Dandelion Clocks Read online

  Contents

  Three Months After

  Thirteen Weeks Before

  Twelve Weeks Before

  Eleven Weeks Before

  Ten Weeks Before

  Nine Weeks Before

  Eight Weeks Before

  Seven Weeks Before

  Six Weeks Before

  Five Weeks Before

  Four Weeks Before

  Three Weeks Before

  Two Weeks Before

  One Week Before

  Tuesday

  Wednesday

  Friday

  Sunday

  Monday

  Four Weeks After

  Five Weeks After

  Six Months After: Today

  Acknowledgements

  Follow Penguin

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  DANDELION CLOCKS

  Rebecca Westcott was born in Chester. She went to Exeter University to train as a teacher and has had a variety of teaching jobs that have taken her to some very interesting places, including a Category C male prison. She started writing a diary when she was eight years old, although she had no idea that one day her entries would be used to help her write a novel. Rebecca currently teaches in a primary school and lives in Dorset with her husband and three children. Dandelion Clocks is her first book.

  Books by Rebecca Westcott

  DANDELION CLOCKS

  Coming soon

  VIOLET INK

  For Zachary, Georgia and Reuben,

  who definitely know how to live life loudly.

  And for Adam, who fills our lives with

  adventures and excitement.

  I sometimes think about the box buried deep at the back of my wardrobe and wonder if I’ll ever open it up again. I wonder if her soul is in there, desperate to get out and be free. I wonder what she’d say to me if she could see how I’ve become – but I don’t think about this for too long because I think I know what she’d say and I don’t agree with her. To laugh, to enjoy, to live is to forget – and I will never forgive myself if I allow that to happen. And actually, she left me so she doesn’t get a chance to have an opinion. If she wanted to have a say in how I live my life then she should have stayed, shouldn’t she? She shouldn’t have left me alone with a box of old, rubbish diaries that are no use to me at all.

  She shouldn’t have gone.

  If it were possible to actually die of embarrassment, then right now, I would be officially dead. There should be some sort of Charter, or human rights Act, that stops every mum from behaving as if she is the first person in the world to become a mother. It’s like my mum has no idea that women the world over have been parenting forever and have not felt the need to interfere in every teeny little detail of a child’s life. People grow up every day, even without their interfering mothers and their totally unwanted help and ‘advice’.

  I so nearly got away with it as well. I’ve been planning for ages and saving my allowance so that I didn’t have to ask Mum or Dad for extra – I knew they’d go mental if they thought that I’d gone against their wishes and got them to pay for it into the bargain.

  I’d done all my research – which wasn’t that hard as the only place in this miserable town that you can get your ears pierced is Hair & Things, a totally lame girly shop that sells jewellery and hairbands and lots and lots of pots of nail varnish in neon colours – and Alice called for me this morning as we’d agreed.

  When we got to the shop there was a queue. I started to feel a bit nervous and wished I’d brought my camera. Taking photos always clears my mind of everything else and the girl waiting in front of me had this amazing purple and pink hair that would have made a brilliant photograph. Alice told me that it wouldn’t hurt any more than the time I was stung by a bee at Sports Day – which wasn’t actually reassuring cos that was agony. Anyway, it came to my turn and I sat on the stool in the window.

  I’ve never been sure why they put the stool in the window – but I know now. It’s so that when your nosy, bossy mother happens to walk past on her way to the supermarket and sees you sitting there about to ‘violate your beautiful body’, she can push her way into the shop, yelling at the top of her voice and demanding that the, frankly terrified, shop assistant explain herself ‘this very instant, young lady’.

  She then went on to ask, in a piercing voice that carried all the way to the back of the shop (where I definitely saw some girls from school lurking and sniggering), how a reputable shop could allow a young girl to disfigure herself. The shop manager had bustled over by this time and started telling Mum that I’d said I was over sixteen, but Mum burst out laughing in a not-very-amused way and asked the manager to take a good look at me and did I look like I could possibly be over sixteen? The manager said that no, now that she thought about it, I looked nowhere near sixteen and could she offer Mum a £5 gift voucher to make up for the mistake?

  I have no idea what Mum said in response as I was too busy dealing with shrinking into the floor.

  By now the girls from school were openly listening to every comment and nudging each other and laughing. Alice, star that she is, stayed by my side but had turned a particularly unflattering shade of pink.

  Mum, having made mincemeat of the manager and vowing never to darken the door of Hair & Things again as long as she lived, turned and stormed back out on to the street.

  It was obvious that she expected me and Alice to follow her, which we did. Mum was waiting for us outside and without saying a single word, walked us to the car. The whole way back to Alice’s nobody said a thing. Alice and I kept looking at each other – I half wanted to laugh but every time I thought about what had just happened, and how it would have spread round Facebook like wildfire by the time I went to school on Monday morning, I lost my sense of humour. Alice just looked petrified – my mum can be pretty scary when she wants to be.

  We dropped Alice off at her house, Mum still not speaking. Alice gave my hand a squeeze and mouthed ‘Good luck’ at me. We both knew that I was really going to need it.

  Mum drove off but then she stopped the car round the corner. I braced myself. The thing about my mum is that she talks. And talks. I reckon the armed forces have missed a trick when it comes to fighting terrorism and defending the free world – they should send Mum in and let her lecture the enemy into surrendering. A couple of hours with her and they’d be begging to be released with eternal promises of good behaviour and a firm understanding of the consequences if they stepped out of line …

  This time, though, she surprised me. I thought she’d be furious that I’d gone behind her and Dad’s back – not that Dad has much of an opinion on the subject. He refuses to talk about it – says as he’s not a girl that he doesn’t understand what all the fuss is about. So typical – he always backs Mum in any argument. We’ve had endless conversations about me getting my ears pierced, and she always says I have to wait until I’m thirteen and it’ll be a good, appropriate way to mark my teenage years. I always say that it’s not a big deal; all my mates have got funkier parents who let them have stuff done and being eleven is virtually the same as being thirteen anyway, so what’s the difference?

  She didn’t even mention the deceit, though. Instead, she started talking to me about the risk that I’d taken and did I understand what could happen if piercings went wrong? Did I actually understand about infections and scarring? I think the words ‘ugly disfigurement’ were used but I wasn’t really listening. I was too busy wondering what she was going to dream up for me as a punishment – sorry, a consequence.

  Mum prides herself on making the ‘consequence’ fit the crime and I was trying to figure out how she could possibly do that this time. By making me pierce my own ears with a needle and an ice cube? By writing a letter to all Hai
r & Things shops asking them to display my photo in the window and issue me with a lifetime ban? I didn’t actually hear her when she said it the first time, so she had to repeat herself (and she hates doing that).

  ‘Olivia – are you actually listening to me? I said, I’ll find a decent place that knows what they’re doing, and we’ll go together and get your ears pierced. If it matters that much to you then fine, but I don’t want you sneaking off without telling me.’

  Wow. Didn’t see that one coming. I’m actually going to have my ears pierced! I will no longer be the only girl in my year with boring, plain ears (I mean, there’s probably a few other people who haven’t got their ears pierced, but I’m not interested in them). Already I’m planning what sort of earrings I’ll buy. I reckon I’ll look fantastic. I’ve seen a pair of bright, wooden parrots that I could wear in a jokey, not serious way – that’d be hilarious! And for school I’ll get some tiny, silver flowers – maybe daisies. We’re meant to wear plain studs but nobody does.

  I can’t believe my mum is actually agreeing to this! I love her so much! But I’m also still mad at her and Monday morning is going to be a nightmare. Everyone will know about what just happened in town. Maybe I will actually die of humiliation over the weekend – and then she’ll be sorry as she sheds endless tears of regret over my cold, sad, unpierced body. She is so utterly annoying and embarrassing. She seriously doesn’t have a clue about what it’s like to be eleven. And I bet she doesn’t get around to taking me to have my ears pierced until I am actually thirteen anyway.

  Sometimes I wish that I was an only child. No constant compromising and making sure that everything is fair. I think about what life would be like without the responsibilities of looking after my brother and imagine how utterly amazing it would be. Even though my brother, Isaac, is three years older than me, I often feel like I’m the bigger one – just without the big sister title. Some days, he seriously does not have a clue and ends up getting in all sorts of trouble if I’m not there to watch out for him. It’s definitely a boy thing – sometimes he just seems to get it all wrong. It’s also a bit of an Isaac thing too – he can’t help it and I know it’s not actually his fault, but when it’s a tricky day with Isaac I sometimes can’t help wishing that he was more like other people’s brothers.

  Today was one of those days. Mum asked me to go down to the shop and get her some milk and to take Isaac with me. I really didn’t want to but she said that he’d spent enough time in his room playing computer games and he needed the fresh air.

  Mum and Dad worry a lot about Isaac. They think he’s got no friends and they’re always trying to figure out ways to stop him playing on his PlayStation. This makes me laugh – they think they know everything but they have no idea that Isaac has loads of friends. He meets up with them online and the reason he likes playing games in the middle of the night is so he can play with his friends who live on the other side of the world when it’s their daytime. If Mum and Dad stop his PlayStation time then he really won’t have any friends.

  I know all about Internet safety because they go on about it loads at school. Isaac doesn’t really get stuff like that, so I keep an eye on what he’s doing and who he’s talking to. He knows that he can never meet his computer friends in real life but that’s the thing – he’d never actually want to. Isaac doesn’t do well when he has to speak to people but he can be really funny when he’s online. Anyway, I think most of his friends are kids just like him.

  Mum wasn’t going to give up on me dragging Isaac out. She knows that I can get him to do things that nobody else can – which is a pain pretty much all of the time cos I end up being the one who has to go into his smelly room and bargain with him.

  I trudge up the stairs.

  ‘Sooner you go, sooner you’ll be back!’ calls Mum after me. Yeah – that’s a helpful comment; thanks a lot, Mum.

  I knock on Isaac’s door in the right way – he refuses to answer unless you do three knocks followed by two knocks followed by one knock. The day he decided that one, it took us an hour to get it right and persuade him to come downstairs for tea. Mum’s macaroni cheese was so congealed that it would only come out of the dish in one large lump. Dad ended up going to KFC and buying us a family meal (which Isaac refused to eat as we usually have takeaway on Friday nights but it was only Wednesday).

  ‘Come on – Mum wants us to get her some milk,’ I call through the door.

  No reply.

  ‘Isaac, I know you heard me. Open the door or I’ll start singing!’

  That does the trick. Isaac hates my singing but I try not to take it too personally because he hates all singing. The door opens a crack, but by the time I’ve pushed through, Isaac is back on his PlayStation chair. Dad said if he was going to spend so many hours playing games each day, they could at least make sure he had good posture, so they bought him a massively expensive special chair.

  ‘Liv to Isaac – move your backside – we’re going out into the big wide world!’

  Isaac shows no sign of actually having heard me.

  ‘Come on, Isaac – I haven’t got all day,’ I sigh, suddenly feeling tired.

  Nothing. No reaction whatsoever. Have I mentioned that my brother can be very stubborn?

  ‘Get up, Isaac, now!’ I snap.

  ‘I don’t want to go out,’ he mutters, firing a rocket into a zombie.

  ‘I don’t care if you want to or not – we’re going.’

  He ignores me so I have to play my ace card. ‘You know what day it is, don’t you?’ I say casually.

  ‘I’m not stupid, Liv – it’s Saturday,’ Isaac growls. He gets very sensitive if he thinks anyone is calling him thick.

  ‘Not just any old Saturday,’ I say, and I can see that I finally have his attention. His eyes dart to the wall planner above his desk and then he springs to his feet, PlayStation controller tumbling to the floor.

  ‘Hey – steady on!’ I yelp as he shoves past me and barrels down the stairs, just avoiding the cat who has been snoozing in the sunlight on the bottom step. She’s used to Isaac, though, and darts out of his way, giving him a very dirty look.

  ‘Wait a minute – we need our coats on,’ I yell at him, but he is already out of the front door and heading down the path, oblivious to the rain that has appeared from nowhere. I grab my coat and my old camera (you never know when the perfect photo opportunity might turn up), and Mum, who has raced through from the kitchen, shoves Isaac’s jacket and a £5 note at me.

  ‘Thanks, Liv!’ she shouts as I sprint after Isaac.

  I finally catch up with him before he steps off the pavement. Our street joins on to a busy main road – I didn’t think he’d try to cross it; he hasn’t tried that before, but you can never be entirely sure what Isaac will do next, and one thing I do know is that he is not familiar with the Green Cross Code.

  ‘Wait for me – I’m not an Olympic athlete, you know!’ I puff, as I stagger up next to him.

  ‘I do know that, Liv. You could never be in the Olympics – you’re rubbish at sport,’ Isaac says, turning to look at me as if I am an idiot. That’s another thing about my brother that can be annoying – he is very literal.

  We cross the road and head in the direction of the corner shop.

  ‘Can’t wait, can’t wait,’ chants Isaac as we get closer.

  I can see a group of boys from my school coming towards us and put my hand on Isaac’s back, rubbing gently in a circle. He gets nervous when he sees other boys his age – he’s had some horrible experiences and he’s always worried that it’ll happen again.

  ‘When we get in the shop, I’ll fetch the milk and you can go and choose your magazine,’ I say to him, trying to distract his attention from the boys who are nearly next to us.

  Isaac turns to me in surprise.

  ‘I don’t need to choose, Liv – I know which magazine I’m getting. It’s the one I always get, every first Saturday of the month. It’s called How Stuff Works. I thought you knew that.’ His voice
is incredulous and a bit hurt, but it’s worked. The boys are past us now and I can stop rubbing his back.

  ‘Sorry, Isaac – I do know that – silly me, hey?’ I grin at him and he smiles back. Isaac may be quite irritating in lots of ways but he doesn’t hold a grudge. We’re nearly at the shop now and Isaac starts striding ahead of me, desperate to get there. We walk past the gates to the park and I see a welly, lying on its side in a puddle. It’s tiny – I reckon it’s probably fallen off some little kid in a pram. It looks kind of cool, though, so I whip my camera out of my coat pocket and take a picture, zooming in close on the muddy water and the bright red welly. I love taking photographs like that – little snapshots that tell a story. Every time I look at the photo I’m going to imagine a small child having to hop everywhere so that he doesn’t get a wet foot. Or maybe a lonely welly, abandoned and all alone, pining for its welly twin. Then I look up and see that Isaac is way ahead of me, so I shove my camera back in my pocket and run after him again, thinking that my brother is like my very own personal fitness instructor.

  We get to the shop and I relax. This is Isaac’s favourite thing to do and he would never, ever do anything that might mean he wasn’t allowed to come and buy his magazine. His wall planner has a bright red star on the first Saturday of every month to remind him. I leave Isaac in the magazine aisle and head for the milk. Once I’ve got that I wander in the direction of the chocolate. Mum always lets me choose something that I like with the money that’s left over and today I feel like taking my time and really getting my money’s worth.

  The first sign that something is wrong is when I hear the shop lady shouting.

  ‘Stop that at once! What on earth do you think you’re doing?’

  I look up and my heart sinks. She’s heading down the magazine aisle – the aisle where I left Isaac. I drop the milk and run round the corner, reaching Isaac at the same time that she does.