Cecelia Ahern - Flawed / Perfect

My results were celebrated; hers weren’t. They were never bad; they just weren’t perfect. Everybody always wanted her to do better, to be better. And I understand the pressure she was under, but I could have been there to help her, not be the one she eventually blamed.

She thinks I’m a know-it-all, which she has told me plenty of times, and I try not to be, I really do. I know I have a habit of correcting people’s grammar or recounting dictionary definitions, but that’s just me. Doing it does not make me feel I am better than the person I am saying it to. It is just an expression of who I am. I try to ask her questions, the meaning of things, pretend not to know something that I do know, but she finds this patronising. She’s right, but I don’t know what else to do. My striving for perfection includes wanting to have the ideal relationship with my sister, like in the movies I see and the books I read, the stories that tell you that sisterhood is the one real true love and relationship you will have in your life.

Juniper is dyslexic. She sees this as another failure, another trait that has let her down, but I can see that it makes her view things in a different way. I’m a problem-solver. I read the signs, the proof that I see before me, and come to a conclusion. Juniper is cleverer than that. She reads people. I don’t know how she does it, but she watches and listens and arrives at conclusions I could never imagine, and usually she’s right. I look at things straight on; her perspective seems to curve round things, wind and twist, turn things upside down to reach the answer. I have never told her that I think this about her. I tell myself it’s because I don’t want to come across as patronising, but really I know it’s because I have a jealousy of my own.

I think about what Mum said earlier about Jimmy Child maybe not being the only person to have been found not Flawed.

“Did you know that there might be other people who went through the Flawed court and were found to be not Flawed?” I whisper to Art.

I feel his grip on my hand loosen as he turns to me. He’s annoyed I won’t let go of this. “No, I didn’t know.”

“I think there must be other people found innocent that we don’t know about. Has your dad ever said anything?”

“Bloody hell, Celestine, drop it, will you?”

“I’m just asking.”

“You’re not really supposed to.”

“Aren’t I?”

“Not here, anyway,” he says, looking around nervously.

I go quiet. I can only look ahead at the Flawed woman, head swirling with unfamiliar thoughts. Dangerous thoughts.

At the next stop, the Flawed woman gets off and a rather large lady gets on. She recognises the woman with the crutches and sits down beside her, and they chat.

At the next stop, an old man gets on the bus, and I almost call out to him. He looks so much like my granddad that I’m convinced it’s him, which doesn’t make sense because my granddad lives on a farm in the country, but then I see the large F symbol on his armband and I shudder, annoyed with myself for ever thinking someone like him could possibly be related to me.

My prejudice strikes me. I had been repulsed by the reaction of the woman with the crutches to the Flawed woman smiling at her, but I hold equal views of my own without ever realising it.

The man is in his seventies or eighties. I’m not sure. He’s old, and he is dressed in a smart suit and polished shoes, as if he’s on his way to work. From this angle, I can’t see any signs of branding, though it could mean it is on his chest, tongue, or foot. He looks respectable, and again I study him, surprised by his appearance. I always thought of the Flawed as less than us, and I can’t believe I have admitted that to myself. He is unable to sit, because the two Flawed seats are taken – by two women who are not Flawed but who are so busy chatting that they don’t notice him. He stands near them, holding on to the pole to stay upright.

I hope they notice him soon. He doesn’t look like he will go very far standing.

A few minutes pass. He is still standing. I look around. There are at least a dozen free seats where he could sit, but he is not allowed to. I’m a logical person, and this does not seem logical to me.

I look across at Juniper, who has taken off her headphones and is sitting up, poker straight, alert and looking at the same situation that I am. Juniper has always been more emotional than I am, and I can see her on the edge of her seat, ready to pounce.Instead of fearing she will do something stupid, for once I am glad she and I feel the same.

The old man starts coughing. And then he won’t stop.

His breath is wheezy, barely still for a moment before he coughs again. He takes out a handkerchief and coughs into that, trying to block the germs and noise. His face goes from white to pink to purple, and I see Juniper move closer to the edge of her seat. She looks at the two women chatting, then back to the old man. Finally, he stops coughing.

Moments later he starts again, and all heads turn away from him and look out of the window. The fat lady stops talking to look at him, and I’m relieved, knowing she will finally let him sit in the seat he is entitled to. Instead, she tuts as if he’s bothering her and continues her conversation.

Now I straighten up in my seat.

The coughing is bothering her. It is bothering everyone on the bus. His loud gasps for breath can’t be ignored, and yet they are. Rules state that if anyone aids a Flawed, they will be imprisoned, but not in this case, surely? Are we to watch him struggling right before us?

The coughing stops.

My heart is pounding.

I let go of Art’s hand. It feels clammy.

“What’s up?”

“Can’t you hear that?”

“What?”

“The coughing.”

He looks around. “There’s no one coughing.”

The coughing starts again, and Art doesn’t bat an eyelash when he looks at me intimately and says, “You know I can’t wait to be somewhere alone. Why don’t we miss the first class?”

I can barely hear him over the coughing, over my pounding heart. Does nobody hear the old man? Does nobody see him? I look around, flustered. All eyes are staring out of the window or on him in disgust, as if he’s about to infect us all with his flaws.

Juniper’s eyes are filled with tears. My own flesh and blood agreeing with me is validation enough. I make a move to stand up, and Art’s hand suddenly clamps around my arm.

“Don’t,” he says firmly.

“Ow!” I try to move, but instead his grip feels like red-hot iron. “You’re hurting me.”

“And do you think when they sear your skin it won’t hurt more than this?” He squeezes tighter.

“Art, stop! Ouch!” I feel my skin burning.

He stops.

“How is this fair?” I hiss.

“He has done something wrong, Celestine.”

“Like what? Something that’s completely legal in another country but that people are prosecuted for here anyway?”

He looks as if I’ve stung him.

“Don’t do anything stupid, Celestine,” he says, sensing he has lost the argument. “And don’t help him,” he adds quickly.

“I have no intention of helping him.”

How I walk by this coughing, wheezing, struggling-to-breathe old man is beyond me, but I do, seeing the faint F scar on his temple as though it has been there a very long time, like it’s as much a part of him as the freckles and hair alongside it. I walk straight to the two women in the Flawed seats. They are chatting about making jam, as if nothing is wrong.

“Excuse me,” I say sweetly, offering them the most polite smile I can muster. They respond immediately with their own bright smiles. Two polite, friendly women from the suburbs willing to help me with anything. Almost anything.