Laura Jarratt - Skin Deep

I tried to put it out of my mind and focus on my homework. If only Dad would drop this stupid campaign. It’d alienated most of the village against the Carlisles and while I didn’t care how that affected Steven one little bit, I did care if it kept people talking about the crash. All I wanted now was for it to be forgotten – as much as it could ever be possible for the village to forget Lindz and Charlotte’s deaths.

I never did understand what Lindz saw in Steven, apart from the looks of course. He thought the world rotated on its axis for him alone and treated everyone as if they should agree with him.

The scrape of a key in the front door lock meant Dad was home. I ran downstairs. Mum was with him. I handed him the note. He read it and passed it to Mum. His face didn’t flicker. He picked up the phone from the hall table.

Mum’s hand flew to her mouth as she read the note. ‘Clive, what are you doing?’

‘Calling the police. I’m not having that little thug try to threaten us.’

‘Are you sure that’s a good idea? Maybe it would be better to ignore him.’

‘Dad, let it lie, please.’

He dialled the number for the police station and walked off into his study with the phone.

‘Come on, let’s go and pick some apples,’ Mum said. I knew she was only trying to distract me, but I didn’t mind being distracted right then.

We walked down the garden to the two apple trees by our vegetable patch. Mum held the basket while I reached up and picked the ripe ones from the lower branches.

‘Get that one. No, up a –’ Mum stopped suddenly.

I followed the direction of her eyeline over the hedge and into next door’s garden. Lindz’s dad was standing there, staring into space. We watched him for a while, but he seemed frozen to the spot. Mum put her arm round my shoulders. ‘Come inside,’ she whispered.

‘Do you think we should say hello?’ I whispered back.

She shook her head uncertainly. ‘I think we’d better not, Jen. Last time Dad and I tried to speak to him, he got very upset. I don’t think he’s well at all just now. We might make him feel worse and we don’t want to do that.’

Maybe I was like Lindz’s pony – too much for him to see. I sort of understood that. I think perhaps I understood it better than anyone.

Charlie’s friend’s mum brought him home after football practice, and he came stomping into my bedroom, mud-spattered.

‘I got dropped from the team for the next game,’ he said, flopping on to my bed. Normally I’d have yelled at him for messing my duvet up, but he looked too upset.

‘Why?’

‘Doh – someone else was better than me.’

I put my homework down. This was going to take a while. ‘You’ve trained loads. Maybe you had an off day.’

He prodded my teddy bear in the eye with a stiff finger. ‘I was beyond bad, and anyway, it’s not the same now.’

‘Don’t do that to Barney. It’s not his fault. Why isn’t it the same?’

‘Because you used to be in goal for me before and I could practise shooting better.’

‘You said I was rubbish in goal!’

‘Yeah, you are, but it’s still easier when you have a goalie to aim around, even if they are useless.’ He prodded Barney again viciously. ‘You never do anything with me now.’

That was true. I’d hardly spent any time with him since the accident. ‘I was worried about getting my face hit by the ball.’

He pouted. ‘It’s better now though and you still don’t do stuff with me, even other stuff, not like we used to.’

I hadn’t realised he’d missed that. Maybe I had been too wrapped up in me. Most little brothers would have sulked like anything over how much attention I’d had over the past months, but Charlie hadn’t. ‘OK, so tomorrow night when you get home, we’ll practise your shooting. How about that? And we’ll keep doing it until you’re so awesome, they can’t wait to get you back on the team.’

His face lit up. ‘Thanks, Jen! Maybe you’re not the suckiest sister ever.’

‘Thanks, Charlie. Your compliments slay me.’ I laughed and shoved him off the duvet. ‘Now go shower – you’re minging.’

He stuck his tongue out and tried to rub his sweaty, muddy shirt on me, then trotted off to get cleaned up.

I finished my homework when he’d gone and went for a long soak in the bath before I went to bed. I fell asleep almost immediately.

A couple of hours later, something woke me with a start. I saw the landing light go on under my door. Dad shouted, ‘Stay in bed. I’ll sort it out.’ He thundered down the stairs. I heard him swear briefly and throw the front door open. Mum yelled, ‘Clive, don’t go out there,’ but I heard the crunch of his feet on our gravel drive, then Mum’s feet running downstairs too. When I crept to the top of the stairs and looked down, I saw the hall carpet was covered in broken glass. A brick lay on the floor by Mum’s feet and the window beside the door was smashed.

Dad came back in. ‘No sign of them now. And no sign of a car. That proves it was someone local.’ He snatched the phone up. ‘I’m calling the police again. Friendly chat, they said. Warn him off. That didn’t do much good. He needs locking up.’

‘I’ll go and check on the kids,’ Mum said. ‘Ask the police to keep the noise down if they come out. It’s school tomorrow.’

I scooted back to the bedroom. Charlie had slept through it all. If the roof blew off, he’d not wake. I pulled the covers over my head and pretended I was asleep because I was too angry to talk to Mum about it now. Angry with Steven Carlisle for being walking, breathing scum, and angry with Dad for getting us into all of this. The police wouldn’t find any evidence that Steven was involved – he’d have an alibi for sure.

Mum hovered in the doorway for a few minutes. I could sense she was unconvinced by my act, but she closed the door quietly and left me.

I burrowed my head into the pillow.

The helicopter engine buzzed loudly in my ears. Lindz laughed. ‘Come on, do it! Do it!’

I’d had this dream before. Always the same. She always laughed. Always ran forward to the open side of the helicopter with a big grin. Flung herself out into the sky, shouting ‘Come on!’ as she fell away from me.

And I always followed. Sick, knees weak, but I followed.

We fell through the sky together, pulling the cords of the parachutes at the same time. Hers never opened, but she still smiled, that same wild grin as she plummeted down to the deserted forest beneath, the canopy of the trees a rippling ocean of green.

It looked peaceful. I always thought that.

Until Lindz hit the first tree. She died a different way each time. Sometimes she hit her head. Sometimes she fell feet first. This time her neck snapped back like a broken doll as she plunged into the trees and disappeared.

I floated after her until my parachute got caught in the branches and I hung from the harness. The canopy snapped back into place above me – nobody would see me from the air.

Below, far below, Lindsay’s body lay on the ground. But me, I dangled there. Suspended in the trees where nobody would ever find me.

Does any pay packet feel as good as your first?Especially when you get a ten quid-bonus for keeping the shop customers happy. Pete was impressed with how patient I was with the old ones and how that made money land in his till. I tried to tell him it wasn’t difficult, talking to them about all the bargeware stuff because Mum was into all that, but he waved me off with a laugh and told me to enjoy the rest of the day.

I cycled into the town square and went into a craft shop with a jingly door curtain made of metal bells. Some of Mum’s jewellery was on sale in a locked counter on the desk and two women were bending over, examining it. ‘Ooh, Sandra, these are lovely. New in?’