‘Packing. I’ll help you make up the boxes. I got four, that should do for now.’
‘Mum, I only need a suitcase, that’s way over the top.’ In the kitchen she opened the fridge and pulled out the bottle of orange juice.
‘A suitcase isn’t enough.’ With a huff of frustration, she added, ‘You need to spend some time away from here.’
Audrey set down the bottle of juice and reached for a glass. Maybe this was about more than Sid. ‘You said that already and I’ve agreed. I’m going to Gran’s for a couple of weeks, I get it.’ Her mum had dragged her up to the school for a meeting and they refused to budge on the suspension, saying she’d had enough warnings about her behaviour and the punishment fit the crime. Mr Burgess’s eyes had twinkled when he’d said that word, as though he loved nothing more than to set an example by dishing out punishments. But whatever, it didn’t bother Audrey all that much; she could use the online portal to keep up with her schoolwork for the next two weeks and she didn’t plan to spend that many hours cooped up with her gran anyway. She planned to get out and about, find the nearest town, hopefully somewhere with a bit of life.
‘Audrey, it’s not only for the rest of this term.’
‘Then how long is it for?’ She supposed she was getting off lightly going to a village to hang around instead of here. Sid was being hauled into his dad’s office every day, doing boring things like photocopying and making cups of tea for people, although he said it was marginally better than school apart from the fact nobody in the office really spoke. He said one day he did an experiment: he held a pin up high above his dad’s desk and asked the lady sitting at the desk next to him if she heard anything. When she said she did and he announced it was a pin dropping, she failed to see the funny side. All that happened was that he got told by his dad to stop clowning around.
And her mum wondered why she didn’t want an office job?
‘It’s for the two weeks and the summer holidays,’ Sam announced.
‘Please tell me you’re kidding.’ What was she supposed to do in a village all summer? Sit around and watch the flowers grow and the sun set later in the day?
Sam was busy trying to make the folded-down boxes lean against the wall without slipping down until she gave up and shoved them out in the hall. ‘Audrey, I’ve thought long and hard about this. It’s a temporary solution I think might help us both. We need some time away from each other.’
She’d been right to think Sid was only part of the problem. ‘You want to get rid of me, more like.’
‘I never said that.’
‘You didn’t have to.’
‘Audrey, I love you, you’re my daughter. But let’s use this time to turn things around. You’ll have the summer holidays in Mapleberry and then you can come back ready to knuckle down in Year Eleven. And we’ll talk about what happens after that at a later date.’
Audrey pulled a hand through her hair, tugging the wisps of fringe usually artfully separated on her forehead out of the way. She didn’t have many friends, but she had Sid. And one friend, a single ally, was better than none. She’d have nobody in Mapleberry except for her gran and the murmurings she’d heard about her over the years, not to mention the awkward couple of visits she’d been subjected to, hadn’t exacted filled her with warmth and love. She wasn’t surprised Mum didn’t talk about her that often and now here she was, going to stay with her.
‘Audrey, do you understand what I’m saying?’ Sam pulled one of the boxes into the kitchen and began to fold it along the creases already made until the bottom was formed. She flipped it up the right way and frowned Audrey’s way.
‘Of course I do, I’m not stupid.’ And actually, not having to go to school for a fortnight was already a blessing. At least she wouldn’t have to face the Wotsits – the gang who went around lording it over everyone else including Audrey and made her daily life a misery – they’d earned their name because of their overuse of fake tan, which made them look orange. And they all wore tons of make-up too, and one day one of them fell on the trampoline in P.E. wiping off one of the eyebrows she’d carefully coloured in, leaving a big black smudge above one eye. Sid and Audrey had laughed so much they’d both been crying. But usually Audrey wasn’t laughing; she was facing the spite and the daggers and the nasty online messages or posts that came her way. The picking on Audrey was never physical, it was hidden, they did it all from behind their phones. Part of Audrey wanted to tell the teachers but she did that once and after that, worse came her way because she’d told tales.
Audrey had never shared how miserable school was; her mum was always so stressed and busy trying to make their lives perfect, setting ground rules, refusing to listen when Audrey told her she didn’t want a desk job, not ever. But there was nothing her mum could say or do to bring back her dad who had left when he couldn’t stand it anymore. Perhaps she’d done the same to him, fussed around him, always worried about what he was thinking and doing until he couldn’t take it anymore and walked away. There was nothing her mum could do to make up for the fact that her dad wasn’t in her life much anymore, that he now had children with his new wife and they had all become his focus. Well one day, before too long,
