All the Little Things Sarah Lawton (red white royal blue TXT) 📖

all the time. They moved her up a set a while ago. Maybe she is more interesting than she looks.

‘Hi,’ I say, as I get my books and stuff out.

‘Err,’ is the best she can manage. God, she really can’t cope without her twin, can she?

‘How is Chloe? I heard she was knocked up.’

Becky just gobbles like a turkey, mouth opening and closing, swallowing air. I half expect her to blow up like a balloon, or one of those puffer fish that are full of poison as well as being so spiky and expanding. ‘No!’ she manages, choking it out. ‘Where did you hear that?’

‘Tilly heard her crying in the loo about being late.’

‘Oh. Well, no. She went to the doctor and he told her she missed her period because she wasn’t eating enough and to stop starving herself.’

‘Starving herself? I thought she was vegan?’

‘It’s just an excuse to not eat anything. I’ve seen her eating ham straight out of the fridge at her house when she thinks no one is watching.’

I burst out laughing; it takes me by surprise. I haven’t laughed properly for weeks. Becky’s pudding face breaks into a wicked grin. I didn’t know she was capable of subterfuge against her beloved Chloe. I have misjudged her. Maybe I don’t need Serena or Tilly after all, if I can get someone new. Becky isn’t that ugly or fat or anything embarrassing, I suppose. Could she be moulded into something better than she is? Becky might be more biddable than Molly ever was.

We spend the rest of the lesson whispering and having a bit of a laugh: Becky has a vicious humour that I like, but then once the bell goes she shoots straight off and when I catch up I see her with Chloe. Well, I see her standing next to Chloe, who is snogging Dan’s face off in the queue for the vending machine. I give her a cold look on my way past. She should have stuck with me.

I don’t want it to look like I’m being shunned by sitting by myself at lunch so I take my sandwiches out to the field and sit under the oak tree. I know part of me is hoping that maybe Alex will be there. He isn’t. I’m not going to message him any more; I’m not going to be some sad, desperate loser crying over wasting her virginity on some arsehole. It’s not important. I feed most of my sandwiches to two fat wood pigeons, because each bite I take turns to sawdust in my mouth. I watch them bumbling around for a while bobbing for crumbs and making stupid cooing noises, shitting their purple shit all over the dead grass, and then I slowly walk back into school as if I don’t care at all that I am alone.

I spend the rest of the afternoon lessons hardly focusing. I hate these last days of school at the end of the year that we waste on whatever the teacher deems to be a ‘fun’ end of term treat. They should just let us go. Finally, at the end of the day, I head back to my locker to get my stuff and find a piece of paper has been shoved through the gap. It’s an amazing sketch of a girl lying beneath a tree, naked. At first I’m mortified in case anyone sees it, and press it quickly to my chest, but I glance furtively around me and see everyone is oblivious as usual.

It’s a picture of me, from that afternoon. It’s beautiful.

Alex is back.

By the time I get home I’m so hacked off about his disappearing and reappearing act that I don’t go into the house because Mum will be bound to notice how cross I am yet again, despite her pathetic depression. I pace around the garden instead, avoiding the heavy bees that stagger through the air around the lavender. I hate the smell of lavender. Nan always stank of it. I decide to poke around Mum’s stuff instead – see how she likes her privacy being invaded for once. The studio is a glass box shining in the sun. It’s hot in here, and messy. Her artist’s desk is piled high with sketches, scraps of paper and ends of charcoal, littered with a dusting of rubber from a mass erasure of errant lines. There are finished paintings on the other work bench drying in the heat. I have to open all the doors to try and let some air in before I suffocate.

There is a large clock ticking on the wall, an unceasingly annoying noise that, once in your ears, refuses to leave. Tick tock, your life tick tocking by.

Trying to ignore the clock I take a deep breath. I love the smell in here: paints and pastels, charcoal, even the paper itself, a smooth creamy smell, the end of trees. Underneath all that is the chemical kiss of white spirit cleaning the brushes that Mum leaves higgledy-piggledy in pots, ruining the bristles and distorting the points. You’d think she would have learnt to look after her things by now, but no.

Even the floor is untidy: half-empty packets and cellophane pieces, empty paint tubes and splatters of colour everywhere. A toddler would make less mess than my mother. There’s no organisation here at all; this is a purely creative space and it itches at my mind, scurries in it, insistent. I don’t know how she can work in here. It makes my head feel all fucked up. I don’t know how she copes with it. I can’t help it, I have to sort it out a bit – sorting has always calmed me down, everything should have a place, an order it belongs in.

Sketches and half-finished paintings from the Prince of Dark Wings are scattered everywhere so I sort them into piles. That pile is various versions of the prince from the back, wings arching, on the beach watching a boat disappearing