Cecelia Ahern - The Book of Tomorrow

Now things are worse than they were before I started this. I can’t stand this any more. I can’t stand being here any more. Next time Marcus comes along in his bus, I’m hijacking it and I’m forcing him to take me home. Wherever that is, it’s not here.

Don’t count on my writing tomorrow.

With shaking hands I returned the book to under the floorboard and knew that I had to fix this. I went downstairs and in the kitchen Rosaleen was making her pies for the next day.

I sat and watched her, nervously biting my nails and trying to decide what to do. If I stopped her from using the salt in the pie then that would mean that I could stop her from returning to the gatehouse too early. But if I changed everything then Weseley would never believe me. Which did I need more, a doctor for Mum or an ally here to help me?

‘Tamara, would you mind fetching me the sugar from the pantry, please?’ she broke into my thoughts.

I froze.

She turned round. ‘Tamara?’

‘Yes,’ I snapped out of it. ‘I’ll get it now.’

‘Can you just fill this up to there, that’ll make it easier,’ she smiled pleasantly, enjoying the bonding.

I took the measuring jug from her and I felt like I was outside of myself as I walked to the pantry. In the small room off the kitchen I looked at the floor-to-ceiling shelves stocked with everything a person could possibly need for ten years. Condiments separated into Mason jars with screw-on lids, labelled in perfect penmanship with contents and expiry dates. A shelf of root vegetables: onions, potatoes, yams, carrots. A shelf of canned goods: soups and broths, beans, tinned tomatoes. Below that the grains, all in their glass jars: rice, pasta of all kinds of shapes and colours, beans, oatmeal, lentils, cereals and dried fruits-sultanas, raisins, apricots. Then there was the baking supplies: flour, sugar, salt and yeast, and so many jars of oils, olive oil, sesame oil, balsamic vinegar, oyster sauce, rails and racks of spices. There were even more jars of honey and jam: strawberry, raspberry, blackberry and even plum. It was endless. The sugar and salt had both been emptied from their packets and poured into jars. The jars were labelled, in that perfect handwriting. My hand shook as I reached for the salt jar. I remembered my lesson from last night: I could change the diary. I didn’t need to follow its story. If I hadn’t found it, life would be going on without any of my knowledge.

But then I thought of Weseley. If I gave Rosaleen the sugar, then she wouldn’t return home tomorrow, she wouldn’t catch the doctor before he went upstairs, she wouldn’t convince him not to see Mum. If I changed the diary, then I would have absolutely no idea what would happen, so I wouldn’t be able to tell Weseley and he wouldn’t believe me about the diary. I’d have lost a new friend and looked like the biggest weirdo on the planet.

But if I told him what was to happen tomorrow, then Mum wouldn’t see a doctor. How much longer could I wait here while she sat upstairs sleeping and waking as though there was no difference between either?

I made my decision and reached for a jar.

I got very little sleep that night. I tossed and turned, felt too hot and kicked off the covers, then felt too cold and covered up again, one leg out, one arm out, nothing was comfortable. I could find no happy medium. I daringly went downstairs to the kitchen to phone Weseley about the diary entry. I didn’t use the stairs, instead I did my gymnastics teacher proud by climbing over the banister and landing gently on the stone floor. Anyway, I did pretty well not to make a sound going down the stairs and yet still, just as I reached for the phone in the kitchen, Rosaleen appeared at the door in a nightdress from the 1800s, which went to the floor and hid her feet making her appear as though she was floating like a ghost.

‘Rosaleen!’ I jumped.

‘What are you doing?’ she whispered.

‘I’m getting a glass of water. I’m thirsty.’

‘Let me get that for you.’

‘No,’ I snapped. ‘I can do it. Thank you. You go back to bed.’

‘I’ll sit with you while you-’

‘No, Rosaleen,’ I raised my voice. ‘You need to give me space, please. I just want a glass of water, then I’m going back to bed.’

‘Okay, okay.’ She raised her hands in surrender. ‘Good night.’

I waited to hear the creaks on the steps. Then I heard her bedroom door close, her feet moving across her bedroom and then the springs in her bed. I rushed to the phone and dialled Weseley’s number. He picked up after half a ring.

‘Hi, Nancy Drew.’

‘Hi,’ I whispered, then froze, suddenly so uncertain about what I was doing.

‘So, did you read the diary?’

I searched for any sign that I shouldn’t tell him. I listened out for tones-was he jesting me? Was he setting me up? Was I on speaker phone in a room full of his hillbilly friends-you know, the kind of thing I would have done if some dork that had moved to my area gatecrashed my party and started spurting crap about a prophesying diary.

‘Tamara?’ he asked, and I could hear no tone, nothing to make me change my mind.

‘Yes, I’m here,’ I whispered.

‘Did you read the diary?’

‘Yes.’ I thought hard. I could tell him I was joking, that it had been a hilarious joke, just like the one about my dad dying. Oh, how we’d laugh.

‘And? Come on, you’ve made me wait until eleven o’clock,’ he laughed. ‘I’ve been trying to guess all kinds of things. Will there be any earthquakes? Any lotto numbers? Anything we can make money out of?’

‘No,’ I smiled, ‘just boring old thoughts and emotions.’

‘Ah,’ he said, but I could hear his smile. ‘Right then, out with it. The prophecy please…’

That night, I woke up every half hour, the outcome of the day to come keeping me on edge. At three-thirty a.m. I couldn’t take it any longer and I reached for the diary to see how the day had been affected and what the events of tomorrow would hold.

I reached for the torch beside the bed and with a pounding heart opened the pages. I had to rub my eyes to make sure what I was seeing was correct. Words were appearing, then disappearing, sentences half-formed, which didn’t make sense, would appear then vanish again as quickly as they’d arrived. The letters seemed to jump off the page as everything was jumbled, without order. It was as though the diary was as confused as my mind, unable to formulate thoughts. I closed the book and counted to ten, and full of hope, I opened it again. The words continued to jump around the page, finding no meaning or sense.

Whatever plans I had put in place with Weseley, tomorrow had certainly been affected. However, exactly in what way was still unclear, as it obviously depended on how I lived the day when I awoke. The future hadn’t been written yet. It was still in my hands.

In the moments that I did manage to sleep, I dreamed of glass shattering, of me running through the field of glass but it was a windy day and the pieces were blowing, scraping my face, my arms and my body, piercing my skin. But I couldn’t get to the end of the garden, I kept getting lost among the rows and a figure stood at the window watching me, with hair in front of her face, and every time the lightning flashed I could see her face, and she looked like Rosaleen. I woke up in a sweat each time, my heart thudding in my chest, afraid to open my eyes. Then I’d eventually go back to sleep only to walk myself straight back into the same dream. At six-fifteen I couldn’t force myself back to sleep again, and I was up. And though my entire plan was to help Mum get back to being herself again, I checked on her with the faintest hope that she still wasn’t okay. I don’t know why-of course I wanted her to get better with all of my heart-but there’s always the part of you, the part that hides in the shadows protecting the self-destruct button, that doesn’t ever want to leave the dark behind.