Читать книгу Finding Cherokee Brown - Siobhan Curham - Страница 10

‘Dear writer, imagine if you will that your reader is a trout, swimming merrily downstream. The first paragraph of your novel should be like the maggot on the end of the fisherman’s line. Juicy and appealing to the point of irresistible. Hook them with that and then let the rest of your first chapter reel them in.’

Agatha Dashwood,

So You Want to Write a Novel?

If you could pick any date in the calendar to find out that you aren’t actually who you thought you were then I suppose your birthday is pretty much perfect. Today, on my fifteenth birthday, I found out that for my entire life I’ve been living a lie.

I actually got up before my parents this morning as they’d been to this cringey conference called ‘Unleash Your Inner Tiger’ last night and didn’t get home till late. Well, when I say late, I mean late for them. They got back at twelve-thirty. I know this because I was still up re-reading The Bell Jar at the time. Normally, my parents go to bed at nine so they can get up mega early and do an hour of Nordic Walking before work. Nordic Walking should be renamed How-to-Totally-Humiliate-Your-Kids Walking. It basically involves striding about in giant steps while holding a pole in each hand – the type of poles you use when you’re skiing. This wouldn’t look so weird if you were hiking your way through a snow drift, or up a mountain. But when you’re walking down a London street in the middle of summer it looks about twenty different kinds of wrong. Anyway, when I got up this morning at seven, there was no sign of them, their walking poles or the twins.

I poured myself a glass of icy water from the fridge and sat down at the breakfast bar, wondering if there was any chance Mum and Alan would let me have the day off as it’s my birthday. But getting Alan to agree to me bunking off is like getting the Pope to sell his soul to the Devil – it’s never going to happen. So I sat there sipping at my water, hoping it would dilute some of my usual morning sickness. I’m not expecting a baby or anything – just another crap day at school. To be honest, I haven’t even been kissed before, let alone anything else. Well, I’ve been parent-kissed, and too-much-perfume-Grandma-kissed, but not heart-trembling, knee-quivering, boy-kissed. So there’s probably more chance of the Pope getting pregnant, but anyway . . .

When the post plopped through the letter box I nearly didn’t bother going to see if there were any cards for me. I mean, all of my friends would be giving them to me in person in school, wouldn’t they – ha ha! But then I remembered the text I got from Helen last night about the card she’d sent me with a really sick joke on the front and how I wasn’t to open it in front of my parents. So I put down my water and trudged along the hall to the door. Fanned out across the doormat were a couple of the insane magazines Alan subscribes to – Get a Life! and Do It Now! – and some brown, bill-looking envelopes for my mum. Poking out from underneath them I could see two that were obviously cards. I picked them up but only one – the one in Helen’s handwriting – was addressed to me. The other one, in a bright blue envelope, was addressed to someone called Cherokee Brown. I double-checked the address, thinking that the postman had delivered it by mistake; there was no way someone with such a cool name could be living in Magnolia Crescent. The most exciting thing to happen around here is when the milkman leaves an extra pint by accident. But the address was definitely ours. I was still turning the envelope over in my hand when Mum came bounding down the stairs in her bright pink tracksuit.

‘Happy birthday, pumpkin,’ she called, coming over to give me a kiss. Then she saw what I was holding and said, ‘Ooh, a birthday card. Is it from Helen?’

I shook my head. ‘No. The other one is. This one’s for someone called Cherokee Brown.’

Mum stared at me as if I’d said, ‘This one’s for someone called Adolf Hitler,’ before snatching the card from my hand.

‘What are you doing?’ I asked as she marched off down the hall and into the kitchen. By the time I got there she was stuffing the card into the bin.

‘Well, it’s not for you so we’d better get rid of it,’ she replied, her voice all weirdy high.

‘Yes, but aren’t we supposed to put it back into the mail or something? Return it to sender like that Elvis song Alan’s always singing.’

‘Dad,’ Mum muttered.

‘What?’

‘You should call him Dad, not Alan.’

‘All right, Dad’s always singing.’ Now was clearly not the time to get into the whole what-I-should-call-Alan debate. Deciding to play it cool, I sat back down at the breakfast bar and yawned loudly. ‘Haven’t I even got a card from my own mother then?’

Mum’s shoulders softened and she gave me a half smile. ‘Of course you have. I’ll go and get it. And the boys. Then I’ll make us all some breakfast and we can give you your pressies.’

I made my face grin. ‘Great.’

As soon as she left the kitchen I darted over to the bin and pulled out the card. The envelope was dotted with grease. I stuffed it inside my dressing gown and ran up the three flights of stairs to my room. Just like Mrs Rochester I live in the attic. (Actually it’s a loft conversion but that doesn’t sound quite as dramatic, does it?) Flinging the pile of books from my beanbag I sat down, pulled out the card and studied the writing. It was in slightly wonky capitals – like it was from someone who couldn’t write very neatly but was trying really hard. I took a deep breath and slid my finger under the seal. I ought to tell you now that if there was a question in Agatha Dashwood’s Character Questionnaire saying, ‘Do they make a habit of opening other people’s mail?’ the answer would be a definite no. But something had got my mum rattled and I wanted to know what it was.

I pulled the card from the envelope. The picture on the front was of a country landscape. It was the kind of card you’d buy for an elderly aunt. Or someone who likes cleaning and lives in Bognor. It wasn’t really the sort of thing I’d imagine someone called Cherokee going crazy for.

I opened it. There was no printed message or naff rhyme inside; instead the person who’d sent it had written HAPPY 15TH BIRTHDAY in large crooked capitals in the middle. At the top, in smaller writing, they had put To Cherokee and at the bottom from Steve. And at the very bottom, in tiny letters, as if they hadn’t been sure whether to say it at all, they had written: P.S. You can find me most lunchtimes performing in Spitalfields Market. By the record stalls. If you want to find me . . .

‘What are you doing?’

By the time I’d registered that my bedroom door had opened, Mum was standing in the middle of the room, staring at the card in my hand. Then her gaze dropped to the bright blue envelope on the floor.

‘I’m just –’ I broke off, and I could feel my face flushing. What was I doing, opening somebody else’s mail?

Mum marched over, holding out her hand. ‘I thought I told you to leave it,’ she hissed. ‘Give it to me.’

I tightened my grip on the card. ‘You didn’t tell me to leave it, you just threw it in the bin.’

‘Exactly. So why would you want to get it out and open it?’ Beneath the sheen of her morning moisturiser I could see that her face was flushed too.

‘Because –’

But before I could go on Mum made a sudden lurch for the card. I rolled over on the beanbag just out of reach.

‘I wanted to read it,’ I said. ‘I wanted to see what had got you so spooked.’

‘I’m not spooked,’ Mum spluttered, waving her hands about like an extremely spooked person. ‘But you can’t go reading other people’s mail. It’s not right.’

‘Oh, and binning it is?’ I stumbled to my feet, clutching the card to my chest. ‘It’s really weird, because this person, Cherokee Brown, is fifteen today too. Don’t you think that’s a bit of a coincidence? That we share the same birthday and someone thinks we share the same address.’ I didn’t have a clue what the coincidence meant, but it was obvious from her flushed face that Mum did.

‘What did he say?’ she asked, staring at me.

‘What did who say?’ I watched as her gaze dropped to the card.

‘What did he say?’ This time Mum almost screamed it. I looked at her in shock.

‘What’s going on, ladies?’ We both turned to see Alan poking his head round the door. He never actually sets foot in my room – I think he can sense the anti-life-coaching force field I’ve erected with my mental powers to keep him out. ‘Fiona? Claire? Is everything OK?’

‘Yes, yes, everything’s fine,’ Mum replied sharply over her shoulder. ‘Can you go and get the boys up for breakfast? We’ll be down in a minute.’

Alan smiled, his teeth all square and straight like the white keys on a piano. ‘Okey-dokey. Happy birthday, Claire-Bear.’

I gritted my teeth and smiled back. ‘Thanks.’

As soon as we heard his feet padding off down the stairs Mum and I turned back to look at each other.

‘What did who say, Mum? And how did you know it was from a man?’ I waved the card at her. ‘You know who sent this, don’t you? You recognised the writing and that’s why you threw it in the bin. Who is he? Who’s Steve? And who is Cherokee Brown? Why won’t you just tell me?’

Mum’s head slumped. She stuffed her hands inside the pockets of her tracksuit top and scuffed one of her bare feet on the floor. She looked like a little girl who’d just been told she couldn’t go out to play.

‘You are,’ she muttered.

‘What?’

‘You are Cherokee Brown.’