The Butterfly Shell Page 3
Mam didn’t say anything. She was just sitting there with a weird look on her face and I heard Dad say, ‘For God’s sake Margaret, that’s an old wives’ tale. No one is going to die.’
But the next day Mam had to go into hospital and Dad told me she had a miscarriage – I was supposed to have a baby brother or sister. But no one had told me and she didn’t look pregnant although it would be hard to tell because she already looked fat but I didn’t say that to Dad who looked quite sad. And that’s when I learnt that sometimes superstitious things do come true.
When I asked Dad why they hadn’t told me he said well she wasn’t very far along. I didn’t know for years what on earth that meant but I liked the sound and the feel of it – ‘not very far along’ – and I used to say it to myself when things weren’t going well.
*
I couldn’t wait for the Halloween break. I didn’t care that I was too old to go trick or treating. I just wanted a break so I could start over. Maybe after the break things would be different. Maybe Rachel would decide she didn’t hate me and then she and Jill would ask me to sit beside them and have lunch with them and talk about all the things we did over the break and then the baby crying at night would stop and I could get some sleep.
*
On the way home Stella was walking right behind me – so close that if I stopped she would crash into me. So I kind of waited and walked beside her. I wasn’t crazy about having anyone see me walk beside her but I figured it would be a chance to ask her a few things. Like how come she escaped Rachel’s evil eye – wasn’t she way weirder than me? And why was she walking this way anyway? Didn’t she live right across the street from the school?
But instead I asked her how she did the phone thing. And when she started to answer me she sounded different than she does at school. She still did the weird repeating thing every now and then but she sounded, I don’t know, maybe smarter than I had thought.
She said it wasn’t a trick, she was just more observant than most people and she had been born that way. She said she thought maybe she got her twin’s observing genes. Her twin? Was she totally nuts? How could she have a twin and I hadn’t noticed? I was so distracted thinking about this I kind of missed what she was saying – something about how it drove her crazy when her mother didn’t get the blue uniform socks matching. ‘They aren’t all the same,’ she said. ‘You can feel the difference if you just listen to your hands to your hands.’
Okay. So she was a bit crazy.
I made up something about having to hurry to get home for an early dinner and I started to run and didn’t look back.
I once read that identical twins can communicate telepathically, that even if they are separated at birth they are connected for life. There was one set of identical twins in Ohio who were adopted by different parents who named them the same name and then they grew up to marry girls with the same name and they even named their dogs the same name and they both became police officers. And then after thirty-nine years they were reunited and have been best friends ever since and live in identical houses right beside each other.
Maybe the twin thing is what protects Stella from Rachel. Or maybe Stella just hides things better than I do. I think Rachel isn’t exactly the most patient person in the universe. It must really drive her crazy that Stella couldn’t care less what she does. Maybe I’m too obvious. Mam always says I wear my heart on my sleeve but I thought that was a good thing. Anyway I’m not even sure that Stella has a twin. She doesn’t strike me as a liar but it is pretty hard to believe she’d have one and no one would know about it.
6
Today I got five anonymous texts. The first one said,
Well done in PE today. You should try out for the basketball team
And although I didn’t know who it was from as I don’t have anyone’s number, it didn’t take a genius to figure out that it probably came from one of the Stupid Six. All six of them spent PE sitting on the sidelines and had notes because they were ‘having their period’. How blind can teachers be? How can they never see what is really going on?
It’s not as if I did anything wrong in class. I wasn’t the best but I certainly wasn’t the worst. Gail threw the ball right at Miss Donnelly’s head (I think on purpose) and everyone just laughed. Stella refused to run and no one seemed to be bugged by that. And I was totally normal. So much so that for one split second I thought the text might be real but then I saw Nicole and Rachel watching me when I read it and so I knew it wasn’t. I didn’t delete it because I wanted to remember the exact words when I put it in Rachel’s file.
Then I read the other text which was from my dad and said,
hope today is better Dad x
He always signs his texts even though I’ve told him a million times his name comes up in my inbox. The text is an old one – from last week – but I like to keep reading it. He sent it to me the day after Other Marie started crying.
The next text came on my way home. It was from a different number and said,
Luv your bag. Where did you get it?
I got three more that night. Three different numbers. Three carefully worded texts so that if I showed anyone they would say, ‘Why Marie clearly someone wants to be your friend. Those are all compliments.’
luv your hair you are so lucky you don’t have to curl it
do you want to have lunch with us?
Mr McGuire loves you
I felt sick and kept reminding myself I wasn’t very far along and soon it would be the Halloween disco and then the break and then a fresh start and then all this would be behind me.
*
The last day before the midterm break was the Halloween disco. The teachers made a big deal about it and the Principal announced it over the intercom. ‘This is for the First Years only, so you girls can really get to know each other.’
Everyone kept saying this as if it were a good thing. As far as I could see everyone had already decided who they were interested in talking to (or tormenting).
And there weren’t any boys allowed. It wouldn’t have been that hard to arrange – I mean St Joseph’s was just down the road and even though I didn’t know anyone there and I would probably not have talked to any of the guys it would have been nice if Rachel and the Stupid Six were not the centre of attention for a change.
Anyway it was going to be fancy dress with prizes for the most inventive costumes. Unfortunately I should have known that what I think is inventive is probably way off what everyone else thinks. I wanted to wear something original but not too elaborate and I’d been dying to wear the present Dad gave me so I decided to go as a rooster weather vane.
Dad brought back this amazing hairband one time he went to a meeting in London. It was like those Christmas hairbands with antlers except it was a rooster sitting on an arrow and it was on a swivel so it kept swinging around. I thought I’d go simple for the rest of the outfit since the hairband was really the costume so I wore my red sweatpants and red long-sleeved T-shirt which would have been fine except the rooster thing came off the hairband on the way so it just looked like I was wearing red clothes. Four people asked me if I forgot my costume.
Stella came dressed as a fortune-teller. It wasn’t a great costume – just a cape and a big glass ball. The ball was actually a snow globe and I couldn’t believe it when I looked close: it had two pretend goldfish dressed as people, one was sitting in a deckchair and the other was sweeping and when you shook it it filled with snow.
Rachel was a glamour witch which meant she wore fishnet tights, her sister’s high heels and a very tight black top with the top three buttons undone and a
silver streak sprayed in her hair. She looked gorgeous. The majority of the girls were wearing tutus and had teased hair and lots of make-up.
I definitely misinterpreted the whole costume thing.
The Hall looked really good. The girls from Sixth Year had it all decorated with witches and spiders and big webs hanging down everywhere and little fairy lights in orange were hung around the doors. The music was also run by the Sixth Years so it was pretty good too.
Rachel was the one who decided that everyone should get their fortune told by Stella. It was really loud in the Hall so she told everyone to get in a line in the corridor beside the downstairs bathroom and that she would go first. Really her bossiness knows no bounds.
Stella acted as if this was just what she expected she’d be doing which is kind of how she reacts to everything. Rachel sat on a chair beside Stella in the corner so only she could hear. When she got up to give someone else a turn she was still smiling but walked away really quickly.
Even some of the teachers got in on it and when Miss Gilligan our geography teacher took a turn she got up and turned to us saying, ‘Now come on girls enough of this nonsense,’ and tried to hoosh everyone away. I waited for Stella who was still sitting in her chair looking at her goldfish. I went and sat beside her and she started shaking the ball and holding it to her ear and then she looked at me and said, ‘Do you ever hear things that aren’t really there?’
I got goosebumps on the back of my neck. I mean why would Stella say that? How could she know about the baby? But before I could ask her what she meant, Miss Gilligan marched over and said, ‘Put down that globe and start enjoying yourself girls.’
I didn’t enjoy myself by the way but I did feel like something important had happened. I had never thought of Stella as friend material but I kind of liked her strangeness and how she didn’t care what people thought about her. And I couldn’t wait to talk to her again.
I went to the loo where I heard Rachel telling Jill that she saw Miss Gilligan crying and talking to Miss Murphy about ‘being found out by Stella Fitzgibbon and what would happen to her marriage’.
Then Rachel noticed I was there and whispered to Jill that I was wearing red because I was having my period, and Jill laughed and said, ‘Oh my God, that’s so funny, let’s go tell everyone.’
So I went home even before the sausage rolls were brought out. And if that wasn’t bad enough, I got in trouble for walking home on my own instead of calling my dad to pick me up.
One good thing about the Stupid Six was that they didn’t usually manage to remember who they were making fun of from one day to the next so I hoped that when we went back to school after the break they would have forgotten about my costume disaster.
I finished Wait Till Helen Comes, and the rest of it was very good and quite scary. It turned out Helen is the ghost of a girl who died in a fire a hundred years ago and she tries to lure Heather to her death and finally Molly saves her even though she doesn’t really like her. Finally they bury the bones of Helen’s parents so her spirit can rest. Like I said – fiction.
7
I really wished Other Marie would stop crying. It seemed to be getting worse. One night I woke to find myself looking for her in the bathroom and I wasn’t sure how I got there. Mam was beside me and just said, ‘There, there, let’s go back to bed,’ and that’s all I remember. She didn’t mention it the next morning so I said nothing. The longer I can keep it a secret that Other Marie’s spirit is trying to contact me the better.
The break didn’t start off all that well. Dad had to work, and Mam didn’t want to go anywhere. Twice I walked by Stella’s house and once she was at her window just staring out at the sky so any thoughts of maybe calling on her went right out of my head I can tell you.
Instead I worked very hard on my book report which was on the diary of Anne Frank. At the end of the report I kept on writing as if Anne had continued to keep her diary in the concentration camp after she was arrested. I hoped Mr McGuire wouldn’t think I was showing off. It just came easily as if she was talking to me herself even though she’s dead and I know that’s impossible. At the back of my copy of The Diary of a Young Girl there was a photograph of her actual diary. It was quite small with a red and white plaid cover and a little clasp to keep it closed. My diary is just a notebook with a pink cover. I’m kind of tired of it but there are still lots of pages to go before I can start a new one. Anyway I’m sure Anne Frank never complained about her cover so I won’t either.
Then on the Thursday just as I was going to try and update my files, Stella came to my door and rang the bell. I don’t know how she knew where I lived and she didn’t even act like it was weird she just said, ‘What are you doing doing?’
So I told her I was updating my files. I figured that would sound like something private and important but she just said she could help if I liked. I knew my mam was on the phone to Aunt Kate which meant Stella wouldn’t have to see her so I said okay even though I had no intention of showing her my files which to be honest were pretty slim at this point and barely deserved to be called files.
Here’s all I had so far.
Name: Rachel Quinn
Her older sister had her picture taken with no shirt on when she was drunk last year and it’s on Facebook.
Deborah and Bea said they heard that Rachel’s dad doesn’t always live with them.
She lied that she had a boyfriend last summer just because Nicole really did have one.
I hate her hair and how thin she is and I hate how the teachers think she is so nice. Maybe they wouldn’t like her so much if they knew what kind of family she comes from.
Name: Marie Krysinski
Her mam can’t speak English at all.
Last year she was caught shoplifting some eye make-up.
She’s the one who put the gum in my hair.
Name: Jade Malone
Rachel only likes her because her mam gets a discount at H&M because she works there.
Rachel spread a rumour that she was throwing up after lunch in the bathroom.
She won’t eat anything white.
Name: Jill Patterson
Last summer she and her brother drowned a kitten on purpose.
(Although Rachel is the one who said this in front of the class when Jill was out one day last week. And Rachel is definitely not to be trusted.)
She can’t really read very well.
Her brother goes to a special school.
Name: Claire Flynn
I don’t think she likes Rachel.
Last week she stole five euro from Rachel’s purse and said that Jennifer Golding did it.
Name: Nicole Brennan
She cheated on her Maths test before the break. She was sitting behind Jade and I saw Jade move her paper to the side of her desk so she could see it.
She’s the one who keeps pushing my pencils off the desk.
She had a boyfriend last summer which makes Rachel very jealous.
I wasn’t even sure if it was a good idea to keep these files but if one day they all got arrested for some crime against humanity maybe they would be useful evidence.
When Stella came in she asked if she could see my room which felt a bit forward but I didn’t really care so I said okay.
She said, ‘You have a lot of books. I collect shells collect shells.’ It wasn’t as if that was a great conversation opener so I figured I would be direct and just ask her what did she mean when she said to me at the Halloween disco did I hear things that weren’t there.
She told me that sometimes I turned my head in school as if I had heard something and that she used to do that when she was younger. Sometimes she would hear things really intensely – like the rustling of scarves was way too loud and the opening of books or people writing with pencils would make huge noises that she couldn’t turn down. And then the next day it wouldn’t be sounds any more it would be that everything she saw was too bright or too full of detail. She said she used to see all the veins on
all the leaves on every plant on the way to school and that’s why she used to go slowly – not because there was something wrong with her motor skills – as her parents had thought at the time.
So okay I guess she wasn’t talking completely normally but she was making sense. I was a little disappointed she wasn’t psychic but she was really clear about that: she said there was nothing about her that science couldn’t explain. She was just observant and if you are really, really observant you notice things that other people don’t.
I made a mental note not to ever tell her about the crying I heard because she clearly wasn’t into the unexplained.
I really wanted to ask about her twin but she suddenly jumped up and said she had to go and thanks for everything.
After she left I was thinking about what she said about being observant and it reminded me of what Dad says: ‘Marie, you have to keep an eye out for the little things. The human brain is capable of so much if we’d only really use it.’ He also says we can develop our powers of observation and that most of the guys who bill themselves as magicians have done just that.
I’m not sure how that explains how Derren Brown can know everything about people he has never met. One woman in the audience of the show we were watching on TV the Friday before the break nearly had a heart attack she was so amazed when Derren said, ‘Have you recently had an extension to your house and do you have relatives staying with you from far away – I’m getting the letter A – Australia?’ The woman in the audience had tears running down her face as she said, ‘Yes we did the extension from the money my dead brother left me and his son just arrived from Australia this afternoon!’ I don’t know how he knew that.