Gone Missing

“Is that where we’re going to go?” said Honey. “To Glasgow?”

I said, “No! That’s where the bread crumbs are going to go.” I could see that I’d lost her, but the bus was starting to fill up and I didn’t have time to explain. “I’ll tell you about it later.”

“Why can’t you tell me now?”

“Because it’s a secret,” I hissed. “Our secret…just between you and me. Right?”

She nodded. “OK.”

“Promise you won’t tell anyone!”

Honey was always very biddable. She ran a finger across her throat. “Slit my throat and hope to die.”

I giggled. “You probably would die, if you slit your throat!”

She meant “cross my heart” but she sometimes got things a bit muddled. It could be quite funny.

On the way home that afternoon, I explained to her what I meant about the bread crumbs. I’d stayed awake half the night hatching elaborate plots, laying false trails, like I was in some kind of spy movie.

“We have to make them think we’ve gone to Glasgow. Not London. We don’t want them to be on to us!”

Honey muched at her lip. “Why can’t we do it the other way round? Make them think we’ve gone to London?”

“Because we are going to London!”

“I’d rather go to Glasgow.”

“We don’t know anyone in Glasgow!”

“Yes, we do. We know Duncan! I’d rather go and stay with Duncan than with Darcy.”

“Well, we can’t, cos I’ve lost his address. And anyway, we don’t actually know him.”

“I don’t actually know Darcy.”

“No, well I do, and that’s where we’re going.”

Honey fell quiet for a bit. I could see she was turning things over in her mind.

“Are we really going to run away?” she said.

“We are if things don’t improve at home! You don’t know what it’s like, living with my dad. And you can’t go on living with your mum. She’ll destroy you! You know that, don’t you? You do know?”

I fixed her with this stern look. Honey just made a vague mumbling sound and let her eyes slide away. Honey’s mum was like a forbidden subject; she wouldn’t ever talk about her. I went on about Dad practically non stop, but Honey never once said anything bad about her mum. I knew she was a bit frightened of her-not physically, I don’t mean, cos I don’t think her mum was ever violent. It might almost have been better if she had been; at least then someone would have had to sit up and take notice. As it was, I think I was probably the only person that knew how hateful she could be to Honey. Honey was just scared, the whole time, of displeasing her. Doing the wrong thing. Saying the wrong thing. Dropping something, breaking something. Being told she was stupid.

Stupid, useless, hopeless. Clumsy, gawky. Nothing but a liability, can’t ever do anything right. Totally moronic! Drive me up the wall.

These were all things I’d heard Mrs de Vito say to Honey. When she’d had too much to drink she actually used to jeer at her. Make fun of her.

“Look at it! Great lumping thing! Can’t even walk straight.” And then she’d imitate Honey moving across the room, bumping into chairs and knocking stuff over. “What’s the matter with you? You got cerebral palsy, or something?”

She could be really nasty. Sometimes she used to try and rope me in. She’d look at me and roll her eyes, like she was expecting me to agree with her. I hated it when she did that! It made me feel so bad for Honey. I mean, they were cruel, the things she said. She didn’t deserve Honey being so loyal! Maybe, in spite of everything, Honey still loved her; I guess it’s always possible. I just don’t know. But I honestly did feel she had to get away, I really did! I wasn’t only thinking of me. At least, I don’t think I was.

That evening, I sat upstairs in my bedroom laying trails of bread crumbs…all the way to Glasgow! First off, I doodled hearts and flowers all over my school books, with the name DUNCAN in big capitals. (I chose Duncan rather than ferret face. I couldn’t stand the thought of being linked with ferret face!) Then I took our surnames, McAleer and Rutherford, and crossed out all the letters we had in common. Precisely two! I’d have been in despair if he’d really been my boyfriend.

I got a bit carried away with the doodling. I was still at it when Mum and Dad got home from the shop (the Steeple Norton Mini Mart. Oh, please!) and I had to go downstairs and report on school and whether I’d done my homework. It was like the Spanish Inquisition every night. Dad used to say, “This doesn’t please me any more than it pleases you.” He never did it with Kirsty because Kirsty could be trusted. She’d never bunked off school or failed to hand in her homework three weeks running. But all that had been back in the winter term! Back when I was still mates with Darcy. It was very belittling that Dad still kept grilling me.

I told him that I was doing my homework. Dad said, “You’d better be.” I said, “I am!” and went rushing back upstairs to scatter more bread crumbs. I would look up train times! On the computer, Birmingham to Glasgow. I knew the first thing the police would do when they started to investigate would be to take away the computer and examine it. They can find out all sorts of things, from a computer. Just to make sure, I even went to Google and put in the word “Glasgow”, so they’d think I’d been looking at the map. I’d have liked to put in Stonebridge Park, which was where Darcy had gone to live with her sister. I knew that Stonebridge Park was in London, and I knew you could get there on a tube train, cos Darcy had told me. She had said it was totally brilliant.

“You can be in the West End in thirty minutes!”

I wasn’t bothered about trains from Birmingham; I knew there were plenty of those, all times of the day. Money was the real problem. I had some saved up in a piggy bank-an old china pig with a slit in its back, which had belonged to one of my nans when she was a girl-and I thought I probably had enough for a single fare to London, but it wasn’t going to leave very much over. What did other kids do when they ran away? Did they steal off their parents? I couldn’t steal off mine, or only very tiny amounts. Dad didn’t believe in having large sums of money lying around. He’d been robbed twice at the shop and it had made him very grim. But I didn’t think most people would exactly have fortunes waiting to be taken, so what did kids do? I had a sneaking suspicion that maybe they went on the streets and begged, or even worse, they sold themselves. I wouldn’t want to do that! No way!

I decided not to think about it. As I’d said to Honey, you can’t plan everything in advance. Sometimes, you just have to wait and see what happens.

That’s the good thing about fantasies. If there’s a part you can’t work out, you just skate over it and move on to the next bit.

It was still a fantasy. But growing more and more real, every day.

Next morning, at school, Marnie comes up to me and says, “Hey! Wanna know something?” So I’m like, “Yeah, what?” She tells me that this boy, Rory Mansell, that’s in Year 10, has a thing about me. She knows this cos she’s going out with Jason Dobbs that’s also in Year 10. She says Rory told Jason in the hope that he would tell Marnie and Marnie would tell me, and then maybe I would—

Would what? Marnie giggles and says, “Ask him if he’d like to go on a date?”

I think to myself that if Rory Mansell wants to go on a date he could ask me himself, but Marnie says he’s too shy. I say in that case he’s a wimp.

“He’s not a wimp,” says Marnie, “he’s just scared you’ll turn him down.” Then she tells me off for being prejudiced and says, “He’s actually quite nice.”

He’s not bad, I agree, but as I explain to Marnie, I don’t really fancy him. Marnie says, “So who do you fancy? You haven’t been out with anyone for ages! You’ll get out of the habit if you’re not careful. People’ll start thinking you’re a lesbian!”

I say, “Now who’s being prejudiced?” And then, without any warning, I hear myself blurt out, “There is someone I fancy!”

“Oh?” Marnie spins round. All ears. “Who’s that, then?”

“This boy I met. In Birmingham. Me and Honey, we bumped into them, there were two of them, they were down here from Glagow and we all got talking and—”

My voice burbles on. It’s got a will of its own. I can’t control it, it’s gone mad! Now it’s telling Marnie how me and this boy have been speaking on the phone every week. We’ve been texting, we’ve been emailing. We fancy each other like crazy.

Marnie says, “Wow! What’s his name? How old is he? Gimme, gimme, I want to know!”

I say that I can’t give her his name. “It’s a secret!”

Marnie says, “Why? Is he someone famous?”

I struggle with a momentary temptation to say yes, but manage to resist it. I say no, he’s not famous, he’s just an ordinary boy.

“So why’s it a secret?”

“Cos he’s a secret! I shouldn’t ever have mentioned him. I don’t want Dad finding out! You know what my dad’s like. He nearly went ballistic that time I went out with Soper. He did go ballistic!”

Marnie says, “Yeah, well…Soper.” She then agrees with me, however, that my dad is impossible. “I’m surprised he even lets you have a mobile phone.”

I say, “He wouldn’t, if he had his way. It’s only cos of Mum.”

“I bet he checks on your calls!”

I mutter darkly that nothing would surprise me. “It’s like living under a dictator.”

“So what you gonna do?” says Marnie. “About this boy?”

I tell her that I don’t yet know. “But if things get much worse, with my dad—”

“What? What?” She’s all breathless and eager. “What d’you reckon you’ll do?”

I say, “Something desperate!”

I spend the rest of the day trying to decide whether I’ve finally flipped and started to believe my own fantasies, or whether I’ve just been laying more bread crumbs. I decide that it’s got to be bread crumbs. It’s part of the trail! If Honey and me do run away–when Honey and me run away–the police will be bound to talk to Marnie. She’ll be one of the first they talk to. And she’ll just be bursting to tell them about “this boy she met that lives in Glasgow”. I begin to feel rather pleased with myself. I’m obviously good at this sort of thing!

I do a bit of thinking about Rory, wondering whether he’s really a wimp or just that mythical creature, a boy that’s sensitive. But no, that’s truly sexist. I’m sure there are boys that are sensitive, they just don’t like to show it. Soper wasn’t, of course. He’d have bashed someone’s head in, if they’d suggested he was sensitive.

I think for a while about Soper. I try to remember what his first name was, but I can’t. He was always just Soper; he was that sort of boy. The sort of boy that Dad thought should be locked up and the key thrown away. I know he was a bit mad and bad, but it was just totally humiliating when Dad actually chucked him out of the house. It was like, “Never darken my door again”. We had the hugest row of all time over Soper.

That was when I finally rebelled and said I wasn’t going to his stupid church any more. I did it to pay Dad out! I knew if there was one thing that would really upset him above all else, it would be having to admit that he’d lost control. That one of his daughters was leaving the Family. That was like heresy! That was like denying God.

The church thing had happened just a month ago; things had been getting steadily worse ever since. Dad was cold and tight-lipped, I was defiant. Sometimes I thought he hated me. Sometimes I thought I hated him. He was convinced I did things for no reason than to annoy him, and I have to admit that he was partly right. But I had to assert myself! I mean, otherwise I would just have been ground down.

Later that day I gaze at Rory across the assembly hall. He catches me at it, and blushes. I think to myself that Dad would probably approve of Rory–well, as much as he’d approve of any boy. But even if he did, we’d still fall out. Dad and I are fated to disagree about pretty well everything. In any case, he’s not my sort. Rory, I mean. He’s too nice! How could I go out with a boy that Dad approved of??? It’s not worth staying on to be oppressed and humiliated just for the sake of going out with any stray male that happens to be available. I have more pride than that!

On the other hand, as Marnie reminded me, I haven’t been out with a boy for simply months. That’s not normal! Leave it too long and people will think I’m not interested. Plus I shall forget how to do it. How to talk to them. How to be with them. Cos being with a boy is definitely not the same as being with a girl.

It’s Dad’s fault. It’s all Dad’s fault! How can I ever hope to grow up sane and well balanced with him thwarting me at every turn? I feel in such a muddle!

When Honey asks me, on the way home, whether we are still going to do it–“That thing that you were talking about?”–I tell her yes, I’m working on it. Honey says, “So when do you think it will be?”

What does she expect me to say? It’s not something you can put in your diary, like a dentist appointment. I tell her that I’m waiting to see what happens. “I’m giving him one more chance.”

“Oh.” Honey nods. “All right.”

I say, “Why? You didn’t want to go right now, did you?”

“I just thought you’d decided.”

“I haven’t decided anything! Have you?”

“No. I thought you had.”

I tell her that I haven’t made up my mind. Yet. “But if he comes on heavy just one more time—”

“That’ll be it?” says Honey.

I say that that will definitely be it. “Cos I have had enough!”

three

Sunday was looming, with its roast and two veg. Dad insists on his roast and two veg, even in the height of summer. He sits there, sweating, and forcing himself to eat, like it’s some kind of holy ritual. Like God has spoken to him. “And on Sunday, thou shalt consume flesh.” Just so long as he didn’t expect me to consume it. Dad, I mean, cos I don’t believe in God. At least, I don’t think I do.

I really didn’t like having rows with Dad. I didn’t go out of my way to have them, which Mum seemed to think I did; they just happened. I wasn’t looking forward to another meat argument. I knew it would end in Dad banging on the table and me shrieking, the same as it had last Sunday, but I was determined to stand my ground.

Sunday morning, when she came back from Gathering, Mum called me into the kitchen. I thought she was going to warn me not to make a fuss, just eat what everyone else was eating in order to keep Dad happy. Mum would do almost anything to keep Dad happy. I was all prepared to put up a fight when she kind of took the wind out of my sails by saying, “Your father and I have been talking. He is still waiting for you to repent, but there is obviously no point in forcing you. It has to come from the heart. In the meantime you must make your peace with the Lord as best you may. I just pray he forgives you.”

I said, “Forgives me for what?”

“Rejecting his bounty. It is not up to us to reject what the Lord has seen fit to provide.”

Whew! Mum doesn’t usually talk like this; she is usually quite normal. I guessed they’d been discussing me at Gathering. It was probably Dad who’d written the script for her.

I said, “Does that mean you’re not going to nag me to eat dead stuff any more?”

Mum suddenly switched back to being Mum. “Not as long as you promise to eat everything else. I don’t want you getting anorexic.”

I assured her that I would glut on vegetable matter as much as she liked. I have no objections to potatoes and cauliflower. I said this to Mum. “Vegetables aren’t pumped full of antibiotics–plus they don’t have their throats cut.”

Kirsty, who was laying the table, at once said, “No, they just get pulled up by the roots! How’d you like to be pulled up by the roots? Vegetables have feelings too, you know.”

“Girls, please don’t start,” said Mum. “We don’t need any smart mouth. Just remember, your dad’s been working hard all week, he deserves a bit of peace and quiet on his day of rest.”

Dad may have agreed there wasn’t any point in forcing me, but he obviously wasn’t pleased about it. He was in a foul mood from the word go. You could always tell when Dad was in a mood. He’d be ominously quiet, and his cheeks would turn a purply pink and his lips purse into this thin line. I guess what it was, he resented me being allowed to get away with something. Cos that’s how he would have seen it. He’d have gone to Gathering all stiff and self-righteous, thinking everyone would be on his side and say how he’d got to tie me to a table leg and force-feed me, or lock me in my room and starve me into submission. He’d have liked to do that. He’d have felt he was carrying out God’s mission. As it was, he sat and simmered all through lunch, seething as he watched me eat my vegetables. When he finally blew, it was like Vesuvius erupting. And over something utterly trivial.

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