Invisible

Marie - 7

I had many thoughts zooming around my head; that girl named Esme Shallows, my best friend, the fact that the yoghurt I had may have been a bit off and the dude in the black van. Especially the yoghurt one, eugh.

I ate my serving of lasagna and my mum was trying to make small talk.

"So, Marie, how's school?"

"Fine," I said with a mouth-full of lasagna.

"Marie! Eat properly!" Then don't ask me questions whilst I'm eating! I rolled my eyes and just ate slowly. I glanced to my right and there was my dad looking through his paper. My brother was slurping up his orange juice. From someone on the outside, we were a perfect family. Your stereotypical family in a TV show or advert. As someone on the inside, we were a mess, trying to be people we weren't: Problem free.

I finished my dinner quickly and ran upstairs, totally ignoring my father's calls to come back. I opened my door and ran back to my room. I wanted to forget everything. I wanted to be the family that we were pretending to be, the family we weren't. I wanted to be like a normal girl, no one wanting to murder me for some reason I don't know.

My dreams weren't dreams. They were like a nightmare I couldn't run away from. It wasn't scary like ghosts or monsters, it was scary in some sort of other way. Like when you know something bad is going to happen, just not when.

I woke up. No screaming or puking this time. I got dressed and brushed my hair. My uniform had a huge stain on the side but I didn't care. The morning was like any other ordinary morning; croissant followed by juice, my mum driving us to school, meeting up with Carlotta at the gates of our school. Walking to class.

"Good morning class, now, why weren't you two here yesterday?" Mr Foresnow announced, pointing at me and Carlotta.

"Sick sir!" we said in unison.

"Well you missed a lot. You'll need to catch up." Typical! The day me and Carlotta are gone, that one day in ages, they've learnt loads. Mr Foresnow assigned us work and I looked to my left, there was a note.

I found stuff about Esme S. You know, that girl that appeared in the book. Come behind the library to our special space break time.

I glanced at it, skimming through the words and looked at her. I nodded as if to say "Ok."

The whole class was concentrating on our work. We all suddenly jumped when we heard our teacher shout at Carlotta. I heard whispers, laughs, and gasps. I was silent. There was bright blue ink dripping off the desk, onto the floor.

"What on earth are you doing, Carlotta!" He screamed.

Everyone was now looking at her as she looked at her feet. Her arms were covered in images. Lines, faces, hearts, words. Everyone was staring at her desk and arms, and so was I. I started to study her face, it was bright red and her sea green eyes looked as if they were about to explode.

"Are you ok?" Mr Foresnow asked, kneeling down. It's such a stupid question, like does she look ok? But really, it's like the only question you can ask.

Carlotta whispered something, and just broke down. Tears were dancing down her rosy cheek. Our teacher walked outside of the classroom with her and told us to carry on with our work. As if! What do you think? A bunch of year 8 kids in a room, do you really think that we are going to carry on with work. Mellissa, Autumn and Chloe all got up and ran over to each other's desks. Everyone was talking about the incident that just happened. Then they all surrounded me.

"Ok Marie, since your big-as-a-Car-lotta's best friend or whatever- " Skye said, leaning on my table.

"Em.. .what?" I asked, I had registered the name she had called Lotta. Petty.

"Guys! Mrs MacQuiode is coming!" Christopher Matthews declared running from the door. We all abandoned the conversations we were having and ran to our seats. Mrs MacQuiode was our headmistress and she was like hella scary. I'm always puzzled why she's a 'Mrs', like who would want to marry her?

"Class 8B. Where is your teacher?" She exclaimed, pushing down her glasses a little in that way scary, old people do when you're in trouble.

I put up my hand and just explained to her without her permission.

"He had to take Carlotta Berman up to the office because like, well, she kinda had a panic attack. So he took her up to the office so her mum could collect her." Everyone just glanced at me and then straight as I finished ,stared at the head.

"Well ok. Carry on with your work. No funny business." And she strolled out, off to another class to bully some kid.
Everyone did what they were told, well that is everyone except stupid Skye Graidie. As soon as Mrs McQuiode left, she walked up to me and asked,

"What really happened Marie? I know what went on like 3 days ago. One of my friend's cousin's older sisters lives on the same street as Carlotta's father. Tell us what really happened. Go on, tell the whole class, they are waiting. I know you know, I mean, weren't you there, like metaphorically speaking?" She was leaning into me so closely I felt her warm breath on my face. How the hell does she know this?

Suddenly, the classroom door swung open and everyone rotated their heads.

"Gradie, Mayers! What are you doing!"

"Sorry sir, I needed some help with question 17, a." Skye mentioned, visibly putting on her 'look at me I'm a sweet innocent little girl who bats her eyelashes far too much' look.

Our Maths teacher glared at us and trotted off to his desk. Phoebe Genktor shot her hand up and asked the teacher,

"What happened to Carlotta?" It was the question that was burning up inside of us all. Tearing up our mouths apart, trying to escape, but we wouldn't let it. None of us had the confidence, not even Skye, but Phoebe was like that. She wouldn't let anyone get in her way of the thing she wanted to say. I kind of found that cool, and I knew she wanted to be my friend but I rejected her every time.

"She had a panic attack, if you must know. She's been sent home." We all just carried on with our work. I couldn't though, I was just staring at my best friend's empty seat. She was so different now. She was so... sad. Her face was like her chair - empty. Carlotta had changed. Ever since that night with her dad. She wasn't her happy self, telling me random jokes or facts about the other side of the galaxy. She would just gaze out into space. I also could have sworn I saw a glint in her eyes. A sort of sparkle that was never there before. It looked red. I just shook it off.

At lunch everyone was hanging around me. I must confess, I did rather enjoy the attention but I forced myself to stop. It was wrong. Everyone knew I was Lotta's friend. It was kinda obvious, we would hang out together, laugh at things no one else laughed at. We would sit in our little corner of the playground with our lunch, swapping food. Chatting together, chatting about how we are going to move into each other. How we are going to be famous and be millionaires so we can give our money to orcas (I love them!). Having all these flashbacks just made me realise how crappy a friend I have been. I wasn't doing anything about the situation except stand around hogging all the attention. I walked through the mini crowd that started piling up and went to the toilets. I went to sit on the last one. The last one, I know it might sound stupid, was our 'special' one. On the first day of Secondary, Carlotta (I was very surprised) carved a heart and the letter 'C' inside a heart beside loads of the other graffiti on the toilet doors. She whispered a hint to me about it, so following her actions, I took out my locker key and carved a 'M' next to it. It's all soapy stuff but I guess it means something to us.

The day ended and I walked to our car with Alex and his other snotty faced bratty friend. I slumped along with them in front of me.

"I want a drink!" Alex complained, whilst prodding me. I knew he couldn't wait so I pulled out my water bottle from the side of my bag. I noticed through the small gap that was slightly open and a small yellow glow showed through. As we walked down the pavement, I opened up my bag and shuffled through it. I took out the book slowly, then shoved it back in when my mum came strolling towards us.

She took the boys' bags. And we got inside the car.

"How was your day, Marie?" she asked looking in the mirror so our eyes would be locked.

"Fine," I responded, pushing Alex off me.

Fine. Everything is fine. Totally.