The fact that Violet and I have to sit next to each other during some exams is a hardship I hadn’t anticipated. A punishment even. The curse of the alphabetical seating plan: Violet Brody, Carla Carroll. I go to my exams. I do my best, but … the cramming is all too late, the questions foreign. Still, I try…
After a morning studying in my room, I need a break so crank up the volume of my sound dock and try to stop thinking altogether. Half an hour later I’m ready to return to reality. I turn it down a notch.
My phone vibrates. It’s Isaac. “Can I come over?” he asks.
“If you like.”
“Good. I’ve been standing outside your house for twenty minutes already and I’m sure your neighbour thinks I’m about to crowbar your window and steal your parents’ sweet forty-two-inch flat screen.”
“Sorry, I was drowning out the world with feisty chick music. Didn’t hear the bell. Two secs.”
I change from jogging bottoms into a short skirt made from an old pair of Levi’s, leggings and a blue T-shirt. I twist my hair into a rough plait, elusive strands straying across my face. I’ve got some colour back in the last few weeks.
I rush to the front door and let him in.
“I brought you a Kinder Egg,” he says.
“Thanks. Is chocolate part of your diet plan, then?”
“You eat the chocolate. I’ll make the toy.”
“Deal,” I agree.
Since we’re on study leave, I haven’t seen Finn, save for our agonizing fifteen-hour Art exam and the Chemistry and Psychology papers. But I’m beginning to feel numb about Finn. I just switch off, shut him out. Trouble is, I can’t seem to get the power back on for exams. It’s like I’m running on autopilot, minimal output, back-up generators only. It used to be eat-sleep-rave-repeat, now it’s eat-sleep-revise-EXCRUCIATING EXAM-repeat. I was a study whore; now I’m just a study zombie.
I’m sure Finn wouldn’t be over the moon if he knew Isaac and I were hanging out – but as soon as I think it, I reject it. I don’t allow him into my thoughts. At least, I try not to.
Isaac and I talk a lot. I wrap myself up with him like a child’s safety blanket. He’s not like Finn. I feel safe, in a world of two, where I can say anything, be me, like when I do gym: a place to escape.
There’s been no repeat of the almost-kiss. Apart from the Finn complexity there’s too much going on with exams. The friendzone beckons.
We head upstairs to my room. Isaac perches on the bed.
The music blares; all electric guitar and screaming.
I search through desk junk for the dock remote, then turn the volume down.
“You’ve been keeping something from me,” he says.
I look at him, no clue what he’s talking about.
He reaches into his jeans pocket for a small black box.
“Bit soon for proposals, isn’t it?” I ask.
“Very funny. Open it.”
I lift the lid. Sitting on lilac tissue paper is a butterfly on a silver chain, a silhouette in purple acrylic. With it, a note. I don’t read it yet.
“Your Facebook wall is full of happy birthday messages. You kept that quiet.”
“Wow, it’s … um…” I struggle to find words. It’s so me, so thoughtful, so perfect.
“You don’t like it?” Isaac says, confused by my inability to articulate.
“No, I love it,” I say. Isaac unhooks the clasp and puts the necklace on me. “Really, thanks. I guess, I’m just… You took me by surprise. It’s really kind of you. Thank you.” And while I’m talking, I’m thinking, All I ever got from your brother was a crushed donut and a drug habit.
Isaac shrugs like it’s no big deal, modest as ever, and the contrast between him and Finn is even bolder; he’s the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square.
“You’re welcome,” he says.
My eyes stray from Isaac’s neck, to the tips of his hair, to the light jerking between the slats of the blind, to my toes, to his floppy hair, back to the blinds. I observe the barcode of light on the carpet. A car rumbles past. The lines of light vibrate like white guitar strings.
“This is just Part One of your present.”
“There’s more?”
Isaac nods.
“What is it?”
“Ah, time will tell, Carla Carroll. All will be revealed, but when you least expect it.”
“How very cryptic.”
“Got to go now. Keep your phone handy. Don’t switch it off.”
After Isaac leaves I unfold the note.
This seemed kind of, you know, you. I x
I think I like him a little bit more every time I see him.
Ten minutes pass. My phone rings.
“I’ve got a surprise for you. A birthday present,” he says.
“You were just here.”
“You see, you weren’t expecting it.”
“You’re such a dork. Where did you go?”
“Your front garden.” I move to the window and look out. Roll my eyes. “Seriously, your neighbour thinks I’m a stalker or something. I can see her picking up the phone. Quick. You really should come let me in.”
Back in my room, Isaac perches on the corner of the bed. I swing round on my chair to face him. “So?” I ask, intrigued.
“It wouldn’t be a surprise if I told you, would it?” He stretches his arms and leans back onto the duvet, eyes closed and smiling. I glimpse a sliver of lean tummy. All that running must be paying off.
“Suppose not,” I say.
He looks pleased with himself. Bursting with energy. He jumps up and leans over to grab the pink heart-shaped Post-it notes on the desk behind me and I can smell his scent, lemons and coconut. “Have you got exams tomorrow?” he says.
“Nope. Why?” I ask but he doesn’t reply.
I watch him scribble away and I’m too eager to wait for him to finish, so move next to him on the bed. I read aloud as he writes:
“Meet me at the river at midday tomorrow. Bring goggles (supplied),” I say, in my best secret-agent voice, before adding my own contribution: “Come alone. Wait for my signal. The rabbit is in the burrow. The eagle has landed. Project Birthday is a go. I repeat, Project Birthday is a go.”
“It doesn’t say that,” he says, then draws a map. “Meet me here.” An arrow points to the riverbank, by the picnic area in the park. He adds a stickman doodle of himself with a speech bubble saying, “Please come.”
“I never knew you were an artist,” I say. “It’s realistic. You’ve really captured your crude wavy lines.”
Isaac reaches into his rucksack and pulls out a pair of goggles like the ones in the school Chemistry lab.
“What are the goggles for? You loco now?” I ask.
“Patience, Carla.”
“Sounds ominous. I mean, will I be walking into a Shallow Grave situation here? Should I bring my shovel?”
“Just come!”
The next morning is bright and clear, but my thoughts are clouded. What’s Isaac planned? Why the goggles? I texted him a few times last night but he wouldn’t give up any details. Patience, he said, and, This is going to be so good. Annoyingly cryptic and painfully tantalizing in equal measure. It’s 11.34 a.m. I’m ready to go, perched on the edge of my bed, excited. It’s silly but I feel like a kid going to the zoo for the first time, or to the pet shop to get my first hamster. Something awesome is about to happen, I know it. I grab my bag, shove the goggles in and head out. I’m barely aware of the streets and trees melting by. My racing mind drives me forwards, feet moving of their own accord. Nearing the river, I notice something amazing, phenomenal. This, fuck, this is something else.
I can’t believe my eyes.
Hundreds of butterflies form a sea of white on the muddy ground, their wings illuminated by the bright sun. The creatures line the footpath so densely, I can’t see how to get past. This is mental. I shout for Isaac but hear only the low hum of multiple insects, closely packed and clambering over one another. Their long antennae twist and jerk, tiny rods receiving signals like TV aerials – but what transmission has drawn them here?
I edge towards the water, careful not to crush the pearly ocean underfoot. So exhilarated by the fantastical sight, I almost forget I’m looking for Isaac. It’s really beautiful. I mean freaking, stuff-of-dreams-magical-realm-epic-movie-scene beautiful. Did he do all this? No. How could he?
“Do you like it?”
I look around but I can’t see him anywhere. “Where are you?”
“Answer the question!”
“I love it!”
A tap on the shoulder makes me jump. I turn to see Isaac dangling upside down, legs hooked over a thick tree branch.
“Hello,” he says.
“How did you do this?”
Isaac hoists himself up, slowly lowers his legs and swings carefully to the ground, so as to miss the butterflies. Dust puffs up where he lands and a few fly off into the treetops.
“Fireworks,” he says.
“I don’t understand.”
Isaac just grins and takes my hand, leading me away from the butterflies.
“Where are we going?”
“We’ll come back. I need to show you something.”
Further down the riverbank, he stops. “When I was doing Chemistry GCSE, we came here to do an experiment. Not strictly school-endorsed.”
He puts on a pair of safety gloves, then takes a small white pot from his pocket.
“Look, Isaac, I’m done with drugs.”
He smiles. “It’s not a rock of coke. It’s sodium. Better put on your goggles.”
I do as I’m told. Isaac takes out a pair of tweezers and grips the sodium.
“Stand back.”
Chemistry lessons have taught me that sodium is a soft, waxy, silver-white, metallic element. Highly reactive. Oxidizes rapidly when exposed to air. Reacts violently with water. Bloody punch-drunk violently. A smallish bomb.
“Isn’t this dangerous?”
“Maybe a little. But what’s life without a little risk? Ready?”
Isaac’s eyes widen with a mock look of terror.
“Dun-duuun-duuuuuuun!” He throws the rock into the river and it spits and glows white before exploding. Sparkles rain down.
“That’s very cool. But I don’t get what it has to do with the butterflies.”
“Elementary, my dear Carla. A bunch of us stole thirty grams from school and threw it in the river one night. It was pretty awesome. It was only when I went back the next day that I noticed all the butterflies. When it exploded it left salt on the riverbank.”
The salt called the butterflies down from the sky. What a birthday present.
I may be about to fail Biology, but I know about butterflies. I know they’re champion drinkers. They can drink and void continuously for hours. They do it for the nutrients. The males use the dissolved salts and minerals to make pheromones. They crave sodium like pregnant women crave ice-cream and gherkins. They fill up and move on. And it doesn’t hurt them at all. They do it in spectacular fashion, often consuming hundreds of times their body mass. To keep up, a human would have to drink about twelve thousand gallons a second. This isn’t eating a handful of peanuts at a bar, this is a tankerful of seawater hooked directly to your veins. I like butterflies because they are pretty and graceful and remind me of the sycamore seeds floating down. I like them for the way they look, but you have to respect the science behind that. Twelve thousand gallons a second.
“So you did it again last night? How come you didn’t get caught? People get jumpy these days when they hear loud noises.”
“I just used some sea salt from Dad’s business. Sprinkled it around. I’ve given up my life of crime and don’t fancy losing an arm in a big bang. Plus last time we all got three weeks’ detention for nicking from the lab. Think we’d have been expelled if Dad hadn’t been catering for a school fundraiser that same month.”
“What about that bit you threw in the river?”
“Internet.”
He walks me back towards the butterflies.
“I’m chuffed that it actually worked,” he says. “I thought I might be bringing you out here to see, well, nothing, except a slightly salty mud patch.”
A low branch curves out over the water. Isaac takes my hand as I climb onto it.
“You should be helping me keep my balance, gymnast girl.”
The butterflies dance around us.
“Happy birthday,” he says.
And I think, This is a perfect moment.