The Look Read online

  They hit the chorus. One voice sings out above the others, doing his famous Harry Styles impression.

  Dean. If I could take my revenge on anyone first, it would be him. The guy everybody loves, because he’s always cracking jokes and having a laugh. He’s not bad-looking, if you happen to like walking bowl-banged early Bieber impersonations. I happen to know that Cally has had a crush on him since Christmas, and it certainly looks as though she’s got his attention now. He keeps turning to grin at her.

  If Dean’s on your side, everything’s perfect. It’s just that there has to be another side, to even things out, and that’s the side I’m on. Me and all the other freaks and losers. But mostly me.

  “And what color knickers are you wearing?” Ava asks. We’re on the bus home.

  “That’s not the point! Lilac, sort of, since you ask.”

  Somehow, I’ve managed to get a seat next to her for once. I wanted her to share my pain, but she’s not taking this nearly seriously enough.

  “I bet they’re gray by now,” she says. “All our clothes seem to go gray when Dad gets involved in the laundry.”

  “This is all your fault, you know, for not lending me your skirt last night.”

  She looks guilty. “All right, you can have the one with the dodgy waistband.”

  “Oh, great. Now that it’s too late.”

  “Or I can always keep it —”

  “No! I’ll borrow it,” I say quickly.

  There’s sulking and there’s self-preservation. I’m not stupid.

  She grins and looks out of the top deck front window. My favorite place on the bus. It’s always full when I try and sit here, but somehow, when Ava wants to, it’s free. It must be magic or voodoo or something. She’s always been like this.

  She scratches her arm and I spot the Band-Aid near her elbow.

  “Oh, did the doctor give you another blood test?”

  “Uh-huh,” she says, “and he wants me to have a biopsy on my neck.”

  “What’s that?”

  “They stick a needle in and suck out what’s inside so they can test it.”

  She knows how much I hate needles, so she says it with flailing hands and bulging eyes, looming over me like a mad scientist.

  “Ew, get off me! Sounds yuck. You seem in a good mood for someone who’s given blood.”

  “That wasn’t the good bit,” she says. “I got a text from Constantine & Reed this morning. I got the job! Louise did, too. Four weeks as a salesgirl. Longer if we want it. So that’s the summer sorted.” She does her singsong, happy voice. “I get to see Jes-se. And I get to go surf-ing. And I get a dis-count.”

  “So we didn’t have to go busking!”

  “It was a useful experience, T,” she says, digging me in the ribs. “Just think — now you can put professional musician on your résumé.”

  “I don’t have a résumé.”

  “Well, you will one day.”

  “Does a Starburst count as professional payment?”

  She looks sleepy again and rests her head on my shoulder. “Just hope they don’t ask you too many questions in your interviews. It’ll be fine. Trust me.” She closes her eyes.

  Various students come to check out the front of the bus, see Ava resting beside me, and give me a friendly wave. I take a deep breath and try to hold on to this moment. For five minutes, I’m not “the girl with the knickers” — I’m “Ava Trout’s sister.” Maybe this makes me temporarily cool by association. I sit back in my seat while the burning finally fades from my cheeks. Meanwhile, the Elizabeth Taylor look-alike beside me starts gently snoring into my collar.

  Looking back ten days later, the sleeping was a clue. There were other clues, too, but we missed them. We all thought it was a combination of being a teenager, moving house, exam stress, and a virus. Instead, we worried about math and sociology tests, gray underwear, finishing a book chapter, and underdone potatoes dauphinoise.

  Then the doctor called one morning to say the biopsy results were in. Mum and Ava arranged to get them that afternoon, while I was at school. I thought nothing of it.

  By coincidence, as I get off the bus, I spot them walking back to the flat from the doctor’s. I call to them and they turn to look at me.

  It’s the first of June. A beautiful summer’s day. All the sycamore trees along the road are a vivid green, their leaves standing out against the crystal blue of the sky. But Mum’s face is as gray as our knicker collection. So is Ava’s. They won’t talk to me. Not a single word. It is … not good. I have the same buzzing in my ears as when I was scammed on Carnaby Street. I want to say something but I can’t think of the right question to ask, because I’m not sure I want to know the answer. Instead, I wait beside Ava while Mum struggles to get her key into the lock of the front door. Her hands are shaking.

  The sky doesn’t make sense.

  That’s what I’m thinking. The blue sky doesn’t make sense. Today it is the wrong sky.

  Dad’s waiting at the top of the stairs. I don’t know if Mum phoned him from the doctor’s office or if he just knew, but his face is gray, too. He looks as if something heavy is about to fall on him and he’s worried he’ll be knocked over.

  We somehow get into the living room and, without thinking, we sit at the table in our usual places. Four gray faces, framed against a blue sky, with the ash tree waving cheerily through the open window, caught by a summer breeze.

  Dad just looks at Mum. Something in his expression makes me reach out to hold his hand.

  “It’s lymphoma,” Mum tells him. “The biopsy was pretty certain. They’ll need to do more tests, but they think she’s had it for months. Months, Stephen. And those other blood tests said she was fine …”

  She stares at the tabletop. Her hands are still shaking. She’s talking about Ava as if she’s not there, and something about Ava isn’t there at the moment. There’s a far, faraway look in her eyes.

  “What’s lymphoma?” I ask.

  Mum tries to answer, but can’t.

  “It’s cancer, love,” Dad says, surprising himself with the sound of his voice. “I think. Isn’t it?”

  Mum nods so microscopically you can hardly see it.

  But cancer is for old people. Dad’s mum died of it two years ago. Cancer kills you. Ava can’t possibly have it. Maybe it’s just a really bad flu. Or asthma?

  “They’re referring us to a pediatric oncologist,” Mum says. “He has a space on Saturday morning. Apparently he sees patients on the weekend, which is good. It’s not always so quick, but there was a cancellation and they didn’t want to waste time …”

  She stops as suddenly as she started, and gazes out the window at the tree, as if she’s just noticed it. I stare at Ava’s neck, just as Dad did when he first pointed out the swelling. It’s very obvious when you look. Could it be an actual tumor, like they talk about on Grey’s Anatomy? I can feel my whole body going cold. I don’t want to worry anybody, but I think I’m going to faint.

  Dad squeezes my hand to steady me. “Don’t fret, love. It’ll be fine. She’ll be fine. Won’t you, Ava, my sweets? Won’t she, Mandy, love? What else did the doctor say?”

  There’s a coded signal in Dad’s voice that clearly says to Mum that we need some good news, and quick.

  Mum snaps out of her reverie and nods.

  “He said it’s quite common in teenagers and they know exactly what to do. He said this man at the hospital — Doctor … I’ve forgotten his name. Damn. Doctor …” She wipes a hand over her forehead and gives up trying to remember. “Something. Anyway, he’s highly respected and he’ll explain everything on Saturday.”

  “And it will be fine, right?” Dad checks.

  Mum smiles a tight smile and says nothing. Clearly the doctor didn’t say it would be fine.

  “I’m going to bed,” Ava says, getting up without glancing at any of us. “Wake me later.”

  Three gray faces nod. After she goes, nobody speaks. The breeze keeps blowing somehow. It’s the only
sound in the room.

  Ava’s favorite pictures are stuck to the inside of the closet door.

  She’s standing on a beach in Cornwall, wearing a wetsuit and clutching a surfboard. Next to her is a bleach-haired boy with a muscled torso and deep gold tan. This is Jesse, teaching Ava to surf last summer when we went camping near Polzeath. Oh, and falling in love with her, but that’s quite normal. Ava has to deal with boys who fall in love with her all the time. The difference was, this time it was totally mutual. Jesse’s surprisingly sweet for someone so gorgeous. Mum and Dad were convinced their romance wouldn’t survive several months of not seeing each other — apart from one weekend at Christmas when he came up to visit — but it has so far. The photo’s pretty tattered by now, because she regularly takes it down to kiss and stroke it, despite the fact that she has an identical version on her phone, which she also strokes and kisses.

  I know.

  Ava with her best friend, Louise Randolph, who’s captain of the volleyball team. They’re in matching skinny jeans, lacy camisoles, and smoky eyes, and look as if they’re about to get signed up to a record label. Actually, I think they were going bowling.

  A group shot of several girls in short skirts and sweatshirts, clutching field hockey sticks and grinning. Ava’s in the middle, holding the silver cup they won last year at the South London Schools Tournament. The team is going on tour to Belgium next term, if they can raise the money.

  This is Ava’s life: Jesse, surfing, and volleyball in the summer; her friends, looking good, field hockey in the winter — never mind A-level exams, which she takes next year. I don’t think she’s got time for cancer.

  On Saturday morning, we show up at a building in central London that Dad assures us is not far from the British Museum. Mum gives Dad a stiff look at this point. We don’t care if it’s on top of the British Museum or, frankly, in London Zoo. It’s a hospital. It’s where pediatric oncologists see their new patients. Pediatric oncologists are doctors who deal with childhood cancer. My vocabulary is growing by the minute.

  Inside, it’s overwhelming, full of shiny floors and signs pointing to places where people get treated for lots of scarily named stuff that I didn’t even know you could get. In the corridors, smiling staff in colorful uniforms bustle past gray-faced families looking just like Mum and Ava did when they first got the news. Like we all do, in fact. Looking lost.

  It takes us twenty minutes to find the corridor where Ava’s consultant, Dr. Christodoulou, is seeing his outpatients. Despite the fact that Dad is a highly trained academic, we can’t seem to follow simple directions.

  We sit in the waiting room, avoiding the eyes of the other families. Automatically, Mum and Dad look around to find something to read. You don’t get to be a French translator and an ex–history professor without reading pretty much everything you can get your hands on, all your life. Mum grabs the only newspaper. Dad goes for the magazine with the largest amount of writing, which turns out to be Good Housekeeping. He reads it anyway. Maybe he’ll pick up some laundry tips. Ava’s already got her nose buried in an old copy of Marie Claire. That only leaves Hello! for me. I soon know more about the beautiful homes and failed love lives of B-list celebrities than I ever wanted or needed to. Luckily, the consultant is running five minutes ahead of schedule. A nurse pops her head round the door of the waiting room to show us into his office.

  The consultation goes by in a blur. Dr. Christodoulou is not as old as I was expecting — younger than Dad, in fact, with a smooth, unlined face and black, wavy hair. He must have done all his training very fast. I wonder if he can really be a “highly respected expert” already. But for Ava’s sake, he has to be.

  He explains that her type of lymphoma is called Hodgkin’s disease. The lump in her neck is not a tumor — or not the way I imagined it, anyway — it’s a swelling of the lymph nodes. I didn’t know you had lymph nodes, but now I do, and Ava’s have got cancer. Once they’ve found out how far it’s spread, they’ll start treating it with chemotherapy, which is basically lots of powerful drugs that they’ll be flooding into her bloodstream over several weeks until they’ve got rid of it. And if that doesn’t work, they’ll try radiotherapy.

  Great. Not remotely frightening, then.

  “But you look fit, Ava,” he says to her with a smile. “That’s a good start.”

  He’s not the first person to tell Ava she looks “fit.” Not by a long way. It’s just not usually in these circumstances. She still smiles coyly, though, as if she’s forgotten why we’re here. I think she’s struggling to concentrate. And he’s not bad himself, as pediatric oncologists go. I really should stop noticing stuff like this.

  “My secretary will book you in for the other tests you need, OK? It’ll only take a few days. We like to move these things along.”

  Mum blows into a tissue; she’s already gone through most of the box thoughtfully placed next to her. I think we’re all very slightly in love with Dr. Christodoulou. Even Dad looks a bit less gray than he did five minutes ago.

  “And you can make her completely better?” he asks, with a cough.

  The consultant hesitates slightly. “I can’t make any promises. But I can tell you that the treatment is very effective these days. Over ninety percent of our patients are completely cured.” Then he turns his attention back to Ava. “Now, while you’re here, I’d like our phlebotomist to take some samples.” He smiles at our blank faces. “Blood samples. It won’t take long.”

  Next thing we know, we’re back in the corridor. Ava and Mum are being taken to wherever the phlebotomists hang out — in the basement, somewhere — and Dad and I are shown back into the waiting room.

  I want to talk to Dad about the last bit of the conversation — about curing the disease. A ninety percent success rate is great, of course. It’s an A in pretty much any subject. But I have a math exam coming up and I’m fairly sure that if you take ninety percent away from a hundred percent, it still means that ten percent of people don’t necessarily get cured. What happens to them? However, Dad has already got his head buried in Good Housekeeping again. He’s not avoiding me exactly, but I can tell he’s not ready to talk. The thought might have occurred to him, too.

  Instead, I pick up the abandoned Marie Claire from beside Ava’s old seat and flick through it. It contains well over a hundred pages of perfect, impossible bodies in bikinis and high-heeled shoes. Whoopee. But I need distractions. Any distractions. So I decide to read my way through it, page by page, until Mum and Ava get back, or until my brain melts — whichever comes first.

  There are a remarkable number of lipstick ads in Marie Claire. More than you’d think possible. And foundation ads. And perfume ads. And handbag ads. I’m starting to wonder how I’ve got through fifteen years of my life without owning a proper lipstick (I wear gloss if I remember; usually I don’t), or foundation, or perfume (I borrow Mum’s or Ava’s, when I can get away with it), or a handbag. Yes, I really don’t own a bag. I have a small canvas backpack that works perfectly well. Or at least I thought it did. Maybe I should own one handbag. I’m starting to feel I’m letting the handbag industry down.

  Mum and Ava still aren’t back. I plow on.

  There’s an article on “how to get a beach body.” Another on whether bikinis or one-piece swimsuits are more flattering. And a very long piece on some aging blonde woman going through her walk-in closet of designer outfits, explaining which ones are special to her and why. I bet she owns a lot of handbags and not a single canvas backpack.

  “What are you reading?” Dad asks me.

  I look up. “Oh, this thing about some woman with a lot of clothes.”

  “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why does she have a lot of clothes?”

  This is a fair question, especially from a man who lives in the same three shirts and two pairs of trousers. I’m not sure of the answer, though, so I go back to the beginning of the article and read the opening blurb more carefully: “My love affair with fa
shion — Cassandra Spoke, founder of Model City, gives us an intimate tour of an über-agent’s über-wardrobe.”

  There’s a picture of Cassandra Spoke in her office. She has piercing blue eyes, tanned skin, and silky blonde hair, perfectly parted in the middle. She’s wearing a black silk dress and very high heels. Behind her is the logo that represents her über-agency. It’s a jagged black M inside a pale blue circle. The circle matches the color of her eyes, and is actually a C, for “City.”

  Oh.

  This logo, I’m sure, is the same as the one on the card that Simon the scammer gave me on Carnaby Street.

  Except … maybe he wasn’t.

  “Ted, are you OK?” Dad asks, frowning.

  I nod dumbly and try to ignore the increasingly familiar sound of buzzing in my ears.

  I think I got scouted by a legitimate model agency, owned by a fashion star. And my sister’s having blood tests to see why her neck’s got cancer. It feels as though the world has turned upside down. I’m not sure I’m ready for this.

  The rest of the weekend goes by in a blur of phone calls, missed meals, forgotten homework, and sleepless nights. Back at school on Monday, Daisy helps me try to adjust to the news.

  “Why don’t we go outside?” she says at first break. “It’s such a nice day. We could sit on the grassy knoll.”

  The grassy knoll is part of the landscaping outside the school’s new cafeteria. I follow her out there to chat. Normally we sit by ourselves, but today we’re constantly interrupted by a stream of gorgeous male students, who suddenly all want to talk to me. Me! Mind you, I quickly come back to Earth when I realize why.

  “Are you Ava’s sister?”

  “I heard she got some bad news, right?”

  “Is she in today? I haven’t seen her. I’m kind of freaked out, to be honest.”

  “Tell her I said hi, OK? Here’s my number, in case she doesn’t have it.”

  Daisy sits with her eyes on stalks, watching them all troop by.