Birdy Read online

  My telling Bert that I was too busy to spend time with her turned out to be not entirely untrue, because later that month, Nan got ill and, for a while at least, Bert wasn’t the only thing I had to worry about.

  It started as a bad cold. I’d hear her coughing and sneezing in the kitchen, followed by impatient mutterings of, ‘For Christ’s sake,’ as she reached for the tissues.

  But then, one afternoon, I got home from school to a quiet house. On further investigation I found Granddad asleep in his chair, but there was no sign of Nan. I wracked my brain to see if I could remember her mentioning any errands she had to run but I came up with nothing. I thought about waking Granddad to ask him but I knew there’d be almost no way he’d remember even if she had told him, so I’d only end up worrying him.

  I eventually found her in bed, which immediately told me that she must’ve felt really awful. I don’t think I’d ever known Nan to go to bed in the daytime. She’d barely enter her bedroom at all between the hours of 8 a.m. and 9.30 p.m. It’d always been a point of pride, I think.

  ‘Nan?’ I called gently, pushing her bedroom door open. ‘Are you OK?’

  She was lying on her back, not sleeping, just looking at the ceiling. I could hear her breathing, laboured and rasping.

  ‘Fine,’ she said, not looking at me. ‘Just this bloody cold, isn’t it. Gone on me chest.’

  ‘Should I call a doctor?’ I asked, stepping into the room. As I got closer I could see Nan’s skin, grey and clammy. It gave me the shivers. She looked so old. So tired. I wished I could’ve gone over to her, put my hand on her forehead. But she would never have stood for that.

  ‘Don’t you come in here,’ Nan said, lifting her arm and trying to wave me away. ‘Last thing I need is you getting ill. You’ve got school. And I need you to feed your grandfather. Do you think you can manage that?’

  I nodded and retreated back to the doorway. ‘OK,’ I said. ‘But … what about the doctor? Or some medicine? Shall I go to the chemist’s?’

  ‘No!’ Nan barked. ‘I don’t need no doctor. Just a good night’s sleep. Now get out of here and let me rest. Shut the door!’

  I did as I was told. I went back downstairs and made a dinner of beans on toast for Granddad and myself. We ate on our laps because I couldn’t face the thought of sitting at the table with him, trying to engage him in a conversation he wouldn’t be able to keep track of. It was easier if we had the telly to focus on instead.

  He turned around and grinned at me, a bit of bean juice dripping down his chin. ‘This is fun, isn’t it, love?’ he said. ‘On our laps. Like the old days, eh?’

  I nodded and smiled back. As far as I could remember, we’d never eaten on our laps together, so I had no idea which ‘old days’ he was referring to. I supposed it was probably something he’d used to do with Mum and he was confusing me with her again. But then it was just as likely that the whole thing was a figment of his imagination.

  Nan was still in bed when I got home from school the next day. She didn’t seem any worse, but she didn’t seem any better either – she was still awake, still doing the same rattly breathing. I was worried now. Nan was still saying she just needed ‘rest’ but it was so unlike Nan to take to her bed like this and she was getting older now … I really thought I ought to do something.

  I didn’t know if you could really get doctors to come out to houses or if that was just something they did in the olden days, but either way I figured the surgery would be shut by now. I knew if things were really bad I could just call an ambulance but that felt rather dramatic and I knew Nan would be furious about that kind of fuss. In the end, I settled for going to the pharmacy. I’d seen people talking to the ladies behind the counter a few times so I figured they knew their stuff. I slipped five pounds out of Granddad’s wallet – I didn’t want to confuse or worry him by asking him for it, and anyway, I figured that, morally speaking, this kind of stealing was pretty acceptable – and headed out the door.

  I waited patiently in the queue in the pharmacy and when it was my turn I described Nan’s symptoms to the lady in the white coat.

  ‘How old is she? Your grandma?’ she asked me.

  ‘Nan,’ I corrected her. I don’t know why. It felt important at the time, that we get her name right. ‘She’s seventy … something.’

  The woman nodded. ‘And how long have her symptoms been going on for?’

  ‘Not too long,’ I said. ‘A few days.’

  ‘Well, flu can be quite dangerous to the elderly so really, you ought to get her to the doctor’s.’

  ‘Oh I don’t think it’s flu,’ I said. ‘Probably just a cold.’

  Of course, I had no idea if it was flu or not. But I was afraid that if the pharmacist thought it was too serious she’d insist we got proper help and send me away empty-handed. And then I’d be right back where I started – no medicine and no chance of persuading Nan to see a doctor.

  ‘Hmm, OK,’ the woman said. I could tell she wasn’t totally convinced. ‘Well, I can give you this.’ She handed me a small red box labelled ‘Cold and Flu Relief’. ‘But if she’s no better by this time tomorrow, she should see a doctor.’

  ‘OK.’ I nodded. ‘I’ll tell her.’

  At home, Nan barely resisted at all as I poured out the medicine. I’d been expecting an almighty fuss – complaints about me interfering, about how she was perfectly fine thank you very much. Again, I felt nervous at how out of character her behaviour was. I prayed that the medicine would work.

  Luckily, it did. Or maybe it was just that Nan’s own immune system kicked in and did the job. Either way, although Nan was still in bed when I left for school the next day, by the time I got home, she was up and about. She still looked tired and the bags under her eyes were bigger than ever, but she was dressed and that awful grey sheen had gone from her face.

  Still, the whole episode had given me a fright. I realised that no matter what I said about Nan, without her, if it was just me and Granddad, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to cope.

  That’s when I realised how much I needed Bert. Nan and Granddad weren’t going to live forever and without them I had no one. No one except Bert. She was my refuge, my sanctuary. Without her, everything in my world was grey and cold and dark.

  And so I decided: I had to get Bert back on side.

  24

  Unfortunately, getting Bert back on side was easier said than done.

  The tricky thing was, I didn’t want to come right out and apologise for storming off because, frankly, I didn’t think it was all my fault – she’d been pretty out of order too, telling me off like that, and defending Pippa over me – but then I didn’t want to start throwing blame around either because that could only lead to more awkwardness. What I really wanted was for things to go back to how they’d been before, just like that, and for the past few weeks to just be forgotten without the need for any kind of confrontation or heart-to-heart.

  My strategy to bring this about was to be as friendly and cheerful as possible – I figured that really it’d been me who’d been a bit cool over the last few weeks, so it was up to me to warm up a bit if I wanted to fix things.

  So, I did all the things I could think of to show I was back to normal – I greeted Bert with a big smile every time I saw her, I chatted away quickly, filling any silences that could be interpreted as awkward. My Biro blackbird had started to fade in the last few weeks as I’d only kept it up sporadically, so I made a point of colouring it in and then, in one history lesson, I took Bert’s hand and reapplied hers as well. I even asked Bert about An Outing to Oz and how rehearsals were going, aiming to make it crystal clear that there were no hard feelings. But the problem was, I just wasn’t sure any of it was working. Whatever I did, I still got the definite feeling that Bert was holding me at arm’s length.

  She often seemed distracted, like her mind was elsewhere. Sometimes when I tried to engage her in upbeat chatter – funny things I’d heard people say, new food I’d spotted in the canteen
– she’d turn to me and say, ‘Sorry, what was that?’ and I’d have to repeat it all again, even then only getting a small smile in response. She seemed happy to let our conversations lapse into silences. She didn’t seem to feel any particular urge to fill them.

  I began to get despondent. During the weeks immediately after the casting, when I’d been deliberately a bit off with Bert, I’d felt confident that as soon as I decided to rekindle our friendship, Bert would be receptive. Grateful, even. I’d arrogantly thought that I’d had all the power. Now though, I started to doubt that that was true. I wasn’t sure if Bert had actually been just as miffed as I was during our cold war, or if perhaps, by keeping up my moody act for so many days, I’d actually pushed her away for good. I was furious at myself. I felt sure I’d ruined things. There was no getting things back to how they’d been before, and it was all my own stupid fault.

  But then, one lunchtime about a week into Operation Get Bert Back, I was waiting for her outside the canteen (we were at least still having lunch together – things hadn’t got that bad yet) when I spotted her coming along the corridor, looking down at something in her hand. As she got close I noticed her brow was furrowed, her eyes anxious.

  ‘Hey,’ I said.

  She didn’t reply. She just thrust something into my hand. A piece of notepaper, folded in two. ‘Look at this,’ she said urgently. ‘I just found it.’

  I unfolded the paper. It was that squared kind you get given in maths to draw graphs and tables and things, obviously torn from a notepad. The message was written in the careful block capitals of someone trying to disguise their handwriting.

  YOU NEED TO WATCH YOURSELF, POSH GIRL.

  I looked up at Bert. ‘What’s this?’

  She took the note back off me and looked down at it again. She rubbed the patch of forehead just above her nose. ‘It was in my pencil case. I just found it now. What does it mean, “watch yourself”?’

  ‘Like, be careful, I guess?’

  Bert rolled her eyes. ‘Yes, obviously be careful. But why? And more importantly, who’s it from?’

  She looked a bit of a sorry state, her face screwed up, all bewildered and anxious. She was pulling on a strand of her hair, twirling it around her finger.

  I took the note off her and tore it into four pieces. I dropped it into the bin.

  ‘Bert,’ I said gently but firmly, ‘this is a school. Not even a particularly nice school. This kind of crap is just what people do.’

  Bert looked over to the bin where the fragments of the offending note were now sitting. She chewed on her lip.

  ‘Thing is, Bert, if someone wanted to do anything to you – to rough you up, to teach you a lesson or whatever – they’d just do it. They wouldn’t send you a letter to book an appointment.’

  Bert looked at me, alarmed. ‘Do you think that’s what they’re going to do? Rough me up?’

  I sighed. ‘No,’ I said. ‘That’s exactly what they’re not going to do.’

  Bert pursed her lips. ‘Really? But how can you be so sure?’

  ‘I’ve been coming to school almost my whole life, Bert. I know how these things work. This’ll be as bad as it gets. The type of people who leave notes … that’s all they do. Leave notes. Draw graffiti on things. The type of people who want to punch you in the face … they just get on and do it.’

  ‘Really?’ I could see I was starting to get through to her. Her features began to relax. ‘So what do you think I should do?’

  ‘Do nothing,’ I said, leading her to a table in the corner and sitting her next to me. ‘If this kind of thing really bothers you, then just … keep your head down for a bit. Don’t do anything that could wind any of the pathetic morons up.’

  ‘Like what? What do I do that winds them up?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said, looking in my bag for a Kit Kat. ‘I don’t know for sure. We’ll just have to keep ourselves to ourselves, mind our own business. Soon someone else will be in the firing line instead.’

  She nodded and swallowed. ‘OK. Right. OK.’

  ‘Let’s get some lunch, shall we?’ I said brightly, sensing it was time to move Bert onto a different subject. ‘Curly chips today – your favourite!’

  Bert managed a small smile and let me steer her to the queue. I could tell she wasn’t going to forget the note that easily though. The worried expression stayed with her all through lunch and she was only ever half-listening to me. Then, as we were stacking our trays on the trolley, she said, ‘It’s just a horrible feeling, you know? That someone’s got it in for me. I just feel a bit … shaken.’

  ‘I know,’ I soothed. ‘I know. But, like I said, it’ll be over soon. I won’t let them get you!’ I gave her a grin and squeezed her arm.

  ‘Thanks, Birdy,’ she said, giving me a tired smile. ‘Do you want to come over later? I feel like a bit of company this evening …’

  I smiled. ‘Of course. We’ll have a nice relaxing evening and tomorrow this will all seem like the silly, playground rubbish that it is.’

  Later that evening, we sat squashed up together in the Egg. I was feeling full from an amazing Mexican dinner that Charlie had cooked us and very pleased to be back in the den again. I realised just how much I’d missed being there. Bert had been adamant that she didn’t want to tell her parents about the note, not wanting to worry them when they’d been so pleased that school was working out for her, so we hadn’t mentioned it since arriving at her house earlier that afternoon. Now we were alone again though, Bert seemed keen to analyse the whole episode again.

  ‘I just can’t work out who,’ she said. ‘I’ve been through the type of people who I think might go for this kind of thing. You know, those girls who you always think could be a little bit sly if the mood took them – Megan, Ella – but they’re always relatively pleasant to me, I think. I just … I just thought I was, you know, not popular but definitely not unpopular. Is that terribly naive of me?’

  I didn’t think it was naive but I did wonder if it was just a bit egotistical. And possibly part of the problem. In fact, I’d had a thought brewing all afternoon – a theory that I wanted Bert to consider – and I decided that now was probably the time to share it.

  ‘Maybe …’ I began, ‘maybe that’s it. You are popular. Maybe a bit too popular … if you know what I mean.’

  She looked at me. ‘What? No, I don’t know what you mean.’

  I sighed. ‘OK, so think of all those Valentine’s cards you got for starters. You know how the boys like you – there’s always been at least one or two circling you.’

  Bert frowned. ‘Well I didn’t know who any of those cards were from … I expect they were probably those made-up ones from the school that you told me about.’

  I shook my head. ‘Unlikely,’ I said. ‘Very unlikely. But I don’t think it really matters who they’re from. The girls will have seen that you’ve got them and that will be enough. They’ll be jealous. You’re treading on their ground.’

  I thought about Gary Chester catching me and Jac in the corridor and I wondered if he’d told anyone about Jac’s card. I knew that just because Bert didn’t know it was him who had sent it, other people might still know what he’d done, know that he was still after Bert.

  Bert sighed. ‘Maybe you’re right, I don’t know. I still wish I knew which one though – which girl I’ve offended. And which boy I’m meant to be staying away from. That would make everything a lot simpler.’

  I decided not to name Jac himself here. Admittedly it would’ve been better if I could’ve advised her to stay away from him in particular as he was the obvious problem, but that would mean telling her about the Valentine’s card. And then she’d want to know why I hadn’t told her before if I knew who it was from and anyway, to be honest, I didn’t want her to realise it was from him. She’d been quite taken with that card and I didn’t want her to go up to Jac and say anything to him about it. That would only lead to all kinds of drama.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said. ‘I
t doesn’t matter who it was. They’re probably just letting off steam. They’re just jealous and pissed off. Just forget it now. If they were going to do anything else about it, they’d come and tell you to your face. The best thing for you to do at this point is to steer clear of the lot of them. I know you’re not doing anything on purpose but, just for now, try to avoid doing anything that could wind anyone up.’

  Bert nodded sadly, then she leant back into me and I put my arm around her. We were quiet for a while.

  Eventually she sighed. ‘Thanks, Birdy,’ she said. ‘Thanks for coming over and … you know, helping me keep things in perspective and whatnot. It’s funny really, even after all these months, I still feel like school, boys … everything is all such a mystery. I don’t know if I’ll ever make sense of it.’

  25

  After that, things with Bert seemed to get back on an even keel for a few weeks. It’d been similar after the locker graffiti incident really – it was like Bert was actually better after these little wobbles. It was a shock at first for her, to discover that not everyone around her was as lovely and honourable as she’d like, and that there were situations where she’d have to tread carefully, but once she’d accepted that, she bounced back to her old self, albeit with a bit more caution than before.

  I suppose I might’ve been a bit insulted that she was only back to normal with me once a little fright had reminded her that she still didn’t entirely fit in at school, but I decided not to dwell on that thought. I wasn’t exactly in a position to start getting fussy about those kinds of details. And anyway, wasn’t that what friends were for? Being there to support each other when other people had let them down?