Beauty and the Freak by Jackie Bateman

Author:Jackie Bateman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: romance, drama, young adult, contemporary, teen, mental health, bullying
Publisher: Evernight Teen

Chapter Eighteen

Muppet

Pa informed me my new tutor was coming this morning at ten o’clock. He looked like he’d swallowed a goat. Guilty as they come. As I poured cereal into a large pasta bowl, the usual store brand whole-wheat flakes with raisins, I eyed him and wondered what he’d done. He turned his back on me and filled the kettle. A sure sign.

I stared at the curly tuft of hair at the nape of his neck. “What’s her name? Or is it a man?”

“It’s another woman,” he said. “She’s called Marie McFadyen. Apparently, she’s excellent with maths, and that’s where you need extra help.”

“She sounds like a nun.”

Pa turned to me. “Well, she isn’t. They said she’s a very good tutor and I’d like you to try hard this year. It’s an important year, son.”

I added full-fat milk until the cereal reached the rim of the bowl, and then I carried it carefully to the table. “Every year so far has been important. What’s the point? What job am I going to get at the end of all of this? I might as well join Mr. Barnum’s Circus now and have done with it.”

“Don’t say that.” Pa let out a long breath and hung his head.

He looked like he was going to cry, so I shut up. I’d gone too far.

We ate our breakfast, or breakfasts in my case, because one was never enough, and pretended to read the local paper and any junk mail that happened to be lying around. All I could think about was Kat and what happened at her granma’s place. I wanted to go to the school to see if she was okay, but it would have to wait until the end of the day. It was hard to look out for Kat when she didn’t realize she needed looking out for. She thought she could do anything.

I went up to do my stretches and get a hot shower. Pa got ready for work. He was going to wait until the tutor got here before he left. We didn’t talk about the press incident again. The tutor coming had made him relax, like he’d drawn a line underneath the chance of me going out again. He was deluded.

I kicked at the bed, toes crunching against the mahogany. Everything was tight, my whole body filling my skin to bursting point. I attached the green bellyband to a hook under the door and grabbed the end of it. I sat far enough away that the band stretched to its maximum. Slotting one foot through the loop, I felt the stretch at the back of my thigh, loosening the muscle, one strand at a time.

Hold it. And hold. Strings of flesh, strips of ligament, were fraying.

My mind began to relax and then I switched feet. The hurt mingled with the ecstasy of the stretch, to make something that felt good. The pull of it.

After, I paced up and down in my room, which was mental, because two of my steps almost took me from wall to wall.

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