Chapter One

My mam is dying. Everyone knows it.

Dad knows it, though he’s pretending it’s not happening.

Snow, my little sister, knows it. That’s why she isn’t speaking anymore.

Gwenni, my ex-best friend, knows it.

Sherlock, my dog, knows it.

I know it. No one will talk to me about it. They just say things like:

‘Go and do something, Lark. Be good now.’

‘Be quiet, Lark. You know you can be good when you try.’

‘Mam is sleeping now, Lark…’ Pause while they pat my head. ‘Keep the noise down, there’s a good girl.’

If someone tells me to be good one more time I’m running away. I’m tall for my age so no one would guess I’m thirteen.

I’m also running away if people say ‘well done’ to me when I haven’t done anything. If they hug me for no reason or if they ignore me completely because they don’t know what to say. When you add everything up, the likelihood is that I’m running away.

‘Oh, for…!’ Dad has road rage but is trying his best to curb his bad language. The car jolts as he slams on the brakes.

‘Well done.’ I’m not sure if Mam is being sarcastic about Dad’s driving, or praising him for not swearing. Either way he smiles at her in that gooey, syrupy way. It’s absolutely gross.

‘Do you have to?’ I like to make my feelings known.

We’ve been on the road for ages. The morning is full of strange landscapes and perishing cold. The heater is blasting to clear the windscreen and now everything smells meaty. My window doesn’t open so I can’t let out the stink and I’m sure Dad picked the bendiest route. He calls it the scenic route. I call it the sick route. Mam has given us a carrier bag in case we need to throw up. I pointed out that it has holes in the bottom, which isn’t exactly useful. I’ve held it in front of my mouth and prepared myself a few times, but nothing has come up. Yet.

‘How long left?’ I ask for the trillionth time. I don’t know why I’m bothering. I might as well be wearing an invisibility cloak. I might as well be a ghost.

‘Not far now.’ Same cheery sing-song answer from Dad every time, which means all other times he was lying.

We are on our way to a ‘secluded spot’, near where Mam-gu, my mam’s mam grew up. Mam-gu doesn’t talk about her childhood there, though Mam doesn’t know why. Mam wants to visit the place because she is dying. I shouldn’t know this, but it’s amazing how sound carries when you try really hard to listen.

Sadly we are not going somewhere amazing like the Galapagos Islands or Kenya. We are staying in Wales. Mam’s friends and their kids are coming to join us so we can all have a ‘jolly holiday’ together. The adults are happy, because they all want to be there to support Mam. As per usual no one cares if their kids want to go with them.

Snow’s yolk-yellow felt tip rolls off the seat, onto the floor near my feet. Sherlock looks up to see if it’s something interesting then, realising we are still in the hunk-of-junk car, curls up again in his tiny footwell bed, his ears pointed and his furry belly going in and out. He hates travelling. I don’t blame him.

Cramped and aching, I squirm against the battered leather. I kick Sherlock a bit by accident, it’s pretty difficult not to with the lack of space, and I pat him an apology. I bend to pick up Snow’s pen and my stomach claws right up to the back of my throat in bubbling egg-scented fingers, but then gurgles back down. I’m disappointed. If I projectile vomited everywhere perhaps I might get some attention.

‘How far actually is it?’

Dad puts on the radio. It’s the news. He snaps it off again.

‘Excuse me. I was listening to that.’ I thrash about a bit.

Snow has her knees propped up against the back of Mam’s chair in a lung-crushing position, a drawing pad against her thighs. She doodles the things we pass, wiping the window clean every now and again so she can see out. Forlorn houses with cobweb curtains, the shadowy blue hills in the distance, the skeletal trees permanently bending away from the brunt of the wind.

She makes the gulls which wheel and arc in the sky into w’s and m’s with legs and feet. Her tongue sticks out the side of her mouth when she’s concentrating. It has ridges along the sides. I know those are caused by not drinking enough so pass her a water bottle.

‘Any chance we could turn the heating off before I die of dehydration?’

I gasp, sucking the word ‘die’ back into my mouth, swallowing it down deep into my guts, so it’s lost in my intestines, unable to find its way out.

Dad pulls over. He’s going to give me a row. Good. I am one hundred percent ready for a real humdinger. I’m always ready for an argument these days, but I still want to cry afterwards. Every. Single. Time. It’s pathetic. I’m not going to cry today though. I’ve got good reason to be livid today.

This has got to be the worst thirteenth birthday ever.