Chapter 16
Three years ago
‘Not a chance you’re going to wear that?’ Alfie laughed as Jacob pulled on Granny’s wolf costume for the fourth year in a row.
Jacob shrugged, and I took a swig of my lemonade to combat the dryness in my throat.
He just about managed to shove his mop of hair behind his wolf ears, but the trousers hung like pantaloons around his thighs.
I could have sworn they still fit last Halloween, but even in the few weeks since summer ended and the October half term began, he seemed to have doubled in size.
Will used to be the tallest, but when Jacob’s curls are at their most unruly, he pips him to the title.
I had to get Granny to add a little more room into my cat costume too. No matter how hard I tried to ignore the size of my chest, my t-shirts could no longer hide it, and the thought of drawing anyone’s attention towards me was enough to make me feel sick.
The Hope Farm Halloween party looked vastly different that year.
Will swigged from a can of cider, and since the boys had all invited some friends from school and college, we shifted from apple bobbing in the kitchen to disco lights and a smoke machine in the barn.
Hope sat curled up on my knee, miserable at the thought of sharing her home with anyone, let alone with all of the noise that hadn’t even reached its peak yet.
Alfie was still tampering with the decorations and prepared his best chat up lines that summoned a gag from Lizzie every time he would say one out loud.
Sian had already been warned by Will to stay well away, but I could tell by the spread on the barn table that she couldn’t help herself and just had to leave some snacks out, even if it was just to soak up some of the booze Will and his friends were drinking.
‘Is she doing okay?’ Jacob drew in beside me to scratch Hope on her head and she purred against me in pleasure.
‘I think I might ask your mum if she can have a box in the kitchen just for tonight. She hasn’t stopped shaking.
’ I almost wished that I too could stay in a box by the Hope Farm hearth that night.
The thought of having to spend a whole evening around all the boys’ friends from school, and having not a clue what to say to any of them, didn’t bring me much excitement.
‘That doesn’t sound like a bad idea. Or … we bin off this party all together and just us three hide out in the treehouse until everyone’s gone.’
I could kiss him.
‘Jake!’ Will called out before we could escape. ‘The guys are here.’ Jacob gave me an apologetic grimace and mouthed a ‘sorry’ before answering his brother’s summons.
Deciding against waiting for an introduction, Hope and I snuck away before we could be spotted. After finding her a warm spot in the kitchen, I set her down and sat beside her for a moment.
‘I can do this,’ I said out loud to the scruffy ball of fur. ‘They’re friends with Jacob, how bad can they be?’ Hope purred in her box. ‘They are also friends with Will though, and one of him is enough.’
‘Who are you talking to?’ Lizzie startled me as she made her silent entrance into the room.
‘No one.’ I blushed, and she eyed me suspiciously.
‘I don’t know why you think talking to yourself is better than talking to your cat, but sure, let’s go with it.’ Her smile enveloped her eyes as she sat on the other side of Hope and ran a finger down her curled back.
‘I just wondered …’ she began, and I looked at her perplexed. ‘Well … it’s a bit silly, really …’
Lizzie was always so sure of herself, always said exactly what she was thinking. What could’ve possibly had her in such a muddle?
‘You okay?’ I asked.
She released a long breath at the sound of my voice.
‘I’m constantly surrounded by boys.’ Lizzie shook her head.
‘Which is fine if you need someone to climb a tree with and then jump down from the highest branch without worrying about any injury, but there are just some things that I can’t talk to them about.
’ She plucked non-existent pieces of hay from her costume.
She’d decided to come as a Jedi this year, hooded cloak, lightsabre and all.
It was a rather interesting step up from the previous year, when she came as an apple core.
No idea how she pulled it off with just handmade papier Mache but I think sometimes it’s best not to ask.
‘Well, I can’t say I’ll be much good to you either,’ I said, ‘but you know I’m always here to try, right?’
Lizzie reached over Hope’s box to clasp me by the hands. ‘Has Jacob told you about our Christmas prom?’
I shook my head.
‘Well, it’s nothing serious. It’s just what they decide to call discos now, which is stupid because disco sounds far more exciting.’
‘Lizzie, focus.’ I couldn’t help but chuckle at the way she danced around her point.
‘But it’s so pathetic and really not me, and I’m embarrassed for even being bothered.’
I flashed her a stern look.
‘Fine … I don’t know what to wear.’ She mumbled it under her breath, but I caught it loud and clear.
I don’t think I had seen her in anything but cut-off jeans and hand-me-down t-shirts from one of her cousins before, so I could understand her conflict. ‘Well, what would you feel most comfortable in?’
‘Are pyjamas an option?’ She ran a hand down her face so roughly that she was beginning to have the look of Darth Maul about her.
‘You know you don’t have to pretend to be someone completely different to these things, right?’ I asked gently.
‘But I want to look nice. I’m constantly in scruffy clothes and I’m starting to think people at school think I’m one of the animals that live on the farm.
’ My heart ached for her. Lizzie, despite her bossiness when it came to playing pretend, was a girl crafted entirely of kindness.
Not a bad bone grew in her body, she worked harder than any Thorogood boy, and loved her family more than anything in the world.
The thought of anyone having any sort of negative opinion of her made my big-sister instincts kick in. I knew I had to do something.
‘Why don’t we make you something? Something that looks fancy, but is still you, and still comfy?’
‘Make something?’ She furrowed her brows.
‘Yeah! I could take your measurements while I’m still here and borrow Granny’s sewing machine.
I’m sure she won’t mind. She’s been teaching me a few different stitches and things, so I reckon it will be good practise.
’ I had been looking for every excuse to find a fashion project.
Both Callum and I were fed up of me making him various embroidered shirts – they weren’t exactly the latest trend for a fifteen-year-old boy.
I longed for someone to dress up, and Lizzie was the closest thing I had.
‘You’d do that for me?’
‘Of course. It’ll be fun, and it will give me something to do when I don’t have you guys to entertain me.’ She sighed with relief this time and leaned over the box, planting the heaviest kiss on my forehead that I’d ever received.
‘You’re amazing.’ She grinned. ‘Thank you.’
‘Have you got a date for the evening?’ I wiggled my eyebrows and she rolled her eyes.
‘Nope. I was hoping that if I look a little better put together then I can maybe pre-order a date for next year. But honestly, I’m not bothered.
I’ll know enough people there. I was hoping Jake or Alfie would keep me company, but apparently Pen is going to ask Jake, so I’ll be stuck with Alfie, and you know how much anyone would love that. ’
‘Jacob has a date?’ My ears pricked up at the sound of his name. Sweat began to prickle at the back of my neck and on my palms and I shifted away from the fireplace, hoping to get away from its heat.
‘No, Pen in his year wants to ask him. I’m not sure he’ll say yes though. He’s too busy rolling around like a pig in the mud to notice girls.’
I hardly heard what she was saying, my ears rang as I tried to imagine Jacob at a ‘prom’ at all, let alone with a girl on his arm.
‘The only girl I’ve ever seen him with that’s not family is you. I can’t imagine him on a date.’ She faked a gag and I almost felt the real thing overcome me.
And Pen? Who is Pen? I thought. I had never heard him mention her before.
Why wouldn’t he have brought her up if they were close enough to go to a dance together?
My mind raced a million miles a minute trying to picture this girl, picture her with Jacob, until my stomach twisted itself into knots and I was starting to regret the toffee apple I had snuck from the buffet earlier.
‘What’s she like?’ I asked. I’m not sure I really wanted to know, but I couldn’t stop myself.
‘Pen? She’s nice. She’s musical and pretty.
One of the popular girls at school, but she isn’t a cow about it.
’ I was praying Lizzie would say the opposite.
Not that I’d wish for Jacob to be with someone awful, but the twisting in my gut couldn’t handle the thought of them being well-suited.
‘You’ll have to meet her. I think he invited her tonight. ’
I tried to smile and nodded, trying not to let on that I now wished to walk in that party less now than ever.
‘I’m not sure Jake will go with her though, he’s so preoccupied with pining after y—’
‘You know you guys are missing the party, right?’ Callum cut her off as he wandered into the kitchen, his Yoda costume already covered in the green paint from his face.
At the sound of his voice, Lizzie froze, and without finishing her sentence, she threw both her legs over the sill of the ground floor window and hopped down into the dark of the night, as though fleeing from an intergalactic villain.
Both Callum and I were left staring, open mouthed, too stunned to even move.
‘She okay?’ Callum finally spoke after a few beats of silence passed between us as we tried to figure out what we’d just seen.
‘No idea. We were talking about her going to prom, and then you showed up and you must have scared her in your costume.’ I looked him up and down.
I’m pretty sure he’d fashioned a few old potato sacks into a cloak and rubbed his face against a tray of face paint.
His lack of talent in costume making was scary, but other than that, it was pretty tame.
He just looked like a sack of sprouts, if he hadn’t been walking around muddling the syntax in all of his sentences.
‘Did you match with Lizzie on purpose?’ I asked my brother.
He ignored me. ‘She’s been asked to the prom?’ Callum asked wide-eyed, focusing on the unimportant part of my sentence.
‘You knew about this thing too?’ I shook my head. Why was I always the last to know?
‘Alfie only just told me, because the girl Jake is going with just arrived.’
With a little fire in my belly, mixed with the painful discomfort of an emotion I couldn’t explain and a desire to know who this ‘Pen’ was that everyone just couldn’t stop talking about, I planted an aggressive kiss on Hope’s head and dragged my brother back to the barn.
The music thumped through the yard as various teens hobbled in and out of the doors, already acting wasted despite the fact the party had only been on for an hour, and the only booze on offer was cider.
I followed Callum, who navigated his way through the crowd of strangers with ease and brought us out at the back of the barn where Will, Jacob, and a few others gathered, alongside a girl I assumed was Pen.
Alfie was no doubt swinging from the rafters, and I dreaded to think what he’d have broken by morning – bones and all.
Though I knew she was only our age, Pen seemed so much older – like I was stuck in girlhood, and she was a fully fledged woman.
She didn’t try and hide her chest under layers of four-year-old cat costume.
No, she stood confidently with every one of her curves on display.
I could never imagine her looking in a mirror and hating anything she saw.
She had a nose piercing and stacks of rings and necklaces, and everything about her felt so proper, so confident, that I cowered in her presence.
‘You must be Ava!’ She grinned and waved from across the group. ‘I’ve heard so much about you!’
‘Ditto,’ I returned, my smile not as convincing as hers. ‘It’s nice to meet you.’
‘Wait, do you and Jake have matching costumes?’ She suddenly looked between us, and Jacob refused to look up from his shoes.
‘Sort of,’ I responded. ‘My gran made them both. I’m a cat, but Jake is a wolf.
We’ve had the costumes for a few years now.
It’s just like a little inside joke we’ve had since we were kids.
I always said he was like a wolf, and well after we found Hope, our cat, he thought that I was, well, like a cat too.
’ I felt like an idiot the more I spoke, but Pen just smiled and nodded.
As Will’s other friends chuckled amongst themselves, Jacob flushed. Was he ashamed? Of me? Of being Wolfie?
‘How adorable.’ Pen pinched at the ears of Jacob’s costume.
People started explaining their costumes in various degrees. And when Jacob thought everyone had looked away to listen to another of Will’s anecdotes, he slid the ears off his head and shoved them into his pocket.
I saw him, though.
Excusing myself from the group, I found myself at the drinks table. I was tempted to try one of the ciders, but picked up a can of Diet Coke instead and took a swig.
‘Mind if I join you?’ One of the boys from the group stood beside me with a soft smile. He was redheaded, speckled with freckles and had beautifully set teeth that look like he’d only just had his braces off. He smiled wider when I nodded. ‘I’m Adam.’
‘Ava.’ I stuck out my hand for him to shake. ‘Nice to meet you.’
‘A handshake? Very formal,’ he teased, but before I could pull it away in shame, he took my hand in his and squeezed it gently, sending a shiver through me.
‘You’re one of Jacob’s friends?’ My voice trembled a little. For the first time in my life, I actually recognised that he was hitting on me. I had absolutely no preparation for this moment.
‘Will’s, actually,’ he replied.
An older boy was actually showing some interest in me? I chanced a glance at Jacob, who was looking around the party with a soured expression. When I caught his gaze, he snapped away and returned his attention to Pen, who stood beside him chatting away without any sort of nerves or restraint.
‘Would you like to dance?’ I still don’t know where my confidence came from. I was never a dancer. I certainly didn’t feel like I could dance ‘correctly’ at a party full of teenage boys, with a teenage boy.
Before I could backtrack, Adam gave me a perplexed look that shifted into a grin and a shrug. ‘Go on then. Why not?’