Being Lara (2 page)

The Little Girl didn't answer. She couldn't answer. Not because she
wished to be naughty, but because when her mouth opened again, nothing would come out, apparently struck dumb with the image before them. Fairy slippers stuck firmly to the floor, her whole body feeling trapped on an island with sharks swimming all around.

And the fear. Nobody to call out to. Locked in a scary place—and worst of all, all too aware that Connie and her dad had been spot-on all along.

Lara Reid was indeed an ALIEN.

Then

L
ara's family certainly wasn't like anybody else's living within spitting distance of Entwistle Way, Essex.

They stood out.

Mum had once used the word
unique,
whatever that meant. But for the most part, Lara was able to understand the differences between her family and those of her neighbors and friends. It had a lot to do with Mum, who hadn't always lived in Essex, smelling of lavender, cooking her dinners, and washing her clothes. Once upon a time, before Lara was even a “twinkle in her parents' eyes,” Mum had lived the life of an international pop star, with number one hits like “Do You Want This?,” a sort of “disco meets pop” song according to Dad and some ancient magazine Uncle Brian would bring out from time to time. Mum's songs had been played on almost every radio station in England, allowing her to travel the world, mingle with stars, and regularly slip into sparkly dresses she never even had to pay for. Mum's stories of that time were like a sweet spread of strawberry jam on a warm piece of toast—comforting and familiar—with Lara, at seven years old, never tired of hearing them.

“What was it like?” she asked Mum, possibly for the tenth time that year, wistful eyes, huge smile, and palms resting daintily beneath her chin.

“Well,” said Mum, placing a piping hot sponge cake on the table and wiping her hand on a slightly worn floral apron. Her red slippers glistened like Dorothy's as she sat down and crossed one leg over the other, smiling with the heavy warmth Lara had grown used to. “What bit shall I tell you about today, sweet pea?”

Lara sat on Mum's lap with the steaming hot cake between them, in the back of her mind acutely aware she may be too old to do so, and cleared her head of Sindy dolls, Connie Jones, and whether Dad would ever stop pinching her chips and she listened.

Lara “gasped” as Mum reeled off that familiar story of when she actually met Madonna (before stardom hit), giggled at what happened at the magazine photo shoot with the stroppy makeup artist, and imagined what it truly felt like to sing on a famous stage surrounded by truckloads of screaming fans.

“Tell me more, Mum, pleeaase?!”

Lara wrapped her arms around her mum's neck, absently kissing her forehead in between each story. They were tales that felt a trillion miles away from that little semidetached house in Entwistle Way with a mum, a dad, and an invisible puppy, but yet they were so very exciting in their inaccessibility. Her young mind soaked up every word to retain until the next day at the playground, when she'd be happy to repeat it all with added embellishment to all her friends as Connie Jones watched jealously from afar. Connie didn't bother her as much anymore. Calling out a few recycled gibes here and there that had since lost their power.

“Do you miss it, Mum?”

“Why would I? I've got everything I want with you, and your dad.”

“And the puppy…” Lara added, searching Mum's eyes for confirmation they'd actually be getting one someday.

“Anyway, sweet pea, that was then, in the past. Remember, you and I are going to have our own little cake shop one day.”

“Oh yeah, Mum! We're going to sell lots and lots of colorful fairy cakes! And play dressup with pearls and long gloves!” she said excitedly.

“Exactly. Now—” said Mum, gently standing up as Lara jumped off her lap. “I'm going to mix some butter icing and if you're a good girl, I might let you lick the bowl…”

Lara's eyes widened with glee at the thought of not having to share the large spoon with anyone. Knowing her mum used to be a pop star was good, but even better was that Mum didn't have to keep traveling to and from Los Angeles or the Oscars or whatever it was pop stars did and she could have her all to herself.

Lara always looked forward to summer breaks, and the year she was seven, the Reid family spent that precious time in a town called Blackpool.

Blackpool represented so much more than just an atmospheric world of funfair rides and candy floss; it was a glorious moment in time in which Lara got to sample the sweetness of freedom and forbidden treats—all under that watchful gaze of Mum. There was nothing like eating popcorn and multicolored candy floss until her lips resembled melting rainbows, laughing so much her cheeks and jaw ached. Lara loved the noisy, exaggerated exploration of open-top trams—a full-on adventure worthy of Indiana Jones—and on the beach, the meticulous construction of sturdy sand castles to cover a “screaming” Dad neck to toe in sand. It was easier making friends when they were on holiday, too. A girl—Sarah from the chalet next door—even agreed to swap dolls with Lara for the remainder of their stay, sealing an unspoken bond that would last at least until the holiday was over. Sarah had two brothers named Ryan and Toby, who liked to kick a ball about as Sarah and Lara discussed Wendy houses and dolls, careful to stay out of each other's way as each set of parents sunbathed on the sand together.

One day, Ryan said to Lara, “How come they're your mum and dad?”

“Because they are,” she replied confidently while also thinking it had to be the dumbest question she'd ever heard in her life.

“You can't be though!” he added, anyway.

“I'm adopted,” she countered, tilting her head in confidence, pleased as his expression morphed from nonbelief into confusion. Mum and Dad had sat her down and explained everything to her one day, saying that Lara was special and had been sent to them.

A
special little girl,
Mum had said.

“It still doesn't make sense!” he said. Lara chose to ignore his blatant stupidity, rolled her eyes, and ran off to find Sarah. He was only a boy after all, and every one of Lara's friends had long since agreed that boys were a bit stupid.

Mum, Dad, and Lara walked back to their rented chalet that night, Dad clutching Lara's hand as she skipped along and Mum holding on to an almost empty picnic basket, save for one banana and a half-eaten cheese and pickle sandwich. Lara's eyebrows scrunched as she allowed thoughts of Ryan to form a huge question mark above her head.

How come they're your parents?

Lara looked up at her dad, his mustache curved into a smile. He was thrilled to have finally tanned eight days into the holiday because Mum had been teasing him about his skin throughout. She'd called him pasty earlier and he'd responded with a playful slap on her bum, which had caused a surge of giggles among Lara and her new friends. But, no matter how hard she tried to shoo it away like an errant fly, Ryan's question stayed with her. And at that moment, thoughts of that “alien” playground incident two years previous drifted back into her present memory—along with that absolute need for a Tiny Tears doll and a dislike of cabbage—threatening to confuse her yet again.

They'd been back home in Essex a few weeks, with school starting again in the morning, when Mum tucked Lara in bed and read her a story about a beautiful soul-singing princess and the headbanging punk rocker who fell in love and lived happily ever after in a glitter-covered mansion in Surrey. As always after one of her stories, which were never read from a book, Mum kissed Lara on the forehead plus both cheeks and said, “See you in the morning, sweet pea,” right on cue, just as she always did each and every night for as long as Lara could remember. Lara hated the dark and regularly kept the little gray lamp with the adjustable long steel neck beside her bed, switched to “on” for most, if not all, of the night.

“Mum…” she said, just as the door was about to be closed.

Kneeling beside Lara's bed, Mum pulled back the yellow cover. “What is it?”

Above Mum's head and stuck to the wall with Blu-Tack was an old poster from Mum's singing days; she had a massive blond perm, covered by a huge leather cap fashionably tilted to slightly cover her left eye, and wore an abundance of overpowering blue eye shadow. Mum looked beautiful in that poster and still did now, even if she did sometimes tie her hair up in an elastic band.

“I hope you're not trying to stay up late, Lara,” she said, fixing the sheet around her shoulders again. It was a trick Lara had tried before, but no, this time there was definitely
something
on her mind. Something important. This time she needed to know what Ryan had meant and why. Because for the duration of their time in Blackpool and ever since, Lara hadn't failed to notice stares from strangers as she and her mum and dad browsed shops for souvenirs and ice cream. She had seen how some people seemed to stop midconversation as the three of them walked hand in hand along the busy beachfront, the sun shining down on their faces, seagulls singing around them. Lara also noticed a strangeness occur on home turf, too; in the butchers, the supermarkets, anyplace outside of the sanctuary of their house. Looks, stares, whispers—things she hadn't noticed before.

“You've got two minutes to ask me this question of yours or else! You have got to get some sleep!”

Mum's sweet-smelling lavender perfume instantly surrounded Lara's nostrils, enveloping her in a warm hug, allowing her to feel secure again and perhaps no longer in need of asking the question.

Lara yawned heartily. “It's okay, Mum. I'll go to sleep now.” She tightly squeezed her eyelids together and thought nothing more, until morning when the thoughts all started up again, this time carefully hidden behind a barrage of questions perhaps not unusual to seven-year-olds.

“How can pigeons hear without ears?”

“Where do the stars in the sky live when it's the afternoon?”

“Why am I … different?”

The day Lara chose that particular question was during the family's dinnertime, at the table with a plate of mashed potatoes, sausage, and beans and an episode of Mum's favorite show,
Dallas,
in the background. Just before the evening ritual of playfully kicking her feet under the dining table, as Mum fetched drinks and Dad sat in “Dad's armchair” facing the telly with a hot plate resting on his lap on top of a
TV Times,
Lara asked:

“Why am I different?”

The mashed potato in Dad's mouth suddenly lodged in his throat, and Mum dropped the jug of “healthy and nutritious water” she was about to force them all to drink.

Silence.

Mum went to fetch the dustpan and brush from the kitchen as the atmosphere remained still, save for the impolite ramblings of Sue Ellen.

Lara turned to her dad desperately, anxious for him to offer a reasonable enough explanation so that she could tuck into her food even though she suddenly wasn't that hungry.

So she repeated the question, this time with added oomph and a sprinkle of exaggeration. But, still, the silence that followed remained intense, threatening to swallow her up whole, leading her to take a chance on something she'd only ever call on during desperate times. Like when Mrs. Kershaw, her teacher, asked who'd thrown a felt-tip pen across the classroom as her back was turned. Everyone knew it was Connie, but Lara had simply nodded her head and said she hadn't seen a thing.

Lara would have to lie again.

“Ryan said you must have found me in the street one day and taken me home. Is that true?” she asked, turning to Dad.

“You're being silly!” said Mum, stooping to sweep shards of broken glass into the green dustpan.

Something, a thought or a feeling or a memory, kept whispering to Lara that this was potentially serious; and she longed to jump into Doc Brown's traveling machine, punch in random buttons, and find herself back fifteen minutes ago, no, make that
three weeks,
so she could ignorantly lark about happily on Blackpool beach, her only care being whether she'd collected enough shells or not.

She just longed to be herself again. Lara from Entwistle Way, somewhere in Essex. But her brain, unable to process the early contents of the Pandora's box she'd just unlocked, decided to respond in the only way that made any sort of sense to her at that moment.

“JUST TELL ME WHAT HE MEANT!” she yelled, finally, feeling a strange release, as a fuzzy redness became her vision, her heart racing with a sudden surge of injustice. She needed the truth and was going to get it. Today, this minute, this second!

But not one sound from anyone followed—just an unintentional burp from Dad as Mum continued to sweep up the last of the broken glass, eyes fixed on the ground.

Dad turned to Mum with a worried look. Mum stared blankly at the wall as she stood to her full height.

“Don't worry yourself about it,” said Mum almost robotically. Lara opened her mouth in preparation for petulant protest, just as Dad, perhaps sensing her on Standby for Full Tantrum Mode, spoke. But it was to say three words that surprised, annoyed, and continued to confuse her all at once.