Misfits and Mean Girls

The Peak District

If y is 10 and w is 12, calculate the value of x in this equation.

(2y+w⁵)/2=x

Ava is looking at me worriedly, like I’m one of her animals that needs treating and she isn’t quite sure what’s wrong. Ava is probably my best friend, has been ever since halfway through year seven. I’m not quite sure when she stopped being just another girl I spoke to sometimes and started being my friend, but at some point we became close and I started going over to her house sometimes after school, then she came to mine a few times and in year eight she came on holiday with us. That’s when she became defined as my best friend, or in my mind it was anyway.

It was the same year that we went to the Peak District. Is and I took friends, but our little brother Ollie wasn’t allowed. I still remember the tantrum he had. Ollie is four years younger than me and Is and he too has a red sheen to his russet curls. To you, Ollie would probably look pretty cute, but trust me, he isn’t. Ollie is the golden child of the Carson family, with his big blue eyes and slightly chubby cheeks. It’s strange how he looks so much older since Is left. Ever since she disappeared I’ve been finding him curled up in my bed with me in the mornings, his pillow damp. He’s only eleven, still little really, he’ll probably change a lot when he starts our school next year. But anyway, Ollie didn’t like Is and I taking friends and he had a huge tantrum until mum told him he could take Damon (that’s his pet lizard) with us.

So we set off in the car, Is brought Kate and I dragged Ava along. Ava looks like a little bird, tiny and thin with long blonde hair that she used to wear in plaits a lot. She’s very petite with delicate little features and these green eyes that leap out at you against her pale skin. I always wanted to look like her when we were younger. She’s usually pretty hyperactive in a very sort of cute way and everyone likes Ava. She’s just one of those people I guess.

Anyway suffice to say the car journey was a little uncomfortable at times. Dad’s car back then was this ridiculous people mover with eight seats, three in the front and back and two in the boot. We hadn’t yet sold it since our big sister India had only gone off to uni the previous summer. So the lot of us fitted into our car, India included, at a bit of a squeeze when the cases were by our feet. Ava and I opted to sit in the back with Ollie and Is and Kate took the boot. Everything was fine until we hit the M5 coming out of Cornwall. There was this huge traffic jam, so it quickly became obvious that it would be and excruciatingly long journey.

Kate and Is decided that this would be a good time to let the bitching commence: ‘Bex is so dumb, like seriously, she probably doesn’t know what you get when you add two and two,’ Is told the whole car.

‘I know right, I mean seriously, she has like and IQ of -2!’ Kate sneered.

I looked at Ava who looked at me awkwardly for a moment before we shouted together: ‘LET THERE BE MUSIC!’

Dad turned on the CD player and as per usual it contained our favourite compilation CD which we’d made on limewire the year before. ‘The Power Of Love’ by Frankie Goes to Hollywood began to blast and we sang along, Indie and Ollie included, Ollie slightly out of tune and Ava a second behind the rest of us. It’s at times like that that I love my family. Apparently Is disagreed.

‘OMG Issie, what is this song? It’s like, practically prehistoric!’ Kate said.

‘Ugh I know, my family are like, sooo embarrassing sometimes!’ Is agreed, not even fluttering an eyelid.

I think that was when I realised that Is had changed for good. She loved this song and normally she would be joining in right now, adding in the harmonies with me and doing some kind of stupid dance moves. Instead she was sat in the boot with Kate, acting all embarrassed and bitching about all these girls who, in all honesty, were perfectly lovely. That was when it hit me that to everyone else, Is was a bitch.

The jam went on for hours, all of us getting more and more irritable as the CD ended. Is and Kate began to take irritating selfies and post them all over facebook and instagram while Ava and I chatted about what we should do when we got there and ate our homemade sandwiches. Ollie went to sleep after a couple of hours which made everything considerably quieter and when we finally got off the motorway it was a pretty quick drive.

By the time we arrived it was dark and Dad had to carry Ollie inside. Mum and India set to work making dinner and we chose our rooms. Ava and I managed to find the best room with two single beds with matching floral sheets and pale blue striped walls, one of which had a window with the best view of the moors which the cottage edged onto. Beside our room was India’s and we went into her room to chat to her about uni that evening.

Indie and I are actually pretty close now, probably closer than we were when she still lived with us, to be honest. India is nearly seven years older than me and Is and mum had her when she was eighteen, so she has a different dad. She’s darker than us in complexion with ebony hair and chocolate eyes. She has the high cheekbones of Is and I though, something all four of us Carson kids share. I guess Indie was kind of like a second mum when we were younger, plaiting our hair in identical braids and dressing us in cute little clothes. She still makes the best hot chocolate. We’ve been drinking a lot of it lately; ever since Is ran away our midnight chats of hot cocoa have become frequent.

Over the next few days we hardly saw Is or Kate; they were always out in the village and by the third day of our visit they’d met a couple of older guys who they hung out with a lot. I could tell mum was uneasy about the whole thing, but I didn’t want to say anything to them because I didn’t want to look like a loser. Besides, Ava and I had been spending a lot of time with India who took us hiking and even drove us down to a nearby town, where we went shopping. I was perfectly happy as I was and tried to ignore the pang I felt when Is and Kate weren’t at the dinner table each night.

On our last evening there Mum and Dad had booked us a table at a fancy restaurant in town. Is and Kate were meant to be meeting us there at half six. We ordered at seven, expecting that they were just running late. We had a really nice meal, but it was embarrassing having two empty chairs at the table and it was obvious Mum was upset. India looked as embarrassed as I felt. We got home at ten but they were nowhere to be seen. That was when dad went mad. “Totally off the rails.., Disgraceful behaviour..., Ungrateful and rude!”  Ava and I fled upstairs with Ollie while India made some special crisis cocoa, leaving Mum to calm him down.

We were fast asleep when Is and Kate finally came home, but India was wide awake and she was the one who told us what happened next. It was two in the morning when they arrived, drunk from whichever party they’d been to. Dad shrieked and Mum cried but it clearly didn’t get through to my sister. She was grounded for a month and banned from the internet (“That’s so unfair!”) and they rang Kate’s parents to tell them what had happened.

The journey home was even more awkward than the one there, Kate sat in the back with India and Is was in the front seat.  Most of the way was silent. No music would have stopped how awkward it was. It was a relief when we pulled up at Kate’s house to watch her parents drag her inside, already shouting. By the time we dropped Ava at her flat I was surprised she still wanted to meet up on Friday. At home we went straight to our separate bedrooms.

X=124176