively.

“Who is it? Has someone hurt you? What's the matter?”

I shake my head at them and dodge past. I can't think about them. I've got to stop Vicky. Her hair, her lovely long deep-red waves …

“You're crazy! Stop it!” I beg, but I've never been able to stop Vicky when she's got her mind set on something, and I've got even less control over her now.

She's screaming with laughter, hacking at huge hunks of her hair. Long shiny locks fall about her shoulders like feathers. Her scissors flash until she's got little clumps here and there sticking straight up from her scalp. She still looks beautiful—she's
Vicky
—but it's like some giant celestial sheep has been grazing on her head.

“What does it look like?”

“Vicky, you
nut
.”

“I want to see!” She peers in a big shop window. Peers in vain.

“Uh-oh. Ghosts don't have reflections!” she says, shivering. “I keep forgetting how weird it is being the Undead. Just don't get any big ideas about putting a stake through my heart, Jade.”

“That's vampires, not ghosts.”

“Vampires are kind of ghosts, aren't they? Hey, I've always fancied myself as a vampire.” She bares her teeth and pretends to bite my neck. “Shall I grow my teeth?”

“I think you'd better concentrate on growing your
hair
.”

“No problem,” says Vicky. She shakes her poor hairless head and suddenly her own beautiful auburn locks are flowing back over her shoulders and tumbling about her face.

“Wow! How did you
do
that?”

“I don't know! I just sort of imagined it back. Like when we were little and played fairies and witches and all that stupid stuff. You used to get so carried away, Jade. Remember that time I put a spell on you to say you couldn't move and you
couldn't
move, not even when your mum got really cross with you and gave you a shove.”

“I hope my mum doesn't find out we've bunked off school.”

“She won't know, will she? Stop worrying! Come on, let's go into Hamleys.”

So we play games with all the teddies and check out the new Barbies and it's just like we're six years old all over again. Then we go up to
Oxford Street and spend ages in Top Shop and this time we're more like sixteen, choosing some really sexy stuff to try on in the changing rooms.

I look a bit of an idiot in all the low-cut tightly fitting tops because my chest is still as flat as a boy's but they look really great on Vicky. She doesn't exactly try them on. She just says, “Shall I see what they look like on me?” and then there they are,
on
her.

“What happens to your other clothes? Are they crumpled up in a corner in space only I can't see them?”

“They're not there anymore because I'm not concentrating on them being there,” says Vicky. “It's all down to me.” She smiles proudly.

“Yes, but how does it
work
?”

“Search me,” says Vicky, shrugging. “You know I'm hopeless at science. Maybe you could have a little chat with Miss Robson?”

She takes us for science and she's OK, I suppose. I like some of the stuff she tells us about space. I like the way her own eyes shine like stars when she talks about it. But when she gets on to the big bang theory and black holes my brain goes bang and implodes into a black hole and I haven't got a clue what she's on about. Besides, I can't really explain to her why I need to know all this stuff about other dimensions. If I start mumbling about ghosts she'll hand me over to Mrs. Dewhurst, sharpish.

Mrs. Dewhurst takes us for religious instruction.
I ponder talking to Mrs. D. She's not young and hip like Miss Robson. She's old and she wears Evans Outsize and she stuffs her fat little feet into dinky court shoes but she can't keep them on so she has elastic over the front like little kids have on their slippers. Mrs. Dewhurst has less of a grip on life after death than her shoes have on her feet. She never gives you a straight answer. It's always, “Some people believe,” and, “Of course other people think it's a beautiful myth.” She's quite clued up about worldwide religions but Vicky's not a Hindu or a Buddhist so she's unlikely to follow their teachings.

“I'm not following
anyone's
teachings,” she says. “I'm a law unto myself.”

“You always have been,” I say fondly. “How come you knew I was thinking that? Can you read my thoughts?”

“Sure,” says Vicky. “I always could.”

That's true. We've always been so close it was like we had our own secret corridor in and out of each other's head.

“So what am
I
thinking?” says Vicky, trying on an even sexier black lace see-through top with the tightest black satin jeans that show the outline of absolutely everything.

I look at her.

“You're thinking ‘Great funeral outfit!’” I say.

We both burst out laughing.

T
he funeral.

The funeral.

The funeral.

Oh God. I don't feel like laughing now. I don't know how I'm going to get through it.

I close my eyes tight and burrow down under the duvet.

“No! Hey, come on, sleepyhead!” Vicky plucks at my covers, pulls my hair, tickles my neck. She's lighter than a cobweb now but it's hopeless trying to ignore her.

“Go away!”

“Don't say that. Think how you'd feel if I really did,” she says. “Aha! That made you wake up, eh! Come on, you want to look good for today, don't you? My big day!”

“Oh, Vicky, I'm dreading it.”

“I'm looking forward to it no end. I hope it's
huge, with masses of flowers and lots of weeping and everyone saying I'm wonderful.”

“You're the vainest girl I know. Honestly. Get off the bed then and let me up.”

Mum suddenly barges into my bedroom with a breakfast tray. She's staring at me.

“Jade? Who were you speaking to?”

“I wasn't speaking to anyone.”

“I could hear you from the kitchen.”

“Well, I don't know. Maybe I was dreaming. You know, talking in my sleep.”

Mum puts the breakfast tray in front of me and then sits down on the end of the bed, rather pink in the face. Vicky sits primly beside her, giving her little nudges every now and then.

“Jade, I heard you. You were talking to … Vicky,” Mum says, not looking me in the eyes.

“I must have been dreaming about her.”

“Fibber!” says Vicky.

“I know this is really dreadful for you, love. But maybe once the funeral is over and … and Vicky's at peace—”

“Peace? I'm not going to rest in peace! I'm going to
h-a-u-n-t
everyone!” says Vicky, shoving the sheet over her head and acting like a cartoon ghost. She looks so funny I can't help laughing.

Mum looks bewildered. Can she see the sheet moving? I bend my head over my breakfast, sniffing, so she'll think I'm sobbing instead.

“I wish I knew what to say to you,” she says.
“Anyway. Get that breakfast down. The muesli too. You need something solid in your tummy to see you through the morning.”

The funeral's at eleven. Mum's coming too. And Dad! He's only had a couple of hours' sleep. He looks gray and his hair is sticking up oddly from the way he lay on the pillow, but he insists.

“I've known little Vicky since she was that big,” he says, hand out by his knees. “Of course I'm going to her funeral.”

Dad has always liked Vicky. He's seemed specially fond of her since she got older. Mum's got a lot less fond. In fact the last year she's done nothing but nag me about Vicky, telling me it was time I branched out and made some new friends. She acted like she thought it was a bit too weird to be so close to a best friend.

Mum doesn't really have any real best friends. She chats to the women in our housing development and she had a spell of going line dancing with a crowd from work but that's all. Mum gets on with men much better than with women. I've seen her chatting away, having a little flirt here and there. It's not serious or anything. Well, I don't think it is.

My head's cluttered up with boring daft stuff about my mum and my dad because it's too awful to think about the funeral. Vicky's gone quiet too. She's barely there, in a corner, just standing still and looking round my bedroom, examining some of the little-girly stuff still littering my display
shelves: my teddies and my little plastic Belle and Cinderella and Ariel and a handful of Dalmatian puppies and poor Baldy Barbara Ella. There are all my old
Flower Fairy
books too. We used to dress up in two old ballet dresses with silk scarves for floppy wings and pretend to be Flower Fairies ourselves, pointing our toes and flapping our scarves.