exhibit in the Chelsea Flower Show. Which means he hates Houdini. And you know the crazy thing? Houdini loves Rev Cootes. I’ve told Houdini about my theory that Rev Cootes is an axe-murderer or a child-abductor, but Houdini doesn’t listen, he just goes up to him and head-butts his shins and tries to nuzzle his hand. It’s properly weird.
I turn to go but before I do, I look past Rev Cootes into the vicarage. There’s someone standing behind him. I see a shimmer of short blond hair under the hall lamp.
The regional swim heats are coming up soon and what with Mum being in a coma and all the plans I’ve been making to get her healthy, I neglected my training. Swimming hasn’t seemed very important next to keeping Mum alive. But I know I shouldn’t throw away all the work I’ve put into making the team and I’ve got this secret hope that if I make it to the regionals, Mum will be so proud of me that she’ll come and watch. I think she’d be proud of how fast I’ve got with my butterfly. But whenever I talk about swimming, she goes quiet and then she changes the subject.
Steph’s my swim coach and she and Jake come along to support me at all my races, which makes up a bit for Mum not being there. I know Steph will be waiting for me this morning, but I take the long way to her house because I want to drop off some notes in the shops on Willingdon Green.
The notes read:
Feather Tucker
Looking for work as a part-time Sales Assistant.
Hard-working. Shows initiative. Good at counting.
Salary negotiable.
Mobile: 07598 223456
If I’m going to save up for Mum’s gastric band and her personal trainer, I’m going to have to start earning some serious money.
When I get to Bewitched, Mrs Zas is kneeling in her front window with a pile of clothes and three naked mannequins. She’s puffing on an electric cigarette and between the puffs she’s humming. Her door sign is flipped to OPEN, which is weird – I can’t imagine anyone wanting to rent a fancy-dress costume at six in the morning. Anyway, I decide it can’t hurt to pop in.
‘Good to see you, Feather,’ Mrs Zas says. She puts down her cigarette and pulls a nun outfit over the plastic boobs of one of her mannequins.
Mrs Zas is wearing a black headscarf and a hoopy gold earring and a pirate outfit, which she’s kind of bursting out of. She’s in bare feet, her clogs tossed behind her.
I hand her one of my leaflets. She takes her purple-rimmed plastic glasses off from the top of her head and peers at my note.
‘I thought you might need some help,’ I explain.
People come from all over to rent Mrs Zas’s fancy dress costumes, plus she has a big rack of ballroom dancing outfits that people use for The Willingdon Waltz competition. And she never seems to have anyone else working in the shop.
Mrs Zas gets up and slips into her heels. ‘I’ll give it some thought.’
‘When do you think you’ll know?’
Mrs Zas raises her eyebrows. ‘You’re – what do they call it in England? Dogged?’
I’m not sure it’s a compliment so I don’t answer.
‘I like it,’ she says, and smiles. ‘You need to take life by the throat.’ She puts her fingers around the neck of a mannequin and shakes it dramatically to make the point. She drops her hands from the mannequin and smiles with her big, red lipsticked mouth. ‘I’ll give it some thought, Feather.’ She taps a bit of forehead through her headscarf.
I wonder why she always wears headscarves – and what her hair’s like underneath. I can picture it being really long and black and shiny, like a witch’s.
‘If you do think of something, I’m afraid I’ll have to be paid,’ I say. I know it’s a bit rude but the whole point of getting a job is earning money and, despite the shop being busy a lot of the time, Mrs Zas always looks strapped for cash. I mean, otherwise she’d buy her own clothes, right?
Mrs Zas nods. ‘Of course.’
I sometimes wonder why, of all the villages in England, Mrs Zas ended up in Willingdon, the place where nothing ever happens. And from all the evidence I’ve seen, she lives alone, which must get pretty lonely. So maybe it will be nice having me around.
‘Thank you for considering giving me a job.’
I head to the door.
Mrs Zas smiles and nods, goes back to putting a Frankenstein’s monster outfit on the mannequin she throttled and starts humming again, mumbling a few words between her hums: turn… turn… turn…
By the time I get to Jake’s house, he and Steph are already by the car. I want to hug them both. They feel more like family than Mum and Dad right now. Jake says he likes being an only child but I wish I had brothers and sisters. It gets lonely being stuck between Mum and Dad. I mean, I love them, but I wish that there were someone to share stuff with, especially the bad stuff. I once asked Mum why she didn’t have any more kids and she went quiet and then she kissed me and gave me one of her big, warm hugs and said: I have my Feather – and she’s worth a million children – which I didn’t think was a proper answer, but it made me feel good anyway.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ I say.
I’m late for most things. By my reasoning, late people get more out of life because they squeeze extra things in. Anyway, Steph usually has a go at me, because she’s an on-time kind of person, but this time she just gives me a hug. I know she feels sorry for me after everything that’s happened with Mum. I think I’d rather have been told off.
‘Ready to beat your PB?’ Jake asks. He’s Steph’s assistant coach and my timekeeper.
‘I’ll try,’ I say. I’m going to do this for Mum.
I jump into the back.
It was through Steph that I got into swimming. When Mum and Dad were busy with the plumbing business, she’d take Jake and me to the pool on Saturday mornings and she got so into it that she did a coaching qualification and started coaching the Newton team. Jake and I would come and watch her training the older children and then, one summer, Mum and I spent weeks doing nothing but watching the Olympics on TV and, when I saw those amazing swimmers doing butterfly stroke, I knew that I wanted to swim like them. So I asked Steph if I could try out for the team.
They’re holding the Junior UK Championships at the Newton pool this summer and if I make it through the regionals, I’ll be there competing with the best Junior Fly swimmers in the UK.
‘Go! Go! Go!’ I hear Jake’s voice above me as I turn and kick off the end of the pool. ‘Faster!’
My arms and legs feel like they’re pinned to the bottom of the pool by lead weights. If I’m going to make it through the regional heats in March, I’ll have to get a whole lot faster.
‘Focus!’ Steph yells as I push my arms over my head. ‘Arms out… kick harder…’
Usually, swimming’s the only thing guaranteed to get me out of my head. As I pull myself in and out of the water and propel my arms over my head and feel the rush of water along my body, my breath syncs into some weird energy and I disappear into another place, a place where it’s just me and the water. And the more I let myself go to that somewhere place, the better I swim. It’s the best feeling in the world.
But today, all I can think about is Mum.
When I finish, I can tell from Jake’s face that I’m closer to my Personal Worst than my Personal Best. I don’t even ask him to give me my time.
In the changing room, I turn to Steph.
‘What did you and Mum fight about? At Christmas, I mean?’
As usual, she