The wallpaper in Penny’s room reminded her of exploding pizzas. If only she could get a mobile signal. She longed to send pictures of this crazy place to her best friend Emily, to tell her how creepy it was and ask her what to do. Maybe if she went out onto the moors and found higher ground, she could get her mobile to work.
Penny wasn’t like the other girls at school who didn’t exist without their silly little group of airhead friends. Those girls never thought about anything other than makeup, boys, and going to the Westfield shopping centre. There, among the glossy overpriced mass merchandise and tinny, canned pop music, they could flirt and show off and pretend to be somebodies.
It did hurt in a way that she wasn’t accepted in that tight, nasty little circle of girls. But she had her own group who held themselves above that sort of thing. Her friends were originals. They weren’t nerds, they weren’t emos—they just were who they were. Weirdos. Freaks. Cool people.
And besides, Penny liked to read, to be alone with her books and her poems and her thoughts. She actually wanted to do well in school and have a future—maybe as a writer.
But she still needed her friend Emily. She couldn’t imagine life without Em.
Emily was what Penny’s dad called “a piece of work.” She was like a little old lady in a girl’s body, a little old hippie lady. She dressed in weird outfits she made herself, like crocheted tops and skirts sewn out of ties, or fishnet stockings with her granny’s old go-go boots from the sixties. She wore bright turquoise eye shadow with white frosted lipstick and dangly peacock-feather earrings that brushed her shoulders. She listened to old crooner and bluegrass records, idolised George Formby, and played the banjolele. She wanted to be an actress, and she adored Twiggy and Angie Dickinson and Amy Winehouse.
Emily was one of a kind. She was fearless and didn’t care what people thought about her. She made Penny feel brave and original and confident, too.
Emily was the only person who really got Penny.
The two of them invented their own special kind of pizza, which everyone else—except Harper—thought was disgusting. It consisted of a frozen cheese pizza broiled with Skittles melted on top. They called it Sweetza Pizza. Emily also referred to it as “pizza on drugs.” That was exactly what this wallpaper was. And just like pizza on drugs, it made you feel slightly sick.
Unless that was her asthma coming on. Whenever Penny got super-stressed or scared or had one of her panic attacks, it happened. First it would get hard to breathe, the air like wool in her lungs. Then she’d get sick to her stomach and start to black out, a gigantic sack of stones pressing down on her chest. It was a terrifying feeling, like demons trying to turn her inside out.
She’d had the feeling a lot lately, with all the yelling going on at home. Mum and Dad never used to yell at each other. They thought she was still a kid and didn’t notice stuff. Like how there wasn’t enough money for the cinema or eating out, for holidays or new clothes. Or how there was more frozen pizza and less lamb and crabmeat. No more morels or Italian parmesan or good balsamic. They ate cheap now, went to the library more, and all new books in the house were used paperbacks. That was okay with Penny; she just wanted them all to get along. She didn’t want Mum and Dad to get a divorce like Emily’s parents had.
And she worried about Harper. He was so sensitive, worried that he was somehow at fault.
Mum thought everything was Dad’s fault, and Dad thought it was Mum’s. But Dad couldn’t help it if his art wasn’t selling, and Mum couldn’t help working harder and being gone more and getting so stressed out she used her bossy bitch voice all the time.
Penny thought they would split up for sure at one point.
It was about a year ago, right before Granny died—Mum’s mum. Penny would always remember because it was the day after her birthday, March 1. She invited Emily over, and they made Sweetza Pizza while Mum tried to fry ice cream and cocked it up. Dad was supposed to bring the cake, but he never came home until the middle of the night after they were all in bed.
Penny had been feeling weird for a couple of days. At night it was as if there were someone in the bedroom with her, trying to talk to her. Like in a dream when you try to yell but no sound comes out, except it was someone else trying to speak. It was hard to explain—she just got these feelings. Em had come up with a term for Penny’s “weird spells.” She called them Planet Hollywood. “Are you going Planet Hollywood on me?” Em would ask, jabbing her in the ribs to shake her out of it. They’d put on a scary movie, and Em would warn, “I’m turning it off if you go Planet Hollywood.”
Penny was Planet Hollywood a lot—more than her Mum and Dad or even Em knew. She knew where to find the neighbour’s dog when it got run over, she knew that vicious girl at school was going to steal her best pen before she even did it, and after that, she knew where the girl had hidden it.
And she knew Granny was trying to tell her something.
On that birthday night, when Dad was so late coming home, she could tell by his voice that he’d been drinking. Mum was screaming like a banshee. Penny woke up from a deep dream and thought for a minute the photos on her wall were talking to her. One whole wall next to her bed was covered with pinned-up snapshots of everyone in the family, all her friends, their cat Potter, their holidays, and just stuff she thought was cool. She was so confused, and her chest was packed with wool. She couldn’t catch her breath.
There was another voice in the room though, really strange, saying her name. Penny. Pen, hon. Be a lamb and wear the hat I knit for you. Be good. Take care of Harper.
It was Granny. She knew what her own Gran sounded like, and it was her.
Then the next day, Mum had told her Granny died. And she gave her Gran’s present—a knitted hat. Emily’s eyebrows had shot up into her kinky blond hairline when Penny told her that.
This weird house gave Penny the Planet Hollywood feeling. Right now everything was very quiet. Too quiet. She felt her chest constricting and her heart beating funny, like too slow and heavy. Where was her mum? She’d been down in the cellar for an awfully long time.
Penny pushed her covers aside and went to the door of her room. She stuck her head out, listening.
“Mum?”
There was something coming from her parents’ bedroom down the hall—Dad’s voice, talking to Mum? No, he was just making noises, and there was some kind of hissing sound. “Dad?” she said.
She heard the massive front door open downstairs and ran to the top of the staircase and looked down. “Mum!”
Meg was coming in from outside, looking like she’d been tossed about by a high wind. Her hair was mussed up, and she had a wild look in her eye. Her cheeks were bright pink.
“Have you been playing music?” Meg asked.
Penny started down the stairs. “What? No, but—”
“Classical music?”
“Mum—”
“Did you hear that music? Just now? Did you see anyone?”
“Mum, no. But there’s something wrong with Dad. In the bedroom!”
Her mum gave her a strange look and rushed past her up the stairs toward Alec—and whatever he was yelling at behind the closed bedroom door.
“Oh, God, don’t let them fight,” Penny prayed. “Don’t let them kill each other or break up or get divorced or leave us … here all alone.”