‘She always looks as if she’s going to fall apart, that girl.’ Mum clucked and tutted for a few minutes and went down to make me some toast.
As soon as she’d gone, a shudder went down my back, as if someone had dropped an icicle down it. I closed the door and pulled back the duvet again. There was nothing to be seen, apart from a couple of tiny bits of grit that could have come from the soles of my feet at any time. I blinked and rubbed my hands across the bottom sheet. Nothing. I sat down hard on the bed and took some deep breaths, because suddenly I felt light-headed. I thought, I must be going completely mad.
It was a slow, dull Sunday, especially after Zoe texted to say she was grounded for being late home. But around five-ish in the afternoon, my dad turned up at the door. Unexpected. He said he’d just come to see how his little girl was doing.
‘You look awful,’ Mum said, for the second time that day, but this time to him. ‘What’s happened? Come on.’
Dad tried to pretend he didn’t know what she was talking about, but Mum said when you’ve been married to someone for sixteen years – even if you’ve split up – you always know when something’s wrong.
And it turned out that he’d had this massive bust-up with Evil Ellie and she’d chucked him out. And it was her flat in the first place, so she had every right to do it.
‘Where are you staying?’ Mum asked.
Dad turned his coffee cup round and around. ‘In the TravelStop near the station.’ It was one of those cheap, very basic hotels. He’d been there since last night. Since about an hour after Zoe and I had done our ritual, in fact. What I couldn’t understand was why I felt so guilty about that. After all, this was what was supposed to happen. It had to go wrong with Ellie first, in order for Dad to come back to Mum. But Dad looked so tired and sad.
‘Could he stay here?’ I asked. I gave Mum a cheesy smile.
Mum hesitated, while Dad shook his head and tried to make out he was fine.
‘You’d have to kip on the sofa,’ she said. ‘I don’t think it’s the most comfortable place to sleep.’
‘I don’t want to put you to any trouble,’ Dad said, but I could tell by his eyes that he was keen on the idea.
‘You won’t,’ Mum said. She folded her arms. ‘You get your own food and you do your own washing. That’s if you’re here that long. She – Ellie – might relent soon.’
Dad hung his head a little. ‘Thanks. I don’t deserve you.’
‘That’s true,’ I said and cuffed him across the back of the head. Then I ran out into the back yard to text Zoe: U ll never guess. Dad is here. Evil E threw him out. Last nite!!!
She pinged back straight away. Now u believe me?
I sat up until midnight just chatting with Dad. It made me realise something: I didn’t know everything about him, as I’d thought I did. With Mum and Dad, I’d only seen them in 2-D, in terms of what they did for me, when actually they have all this other stuff going on. My dad was interested in things I didn’t know about. I’d never have guessed that he’d read some books I like. I had to admit that it was Ellie who’d got him into some of them, though. Also, he knew more than I thought about goth rock bands. I even got him to sing ‘Bela Lugosi’s Dead’ and I totally got why it’d made Mum laugh so much.
The next day, Zoe caught up with me at the edge of The Cut as usual, and when she saw me she ran up and threw her arms around me. We gave each other a tight hug. ‘That’s amazing, amazing, amazing,’ she said, with a little high note in her voice. It was so unlike Zoe to get excited like this, that I couldn’t help laughing. ‘Tell me he’s still with you?’ she added.
I nodded. ‘Yes. He and Ellie have fallen out big time. He’s sleeping on the sofa and he hasn’t had a row with Mum yet.’ I held up my crossed fingers.
Kerry was lurking behind us. ‘What’s happened?’ she asked.
Zoe and I looked at each other.
‘Tell me,’ Kerry said, in that grating whine.
Zoe gave me a meaningful glare. I knew I could only tell Kerry half of the story. I explained that my Dad was staying with us because he’d fallen out with his girlfriend. And that I was hoping he’d get back with my mum.
‘Oh. Right.’ Kerry was nowhere near as excited for me as she should be, I thought. Zoe knew, though, just how big a deal it all was. Zoe understood me.
That wasn’t all. Zoe followed Tom’s band, Gothic Winter, online and she linked me to a news item on their website. Their van had been in a minor crash – they’d escaped with cuts and bruises but the van was a write-off and it meant they were going to be off the road for a few weeks. There was a picture of Tom with a bandage across his nose. ‘An improvement, if you ask me,’ I said, making Zoe giggle.
‘We did it again, though,’ she whispered. ‘I asked for payback, because of what he did to me. And look what happened.’
‘It could be coincidence again,’ I pointed out. ‘Mum had the radio news on this morning and there’ve been a few accidents, because of all the rain.’
‘There’ve been a lot of coincidences since we started doing magic,’ Zoe said. It was hard to argue with that.
We had exams at school, because it was almost July
