CHAPTER 5

“I hate you!” Tally’s scream echoes off the walls of the kitchen and into Dad’s face, which is as screwed up and frustrated as her own. “Just leave me alone!”

“What on earth is going on?” Mum dashes into the room, a paintbrush in her hand. “Kevin?”

Dad wipes his hands across his face as if he’s hoping to erase the scene in front of him.

“I have no idea,” he tells Mum, looking at Tally in bewilderment. “I asked her if she’d like me to make her a sandwich for a snack and this is the reaction I got. She’s being completely ridiculous.”

Tally opens her mouth and roars, but it’s less the roar of anger and more the roar of somebody in great pain.

Not that Dad can tell the difference.

“Tally.” Mum puts the paintbrush down on the table and Tally watches as a splodge of red paint drips on to the surface. “Tell me what the problem is.”

Tally points at Dad, her hand shaking. “He is the problem,” she wails. “He didn’t just ask me – it’s the way that he said it. And I am not ridiculous!”

“Come on,” Mum says gently. “Let’s sit down and talk about it. What’s this really about, hey? Was school hard today? Are you feeling worried about Layla moving away?”

Tally glares at her. “This hasn’t got anything to do with school. Or Layla.”

It’s not true, but trying to find the right words to tell them just how wrong everything is at school is an impossibility. She’s been masking as much as she can for the last few days, in an attempt not to show how hurt she is that Layla is leaving and how scared she is at the thought of being alone and now she’s got nothing left. She’s an empty husk and Dad should not have snapped at her like that, just because she didn’t hear him the first few times he asked her the question.

Mum and Dad pull out some chairs, but Tally remains standing. If she’s sitting down then she’s trapped, and when she feels like this she really needs to be on her feet and ready to run.

“Is this really all about a sandwich?” asks Dad. “Because you could have just said: no, thank you, and asked for something else. It’s basic manners and it costs nothing.”

“Shut up!” bellows Tally. “Just stop yelling at me, OK?”

Dad blinks. “I’m not yelling,” he says, looking at Mum. “Am I?”

“No, you’re not,” she tells him, giving him a reassuring look. “But this line of conversation isn’t helping.”

Dad shakes his head, his shoulders drooping slightly. “I don’t know what I’m doing wrong,” he murmurs. “I just can’t seem to get it right with her, no matter what I say. I thought we were getting somewhere yet everything seems to be kicking off again.”

Mum reaches across the table and puts her hand on his. “You’re doing fine,” she tells him. “Remember what they told us – it’s not a journey on a straight path and there are going to be lots of twists and turns as she gets older.”

“I’m standing right here,” Tally shouts at them. Why do people constantly think it’s fine to talk about her as if she can’t hear them? It’s bad enough that it happens at school but to have her own parents act like she isn’t even in the room is a step too far. “And I’m not an it or a her or a she – I’m me. It’s incredibly rude to discuss me like I’m not here!”

“We know that,” soothes Mum. “Why don’t you go and chill out in your room for a bit and we can talk about this when we’re all feeling a bit calmer?”

“I am calm!” The words screech around the room. “It’s you who isn’t calm. Why don’t you send yourselves away instead?”

“That’s a tempting suggestion,” mutters Dad. Mum makes a funny noise and then clamps her hand across her lips as if she’s trying to hold back the sound. Not that it helps – Tally can see the small smile at the edge of her mouth.

“Don’t laugh at me,” she warns.

“I’m not laughing,” Mum assures her. “It’s just that you telling us how calm you are in a screaming voice made me think about other things people might say in a contradictory way.”

“Do you mean something like this?” Dad pulls a sad face. “I am super happy.”

Mum nods. “Exactly. Or maybe this.” She yawns exaggeratedly. “I am so full of energy right now.”

“I’m really bored,” says Dad in an eager voice.

“I’m miserable,” sings Mum, waving her hands in the air and getting up to skip round the kitchen. She looks so daft that Tally can’t help but give a small smile of her own.

“People do that all the time, though,” she tells them, finally slumping into a chair. “They say one thing with their words and another thing with their faces.”

“That’s true,” agrees Mum, stopping her skipping.

“So how can we work out what the truth is?” Tally frowns. “If nobody says what they really mean?”

“Well.” Dad leans forward and takes one of Tally’s hands. “I think we have to listen a bit harder and really pay attention to what the person isn’t telling us, as well as listening to the things that they are saying.”

Tally pauses and thinks about what he’s just said. It makes sense but it sounds like a lot of extra work and maybe it would be a whole lot easier if instead of pretending everything was fine, people were a bit more honest.

“It wasn’t about the sandwich,” she whispers. “Well, it was a bit. But it was about other stuff too. School and Layla and everything.”

Dad nods, as if he knew that all along.

“How can we make it better?” asks Mum, picking up Tally’s other hand. “What can we do to help?”

“Not make me go to school,” says Tally and they both squeeze her hands and start talking about how this won’t last for ever and things will all work out and how everyone finds school tricky at some point or another. They tell her that they’ll talk to Mrs Jarman again about making sure the teachers let her use the Safe Space and maybe it’s time for another meeting with the deputy head to discuss a few new strategies and she zones out and lets them speak because it’s making them feel better at least.

Even if none of what they are saying is going to make the slightest bit of difference to how safe she feels in school.