Chapter 2
The heat. Sadie has read about it. Of course. But she still isn’t ready for it. No way, José.
The hottest place Sadie ever visited in her whole fifteen years was Bordeaux on a school trip, and even then, it mostly rained.
They never travelled abroad as a family.
Dad and Mum didn’t have much cash when she was small, and then, after Mum wasn’t around, Dad was working all hours, taking on extra tutoring in the holidays just to pay the bills.
When they did go away it was a camping trip to Wales or a caravan on the Isle of Wight.
And she isn’t ungrateful. She loved those holidays with Dad.
Couldn’t think of much worse than just lying on a beach all day, crisping in the sun, cultivating future melanomas.
But sometimes, she has to admit, she envied her classmates when they returned from Majorca or Tenerife all glowing and brown with sun-streaked hair and ankle bracelets.
Still, nowhere needs to be this hot, she thinks. Or humid. Her clothes are stuck to her skin like she’s been caught in a rainstorm. They’ve barely exited the airport to pick up their hire car and she already feels like she’s been trekking across the for days.
‘You okay?’ her dad asks as they scour the lines of cars for their Honda SUV.
‘Great,’ she replies, dragging her case bumpily over the tarmac. One wheel is broken, and the hard body keeps grating along the hot ground. She can feel the heat of the road radiating up through her Converse, probably melting the soles. She clutches Zelda’s box tightly to her chest.
‘Do I detect a hint of sarcasm?’ her dad asks.
‘Those Spidey senses really are something, Dad.’
He grins, although it looks a little laboured. Sweat stands out on his brow, and the humidity has plastered his dark hair, only lightly sprinkled with grey, to his forehead. He turns and squints through his sunglasses.
‘The hire-car lady definitely said row E, column 13, right?’ He frowns. ‘Or was it 30?’
Sadie rolls her eyes. ‘You don’t know?’
‘No. I mean, yes. I got this.’ He holds up the key fob. ‘Registration: XAG 731. You wait here with the cases. I’ll go and look.’
‘Fine.’
She sits on her case as Dad wanders off down the rows of cars.
Great start. The plane had been delayed.
Typically. Although she supposes the flight had been smooth.
Long, but smooth, not really any turbulence.
Dad had even splashed out for premium economy, which was a luxury but kind of essential for Dad, seeing as he was six foot three.
She guesses she’s just looking for bad omens.
She hadn’t wanted to come. I mean, it wasn’t like moving to another house, or even another city.
Sadie could have coped with that. She had no great attachment to their home in Manchester.
They’d moved a couple of times after Mum, so there were no blurred, fuzzy memories of her there.
She didn’t even mind the idea of changing schools again.
Sadie didn’t especially like school. Okay, strike that.
She enjoyed learning. Most of the lessons and about half of the teachers were bearable.
Shame the same couldn’t be said for the other students.
They just weren’t ‘her people’. She didn’t really fit with the sporty set, the non-academic set, the geeky set or the high achievers.
The other problem was her dad. He taught at the school.
That was why they moved from their old house – so he could take the job.
Having a parent teach at the same school as you was pure social suicide.
Either no one wanted to be your friend in case they looked like a suck-up, or they were embarrassed to be your friend because your dad was a loser.
Or both. One girl had threatened to cut Sadie if her dad didn’t give her a better grade.
So, moving, yeah, not a bad thing. Moving to fucking Florida – and the ‘fucking’ was definitely not silent – was quite another.
Dad had explained the reasons. Talked about how this could be a big, exciting adventure, a fresh new start.
He had showed her the house brochure about a million times and pointed out the pool with almost unnerving enthusiasm for a man who didn’t even enjoy getting his toes wet at the seaside.
And yes, it did look amazing. For a holiday. Not to live. Not for five years.
‘It’s not really so long,’ her dad had said.
‘Think of it as an extended gap year. Living in a different country, in a beautiful house, with permanent sunshine and a pool. Did I mention the pool? It’s a luxury gated community, so it’s really safe.
We don’t have to worry about violence or guns.
You know, I looked it up – there’s never been a serious crime in Serenity Falls.
And no murders. Not ever. And the high school is one of the best in the country.
I think you’ll love it there. And if you don’t, in five years we can sell up, and the world is our lobster. ’
He had grinned, and she had fought back an eye roll because Dad always got that phrase wrong on purpose.
When Dad was trying to please, trying to do the right thing, he was like a big puppy you didn’t want to kick. Even though, she could tell, beneath it all he wasn’t trying to sell it to her, he was trying to sell it to himself.
A sudden honk of a horn almost sends her scooting out of her skin. She stands up and stares as a bright yellow SUV glides up beside her. The window lowers and her dad gives her a sheepish grin from behind the wheel. ‘Found our ride.’
‘Yellow. Fucking yellow?’
‘Well, we are in the sunshine state.’
‘I thought your Hawaiian shirt was bad, but this … this—’
‘Has really good aircon.’
‘—is awesome.’
His grin widens. ‘Let’s load the cases and get trucking.’
It’s a forty-minute drive from the airport to Serenity Falls.
Despite not wanting to be impressed, Sadie finds herself staring around wide-eyed.
This country is so alien to her. She’s seen it in movies and on TV, but actually being here is kind of unreal.
The massive, wide freeways, the huge cars, the roadside motels with their neon signs, the sprawling shopping malls.
She can’t help but feel a tiny bit entranced by it all.
Sucked right in. But, she reminds herself again – and it’s a big but – that’s all fine when it’s a novelty.
How will she feel after six months or a year or five fucking years?
She slumps back in her seat and closes her eyes.
Dad glances at her. ‘Tired?’
‘Kinda.’
‘Well, maybe have a nap when we get there before we go for dinner.’
She opens her eyes. ‘Dinner? Can’t we just order something in? I mean, this is the US. The country that invented fast food, right?’
‘Yeah. Of course. But not tonight.’
‘Why?’
He clears his throat awkwardly. Sadie knows that throat-clear. It’s what Dad does when he is about to lie or admit to a lie.
‘Dad?’
‘We’ve been invited to dinner by the principal of Serenity Falls high school.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, you know we inherited some money from Grandma, and now, with the new house, we don’t need to worry about a mortgage—’
‘Yeah?’
‘But there are still bills to pay, and big houses are expensive to maintain, and pools have to be cleaned, and we still need to eat …’
Sadie feels a creeping dread. ‘The suspense is killing me.’
‘I’ve accepted a job teaching English at the high school.’
‘Are you fucking serious?’
‘Yes. And no need to sound so happy about it.’
She thumps her head back against the head rest. ‘Oh, I’m thrilled that you’re going to be a constant source of humiliation for me at another school.’
His face falls. ‘Is it that bad?’
‘You still have no idea.’
‘I won’t be teaching you. I’m teaching ninth and tenth grade.’
She supposes that’s a bit better. But it’s still like saying at least there are only nine circles of hell. Could be worse. Could be eleven.
‘And maybe things will be different here. You know, US schools aren’t the same as the ones in the UK. And you’ll be new, interesting. Everyone will love your accent.’
‘Or it’ll just mark me out as even more of an outsider.’
He glances at her. ‘Thought you liked that?’
She sighs. How can she explain to Dad, who is almost fifty? There’s being a cool outsider, with cool outsider friends, and then there’s being a freak – laughed at, pitied or, perhaps even worse, shunned and ignored.
‘Sweetheart—’
‘Uh-oh. The “sweetheart” is coming out.’
‘Okay, look, let’s try to be positive. Give it a chance. If things don’t work out at Serenity Falls High, I’ll look for a teaching position somewhere else. We can make this work.’
He sounds desperate, Sadie thinks. And she gets it.
They have to make this work. They don’t have much choice.
Dad loves being a teacher, but he hated teaching at Edgerton Academy almost as much as she hated studying there.
The overcrowded classes, the poor pay, the lack of funding and resources, the parents.
And then there was ‘the incident’. The one they still don’t talk about.
The one marked off limits, like a lot of stuff.
Sadie wants him to be happy. And maybe, just maybe, that could be here in stupid Serenity Falls in stupid, stinking-hot Florida.
‘I guess,’ she says.
‘Wow. The enthusiasm.’
‘Don’t push it.’
‘Okay. Grudging truculence. I’ll take it.’
Sadie smiles. She can’t help it. Her dad is such an idiot.
They pull off the freeway. Ahead of them the famous arched gates of Winsom Wonderland rise over the road, marking the point at which they are entering land owned and run by the Winsom Corporation. A huge, huge area, including Serenity Falls, and far larger than the actual Wonderland Park.