Mrs Bell was off sick right up to the Easter Holidays. Magic!
Even better, we were going to London for the Easter weekend to see Dad. I’d been looking forward to this for ages. We went on a coach – just Tom and me. Mum waved us off; Dad met us at the other end.
He wasn’t alone, I was sorry to see. Paula, his girlfriend, was with him, waving and smiling as if it was her we’d come to see. She’s one of those people who try so hard to be nice all the time that you can’t tell what they’re really like.
“Lovely to see you, Emily, Tom – I’m so glad you could come!” See – she was at it again. She tried to kiss me, but I fended her off.
Dad and Paula had a flat in Fulham. It was miles from Streatham, where we used to live. And it was completely unlike our old house. It was more like a hotel room before the guests arrive: not a cushion out of place; not one dirty cup in the sink. (How had Paula managed to tidy Dad up? Mum had often tried and failed.)
We were in London all right, but we hadn’t come home. I felt a great ache of longing for my home – my real home: 12 Dorset Avenue, SW16. But it was sold, and someone else was living in it now. Someone else was sleeping in my bedroom… Whoever they were, I wished them bad dreams.
Although the homesick feeling refused to go away, I tried not to show it, because Dad was doing his best to give us a good time. We saw a film, we went to the zoo, and we had meals out (probably so we didn’t mess up Paula’s shiny kitchen). On the Saturday, Dad had got tickets for some football game Tom was desperate to see.
“What about me?” I said.
“I thought you might like to see your old friend, Denise,” said Dad. “It’s all arranged. Paula’s going to take you over there and pick you up after tea.”
Paula gave me a big smile and said she was looking forward to it, although you could bet Streatham was not her idea of an afternoon out. On the way there she kept trying to be bright and chatty. I gave her one-word answers and stared out of the window.
The High Road was busy, like it always is on a Saturday – crowded, noisy, alive. Compared to this, Caston was only half-awake and Brilby was deep in a coma.
“Do you think… could we just have a look at my old house?” I said. “It’s sort of on the way to Denise’s place.”
“Of course, we can. We’re in plenty of time, sweetheart.”
I guided her through the familiar streets. There was the pizza place, there was Gita’s dad’s shop, there was my school. I felt as if I was getting closer to the centre of a maze.
And there it was: number 12, Dorset Avenue. It hadn’t changed a bit. There were even the same curtains at the windows, and the same weeds in the small front garden. It looked as if I could walk in and be home again. But I couldn’t.
For a while I just gazed at the house. I had reached the centre of the maze – and there was nothing there, only emptiness.
“Poor darling,” said Paula. “Do you miss it very much?”
I shook her hand off my shoulder. “I just wanted to see it, that’s all. Who lives there now?”
“I don’t know that anybody lives there. The man who bought it works in Saudi Arabia most of the time, your dad said.”
Somehow that made it even worse – my house being empty, cold and unloved, my garden overgrown. (Mind you, that was nothing new. Dad loves gardening like the Queen loves bungee jumping.) Number 12 was not a home any more, just a building.
I shivered and said, “Come on, let’s go.”
***
At least Denise was still Denise. After the first two minutes, it felt as if I’d never been away. As if I was back to my real self again.
Of course Denise knew all about my name being taken away from me. “Nah, you don’t look like a Denise,” she said. “Not pretty enough. You’re definitely still an Emily.”
“Emilys,” I said haughtily, “have got brains. We don’t have to get by on our looks. We are intellectual… if you know what that means.”
“Even Deadly Emily?”
“Oh, she doesn’t count. She’s really an Edna in disguise.” At that moment Emily seemed small and harmless and very far away. “I wish you were living in Brilby, Denise. The two of us could soon sort Emily out.”
“No way am I moving to Brilby,” she said. “But I want to show you something. I read it this morning and I thought, Emily’s got to see this.”
She got her Bible from the shelf, and I thought guiltily of my own one, gathering fluff under the bed. I hadn’t opened it for a while. It seemed like too much effort.
She showed me a bit she’d underlined in pencil: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you.”
The words seemed to jump off the page and hit me right between the eyes: “Love your enemies.”
“This must be a misprint,” I said. “It can’t mean that.”
“Well, it says the same thing again further down.” She pointed. “Love your enemies, do good to them…”
I said, “But nobody could love Deadly Emily. Even her so-called friends don’t like her much – they only go round with her because they’re scared not to. I bet her own mother doesn’t love her.”
“Maybe that’s why she’s the way she is. Deep down, she knows nobody likes her.”
“Look, nobody likes me much at school, but that hasn’t turned me into the Monster from Planet X, has it?”
“Hope not. Mum won’t like it if you leave trails of slime all over my room.”
I looked again at the words in the Bible. Jesus said them to his followers – I wondered if they were shocked by what he said.
But I was one of his followers too. So I couldn’t just ignore what he said, could I? Even if it seemed difficult? (Correction, even if it seemed impossible.)
“Fine. OK. Love your enemies,” I said. “Doesn’t tell us how to do it, though.”
“Well, it gives us a hint. Read on a bit – there.”
“Do to others as you would have them do to you,” I read. What did that mean? What it didn’t mean was bullying Emily when I got the chance. Or making nasty comments. Or hating her so much that I almost enjoyed the hate…
“Not easy,” said Denise. “But I’m going to give it a try.”
“What? I didn’t know you had any enemies.”
She made a face. “Only my kid sister. She’s always stirring up trouble and then telling Mum I started it. And I suppose there’s Tanya at school – remember her? She’s got worse since you left.”
“I bet she’s not as bad as Emily.”
“No. She only gets five out of ten for horribleness. Emily sounds like an eight or even a nine.”
“Denise!” I put on a shocked voice. “We shouldn’t be talking about our enemies like this. We should be saying how nice and wonderful and attractive and loveable they are.”
She giggled. “So are you going to give it a try, then? Loving Emily and doing good to her?”
“I might,” I said. “I’ll let you know.”