The Twice-Lived Summer of Bluebell Jones Read online

  “Now would be good,” whispers Red, with a touch of urgency. “Oh come on, Blue! This is Fozzie! Your future best friend, Fozzie! This is where it starts. Talk to her! Just open your mouth and—”

  Her hands grab my shoulders, to push me to talk. But Red can’t grab me. Her hands sink into me, slow, eerie. A wave of cold and damp washes over me head to toe and I feel queasy, the horizon tilting as if we’re on a boat, the whole world tipping upside-down and cold cold cold—

  And then I throw up all over the girl’s purple boots.

  4. The Shed

  I don’t know what’s worse: the fact that I puked on my future best friend’s boots before even talking to her, or my mum having to come and collect me. With a plastic bag of spare clothes, just in case, as if this is playgroup and I’ve had a trouser accident.

  “I can’t believe it’s you!” says Fozzie, when she finds out that the mum she called from my mobile and the pregnant drum-smashing ninja from Joanie and the Whales are one and the same. “I was just going on about how much I loved the band when she got poorly.”

  “People loving on your parents: enough to make anyone vom,” says Mum, handing me a bottle of icy water. “How’re you doing, Bluebell? Any more to come up?”

  I wish people wouldn’t talk about sick when you feel sick. I can still taste chunks, even though Red’s not around to set me off again. By the time I’d stopped hurling, she’d vanished.

  I shake my head gently. “I am so so sorry about your boots,” I croak at Fozzie.

  “We’ll get you new ones,” says Mum. “Pay for them to be cleaned, maybe?”

  “Don’t you dare,” says Fozzie. “It’s not the first time they’ve ended up in a bucket. Punters throw up on me all the time. Well, they do when there are any.”

  She jerks her head towards the silent Red Dragon roller coaster, outside. We’re in the fairground, in a little café called The Shed. Apparently Fozzie’s parents own it, along with a couple of the other stalls in the fair, so she works here all summer as a waitress.

  She has a job. Like a grown-up.

  The Shed sells orange tea in plastic cups, and whippy ice cream. Stale popcorn swings in pointy plastic bags from the serving hatch. Every few minutes, the wooden walls shudder, and glass jars of sugar walk across the tables as the Whirler Twirler next door gets up to top speed. Not that anyone’s riding on it. The fairground’s practically empty. All the rides are up and running again, except for the Red Dragon – but the POLICE INCIDENT sign and the strings of blue and white tape across the gates aren’t much of an advert.

  “Electrical fault, that’s what I heard,” Mum says.

  “Yeah, that’s what they reckon,” Fozzie sighs. “It happens sometimes, even in the big theme parks. All the safety stuff kicked in, exactly like it’s supposed to. If that little kid hadn’t tried to climb out, she’d have been right as rain. Should never have been let on in the first place, mind you. That’s our fault, that is: management negligence. Tommo, who was running the ride? Lazy beggar wasn’t checking the line carefully enough. He’s been given the boot, of course, but, not exactly good advertising, is it? And, well, if she’d have fallen. . .”

  Fozzie blows her cheeks out, whistling softly.

  I lay my forehead on the cool sticky table. Breathe in. Breathe out.

  My mobile buzzes, vibrating through my skull. A text. From Red.

  Does this work? it says. I ignore it. That is a waste of 10p right there. I don’t know what to text back, anyway. Hi. Sorry I vomited all over your best friend’s shoes?

  Punters throw up on me all the time, Fozzie said. I’m a punter, not her friend. Just another tourist.

  “Summertime Blues” by Eddie Cochran starts to play from the crackly speakers over the counter. Fozzie starts to sing along in a surprisingly low, gravelly voice as she sashays round the tables, wiping them down. Mum tells her they’re planning to add it to the set-list, and Fozzie’s eyes light up. She and Mum break into muso chat, about the band opening the Fifties Fest later in the summer, and where Fozzie’s heart-shaped sunglasses came from.

  Great. Now she’s going to be best friends with my mum instead.

  There ain’t no cure for the summertime blues. . .

  I stare out at the empty funfair as it starts to rain. Pirate ship, its flag flapping damply. The famous faces painted on the backdrop of the Whirler Twirler, only halfway familiar: Lady Gaga’s second cousin, Beyoncé’s evil twin. A little wooden booth painted to look like a gypsy caravan, with a light bulb in a crystal ball perched on its roof, not quite straight. MADAME SOSO, FAMOUS CLAIRVOYANT, it says outside. Inside is a grumpy-looking woman in a skew-whiff purple wig, eating a hot dog. She’s got ketchup on her chin, and no customers. You’d think someone who can see into the future would be able to avoid that sort of thing.

  “Stick around, if you like, Bluebell. It’s going to be dead all day. I’ll be stuck talking to myself otherwise,” says Fozzie.

  Mum gives me an encouraging look, and I feel a tingle of hope.

  “Might get busy over lunchtime. But I’ve got a little sister,” Fozzie goes on, pointing at a small girl outside. She’s leaning against Madame Soso’s, watching the Frogger Flipper where you can win a misshapen fluffy dolphin, three goes a pound. She looks about eleven; twelve at most.

  That’s what Fozzie really means. Take your flowery shoes and go and play at the kiddie table, little girl.

  My mobile buzzes again.

  OMG! IT DOES WORK! EVEN THOUGH IM TXTNG SAME NUMBER!

  “Looks like you’re in demand already, mind,” says Fozzie, nodding at my phone as it buzzes a third time.

  There’s a rattle at the serving window by the counter, louder than the Whirler Twirler, and Fozzie slides it open.

  It’s the two guys she was with last night: the chubby pirate and Top Hat Boy.

  “All right, Fozz,” says the pirate, though he’s not actually dressed like a pirate today. “What’s all this I hear about some tourist yacking on your feet?”

  Top Hat Boy lounges against the window, looking bored. Fozzie laughs with the pirate – a big hoot of a laugh, like the seagulls outside, argh argh argh. She lights another cigarette, muttering an explanation and jerking her thumb my way.

  Even Top Hat Boy almost smiles.

  “Can we go? Please?” I whisper to Mum, my face crimson, and pull her to her feet.

  “Bye then, thanks, sorry about the sick,” Mum calls over her shoulder, waving the plastic bag as I drag her away, leaving behind the friends I’ll never make.

  I’m going back to bed. Preferably for a year, until all this is over and I’m someone else.

  Dad makes me a soft-boiled egg with toasty soldiers, like when I was tiny, and brings it in to me on a tray. I sit up in my bunk bed, the top of my head pressing against the ceiling, Milly tucked under one arm.

  This is what I really want. Not to be thirteen. To be a tiny nuggety peanutty baby kept safe by my mummy and daddy, for ever.

  Halfway down my egg, the back of my neck prickles. There’s a sudden draught, like a window being opened.

  “Hey,” says Red, brightly. She’s standing in the one empty spot of floor, between a tower of Jane Austens and an abandoned pair of jeans, unzipped, still half-holding the shape of Tiger’s body like a second skin. They’d make a good photograph, but I don’t reach for the camera. I don’t want Red thinking I want a picture of her.

  “Feeling better, then?” she says, eyeing my plate hungrily.

  I pick up a strip of toast and dunk it firmly into the warm egg, a trickle of yellow goop escaping over the lip of the shell. Crunch crunch crunch. Then I lick my buttery fingers, one, two, three.

  Red looks like a puppy. A kicked one. I want to punish her, but being mean is hard.

  “Go on, you can have some toast, if you want,” I say, grudgingly.

  She gives
me a weak smile. “Can’t,” she says, jabbing her finger at the plate. It slides right through the toast, dissolving into smoke, then re-forming itself, like it did before. “Apparently I don’t need to eat. But it’s like when you’ve just stuffed your face, and someone gives you the dessert menu, and there’s a big picture of a chocolate brownie on it. I’m not hungry. I’m . . . wanting.”

  I don’t like the sound of wanting for a whole summer. Then again, she has just ruined my whole life, so maybe it’s fair enough.

  I eat another bit of toast.

  “You’re angry, aren’t you?” Red says, ducking her head so her hair flops over her face. “About The Bench, and the, er, upchucking.”

  “Did you know that would happen?”

  “No! Time-travelling wishes don’t come with a manual, you know. Nobody told me I was going to go all wispy and not be able to eat toast either. It wasn’t exactly fun from my end either. You know that thing when you need to be sick, but you can’t actually throw up? Like that. Yuck. I know I’m sort of here to hold your hand through this summer, but, trust me: we are not doing that again.”

  She looks greenish at the memory.

  “If you didn’t know, I suppose it wasn’t exactly your fault,” I mumble.

  “I swear, I was only trying to help! I knew Fozzie would be there. I was being . . . encouraging.”

  “When this was your summer, is that how you met Fozzie? Puking on her boots?”

  “Er. No.”

  I push the tray away with a sigh. “So that’s it, then. It’s all gone wrong already. Fozzie’s not going to be my friend.”

  Amazing, grown-up Fozzie, with her job, and her roll-ups, and her heart-shaped sunglasses.

  “Of course she is!” Red makes to punch me on the arm, then snatches her hands back, holding out her palms in apology. “Look, it’s like this,” she says, hopping up on to the other end of the bunk; looking relieved, even surprised, that she doesn’t wisp right through it. “Um. OK, imagine the future is a map, right? There’s a road on the map called Bluebell Jones, with planned-out predictable points on it, like . . . bus stops. Big unavoidable events, like your birthday.” She grins. “And in between are all these little things on that road that don’t matter so much; stuff I did when it was my summer. Reading a book. Eating a boiled egg. So: Bluebell Road is there on the map, already planned out, right? But if you’ve got the map, you can see which things are bus stops, and which ones are boiled eggs. You can climb on a motorbike and take a short cut, get to where you want to go a bit quicker. Maybe jump a fence. Skip a few miles of road completely.”

  An odd look flits across Red’s face; as if she hadn’t realized that was something she knew.

  I like the sound of Bluebell Road. Speeding towards my Red future, even quicker than first time around.

  “Hang on. You said I was supposed to ignore maps.” I frown. “Throw away the itineraries and the timetables and maps, you said.”

  She’s perfectly still but for her eyes, darting, curious, looking somewhere else. Then she blinks as if she’s only just heard me. “Yeah! Only – not this one,” she says, shaking her head with a smile. “This one’s special.”

  “You’re the map?”

  “I’ve seen the map. And I guess I’m another stop along the road, too. And I’m the motorbike. OK, it’s a terrible analogy. But you get the idea.”

  I do. Sort of. “Me throwing up on Fozzie: was that on the map?”

  She hesitates, looking uncertain, then grins again. “That was a wrong turn,” she says proudly. “A detour. The right road’s still waiting for you. We just need to get you back on to it. Trust me, Blue.”

  It’s dusk when we take the short-cut path down the hill together. The fairground lights glitter, beckoning. My cat’s eyes, marking out the road.

  It’s Sunday night, on the first weekend of the summer, but the crowds are still staying away. The other rides are back up and running, pumping out tunes and sirens. Get your tokens at the kiosk, says an American voice, optimistically. Remember to ride safely!

  “Want to go on that one!” squeals a whiny girl, pointing at the Rock’n’Roller, spewing out the chorus of “We Will Rock You” over and over. Its single row of seats are empty but for one. But the Red Dragon’s still caged beside it: lights out, striped tape flapping in the wind. The whiny kid is dragged off, with promises of a pound in change for the slots in the Lucky Penny. She’s not the only one.

  “Party dress, no one to dance with,” murmurs Red, eyes glinting as she watches the Wacky Gold Mine’s empty carts bounce along the tracks.

  I don’t like Penkerry, or fairgrounds, but even I feel sad.

  At The Shed, it’s no different. No real customers. Just the pirate (back in costume, this time) and Top Hat Boy, the little sister, and Fozzie, leaning on the counter, yawning, heart-shaped sunnies still perched on her nose as she chews gum.

  We linger outside, in the shadows. I do, anyway. Red beams, marching for the door till she realizes I’m not following.

  “Come on, this is perfect, the gang’s all here!” she says.

  “The gang,” I whisper. “I was going to have a gang.”

  “You still will, you berk.” Red wraps her hands tightly around her bare arms, gleefully jigging on the spot. “I haven’t seen them in so long! That’s Dan: he’s the pirate. He’s not really a pirate, obviously. He works at the Doughnut Hut by the pirate ship. He’s hilarious. And that’s Mags, Fozzie’s kid sister; she comes off quiet, but she’s pretty smart.”

  Red laughs, as if she’s remembering something from her own summer, from the road. She looks so happy. I hug my arms, too.

  “And Mr Top Hat?”

  “That would be Merlin,” she says steadily, looking up at the sky.

  “Merlin?”

  Red rolls her eyes. “Yeah, Bluebell, want to make something of it?”

  God, I hope they don’t call the little one Milk-Thistle.

  “Oh, hello,” says Red, as a door slams. “This could be interesting.”

  It’s Madame Soso, the fortune teller. She’s locked up her booth, and is now stamping her way into The Shed. Fozzie stops leaning at once. I can see why. Soso’s a solid lady. Quite the vision, in her purple wig, sleeves billowing, the bells on her shiny floor-length skirt tinkling with annoyance.

  We follow her, and slip into the first booth by the doors, unseen.

  “All right, it’s like this,” announces Madame Soso, in a brutal accent. “I’ve had no custom all bloody day. I know Tommo got the sack for letting that kid ride without checking, but the punters don’t care about that. All they see is those police barriers, and no one’s lifting a finger to get them shifted.”

  “That’s not fair,” says Fozzie, folding her arms defensively. “Mum and the other traders are meeting with the insurance investigators every day. They’re doing everything they can do.”

  “I don’t care, love. If trade doesn’t pick up by tomorrow, you can tell your mam from me, she can keep her booth. I’ll be out of here.”

  Red grins, and starts to whisper instructions, urgently, in my ear.

  “And don’t go thinking you can just pick up a clairvoyant of my calibre,” Madame Soso continues. “We talk, love. On the spiritual plane.”

  “What happened to no fun without surprises?” I whisper. “Isn’t this cheating?”

  (No one notices me talking to thin air. They’re all staring at Madame Soso, holding her fingertips to her head and crossing her eyes when she says “spiritual plane”.)

  “Yeah, it’s totally cheating,” Red whispers back cheerfully. “That’s the difference between you and me, Blue. You like rules. I like breaking them.”

  She jerks her head, frantic, till I clear my throat.

  “Excuse me,” I say.

  They all turn to stare at me, and for a horrible moment I am only Bluebell
Jones: strictly backstage, no audience involved. She doesn’t steal scenes. She ruins them by being tongue-tied and pathetic.

  But not tonight. I’ve got Red, feeding me my lines.

  “Madame Soso, isn’t it?” I repeat after Red, all politeness. “Sorry to interrupt, but I couldn’t help overhearing. You really should stick around. That accident was local news; no one’s even going to remember it by next weekend. The Red Dragon will be open again next week, on Friday. After that Penkerry will be as busy as ever.”

  Madame Soso sneers. “And how could you know possibly know that?”

  I catch Red’s eye, her graceful wing of hair. “I can see into the future,” I say, all innocence. “Can’t you?”

  Dan and Mags both snort. Madame Soso’s head snaps around, and they fall silent. When I let my eyes slide over, I can see them both shovelling fistfuls of chips into their mouths, Dan’s shoulders still shaking with silent laughter.

  “Hello. It’s Dan, isn’t it?” I say.

  Dan’s shoulders go still.

  “And Mags. And. . .” I narrow my eyes, as if listening, then produce a dreamy smile. “Merlin. Of course. It’s very nice to meet you.”

  The three of them stare at me, amazed.

  “Honestly, Janet, I’d stay right where you are,” I say, turning back to Madame Soso. “You don’t mind me using your real name, do you? It is Janet? Mrs Janet Butcher, from Port Talbot?”

  Madame Soso juts out her chin. “Soso is my professional name.”

  Fozzie coughs, placing a perfect, polite smile on her face. “That’s settled then. I’ll tell my mum you want to give up your booth,” she says, “though there’s a penalty clause in your contract, for leaving without notice. You’ll forfeit your deposit, lose your percentage of the gate money for the whole month. But it looks like we’ll be able to replace you without any trouble at all.”

  Fozzie smiles pointedly at me.

  Madame Soso gives me a glare.

  “No thank you,” she says, hotly, then wafts an arm over her face, unfocusing. “The mists of time are parting, and my spirit guides happen to agree with this amateur you’ve got here.” Her eyes return to piggy focus. “Tell your mam I’ll be staying on, all right?”