Eva's Journey (11 page)

Chapter Eighteen

I
wouldn't say I was getting to like my new school, but after a while I didn't hate it quite as much.

Dawn was always really kind to me. She gave me an extra-big smile whenever she saw me.

I don't know if she ever figured out how I'd been involved in the way her life changed.

Maybe she just remembered seeing me that day, and thinking about it made her feel happy.

I wouldn't ever want to spend a whole lot of time with Mr Gowing (after all, he was a teacher), but I have to admit that he was turning out to be quite nice. Soon I decided that, as teachers go, he was probably as good as it gets.

He seemed to like me too. (Maybe that was
because every time there was a horrible job to be done, I was the first to volunteer. And whenever anyone in the class was struggling with their work, I nearly tripped over myself in my rush to be the one to help.)

Most days I sat with Ella, Chloe and Amy. At first I felt guilty when I saw Ruby on her own at the other side of the classroom. But then I noticed that any time I caught her eye, she gave me a fierce look, which I took to mean that she wanted me to stay away. In the end I decided that sometimes she was quite happy to be on her own, and I even though I couldn't really understand it, I began to admire her independence.

The next Saturday, I went to the market even earlier than usual. Ruby looked surprised, but she didn't say anything. As the day went on, she never got exactly talkative, but we did chat a bit. It turned out that she was quite funny – in her own very, very quiet way.

After a few hours, I'd just finished serving a nice
old man, when I looked up and saw something that shook me for a second. It was Emily, one of my old friends from The Abbey. She was with a girl I didn't know.

‘Hey, Emily,' I said without thinking – without remembering that Emily hadn't contacted me for months.

Emily turned. She looked at me for a long time.

‘Oh, hi,' she said in the end.

‘So how's it––?' I began, but she was already walking away.

‘Who was that?' asked the girl with Emily.

‘Oh, no one. Just someone I sort of knew a very long time ago.'

I felt a sudden flare of anger.

She said I was no one.

How dare she?

I sat next to her for two whole years.

I invited her to my birthday party.

She ate three slices of my birthday cake.

Suddenly I realised that the banana I was holding was squashed to a pulp in my clenched
fist.

Then I felt a gentle hand on my arm. Ruby took the squashed banana from my hand and put it in the bucket of damaged stuff that she saves as pig food.

‘Know what?' she said quietly. ‘That girl should cop on to herself and make a bit more effort with her appearance.'

I looked at Emily who had stopped at a stall nearby.

‘But she…' I began before I noticed the wicked smirk on Ruby's face.

‘You're joking,' I said and Ruby nodded.

I looked at Emily in her turquoise high heels, which matched her turquoise handbag, which matched her turquoise eyeshadow, which matched her turquoise nail varnish, which matched her turquoise belt, which matched her … well you get the idea. Emily was dressed for the Teen Choice Awards, not a Saturday morning in the market. She looked totally ridiculous – and that made me very, very happy.

I grinned at Ruby, but she had already turned away to tidy the vegetables.

When the market was over, I helped Ruby to close up the stall.

Once again, she gave me a huge bag of fruit and vegetables.

Once again she refused the five euro that I offered her.

But this time she didn't vanish as soon as the bag of food was safely in my arms. We stood together outside the locked-up shed. Ruby looked embarrassed, and that made me feel embarrassed too.

I'd never before spent so much time in the company of someone so strange – or someone I knew so little about.

‘I'd better go home,' I said in the end.

‘Wait,' she said.

I waited, but for a long time, nothing happened, except that Ruby's cheeks turned from pale pink to deeper pink and then to a strong dark
red that matched her name perfectly. Then she was muttering, ‘I got you something.'

She put her hand into her pocket and then removed it, holding her closed fist towards me.

I wondered what she wanted to give me. The thing I wanted right then was a big pile of fifty euro notes, or the winning ticket for that night's lottery, and there wasn't much chance Ruby was going to give me either of those.

This girl was so weird I half expected her to say that she was giving me her pet slug.

‘I've noticed that you like purple,' she said.

Not a slug, so.

Maybe it was a very pretty grape or a squashed-up flower.

I love getting presents, but I couldn't bring myself to look forward to this one.

I rearranged the bag of fruit and vegetables so that it was propped up on my hip, held steady with my left hand. Then, very slowly and cautiously, I stretched out the open palm of my right hand.

Very slowly and cautiously, Ruby opened her fist, and something dropped from her hand into mine.

Then we stood there, like an evil fairy had turned us into stone.

‘Wow,' I gasped when I'd got tired of standing there, looking like an idiot made of stone.

I'm used to beautiful things, but I think this might have been the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I was a bracelet made of tiny purple and mauve beads. As I moved my hand, the bracelet shimmered in the light, almost like it was half alive.

‘Wow,' I said again, just before I realised that I couldn't take presents from Ruby. How could I take anything from a girl who had so little?

‘But I can't …….' I began.

Ruby jumped back like I had punched her.

‘It's OK. I didn't buy it,' she said.

For one second a horrible thought floated into my mind.

‘I didn't steal it either, if that's what you're
thinking,' she said.

I shook my head. ‘I'd never think that of you,' I said, telling a total lie.

I looked at the bracelet again, and slipped it on to my wrist.

It felt cool and silky against my skin.

It matched my purple top perfectly.

‘My mum made it,' said Ruby. ‘I told her I wanted to give you something for helping me, so she made you this. I hope you like it.'

I stepped forwards ready to hug her, then decided against it. Ruby
so
wasn't a huggy kind of girl.

‘I don't like it,' I said.

Ruby's face fell, and I rushed to finish what I had started to say.

‘I
love
it. I absolutely love it.'

Then, for the first time ever, I saw Ruby give a proper smile, and it was almost like she had given me another present.

As we walked out from the market together, I saw Ella coming along the street with Chloe and
Amy. I felt a sudden flush of embarrassment. The more I got to know Ruby, the more I liked her, but the other girls probably still thought of her as the class loser. I wondered for a second if I could duck back into the market, but before I could move, the girls were in front of us. Beside me, I could feel Ruby becoming tense and alert – like she was ready to be offended.

But I needn't have worried.

‘Hey, Eva. Hey Ruby,' said Ella, like seeing us together was the most normal thing in the world. ‘We're going for hot chocolate. Do you want to come?'

‘No,' said Ruby.

‘We'd love to,' I said at the same time, and half-dragging Ruby behind me, I followed the girls into the coffee shop.

‘Let me buy you a hot chocolate,' I said to Ruby, brandishing my five euro note.

She shook her head fiercely. ‘I can pay for myself,' she muttered, and I realised that I had insulted her proud spirit.

‘Whatever,' I said, half-relieved that I'd be bringing most of the money back home to Mum and Dad.

Soon the five of us were seated around a big table, stirring marshmallows into our hot chocolate and talking about stuff. Ruby didn't exactly look relaxed, but she didn't look like she wanted to run away and hide either.

‘Hey, Eva, cool bracelet,' said Amy as I reached for extra sugar.

‘Ruby's mum made it,' I said.

‘No way,' said Chloe.

I nodded. ‘It's true.'

‘Wow,' said Ella. ‘She must be a genius.'

I turned to Ruby. Her face was red, but I could see that she was pleased.

It turned out to be a lovely day.

 

Chapter Nineteen

O
n Sunday, Victoria came to spend the day at my place.

‘Wow,' she said when she came inside. ‘Did you get a new kitchen put in?'

Dad smiled.

‘No,' he said, puffing up with pride. ‘That's the old kitchen. A friend gave me a few cans of paint he didn't need, and I used it to paint the units. Nice aren't they?'

‘Totally,' said Victoria.

I wondered if she was being sincere. I couldn't help comparing Dad's handiwork with the very flashy maple and steel kitchen that Victoria's parents had had fitted in their house a few months earlier.

‘I'm doing the bathroom next,' said Dad. ‘First
I'm going to re-grout the tiles, and then I'm going to sand the floorboards, and then—'

‘Dad,' I wailed. ‘Victoria isn't here for a DIY lesson.'

‘Oh,' said Dad, disappointed.

I grabbed Victoria's arm and pulled her towards the hall.

‘Come on,' I said. ‘Before he gets started again.'

Victoria laughed, and followed me.

‘Your dad's changed,' she said as we went upstairs.'

‘Tell me about it!' I said.

‘Don't knock it. Some changes are good you know. And your mum – she seems kind of different these days too.'

I smiled.

‘Yes she is, isn't she? She always used to go out to lunch and coffee mornings and stuff – but she never had any real friends. Now that's all changed though. She's forever having the neighbours in for cups of tea. They're always teaching her these weird recycled craft things, and talking about
allotments and stuff. Sometimes I can't concentrate on my homework, they're laughing so much.'

‘That's good isn't it?'

I shrugged.

‘I suppose so,' I conceded.

‘So, any real news?' said Victoria when we were settled in my room.

Before I could answer, she noticed my new bracelet on my wrist. She leaned over and touched it, running her fingers along the tiny, shimmering beads.

‘That is so, so beautiful,' she said. ‘Where did you get it?'

‘You mean “where did a poor girl like me get such a beautiful bracelet”?' I snapped.

Victoria shook her head.

‘Stop being so defensive, Eva. I mean it's a beautiful bracelet, and I've never seen it before and I'm wondering where you got it.'

‘Sorry,' I said.

She smiled.

‘And?'

I hesitated.

I
so
didn't want to tell Victoria about Ruby and the market.

I didn't know how to say it without making myself sound like a loser.

But Victoria was my best friend in the whole world, and how could I be proper friends with someone I kept telling lies to?

So I took a deep breath, and told Victoria all about Ruby, and how I'd started to help her in the market on Saturdays.

Victoria listened to my story with a puzzled expression on her face.

‘That's really nice of you, and everything, but … er … why?' she said in the end.

‘Why what?'

Victoria sighed.

‘This is what I'm hearing. There's this girl, that you don't seem to like very much, and she doesn't seem to like you – or anyone else – that much.'

‘I wouldn't exactly say that I don't like her,' I corrected Victoria. ‘It's just that she's different to anyone I've ever known before.'

‘Whatever. She's in your class, but she doesn't talk to you at school, and you don't talk to her?'

‘Well…yes.'

‘And yet you spend all of your Saturday mornings helping her to sell cabbages in the market.'

I giggled.

‘Pay attention. It's not just cabbages. We sell carrots, broccoli, apples, oranges. We have a very wide range of produce!'

Victoria giggled too.

‘Well you know what I'm trying to say. I mean, you've always been a nice girl and everything, but you're not a saint. So why are you doing this?'

I hesitated again.

It was one thing telling Victoria about Ruby.

Did I really want to tell her about Madam Margarita as well?

But Victoria was smiling at me, and I knew that
if anyone in the whole world was going to understand this crazy story, it had to be Victoria. So I took another deep breath, and told her all about what Madam Margarita had said.

When I had finished, Victoria was silent for a long time.

I figured that silence was better than laughter, but it still wasn't exactly the reaction I had hoped for.

‘Well?' I said when I couldn't take any more.

‘So this fortune-teller woman, that I was stupid enough to let you talk to, tells you to do loads of good deeds, and then you'll get what you want?'

I nodded.

‘And you believe her?' she asked.

‘Wouldn't you?'

She shook her head.

‘Sorry, Eva, but I don't think I would.'

Why was I surprised?

‘It's easy for you,' I said. ‘You already have everything you want. You don't know what it's like to want something as badly as I do.'

‘So what exactly is it that you want?'

‘I'm not greedy,' I answered. ‘I only want one thing.'

‘And that is?'

‘I want my old life back.'

Victoria giggled.

‘It might only be one thing, but it's a very big one thing, don't you think?'

I sighed.

‘I know. But it's all I want. I want my old house, my old life – the whole lot. I might not have appreciated it properly at the time, but I'd sure appreciate it now.'

‘But in your old life, you didn't know Ella, and now she's a really good friend.'

‘That's true,' I conceded. ‘So I'll change my wish. I wish I had my old life back, just with Ella in it. How does that sound?'

‘Complicated.'

She was right, but I didn't acknowledge that.

I sighed, again.

‘My biggest wish is that one day I'll wake up
and realise that these last few months have been a very long, very bad dream.'

Victoria shook her head.

‘Sorry to disappoint you, Eva, but this isn't a dream.'

‘I know,' I said quickly. ‘And that's why I have to believe in Madam Margarita.'

Even as I said the last words, I knew they weren't true. I'd never really, really truly believed in her. I had just wanted to believe in her. And now, after weeks of doing as she suggested, nothing had changed.

Madam Margarita had to be a fraud.

Why hadn't I been able to see it before?

I felt a sick feeling in my stomach as the last strands of hope vanished, like the string of a runaway balloon slipping through my fingers. My dream was disappearing before my eyes.

I sighed again.

‘You're right. It's not going to work. I was crazy to ever think that it would.'

Victoria came over and hugged me. I could
smell the expensive fabric conditioner on her hoodie. It was the kind my mum used to use – back when we could still afford it.

‘I'm so sorry, Eva,' said Victoria, when I finally, reluctantly let her go.

I tried to smile. ‘Maybe the first twenty years of being poor are the hardest. It'll probably be OK after that.'

She smiled. ‘I'm sure things aren't that bad. And, look on the bright side, now that you know Madam Margarita was talking rubbish, you can forget all about her advice. You can forget about helping people. You can forget all about working in the market.'

I started to smile, but then changed my mind.

‘No, Victoria,' I said. ‘I can't stop working in the market.'

Victoria shook her head in frustration.

‘I don't get you sometimes, Eva. I really don't.'

I wrinkled up my face as I tried to explain.

‘You see, at first, I only helped Ruby because of what Madam Margarita said. I was helping her
because I stupidly believed that it would somehow end up helping me. But now things are different. I know Ruby is a bit weird – well actually she's very weird – but she's nice too, and she needs help, and if I don't help her, who else will?'

Victoria hugged me again.

‘You're the kindest girl I've ever met,' she said, and I was embarrassed, but very, very pleased.