A Sea of Stars (8 page)

S
ince Cat kicked me, I've been really, really wary of her. I've never been kicked before. It's left this really big bruise that's turned all purple and yellowy. Cat's kind of folded up into herself, locked herself away so no one can get through. She's hardly speaking. She's doing lots of quiet, neat colouring in, holding her breath, resting the tip of her tongue on her lip. She keeps on staring into space, looking at nothing. Mum says she's probably looking at memories. I think she's trying to keep her brother's face in her mind, scared in case he slips away. Maybe she's replaying bad stuff that happened. Maybe her mind
is like one big, scary movie. I feel really creeped out by her because, behind her empty eyes, I can feel her brain ticking and ticking, watching us, thinking and thinking. I can hear it ticking in the night, when she's scuttling around in her room. She's put a note up on her door saying, NO ENTRI, PRIVIT.

Mum's gone all twitchy. She keeps fiddling with her lips. I overheard her talking to Dad the other night, saying she's worried about getting it wrong with Cat, saying she's afraid she's doing her more harm than good. I saw Dad stroke Mum's hand. He poured her a glass of wine.

“We'll get there,” he said. “Give her time.”

“Whatever's gone on for that child,” Mum said, “the impact is devastating and I'm not sure I have it in me to turn her around. The adoption agency said it would be a challenge, but I'm not qualified for this. I thought lots of cuddles and good food and a loving family would be enough. But she won't even look at me.”

A few days later, all these books on parenting adopted children and surviving trauma arrived in
the post. Mum hasn't put them down since. She keeps squealing when she's reading, getting excited with new ideas. When we were out shopping, she bought this little teddy with a red spotted ribbon round his neck. He sits in the middle of our table now and every day we have to sit down and say how we think he feels. Mostly, I think he feels bored just sitting there all the time, staring out at the world. I think he wishes he were a bird, so he could fly far away and have some fun. Today Mum thought he felt a bit sad and lost, like he needed a friend to talk to about his troubles. Dad thought the little teddy felt excited about something and was really ready to get on with it. This morning, when it was Cat's turn, her emerald eyes narrowed to thin, pond-green slits. She stared at the bear for ages and I was worried about what was coming next. I think Mum was too.

“I think he hates his life and he'd like to smash it up into little pieces,” she said. “Then he'd like to run back to his cave and find his little tiny bear cub and give him a great big cuddle
and eat lots of chocolate.”

Mum sighed. She fiddled with her lip. She made a cup of tea, handed everyone a few squares of chocolate and went back to her books. I wondered about what trauma actually feels like if you've got it, if it's an actual feeling under your skin or a thing in your brain or something else. I wish I could step into Cat's body for a minute.

Dad's not twitchy. He's got calmer. His voice is slower and lower. He's more patient and his eyes keep sending out beautiful butterflies to everyone. I wish I could catch one and tuck it in my pocket so I'll never forget how precious he is. Dad's started teaching Cat how to make pots because one of Mum's books says art can be good therapy. Cat won't talk to him, but she watches with beady eyes and then copies him and makes really, really good pots, as good as her colouring in. But if you say anything about them she just goes red. She stares straight through you, hides her face under her arm and nibble-nibble-nibbles on her nails.

Mum's going to try her on mermaids next
because she thinks Cat is a real artist in waiting. She wants to take her to an art exhibition at Falmouth University to get her inspired. I'm happy to go with them so long as Cat doesn't wear that stupid red dress and black socks. I wish she'd let us take her shopping and get some normal clothes. Sometimes she looks crazy, like yesterday when she wore this strange floppy hat thing and a brown knitted poncho. It was such a hot day I nearly melted in my shorts, but Cat shivered under her poncho like it was the middle of winter.

I wish Mum felt the same about surfing as she does about art. I wish she'd take me to Hawaii to get me inspired. I'm definitely going to be rubbish in the competition because I haven't done any training for days. Since our disaster picnic, Cat's refused to go down to the beach at all. And Anna's away camping, so I can't go down with her.

“Can I go surfing today?” I ask Mum. She's leaning over Cat, teaching her how to do a proper sketch of Peaches Paradise.

Mum peers out of the window at the perfect
glassy waves. She checks her watch. Looks at the tide tables. “I don't think so, love,” she says. “Dad's out all day, so he can't take you down… Unless,” she looks at Cat, “maybe we could all go?”

“Will you come, Cat? Please?” I say. “Just this once. You don't have to go in the sea or anything; you could just do drawing on the beach with Mum. We could have a picnic; it'll be fun!”

Cat's face goes white. Her hand grips her pencil and she starts scribbling deep grey lines through her work, making Peaches Paradise look like she's been struck by lightening.

“No!” she spits, jabbing the page like mad. “I just want to stay in and draw.”

“Cat,” Mum says, really gently, “we need to make sure Maya gets to do what she wants as well. You both need to learn to take turns. It's only fair.”

Cat starts tapping her feet, almost kicking the floor, scribbling and scribbling over Peaches Paradise.

“I'm not going,” she says. “You can't make me.”

She takes this big deep breath in, presses her lips
together and sucks them back between her teeth. She stares at Mum and holds her breath until the room feels stretched so tight with waiting that Mum and I start gasping for air.

Cat keeps on holding and holding and holding.

“Stop that!” says Mum. “Come on, Cat, you're scaring me. Take a breath, sweetheart.”

Cat's eyes start bulging. Her face glows red.

“I said, stop it, Cat!” says Mum, in a much sterner voice. She starts nibbling her lip. “Breathe! Now! Come on! There's a good girl.”

I really want to breathe for Cat. My lungs feel squeezy and burny. I'm longing for a big gulp full of fresh cool air. But I'm kind of holding my breath too. So's Mum. We're stuck watching Cat, waiting and waiting and waiting.

“Cat,” says Mum, carefully, “if you could tell us what's so bad about the beach, it would help. We might be able to help you through it. You never know, you might even enjoy it down there. We might have lots of fun. We could have an ice cream!”

Cat pushes her lips out. They're a purply-blue colour. Mum starts trembling. She looks at me. I look at her. I wish Dad were here because he'd know what to do. I try touching Cat, hoping it'll make her angry so she'll have to take a breath. But she just glares at me and shoots poison through her eyes.

“Stop it! Now!” says Mum, lightly shaking Cat's shoulders.

I don't know what to do. If I slap Cat she'll have to take a breath, but we're trying to teach her that hitting isn't allowed. And I'm just starting to panic when Cat suddenly starts shaking. It begins in her shoulders, they start trembling and trembling, then it moves down her body and, when the trembling hits her tummy, she takes this huge gasping breath and then bursts into tears. More and more sobs spill out of her mouth. Huge drops of silver roll down her cheeks. Mum gasps for air and starts sobbing too and I try to hold my tears back, but I can't. I'm so relieved Cat's breathing again and the tightness in the room has snapped that tears leak out of my
eyes too.

“Look at us!” says Mum, breaking into laughter. “Just look at us!”

Then we end up in a huddle, all crying together. Cat gets one half of Mum's lap and I get the other, but she still doesn't touch me.

“I just don't want to go to the beach,” cries Cat, sitting up and blowing her nose. “Please don't make me!”

“It's OK,” I lie. “I don't mind. We don't have to go.”

Mum looks at her watch.

“No,” she says, “its not fair, Maya. You need to have your turn too. And Cat, you need to learn that you can't manipulate people like that.”

“I could go with Luca?” I say. “You don't have to come. He's probably out there, anyway. Maybe if we call Gus and Rachel they won't mind keeping an eye out.”

Mum's face twists with concern. She looks at Cat.

“This isn't OK, Cat,” she says. “If Maya goes
surfing with Luca, you and me need to have a serious talk. This breath-holding thing must never happen again!”

Mum phones Dad and the damselflies start whirring inside me. What if I am actually allowed out, alone? It would be so amazing, like Christmas and birthday and the best holiday anywhere in the world, all rolled into one. I cross my fingers behind my back and have to stop myself from holding my breath. Mum's umming and ahhing on the phone to Dad, shaking her head and nodding. Please, please, please, say yes. Cat's eyes are staring at nothing. Her pencil is digging and digging at the page, making deep grey slashes through Peaches Paradise.

 

I can't believe it! I'm actually going to down to surf without Mum or Dad watching, without Anna's mum or dad watching, without a real grown-up there at all. I'm allowed! I smile at Cat and silently thank her. If she hadn't held her breath, this might never have happened until I was twenty-five or thirty-nine years old or something.

“Please be careful, Maya,” says Mum, nibbling her lip. “Don't do anything crazy. And I'd like you back in an hour. OK?”

An hour isn't really long enough. Not halfway long enough. But it's longer than I've ever had before.

“Please don't go,” says Cat. She nibbles on a nail. “I don't like you in the water.”

“You can't control me, Cat,” I say. “You're not my mum. But I promise you I'll be careful. I always am.”

 

I'm shaking like a leaf. Trekking down the cliff with my surfboard under my arm on my own feels really different. Different from when I went out that night with Anna because the secret guilty feeling of that is still burning a little hole inside me. Being allowed out alone is totally zabaloosh. I feel like a grown-up, totally wild and free.

W
hen I'm down on the beach, I start searching for Luca. But there are so many kooks dorking about and kids with buckets and spades and girls in bikinis, swishing in the shallows, it's hard to see who's who. I really miss Anna. It's a bit weird being here on my own. It is exciting and everything but there's no one to get excited with. Being with Anna would be zabaloosh!

Eventually I spot Luca in the distance and paddle out to meet him. I sing, “A sailor went to sea, sea, sea, to see what he could see, see, see, but all that he could see, see, see, was the bottom of the deep blue
sea, sea, sea,” but my voice isn't as loud as it would be with Anna. I feel a bit silly singing on my own. It is amazing, though, just being here. I paddle further and further out, the water shimmering under me like miles of rippling silk.

“Hey,” Luca smiles, when I reach him, “out here at last!”

“Finally!” I say. “I really need to train if I'm going to stand a chance with the competition. D'you know how long you're in England for yet?”

“A while,” Luca says. “My dad's obsessed with crop circles and stone circles and old Englishy things. He keeps dragging me off to marvel at stuff like it's the best thing on the earth.”

“You should enter the competition,” I say. “Although, if the Timsons enter this year, no one will stand a chance. They're this family I met at surf school and they're totally sick! Harry's pro, so he won't be entering, but Georgia, Kirra, Sonny and Robbie probably will. I'm going to go pro one day too, like Jamilah Star.”

“Big wave surfer, then?” Luca smiles.

“Definitely,” I say. “Big waves are the best. They're the really exciting ones because they're actually dangerous and everything else just fades away.”

I smile and blush while I'm babbling on because I start thinking about Anna liking Luca.

“Well, I haven't actually caught that big a wave yet,” I confess, “but one day I will! You wait and see!”

I really, really want to tell him about Anna liking him, but I know I can't. It's Anna's secret, not mine to tell, but it's eating me up. I want to know if he feels the same way about her. I want to find a way of getting them together.

Luca catches the next wave. It opens out like a dream and he rips. But then he takes a spill and Rachel from the Surf Shack paddles over to me laughing.

“Dufus! Luca! You rode that one like a kook!” I call out.

“Are you crushing on him, Maya?” Rachel teases.

“What?” I say, horrified. “No! I know someone
who is, though, but I'm not allowed to say.”

Rachel laughs and lies back on her board.

“Sorry my mum called you,” I say. “She thinks I'm gonna die out here or something. She's so paranoid! It's so embarrassing.”

“Awwwww, chin up!” says Rachel. “I'm sure things'll settle down with Cat soon and then your mum'll relax again. Luca's always around and we're pretty much always here, so tell your mum not to worry. You're a strong surfer, Maya, but it's good to be careful. Hey,” she says, pointing to the wave that's swelling on the horizon, “your wave!”

And then it's just me and the salt and the surf and the sun, and for a minute I truly am the wildest and freest girl alive. Then the wave closes in and I lose my focus and start wobbling and slipping and Luca waves his arms like mad from the shore.

“Wooooohooooo!” he whoops. “Big wave, surfer girl! Stoke me!”

Then he starts laughing and laughing and bending double with the giggles, so I shout out, “I can do this, you know! I'll beat you to Hawaii.”

I totally wipe out. I'm hurled around and around in a washing machine. My leash is tugging at my ankle and the sand is stinging my skin. The whole world spins and spins until my lungs burn and all the air's squeezed from me and I almost burst open. When I finally come up for air I can hear my mum shouting. She's standing on the beach, panicking.

“What's the matter?” I say, running through the shallows towards her. “I was OK. I just wiped out – nothing serious.”

“It's Cat again,” she says. “She's gone and I wondered if you'd seen her. I wondered if she'd followed you down.”

We check in the Surf Shack Café to make sure that Cat's not in there and then we climb back up the cliff. Mum's going on and on about how it's all her fault for not being a good enough mother.

“I just turned my back for a minute,” she says, “to go to the bathroom, and then she was gone!”

“She'll come back,” I say. “Don't worry so much.”

But Mum can't stop worrying; it's swallowing her whole. After we've searched the house and garden
twice, and checked if Mr Egbert at the campsite or Matilda at the farm shop have seen her, and had three cups of tea in a row, Mum calls Dad on his mobile. But Dad's miles away – he's still in London, with his phone switched off, selling pots and things to this big, important department store. And, even if we could get hold of him and he left to come home straight away, he wouldn't be back till much later.

Mum paces up and down. She wrings her hands together. She sighs and calls her best friend, Dawne for advice. Then she starts panicking in case Cat's trying to call home and puts the phone down without even saying goodbye.

“Do you think I should call Tania?” she asks, “or Susannah or Cat's social worker?”

“Don't panic, Mum. She's used to going out on her own; she did it all the time when she lived with her mum. She'll be back soon, I promise you.”

But Cat doesn't come back soon. We sit waiting for ages. Mum keeps trying Dad, but his phone is still switched off. I make us both a sandwich and
another cup of tea, but Mum just sits there staring at the sea, picking at the crusts, her teacup trembling in her hand. A fat silver teardrop plops on her cheek and I wish there was something I could do.

“If only she'd talk to us,” says Mum, “we might be able to help. I should have made her come down to the beach. We should've all stayed together.” She looks at me with firm eyes. “And I'm sorry, Maya, but I'm never letting you go down there alone again. Do you hear me? I'm never letting either of you out of my sight again.”

Mum picks up the books on adoption and starts flicking through the pages, searching for a miracle or a magical key to unlock Cat. I blink and blink to fight back my tears.

“That's it!” she says, suddenly flinging the book on the side. “I can't wait any longer. I'm calling the police.”

Mum's on the phone for so long, her knuckles turn white with clinging. I start whirring like mad, my arms and legs and everything all full to the brim with damselflies. Where is Cat? What is she doing?
Mum's voice goes all tight and trembly when she gives the police a description of Cat and the details about how she disappeared. I feel terrible. If I hadn't got Cat upset about asking her to go, none of this would've happened. It's all my fault. And what if something really bad happens to her? I keep looking out the window, hoping to see her beetle-black hair swishing. I look down at the bay. Cat wouldn't go down there, would she? She wouldn't have gone to watch me?

When the police arrive, Mum's trembling goes crazy. It's in her arms now as well – and her mouth, and her teeth. Her face keeps on twitching and I really wish my dad were here too. I make a pot of tea for the police and hunt for the biscuits, but someone has taken them. My hands are trembling so much, and I'm whirring and whirring, I slop the tea all over the floor. If only Dad would come home. If only Cat would come back.

Mum finds a photo of Cat. The police keep talking on their phones, describing Cat to the rest of the emergency services, whizzing the news of her
disappearance through Cornwall. The bus drivers and taxi drivers, and anyone else who might be able to help, now know that we're looking for Cat. I try Dad on his mobile again and leave yet another message and Mum calls Tania and Cat's social worker in case Cat's tried to make her way to them.

“I'm sorry,” I say to Mum, miserably. “It's all my fault. If I hadn't asked to go surfing then none of this would've happened.”

And what I want is for Mum to say, “Sweetie, it's not your fault. It's OK, she'll come back soon.”

But instead, she rubs her eyes. She twists her fingers around each other, nibbles her lip then looks up at me. And, just like in a film, I can see Alfie's tiny face covered in lemon cake and the big red bus scribbling deep grey panic lines all over her. Like she's been struck by jagged lightning.

“I'm so scared, Maya,” she says. “What if she doesn't come back? What if something terrible has happened?”

And I wish I could just crawl right out of my skin and hide.