Scarlett - Cathy Cassidy [4]
‘You know why I sent you to your nan’s,’ Mum growls.
I shake my head. Can there ever be a good reason for sending your eleven-year-old daughter miles and miles away to live with people she only ever sees at Christmas? I don’t think so.
‘You’re out of control!’ Mum rages. ‘You’re a selfish, destructive little troublemaker! I work hard trying to make a nice home for you. When was the last time I had a holiday? When was the last time I really got to relax? I work hard, Scarlett, and my career is taking off!’
‘Lucky you,’ I say sulkily.
‘Don’t I buy you nice things?’ she rants on. ‘The clothes you like? CDs, DVDs, Xbox games? You get a good allowance. What more do you want?’
I laugh out loud. A life? A family? But you can’t argue with Mum when she gets like this. You just have to ride out the storm.
‘I drop everything each time you get into trouble,’ she says. ‘I talk to your snotty teachers and tell them you’ll change, try harder, toe the line. But you won’t, will you? You just couldn’t care less!’
I shrug, switch off, let it all wash over me. Mum sits down suddenly, and covers her face with one perfectly manicured hand.
‘I don’t know you any more,’ she says. ‘I don’t know who you are.’
This makes me feel bad.
‘Get to know me then,’ I tell her. ‘It’s not so difficult.’ I give her a shaky grin, but she’s not buying.
‘I meant it, Scarlett, when I said that Greenhall was your last chance,’ Mum says. ‘I can’t give you the time and attention you need, you’ve made that very clear. I’ve tried, but it’s just not working. Five schools in two years, and every one of them was glad to see the back of you. Your so-called friends are a nightmare, your behaviour just gets worse and worse. Well, not any more. I’ve had enough.’
‘Enough of me?’ I ask in a very small voice.
Mum closes her eyes and lets her head fall back against the sofa. She takes a deep breath in. ‘You need to get away from here, make a fresh start. It’s something I’ve been thinking about ever since the scalpel incident, and the tongue piercing.’
‘Not Nan’s again?’ I protest. ‘That didn’t work, you said so. Mum, I was so lonely…’
‘Not Nan’s,’ she says. ‘It’s time to try something different,’
‘Boarding school?’ I ask in a whisper. ‘Please, Mum, not that!’
She shakes her head, pulls the clips from her hair and shakes it free. My mum looks at me, all rumpled honey-blonde hair and cool blue eyes, and I’m scared.
‘You leave me no option, Scarlett,’ she says. ‘I’ve done all I can. I know it’s something we agreed we’d never do, but really you leave me no choice. You have to learn that your actions have consequences. I’ve made my decision. No arguing, no discussion. It’s decided. OK?’
‘What, Mum?’ I ask. ‘Just tell me.’
There is silence in the flat, except for the ticking of the clock, the thump of my heart.
‘You’re going to live with your dad,’ she says.
World War III breaks out in our flat then.
‘No,’ I tell Mum quietly. ‘Seriously, no. No, no, NO!’
She puts her hands over her ears and closes her eyes, and leans back on the sofa like she hasn’t a care in the world.
‘You promised!’ I say. ‘You said I’d never have to see him again, not after what he did to us! He left us, Mum, he walked away. You said he was scum! You said we were well shot of him, that we’d make like he’d never existed!’
‘That was two years ago, Scarlett,’ Mum sighs. ‘Things change. I was angry, I shouldn’t have said those things.’
But she did say them, and all of them are true. My dad left us, and I’ll never forgive him for that. He walked out of our lives and didn’t look back, and I don’t care if I never see him again as long as I live. There is no way on this earth I am going to live with him. Or her.
‘You’re kidding, right?’ I say. ‘You hate him as much as I do. He dumped us – to be with that witch Clare and her stupid, snotty kid. He replaced you, Mum. He replaced me.’
‘It’s decided, Scarlett,’ Mum says.
I lose it then and my voice builds up to a scream. All kinds of stuff is tumbling