Six
Now
‘No, I managed to flush it, so I cancelled the plumber,’ Poppy was lying to Luna while she dug around the fridge for a yoghurt.
Luna was sceptical. ‘But you said you couldn’t. That it was a giant poo. You said it needed an expert—’
‘Luna, can you please just accept what I’m telling you?’ Poppy begged.
But of course, Luna couldn’t. That would have been completely against her nature of needing to know everything all the bloody time. Some days, it was a wonderful feature of her personality. She was unrelentingly curious. Then there were days like today when Poppy just wanted a little mercy from the child. But she would give no quarter.
‘I’m only asking why it’s different now,’ Luna went on.
The reason it was different now was that a fictional ginormous poo was no longer necessary. It fulfilled its function, which was to get Poppy out of a car crash of a social situation with Norah. Of all the kids Luna could have attached herself to on her first day...
Poppy wanted to be happy for her. The transition to a new school hadn’t been too horrendous if Luna was skipping out with a fresh bestie. But of all the besties, it had to be Norah’s son, didn’t it? Even that awful woman Susan’s kid would have been an upgrade from this.
But it might peter out. Kids made lots of friends at that age, and they could be fairly superficial. This was just the first day. Tomorrow would be some other kid. Right?
‘Mum!’ Luna cried. ‘Answer me!’
There was nothing for it. Poppy was going to have to be honest. Luna wouldn’t buy anything else.
‘Look, Luna... I lied. There was never a plumber coming. I just didn’t want to have a friend round today.’
‘Why not?’ the kid asked instantly.
‘Because it’s stressful.’
‘Why?’
‘Because while you’re playing, I have to entertain the parent,’ she said simply.
‘Why?’ Luna asked.
‘Because that’s how it works.’
‘Why?’ she asked again.
‘It’s the social contract,’ Poppy said desperately.
‘Social contract?’ Luna repeated.
‘Look, adults are different from kids. We can’t just ask each other to play. It’s not simple for us.’
‘I asked other kids to play today. Freddie was the only one that would,’ Luna said.
That took the wind out of Poppy’s sails. ‘Really?’
‘Yeah. He’s nice.’
‘Is he?’ Poppy sighed, annoyed.
‘Yeah. He let me play with his pterodactyl.’
Great. Freddie had to be a sweetie pie, didn’t he? But it didn’t change anything. They’d have to be friends on their own time. Poppy and Norah could have no part in their friendship. It was simply not possible.
Twenty Years Ago
‘It’s not on anywhere round here,’ Poppy complained.
‘You could watch it on DVD?’ Norah suggested.
‘I need to see it on the big screen. This is The Room we’re talking about. It’s the Mona Lisa of awful movies,’ Poppy said passionately.
‘Wait. It might come on?’ Norah said.
Poppy sighed and went back to strumming.
It had been a few months since Poppy had been sent to comfort Norah and failed utterly. The only thing Poppy could do was hang out with her and provide a distraction. So that was what she did. She was glad of the break from her usual friends/bandmates anyway. Shit was getting annoying with them lately. Too much ego bullshit. She was more comfortable with Norah.
Sometimes Poppy dragged Norah to bad movies, but often they just sat together in Norah’s bedroom while Norah drew and Poppy strummed her battered acoustic. Usually, Poppy needed to be alone to feel uninhibited enough to noodle with compositions, but somehow, Norah sitting and drawing in the background was kind of nice. The sound of her pencils scratching against paper became a background rhythm.
Though this had started as a favour to her mother, it wasn’t that now. Norah was her friend. It had happened so easily that Poppy wondered if it was because they’d known each other when they were little. Maybe they were still the same kids underneath it all. It was a nice thought.
‘Hey, what’s that tune?’ Norah asked suddenly. ‘It sounds kind of familiar.’
‘It’s not a song, just me fucking around,’ Poppy said.
‘Oh, I thought...’ Norah stopped and smiled. ‘You know, it just sounded so catchy; I thought I knew it.’
Poppy smiled back. ‘It’s nothing.’
‘You’ve been playing it for weeks.’
‘I don’t even have lyrics for it,’ Poppy dismissed.
‘When you do, I wanna hear it,’ Norah told her.
‘I might not even get that far, Cauldwell.’
‘You write for your band, don’t you?’
‘This one won’t be for them. Slightly too upbeat,’ Poppy said with a dismissive hand wave. ‘We’re very strict. Alt rock only. If Thom Yorke wouldn’t like it, then we don’t play it.’
‘They’ll be missing out,’ Norah observed. She was struck by a thought. ‘Hey, would you rather be able to see people’s dreams or read their emotions as a colour aura around them?’
‘How well can I see the dreams?’
‘You can watch them like they’re on TV.’
‘How specific are the emotions? Can I see that someone is sad yet slightly horny at the same time?’ Poppy checked.
Norah thought it over. ‘Sure.’
Poppy considered. ‘I’m gonna go with the dreams.’
‘That’s so the wrong answer,’ Norah said with a chuckle.
‘You want the emotions?’ Poppy said, aghast. ‘You wouldn’t want to watch someone’s personal nightmare, where they’re, like, trapped in a world where squirrels are the size of t-rexes?’
‘If you had the colour thing, no one could ever lie to you,’ Norah pointed out. ‘You’d know exactly where their heads were at.’
‘I don’t want to know when people are lying to me, thanks,’ Poppy said. ‘What if you told me you liked my song just now, and then your aura was pity coloured?’
‘What’s the colour of pity?’ Norah asked, amused.
‘Chartreuse?’
‘Well, I’d have been orange. That’s sincerity. So you wouldn’t have to worry about that,’ Norah said. She went back to her work.
Poppy liked that answer, and she went back to working on the chord progression.
Sometime later, Poppy realised she was a bit parched and looked up to ask Norah something banal about a beverage, but the words never left her mouth.
Norah was bent over her work, with her inky black hair falling across her face. She moved to pull it back behind her ear, her pretty, serious face in a light frown of concentration, her grey eyes so intense it seemed like they might burn a hole in the page, and Poppy thought, ‘I want to kiss her.’
It felt like Poppy had been seconds away from this revelation for a while, and when it presented itself, it was a surprise, yet it wasn’t. They’d been getting closer for months. And Norah was cute, with her soulful eyes and her mouth that looked both sarcastic and incredibly kissable. She had depth. She was talented. She was funny. She made Poppy feel interesting. Poppy liked to talk to her. She felt easy around her. It felt good and exciting to see her.
But the gender of her was surprising. Poppy had never felt this reaction to a girl before.
Oh shit, Poppy thought. Am I gay?
‘Hey, you want to get a coffee around the corner?’ she asked Norah quickly, trying to shut her brain up.
Norah looked up. ‘Gimme three minutes. This shading is fucking me up, but I’m nearly there.’
‘Cool. How are you getting on, by the way? You’ve been working on that thing a lot lately.’
‘It’s going slow, but I think it's finding its feet,’ Norah told her.
‘So I’ll get to see the end of the story, then,’ Poppy said, pleased.
They smiled at each other for a second. And then Poppy felt like her aura was showing. ‘Anyway, finish your shading. I want coffee,’ she said quickly.
Norah chuckled and did as she was told. Poppy went back to her strumming. And soon enough, some words came for her music. Just like that, it became a real song.