Clean Break Read online

  ‘Yes. Well. My stepdad,’ I said.

  Yvonne rolled her eyes. ‘Uh-oh. I’ve got a stepdad. I can’t stick him.’

  ‘Well, my dad’s lovely,’ I said quickly.

  ‘What a cool thing for your dad to do,’ said Jenny, gently throwing the fairy in the air and then catching her. ‘Look, she can fly!’

  ‘You can have her if you want,’ I said.

  ‘What, just to play with for today?’

  ‘No, to keep.’

  ‘Oh Emily! Really? How wonderful!’

  ‘You lucky thing,’ said Yvonne enviously.

  ‘You can have one too,’ I said, digging in my school bag.

  I didn’t particularly want to give a fairy to Yvonne. I liked Jenny much more, but I couldn’t really leave Yvonne out.

  ‘Oh wow! Thanks. She can be my lucky mascot,’ said Yvonne.

  ‘Em, have you ever read any of Jenna Williams’s books?’ Jenny asked, floating her fairy through the air.

  ‘Like she’s my favourite writer ever,’ I said.

  ‘Have you read At the Stroke of Twelve? These fairies are just like the ones Lily makes in that book.’

  ‘I know, that’s why I like them too,’ I said. I thought quickly. ‘So, what’s your favourite Jenna Williams book, Jenny?’

  We had this wonderful long conversation about books while Yvonne sighed a bit and did cartwheels round us and told us were both boring-boring-boring old bookworms. But she was just having a little tease, she wasn’t really being nasty. She kept interrupting to ask about my dad and what it was like to be the daughter – well, stepdaughter – of someone famous.

  Dad wasn’t really famous. He’d just had a few small parts on television and appeared in a couple of adverts. He hadn’t had his big break yet. Still, I happily showed off about him even so.

  I wondered if they’d take any notice of me the next day. I hung back a bit at play time, my heart thumping. I so badly wanted to be friends but I was scared they’d feel I was muscling in. But it was all right! It was more than all right, it was wonderful! Jenny had brought her favourite Jenna Williams book Forever Friends to school with her. I hadn’t read it because it wasn’t out in paperback yet.

  ‘I thought you might like to borrow it, Emily,’ Jenny said. ‘Come and sit on the wall with Yvonne and me.’

  We were all best friends after that. I knew that Yvonne was still Jenny’s best ever friend, but I was their second-best friend and that was still great.

  They both seemed pleased to see me on the first day of term. Jenny told us all about her Christmas at her auntie’s house and how her twelve-year-old cousin Mark had kissed her under the mistletoe and all her family wolf-whistled and Jenny just about died of embarrassment. Yvonne said she’d had two Christmases, one on the 25th when she’d stayed at home with her mum and her stepdad and her sisters and they’d had turkey and presents and watched DVDs, and then another on the 26th when she’d gone to her dad and his girlfriend and their new baby and they’d had turkey and presents and watched DVDs. It was the same DVD too.

  Then they looked at me.

  ‘It started off the best Christmas ever,’ I said. ‘Dad gave me an emerald ring, a real emerald ring, honest.’

  ‘Oh wow! Your dad’s so amazing, like the coolest dad ever,’ said Yvonne. ‘Let’s see it then, Em!’

  ‘I’m not allowed to wear it to school, of course, but you can maybe come to my house sometime soon and see it. And he bought Vita this wonderful reindeer puppet and Maxie a huge set of felt pens and Mum some silver sandals and Gran some designer jeans.’

  ‘He bought your gran jeans?’ said Jenny, and started giggling. ‘I can’t imagine my nan in jeans. Still, your gran’s ever so slim.’

  ‘I know. It’s not fair. So’s my mum. I just get fatter and fatter,’ I said, pinching my big tummy.

  ‘No, you don’t,’ Jenny lied kindly. ‘You’re not really fat, you’re just sort of comfortable.’

  I wriggled. I didn’t feel comfortable. They were my friends. I had to tell them.

  ‘But then it all went wrong,’ I said. ‘There was this row. Then my dad . . .’

  I suddenly found tears spurting down my face. I put my head in my hands, scared they’d call me a baby. But Jenny put her arm round me and Yvonne put her arm round me the other side.

  ‘Don’t cry, Em,’ said Jenny. ‘My mum and auntie had a row over visiting my great-grandma in her nursing home, and my dad and my uncle drank too much beer and wouldn’t get up to go for a walk on Boxing Day and Mum got mad at Dad. All families have rows at Christmas.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s right, Em. My mum found out my dad let one of my sisters have a glass of wine at his house and she just about went bananas,’ said Yvonne. ‘My mum and dad always have rows at Christmas even though they aren’t a family any more.’

  ‘I don’t think we’re a family either,’ I said. ‘My dad’s got this girlfriend. He walked out to be with her and he hasn’t come back.’

  I started howling. Jenny pressed closer, her cheek against mine. Yvonne found me a tissue and slipped it into my hand.

  ‘What’s up with Fatty?’ someone asked, passing by in the playground.

  ‘Don’t call Em stupid names,’ Jenny said fiercely.

  ‘Yeah, just mind your own business,’ said Yvonne.

  They bunched up beside me protectively.

  ‘Take no notice, Em,’ said Jenny.

  ‘You won’t tell anyone?’ I wept.

  ‘It’s nothing to get worried about. Heaps and heaps of families split up. Your mum and dad still love you, that’s what matters,’ Yvonne gabbled, like it was a nursery rhyme she’d known since she was little. Then she paused. ‘But we won’t tell, promise.’

  They treated me with extra care and gentleness all day, as if I was an invalid. I got to choose which games we played, I got to share Jenny’s lunchbreak banana and Yvonne’s box of raisins, I got first go on the classroom computer and the best paintbrush, and when we had to divide up into twos in drama Jenny and Yvonne insisted we had to be a three.

  They were so kind I found I was almost enjoying myself, though I still had an empty ache in my stomach all the time. It got worse during afternoon school. I started to worry about telling Jenny and Yvonne. It had made it seem too real. Maybe if I’d kept quiet it would all magically come right. Mum hadn’t told anyone. Violet at the Rainbow Salon had tried her hardest to get her to talk, I knew, but Mum hadn’t said a word.

  I didn’t seem able to keep quiet at all. If I’d only held my tongue when I heard Dad whispering on his mobile to Sarah, then none of this might have happened.

  I thought of Dad, Dad, Dad. The ache in my stomach got worse. I hunched up, clutching my front.

  ‘What’s the matter, Emily?’ said Mrs Marks, our teacher.

  ‘Nothing, Mrs Marks,’ I mumbled.

  ‘Well, sit up straight then. And don’t look so tragic, dear. I know you find maths difficult, but there’s no need to act as if you’re being tortured.’

  Most of the class laughed at me. Jenny and Yvonne gave me sad comforting looks, raising their eyebrows at Mrs Marks’s attitude. Jenny passed me a hastily scribbled note: Take no notice of mad old Marks-and-Spencer, you know what she’s like. Love J xxx.

  The ache didn’t go away though. I kept thinking of Dad looking so sad when I wouldn’t kiss him goodbye. I tried to remember that he’d done the bad thing by leaving us. He’d inflicted that horrible Sarah on us and she’d made it plain she couldn’t stick us. Dad didn’t seem to care. If he just wanted to be with her then why should we be nice to him?

  I knew why. We loved him so.

  ‘I love you, Dad,’ I whispered. ‘Come back. Please please please come back. I’ll do anything if you come back. I’ll never ever be mean to you again. I don’t care what you’ve done. I just need to see you. We all need you so. I promise I’ll always be good, I’ll never ever moan about anything. Please just come back.’

  The ache got worse and worse. I started to be