I haven’t told you about Ruth Wallace yet, have I? Although I think I’ve mentioned the Wallaces a few times. They live next door to us, and Ruth is twelve, just a few months younger than me, and she’s got brown hair and glasses and a grey cat, and an older brother called Damien. Oh, and she’s in a wheelchair.
She doesn’t go to my school, so I hardly ever meet her during the week. A white van collects her every morning at ten past eight – I hear it from my bedroom when I’m getting up – and drops her back every afternoon around four.
You can see other kids in the van. One boy waves at everyone the way very little children wave, just flapping his fingers, even though he’s about my age. He smiles all the time too. Another girl is hunched over in her wheelchair and never looks up. All you can see is the back of her neck.
Ruth’s dad takes his daughter out to the van every morning and waits while they lower the ramp at the back. Then he wheels her on and kisses her goodbye, and he stands, waving, while the van drives off. In the afternoon, her mam comes out, when the van driver sounds the horn, and she wheels Ruth back inside.
And if I could choose a person to live beside, anyone at all in the whole world, Ruth Wallace would be my very last choice.
Now let me explain, because I know how horrible that sounds. You’re probably wondering how I can be so mean to my poor disabled neighbour. Well, let me tell you about Ruth Wallace, and then you can decide who the mean one really is.
She lies in wait for me every Saturday in her wheelchair. She sits just inside her gate until she sees me, and then she wheels herself out onto the path and says whatever nasty thing she’s been thinking up for me – that I stink, or that my top is horrible, or that I need to use spot cream.
Sometimes she tries to trip me up with her wheels, which is a bit pathetic, because I can easily hop out on the road and dodge around her.
Listen, I’m not making this up. I wish I was, but I’m not. Ruth Wallace is a nasty, cruel person, and I’m the only one who knows it, because, for some reason, she’s as nice as apple pie to everyone else. She smiles and looks fragile and says ‘Hello’ in an innocent little girly voice that makes me want to puke, and they all call her poor Ruth and pat her hand and tell her she’s a great girl, and all the time I know what she’s like, but I can’t tell anyone, because, of course, they wouldn’t believe me.
‘Ruth, nasty?’ they’d say in surprise. ‘Why, Liz Jackson, how can you say such a thing? Ruth is so sweet and fragile, and extremely friendly too,’ or something like that. That’s what they all think, you see.
Ruth wasn’t always disabled. Apparently, she got some disease like meningitis when she was only two or three, and she almost died, and since then she hasn’t been able to walk. Which is all very sad, of course, but I still don’t see why she should be so mean to me. I mean, I didn’t make her sick. I didn’t take away her legs. Not that her legs are gone – they’re still there – but you know what I mean.
I’ve told Bumble what she’s like, because I knew he’d believe me. He thinks Ruth is probably jealous of me being able to walk, and that’s what makes her so nasty. When I pointed out that everyone else can walk too, and she’s nice to them, Bumble said, ‘Well, she probably picked you to be mean to because you’re handy, living right next door.’
Sometimes I wish Bumble didn’t always have an answer for everything.
Ruth’s brother Damien is nice, not a bit like her. He’s almost sixteen, so I don’t hang around with him or anything, but he always smiles and says hello. I wonder what he’d say if he knew what kind of a sister he has.
Today Ruth was waiting for me, as usual, when I came home from town. I could see a bit of her hat poking up from behind the hedge – she always wears a hat, every single day – and my heart sank. I walked quicker, but of course out she came.
She said ‘Hello Liz’ in a really sickly sweet voice. I didn’t look at her, just kept going. And as I passed her, she belted me on the back of the legs with a stick she’d been hiding down the side of her wheelchair. That’s what I mean by nasty. For no reason, she just lashed out. It really stung too – I had a red stripe on my legs for about an hour afterwards. But as usual, I said nothing.
Poor Ruth, my foot. She wasn’t abandoned by her mother, was she? I bet that’s worse than being in a wheelchair. Well, maybe not worse, but definitely as bad, in a different way. At least she has her two parents around.
And she has a brother too, which is more than I have. That was another thing I was sorry about when Mam left, that I hadn’t any brothers or sisters, just Dad.
Anyway, that’s the story of my nasty neighbour. The Wallaces’ cat is nice, all lovely soft grey fur. It’s a he – I checked after we had a lesson on cats – and I call him Misty, but that’s not his real name. Of course I can’t ask Ruth what it is, and I’ve never heard anyone calling him anything. Mrs Wallace just says ‘puss, puss’ when she’s calling him.
I suppose I just have to put up with the nastiness from Ruth. It can’t be much fun being in a wheelchair, even though it means never having to mow the lawn, or take out the bins. But it must be hard to see everyone else running around having fun; it must make her feel really sad. And maybe Bumble’s right, maybe she needs someone like me to lash out at sometimes.
I just wish she’d picked someone else, that’s all.