yourself is more important than being honest with others. So, here are my first three things to share with you (they are all true):
1. I’m almost ten.
2. I don’t have any friends.
3. My parents don’t love me.
The thing about the truth is that it sucks.
My nana died of cancer. We moved in with her when she got sick, but it didn’t make her better. She was sixty-two, which sounds old, but Mum said it was actually quite young to die. I used to spend a lot of time with Nana, she always took me to cool places and listened to me. She never had a lot of money, but she gave me this diary last Christmas. She thought writing down how I felt might help me deal with things. Nearly a whole year has gone by and I didn’t listen, but now I wish I had. I wish I had written down all the things she used to say, because I’ve already started to forget them.
I think my parents used to love me, but I disappointed them so often that the love got rubbed out. They don’t even love each other, they argue and shout at each other all the time. They argue about lots of things, but mostly about all the money that we don’t have. They also argue about me. They were so loud once that one of our old neighbours called the police. Mum said it was all very embarrassing and, when the police left, they argued even more because of that. We don’t live there now, so Mum says it doesn’t matter any more and that people should mind their own business. She said it would be a ‘fresh start’ when we moved here and, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice to make some new friends?’ She hadn’t noticed that I didn’t have any old ones.
I used to make friends whenever we moved to a new place, but I always felt really sad when I had to say goodbye. I don’t bother now. I don’t need friends anyway. When people ask if I’d like to come to their birthday parties, I just say no thank you and that I’m not allowed, even though I would be. I don’t even show Mum the invites, I just put them in the bin. The problem with going to other people’s houses is that then they want to visit yours. Nana always said that books made better friends than people anyway. Books will take you anywhere if you let them, she used to say, and I think she was right.
After Nana died, Mum said we would redecorate but we haven’t. I sleep in Nana’s room in the bed where she went to sleep one day and never woke up. Mum said I could get a new bed, but I don’t want to, not yet. Sometimes I think I can still smell her, which is silly because the sheets have been washed loads and they’re not even the same ones. There are two beds in my room. The other one was Grandad’s, but he didn’t die there, he died in a home that wasn’t his.
I can’t hear anything which means they’ve stopped arguing, for now. What happens next is that Dad will open a bottle of red wine and pour himself a large glass. Meanwhile, Mum will take something out of the freezer for dinner and make herself a drink that looks like water but isn’t. I’m never going to drink alcohol when I grow up, I don’t like what it does to people. We’ll eat our microwaved lasagne in silence for a while, before one of them remembers to ask about my first day. I’ll tell them it was fine, talk a little bit about the teachers and my classes and they’ll pretend to listen. As soon as Dad has finished eating, he’ll take what’s left of the wine and go to his study. It used to be Nana’s sewing room. Dad renamed it but he doesn’t do any studying in there, he watches the little TV. Mum will wash up and I’ll sit in the lounge by myself watching the big TV until it’s time for bed. Then, at nine o’clock, Mum will tell me to go upstairs. She sets an alarm to remind herself to do this. Once I’m in bed and they think I’m asleep, they’ll start arguing again. Nana used to sing me a song to help me go to sleep when I was little. ‘The wheels on the bus go round and round.’ I didn’t used to like it, but now I sometimes hum it to myself to drown out the sound of Dad shouting and Mum crying. That’s pretty much my life. I told you it wasn’t as interesting as Anne Frank’s.
I can hear heavy rain, like a relentless army of tiny fingernails tapping on the window, trying to wake me from this bottomless sleep. When each angry drop fails to break the spell, I picture it turning into a tear and crying its way down the glass. I think it must be night, it’s quieter than before. I imagine being able to stand up, walk to the window and reach my hand into the outside, to feel the rain on my skin and look up at the night sky. I long for that and I wonder if I will ever see the stars again. We are all made of flesh and stars, but we all become dust in the end. Best to shine while you can.
I am alone, but I keep hearing Paul’s voice in my head. Hold on. I’m trying to, but things keep slipping from my grasp. I don’t understand why he and Claire were arguing, they’ve always got on so well. My sister is younger than me but has always been one step ahead. I’m told we do look alike, but she is blonde and beautiful and I’m more of a dark-haired disappointing cover artist. She was the new and improved daughter my parents always wanted, they thought she was perfect. So did I at first, but as soon as she arrived into our family, I was forgotten. They never knew her the way I did, they didn’t see what I saw.
I feel myself start to drift away. I fight it for as long as I am able, then, just as I’m about to surrender, the door opens.
I know it’s her.
Claire has always worn the same perfume as our mother; she is a creature of habit. And she always wears too much. I can also smell a subtle waft of her fabric-conditioned clothes as she slowly walks around the room. I expect she’s wearing something fitted and feminine, something far too small for me to squeeze into. I hear her kitten heels tap the floor and wonder what she is looking at. She takes her time. She is alone.
She pulls up a chair and sits down close to the bed, her turn to read to me in mute now. I hear pages being turned sporadically, she came prepared. I can imagine her manicured hands holding the book on her lap. I start to picture my room as a sterile library, and myself as a ghostly librarian who imposes a sentence of silence on all who enter: Shhh! Claire reads fast in real life, so when I don’t hear the pages turn too often, I know she’s just pretending. She’s good at that.
‘I wish our parents were here,’ she says.
I’m glad they’re not.
She wishes they were here for her, not for me. They’d probably think it was my fault, like always. I hear her put the book she’s been pretending to read down and come to stand a little closer. My thoughts get louder until I am forced to listen, but they rush around my head and collide with each other, so I can never stay on one thought long enough to make any sense of it. Claire’s face is so close to mine now that I can taste the coffee on her breath.
‘You still have glass in your hair,’ she whispers.
As soon as her words land in my ears, I feel myself being pulled back quickly. It’s like going through a very long dark tunnel, backwards. I find myself sitting on a high branch of a dead tree, I look down and notice I’m still wearing my hospital gown. I recognise the street beneath my feet, I live near here, I’m almost home. There’s a rumble of a storm in the distance and I can smell burning, but I’m not afraid. I reach out to touch the rain that has started falling, but my hand remains perfectly dry. Everything I see is the darkest shade of black, apart from a tiny light in the distance. I’m so happy to see it, until I realise that it isn’t a star, it’s a headlight. It’s joined by a twin. The wind picks up and I see a car coming down the road towards me, too fast. I look down at the street below and see a little girl wearing a pink, fluffy dressing gown in the middle of the road. She’s singing.
Twinkle twinkle little star . . .
She turns her head up towards me.
How I wonder who you are.
She’s got the words wrong.
Up above the world so sad.
The