The feds stop walking. One of them is the same height as me. The other one’s a bit shorter. They keep talking, using my first name like we’ve been friends since we were babies. I step towards them and they touch their belts again. The thing sticking out must be their taser or maybe a baton. What the hell do they think I’m gonna do? Turn into Captain Marvel and throw them harder than I threw the flowerpot? I carry on past them towards the car.

  My head’s full of Kandi again. That shame keeps burning inside me, but I’m angry too. If Kandi’s dad had taken me as well, me and Kandi could still see each other. If Aunty Jasmine didn’t have twins, me and Kandi could still see other. If Mum didn’t die, me and Kandi would still be with each other. Man, I didn’t cause none of this crap, but everything bad comes back to me.

  I look behind me. The feds are right there, eyes on me, waiting for the badness to happen. Is that what they want? Man, I’ve got nothing to lose. If badness is gonna come back to me, I might as well make it mine in the first place. So I kick their car so damn hard I think I’ve broken a toe. I feel one of them touch my arm. I spin around and I kick him too.

  Chapter 8

  One thing that the police have got on those belts for sure is handcuffs. They snap round my wrists and I’m loaded into the car. Then I’m unloaded at a police station. And that’s how I feel, like I’m the bag of dirty washing that no one wants to deal with.

  I nod when the feds ask me if I’m Charlene Yewless. When they’re happy they’ve got my details, they make me give them my phone and the two-pound coin that had fallen through the hole in my jacket pocket into the lining.

  The feds check I don’t need to see no one about my toe, then I’m taken down to the cell. Again. Maybe after a while you get used to it,

  but, man. I just want to puke again. I just want to lie on my face and pull the blanket over my head. I just sit there, pressing my fingers together and trying to empty my head of everything.

  *

  When they take me out of the cell it’s to ask me more questions. They take more photos, more swabs, more fingerprints. Now they’ve got me twice.

  It’s a different appropriate adult, a different lawyer, a different fed interviewing me.

  I nod and I say yes and no. I tell the fed that I just wanted to see my sister. I don’t know why I kicked the car or the policeman. They say that the police officer I kicked has to have medical attention. Am I sorry about it? I know that kick hurt me more than him. My toe was already screaming at me after kicking the car. Trainers don’t provide much barrier. The kick barely dented his trousers. But I don’t answer the fed because I don’t want to answer no more questions at all. I sit there with my arms crossed and let them all talk around me.

  The policewoman leans forward so she knows I’m looking at her.

  She says, “Are you close to your sister, Charlene?”

  I almost tell her about the good times, when Mum was feeling all right. She’d let me and Kandi make play dough out of flour and food colouring, and hats out of cornflakes boxes, and paint a purple Kandisoraus on our bedroom wall. I taught Kandi how to play the Lion King’s “Circle of Life” on her recorder, though I reckon only I would have recognised Kandi’s version. When Kandi laughed, it made me laugh too. I don’t laugh in the same way now.

  I just say to the policewoman, “Yeah. I suppose so.”

  I make a decision then. I’m not gonna talk about Kandi to no one else. I’m gonna keep all of her to myself because every time someone else mentions her name, it’s like Kandi starts to disappear. I assaulted a police officer. I stabbed Blake with the knitting needle. It’s gonna be a long time until I see Kandi again. I need to cling on to as much of her as I can.

  *

  Three weeks go by. I’m living in a home in Kent. It’s like my life’s been tied up in a sack made out of mammoth wool. It’s thick and heavy and there ain’t no gaps to let in daylight. Everything’s going on around me, but I haven’t got the energy to open the sack to look out at it.

  I don’t go back to a normal school. Social services send me to a pupil referral unit because they don’t think local schools will “meet my needs”. There’s ten of us in the class and the teachers do their best. We have to pass English and Maths or we have to do the GCSEs again.

  A couple of kids in my class have already been in prison and they make it sound like a party. Just as well I’ve met other kids who’ve been inside and tell me otherwise, or I might believe them. One of my classmates finds out that I kicked a fed and starts to big me up. They want me to give the teachers stress. I don’t. But I don’t answer my name. I don’t do no homework. Everything feels so dark, I can only see a few things at a time. None of those things are English and Maths.

  I’m still trying to keep Kandi in my head. I don’t want her to start fading, like Mum. I’ve even got some photos of Mum. I can remember the big things like my sixth birthday party and when Mum brought baby Kandi back from the hospital. I can remember when Mum got angry and shouted and scared us. But it’s harder to remember everyday things like what Mum would wear when she took us to school or what mug she liked for her tea. I haven’t got no pictures of Kandi because her dad took the albums. I don’t want her to disappear like Mum.

  The other thought that fills up my head is that I’ll have to go back to the police station. My stomach knots up when I think about it, which is all the time. I see the knitting needle stuck in Blake’s skin and I want to throw up. I feel the shame that burned through me when I saw Kandi and her friends looking down from her window. I see my own foot as if it doesn’t belong to me kicking the police car and the fed. And the string in the neck of that mammoth-wool sack I’m in gets pulled tighter and tighter. On the weekends, I don’t come out of my room at all. I lie on my bed and let all those thoughts lie heavy in my head.

  It’s Saturday. I don’t know what time it is, but it can’t be too early. I can hear two of the younger kids outside in the garden chasing each other with water guns. There’s a knock on my bedroom door and someone yells that there’s a parcel been delivered for me.

  I make myself get out of bed. There’s a kid called Georgie here who likes to break into other folks’ post. I’m not in the mood for an argument. I go down and collect the parcel. It’s a cardboard box, maybe the size of one of them small suitcases on wheels. When I pick it up, it’s lighter than I expect. I turn it over. When I see the return address on it, I think about giving the box to Georgie so he can mash it up. But then one of those knots in my stomach loosens a bit, because I think I know what’s inside.

  It’s from Annie and she sure as hell knows how to wrap up something secure. Aliens could come and blast the Earth into pieces, but the tape on this box would stay stuck. It’s like she’s used two rolls of that brown shiny parcel tape and wrapped it round the whole thing twice. Then another time, just to be sure.

  Then, finally, I can open it wide. Annie has sent packs of knitting needles, plastic ones, all sizes, and wool. So much wool! It’s like she’d gone into a yarn shop and said, “One of those, one of those and one of those, please.”

  The wool’s different colours and different thicknesses. I count three blues, a dark green like glass bottles, a thin shiny black with silver threads, some red. I spread it all out on the floor and touch the balls, one at a time. It’s decent wool, not stuff from the bottom of a sale bin. I know it’s gonna slide over my needles, so soft I hardly know it’s there. Before I realise, there’s a thread of baby blue wool between my fingers and thumb and I’m casting on. I don’t know what I want to make and my fingers are all clumsy. But as I lay down the rows it’s like that heavy sack I’m in opens a little bit and I can see some light.

  When I finally put down my needles, I notice an envelope at the bottom of the box. I open it and there’s a card from Annie. It has a dinosaur on the front – one of the flying ones that look like a duck got mixed up with a bat. Annie sent a whole load of other dinosaur pictures too. She says she’s sorry about everything that happened and that this time the blanket will be even better.

  Who am I knitting a blanket for? I want to yell. There’s no point if I can’t give it to Kandi myself.

  Then at the bottom of the note Annie says that if social services agree, she’d love to see me again. And if I agree too.

  I don’t at first. It’s been nearly a month since I left Annie’s place. I can’t forget the look she gave me when she was helping Blake out the door. Then I read her note again. “Sorry about everything.” She’s sorry. It’s like Annie understands. I feel that heavy sack opening wider and the world gets more bright. I’m still not sure though.

  I message Skye. She calls me. Skye’s looking after her little cousin and they’ve got Postman Pat on in the background. I used to watch that with Kandi, though she preferred Octonauts. Skye reckons that maybe if I get Annie on my side, she might help me persuade the social workers to let me have contact with Kandi again. Right now, every letter has to be sent to Kandi’s dad for him to decide whether to give it to Kandi. Man needn’t bother lying. I know it’s gonna go straight in the bin.

  So I say yes to Annie. I don’t tell Skye, but I liked Annie. And yeah, I kinda miss her too.

  *

  It takes another three weeks before Annie can come. My new social worker’s off sick and there ain’t no one around to make the decision.

  It’s like me and Annie live in different worlds now. When her car pulls up, I realise I’m blushing. I don’t even blush when I meet up with some boy for the first time. Annie isn’t wearing her yoga pants, but she’s casual in jeans and a shirt. A couple of the other kids here come out to see her too. I never talk about myself, so they’re pretty damn curious.

  Annie’s brought a picnic hamper. She says that after we’ve finished eating, I can use the basket for my wool. We drive half an hour through these windy country roads. It’s a bit awkward because we don’t know what to say to each other. So Annie concentrates on her driving and I play with my phone even though I’m feeling a bit sick with all the twisting and turning.

  We end up at the seaside and that makes me smile. It’s like the freshness is blowing the rest of the darkness away. The tide’s right out, so we’ve got plenty of space to lay out our food. Except, it’s like every seagull in the area has been on a call to his out-of-town mates inviting them over to feast. Man, we are mobbed by seagulls. Annie made this cheese and potato pie special for me, but as soon as she cuts a slice, one of these gangster birds swoops down and snatches it off her plate. I read somewhere that chickens are really dinosaurs, but, man, anyone who’s been close up to a seagull knows that these are the monsters.

  We pack everything away, but we’re laughing. Annie’s asking me about where I’m living now and I tell her about all the other kids and then about school. She frowns then and says I should be in mainstream education. I’ve got so much potential, but I need it drawn out of me.

  I don’t say nothing to that. It wasn’t like I was having loads of fun at the school I was at before. Then Annie tells me she heard that Charity got permanently excluded for throwing her shoe across the dining room. That makes me happy again.

  We sit in a shelter and eat ice cream watching the seagulls divebombing the tourists for chips. Annie asks me what I’m knitting. I show her a picture on my phone. I don’t know what it’s gonna be, but it feels good. Then I take a deep breath and I ask her, “Will you help me see Kandi again?”

  Annie doesn’t say nothing. Ice cream drips down her cone to the ground.

  “Of course I want to,” Annie says.

  Everything in me pulls tight. The ice-cream cone crunches as my hand grips it harder. There’s gonna be a “but” …

  “But,” Annie says, “there’s a certain subject we’ve been ignoring today, isn’t there, Charlene?”

  Yes, Annie, there is. Your son deliberately upset me. He pulled apart my knitting and then called me a psycho in front of the police.

  “Blake behaved badly,” Annie says. “Very badly.”

  You’re telling me? I damn well hope you told him that too.

  “Of course I didn’t witness the incident …” Annie goes on.

  But you saw the wool in his room, Annie. You know what he did. You know what it meant to me.

  “So I can’t say if you over-reacted or not,” Annie adds.

  Isn’t that what you’re saying now?

  She turns to look at me and says, “I’ve persuaded Blake to take part in mediation. You and Blake have a meeting and there will be someone to help you sort things out. I spoke to a lawyer friend. He said that maybe … well, a youth caution is the best option for you. For this, anyway. That would be the best thing.” Annie gives me a sad smile. “But then you go and kick a policeman! But perhaps, if …”

  Annie looks at me.

  “If you could do it …” Annie says.

  She’s let her ice cream melt so much it’s now dripping through the bottom of her cone. I’m still waiting for her to finish the sentence.

  At last Annie says, “You have to say sorry to Blake, Charlene.”

  I stand up. She stays sitting.

  “Charlene, I understand,” Annie says. “You may not forgive Blake, but sometimes you have to play the game. Especially if you want to see Kandi again, you …”

  I walk away. Annie catches up with me.

  “This is how the world works,” she says. “I didn’t make up the rules. I don’t like the rules. But sometimes you have to play along.”

  “No!”

  I never knew I could scream that loud. People stare at us. Annie glances around and tries to put a hand on my arm. I scream at her to get off. I tell Annie that she was always gonna take Blake’s side. I’m shouting and crying and calling her names and then she backs away.

  I walk off and all the people part to let me through. I walk down the steps across the pebbles to the edge of the sea. I keep on walking until I feel the sea seeping into my trainers and socks. I stand there until I can breathe properly again. After a while, I see that Annie’s standing by my side. The water comes up past her ankles.

  Annie says, “Shall I take you back?”

  I nod.

  Chapter 9

  Click, click, click.

  My knitting looks like a blue sky. It’s not just one blue, it’s all the blues. I know the sky’s not just blue, so maybe later I’m gonna add some of the grey wool. I might put in some orange streaks too, like a sunset. I have to decide soon. The knitting’s already half the size of my bed.

  It was my birthday yesterday. I got a card and a gift voucher from Aunty Jasmine. She’s moving to Coventry so the twins can be closer to their dad. The people in the home I’m staying in were gonna arrange a birthday tea for me, but I told them I wouldn’t go. They bought me a cake anyway and Georgie sang “Happy Birthday” outside my bedroom door. I got a card from Annie, and Skye messaged me. I hoped Kandi would send a card. Maybe she did and her dad only pretended to post it.

  And today I’m waiting for my new social worker to take me to the police station. I’m gonna find out what happens next. My fingers and thumbs are moving so fast with these needles. Maybe it’s not just sky I’m knitting. Maybe it’s water too.

  Social services got me a lawyer called Shelley and we’ve already talked on the phone about what might happen today. She reckoned that Blake’s hand would heal all right, though if it went to court, he might try to say otherwise. Shelley didn’t mention no mediation. But even if Blake’s hand got better, it didn’t change the fact, Shelley said. I’d still stabbed it with a knitting needle. There would be consequences just for that. But now I could be looking at new charges: criminal damage and assaulting a police officer. If I was truly sorry, it might help our case, Shelley told me.

  I didn’t answer.

  I think about what Annie said. She was right – it is easier to play the game. Can I make myself look shorter and a bit more delicate and a bit more white? Can I have the “sorries” dribbling out my mouth all over the place? I could do it if I really tried. And I do feel a bit sorry for the things I’ve done. But what’s the point of even trying now? Even if I knit a sorry so big I can wrap it round the world, I’m never gonna see my sister again. And already … already … I think she’s starting to fade.

  *

  When I get to the police station, me and Shelley talk in the side room first. She isn’t how I imagined. She’s Black and has got an afro. A short afro, but an afro. Shelley must think I’m rude because I’m staring. I always imagined that Black women got banned from doing important stuff unless they had hair that hung downwards.

  The first thing Shelley says to me is, “How are you?”

  She even leaves a space for me to answer – a proper answer. I just stare at her. I don’t know how to tell her how I am.

  Shelley says, “Is everything a bit overwhelming?”

  I nod and breathe in hard, trying to suck my tears back into my body.

  “Do you need a drink?”

  “Some juice, please,” I reply.

  Shelley sticks her head out of the door. I hear her ask the social worker to buy me some juice from the newsagent’s across the road.

  “What we talk about here is just between you and me,” Shelley says. “I don’t tell the police. I don’t work for the police. I just work for you.”

  I look at her.

  “Do you believe me, Charlene?” Shelley asks.

  I want to.

  “I need to make sure that whatever happens today is the best thing for you,” she adds.

  I look away from her. Nothing can be “best”.

  Then Shelley starts to ask me questions. They’re not about Blake – not at first. She asks me where I’m living and what it’s like. She asks me if I see my family and my mouth runs away before I can stop it, telling her about Mum and Aunty Jasmine and Kandi. I say so much about Kandi. It’s like I stored her up inside me, but she’s been pushing at the doors, waiting to burst out.

  It’s weird. The more I talk about Kandi, the brighter she becomes in my head. She stops fading. I talk even more – about how big Kandi was when she was a baby and how she was born with so much hair I could plait it from when she was two months old. How I used to mash avocado and banana together and feed her. How Kandi saw some kids’ programme with dinosaurs and then that was it. She was obsessed with them.

 

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