Unbelievable, Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine: Seven

Tienna was waiting outside the science block, scoffing biscuits. She proffered me the packet of custard creams and I took a couple. We sat on the wall, munching in companionable silence; a rare moment of silence for Tienna.

She studied me, squinting into the early rays as the sun struggled to rise. I must have looked a mess in my baggy, slightly damp clothes. I hadn’t brought a towel; it would have been too bulky to hide in my schoolbag, too weird an item to carry about.

‘Why is your hair wet? Don’t you have a hairdryer?’ she questioned, frowning. ‘It’s February, Neo, too effing cold to go wandering about like that!’

I smiled, shaking my head, munching on the second biscuit. But I could tell that she wasn’t going to leave it alone. She had that look about her, that look that was so familiar, from before. The hungry look, craving information, wanting to know the secrets, the whys of my existence.

Suddenly, she lunged towards me, laughing, pointing. ‘Is this a piece of weed?’ she dragged it from my hair, gazing at me with incredulity. ‘Where have you been…?’

I swallowed the last mouthful of biscuit. ‘Oh, you know; early morning dip.’

‘In the river?’ she shrieked, laughing again. ‘What are you made of, girl? Solid rock? It must have been freezing!’ her mouth refused to close, gaping in part-shock, part-horror at my pursed lips and raised shoulders.

I had to give her something.

‘It’s nice…here in the country. You forget that I’m a big-city girl, unused to scenery and greenness and nature,’ I shrugged. ‘I walked past it on my way to school, and I thought hell, why not? So I took off all my clothes and jumped in.’

‘You swam naked?’ she shrieked with laughter. ‘Who’d have thought that quiet little you would be such a brazen hussy?’

‘Aright, keep your voice down,’ I muttered, irritably, as students began to appear from all directions, the time approaching half past eight.

‘Sorry!’ she looked slightly quelled. ‘Sorry,’ she hissed again, to affirm that she really meant it. ‘Naked!’ she giggled, quietly this time. ‘You’re bold!’

‘Well I didn’t have a towel; I couldn’t exactly put wet pants and bra back on, could I?’

We giggled together then, conspiratorially.

‘Not a word!’ I cautioned.

‘My lips are sealed!’ she promised, smirking.

Eric, Josh, Shannon and Tom appeared then, walking in unison through the gate from the road. They always seemed to be together, locked in an eternal foursome.

‘Ah, the four horsemen,’ I laughed. They looked blank.

‘Who?’ Shannon asked.

‘What?’ Josh raised a hand, palm up, leaning back slightly.

‘Too early for literary references, Shakespeare,’ Eric ribbed me. ‘Us science geeks don’t get them!’

‘The four horsemen: Conquest, War, Famine and Death; from the Book of Revelation, the last book in the Bible. They ride different coloured steeds and will appear during the Apocalypse, as the seven seals are opened. They are under the sovereignty of God.’

I shuddered, blinking, as an image of Death on his pale green horse flickered, grainy, across my eyelids. He turned towards me as he passed behind the burning car, and as his hood swung open, I could see his face. It was David’s.

‘Yeah, yeah, enough Christianity for this time in the morning!’ Josh grabbed my arm and started to drag me towards the door.

‘But I’m not Christian,’ I murmured, in quiet protest, as Tienna laughed and started to push me from behind. The others fell in, laughing too.

Resistance was futile.

‘Seven’s such an important number, isn’t it?’ Shannon wondered out loud. Seven for luck, seven seals, seven deadly sins…’

‘Seven days until Lent,’ chimed in Tom, who had been silent up until now, fiddling with his Ipod.

‘What you giving up, Neo?’ Tienna’s voice rang loudly in my ear.

‘What are you giving up?’ I shot back. ‘Biscuits?’

‘You calling me fat?’ she pinched my thin arm through my hoodie. ‘You skinny freak! Are you going to give up the Anorexia twins?’

‘Who?’ I hissed, as we filed into Biology. The teacher was waiting, frowning. It was a test. The papers were laid out, ready and waiting.

‘Elyssa and her freak boyfriend or brother or whatever.’

I hadn’t noticed whether Arun was as thin as Elyssa. I suppose because he always wore long-sleeved shirts, long black jeans. Perpetual black, just like Elyssa. He was so tall, had such a physical presence. But I remembered him drawing back his top to reveal his wrist, drawing the blade across the raised sinews…yes, they were both unnaturally thin. Was I? I sharpened my pencil as the class settled. Tienna winked at me, slipping a sneaky biscuit under the table and into my palm. She obviously thought so…

*

Later that night, I stood in my room, naked in front of the mirror. I felt vulnerable in a way I hadn’t experienced outdoors that morning, by the river. Then it had seemed natural, but here, in the House of Untold Secrets, my nakedness was intrusive. The room pulsated around me, thick with disapproval, as I studied my admittedly gaunt-looking form.

I had always been slender, but not this thin. After the crash, I hadn’t experienced any loss of appetite. In fact, I had probably eaten more, absently, listlessly, without passion. Food had been David’s thing. He could eat like a horse. It must have been all the sport, the constant running after balls, a mystifying occupation to me, sitting on the sidelines, watching in lust-tinged admiration. He would get me to try things, his mother’s hit-and-miss cake experiments, every chocolate bar under the sun, Chinese and Thai and Turkish and Japanese. I had revolted at the raw fish, watching him swallow sushi like a young sea-lion, his throat rippling.

I turned in the light from the lamp; I had turned off the overhead light because it was too stark. Perhaps it was seeing myself that caused the atmosphere to tense. Perhaps it was the shock that I had, actually, lost weight. I had never looked to see before, I think. That was new. I cast my mind to my mother, to Maggie, to my father…all slim and lithe. All slightly underweight, if you judged with critical eyes. And the country was drowning in obesity. Perhaps it’s perspective. Sixty years before, post-war, as rationing still continued, we’d probably have looked blooming and healthy.

I redressed, hiding in the bagginess. Timed perfectly, Maggie’s knock came as I was finishing.

‘Neona?’ she poked her head round the door, waiting to be invited. I beckoned her in, and she perched on the edge of the bed, bright yellow today, a riot in the calmness of the blue and white room.

‘What’s up, Maggie?’ I wandered, switching on my laptop, tidying.

‘Perhaps it’s time you stopped hiding,’ she blurted out, in true blunt, Maggie fashion.

‘Hiding?’ I sighed.

‘You must own something other than oversized jeans and those massive hooded jumpers.’

‘I’m not fashionable enough for you, all of a sudden?’ I eyed her beautifully-cut dress pointedly.

‘You’re a pretty young girl, you should make the most of it,’ she smiled encouragingly.

‘What’s brought this on?’ I demanded, but even before she told me, I could see it in her eyes, that strange, otherworldly knowledge, as if she could read my mind.

‘A boy walked you home the other night. Late. Very late.’

I felt my face flood with colour. ‘He’s a friend, it means nothing.’

‘It won’t always.’ She pushed.

‘What’s the point?’ I staccatoed, defensively. ‘No human man,’ you said. ‘I could kill boys who dare to aspire to me.’ I knew I was being teenage, but I couldn’t help it.

‘You think you’re rare. We are, rare that is. But not as rare as you’d think…’ she gazed up at me, almost shyly, or was it slyly?

‘I don’t think I want to talk anymore,’ I shut her off. The thought had crossed my mind, the thought that had eluded me just now, the thought that I now felt shining from my eyes, betraying me.

Arun wasn’t…quite human, either.

‘I’d like to take you shopping. Just for a few things.’ She offered. I knew she was being nice to me, was hoping that maybe I’d finally snapped out of my numbness. She was right, but I wasn’t quite ready to join the real world wholly, yet. Not until I knew…not until I’d found the boundaries. Not until I was sure what I was, what this meant. Not until I had forgiven myself for being so pathetic, for not knowing before…

But then, before, I hadn’t had anyone to push me. Selena had just let me be, my mother, the anti-drama queen. Looking back, she must have been happy when I retreated into myself; after all, if I didn’t go out, if I didn’t have friends, there’d be less chance of discovery.

So why did she leave the way she did?

Another answer came to me as Maggie left the room, quietly, leaving me to my thoughts:

For Lent, I could give up my fear of being less than human.

I had seven days to practise.