Needle, p.1
Needle, page 1
To LJ for bringing people together to change this
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Copyright
Chapter 1
I’ve got my needles. I’ve got my wool. And now, I’m gonna knit. Some folks like to pray. Some folks like yoga. My foster mum, Annie – she’s one of them yoga people. But me, I knit when I’m stressed out. Today was a big stress out. It’s lucky I’ve got something big to knit. I mean proper big. Dinosaur big.
I don’t even like dinosaurs. (Of course I haven’t met no dinosaurs face to face. And most of them have faces way too high up for me to see anyway.) But some kids are obsessed with dinosaurs. They know what every dinosaur is called. Their full Latin names and everything. My little sister, Kandi, is one of those kids. I’m knitting something special, just for her.
I haven’t seen Kandi for two years now. When our mum died, there wasn’t no one around who could look after both of us. Kandi went to live with her dad. But no one knew where my dad had gone and our aunty had baby twins and didn’t have room for me.
So I live with Annie. I’ve been here for ten months now. It’s the third place I’ve lived since me and Kandi got split up. Annie’s been fostering kids like me for ages. Her parents used to foster kids too. Me and Annie get on all right. She tells me she’s in it for the long term. But sometimes we have to work at our relationship, as she puts it.
Annie runs a yoga studio in an alley off the high street. She says to me, “Charlene, yoga’s perfect for slowing down our minds and easing our stress.”
Annie’s offered me free classes any time I want. But I got my knitting to slow down my mind and help me deal with stress. I don’t need to stare at other people’s bums for an hour.
Annie’s got a son called Blake. He’s at uni, so I’ve got his old room. I know he’s not happy with that. He wants it free for when he comes back here. Still, the third bedroom he sleeps in isn’t that small. At least he doesn’t have to share like me and Kandi did until we got separated.
Last time Blake was here, Annie made him wash his own clothes, the same way I have to. I heard them arguing. Annie said, “I’m your mother, not your slave, Blake. You know how the washing machine works.” Blake acted like it was my fault she was making him do this, despite him seeing me unloading my clothes and hanging them out in the garden to dry.
Annie’s been helping me with dinosaur research. We went to the library and found a whole load of books with pictures of dinosaurs in them. Then she found some small toy dinosaurs in an old box in a cupboard in the loft. They used to belong to Blake when he was a kid. Last week, me and Annie spent a couple of evenings watching the Jurassic Park films. We thought about watching the Jurassic World films too but didn’t. Annie said that she didn’t want to ruin her memory of the originals. And me, like I said, I’m just not that into dinosaurs.
But I want to make sure I get everything right for Kandi. I can’t knit a real-size dinosaur. Annie hasn’t got a ladder that tall nor pockets that deep to buy all that wool. I’m making my little sister a kind of blanket that she can wrap around herself, with a dinosaur hood to pull over her head. Because, man, do you want to know another one of Kandi’s favourite things? It was when we wriggled under the covers to the bottom of her bed. Then I’d use my phone torch to read her favourite dinosaur books. We even kept doing it when she could read them herself.
I miss Kandi so much.
Right now, Annie’s downstairs eating dinner. I’ve told her I’m too stressed and I don’t want nothing to eat. She says the food’s waiting in the fridge for when I’m ready. I can just stick it in the microwave, but I shouldn’t bring it up here to my bedroom. Annie had a foster kid a couple of years ago that stored doughnuts in the wardrobe and the place ended up full of mice.
No food. Just knitting. I need to close my eyes and feel the stitches as they slip from one needle to the other. I need the click, click, click.
When you’re knitting, there’s no silence until you finish it.
Click, click, click.
I hope my heart calms down soon.
Click.
Click.
Click.
If I knit too fast, the stitches are gonna drop and there’s gonna be holes. I don’t want that. If there’s holes, I’ll have to start again.
Click.
And it’s working – it’s slowing me down, even though I don’t like the way this cheap wool feels. When I was a kid, I picked up a stone and there was a slug stuck to it. The slug fell into my hand and I screamed. The wool reminds me of that feeling, except it’s not wet and slimy. My last social worker, Wanda, bought the wool for me out of her own money before she left and started training to be a teacher. I’m really grateful. I just wish it didn’t feel so weird. But this is for Kandi, so I’m gonna make myself use it.
My stomach just rumbled. It’s lying. I’m not hungry.
Click, click, click, click, click.
I’m going too fast again. I want my knitting to make me stop thinking about what happened in that shop earlier. It’s the thing that stressed me out today. Annie believes my version of the story. She’s even cooked macaroni cheese for dinner because she knows it’s my favourite. She wants me to feel better. Annie says that no stuck-up security guard from a make-up store is gonna make her feel bad about me. But maybe me swearing didn’t help, Annie says. And she reckons it would have been much easier if I’d just said sorry.
Nuh! Why should I have said sorry? That security dude had his eyes on me from the second I walked into that shop. One minute the dude was slouching by the wire baskets; next minute it was like someone pulled a string on the top of his head and he bounced right up. I know me and my friends can be loud, but that proves we’ve got nothing to hide. We’re not sneaking around stashing lipstick in our pockets. All our conversation was in the air for him to hear.
Click, click, click, click, click. Need to slow down. Need to slow down.
I’m gonna let my needles rest until my brain cools a bit. I’m not gonna let that ignorant security guard ruin Kandi’s blanket too.
I had twenty pounds to spend. The first thing I was gonna buy in that shop was foundation. When I give Kandi this blanket, I want to look good. I don’t want her to worry about me. My skin’s a bit grey at the moment and the spots on my nose have been there for so long they should be paying me rent.
Me, Bash and Skye are all different colours, so we needed a shop that has make-up for all of us, but one where an eyeliner doesn’t cost more than our trainers. Skye reckoned that the big store near the station called Spruce would be good. Apart from the security guard, it seemed all right at first. A make-up girl was sitting on a stool in front of a table of mirrors. She didn’t have no customers. She smiled at us and told us to come and ask if we needed anything.
We tried out all the testers. It was fun. Especially when we tried each other’s. We were joking with each other because we’re pale, or dark, or midway brown. I could see the make-up girl looking confused. She was probably wondering if she should report us for being racist.
“Chaz! You gonna buy this?” Bash asked.
She showed me a bottle of foundation. No squeezy tube. This was proper glass with a screw lid. I couldn’t see “Tester” written on the side, so it was the real product. I took it and shook it. The colour inside was light. It wouldn’t even match the inside of my hand.
“Yeah,” I said. “Get me that green Crazy Hair Dye and that red lipstick there and I’ll cosplay the Joker.”
I didn’t mean it for real. It was jokes. I like Batman even less than I like dinosaurs. But Bash likes to push things. She grabbed a red lipstick from the tester slot. There was only a short nub of it left, like folks had been sneaking in to touch up their make-up for free.
“You better try it on then, Chaz!” Bash said.
She dived towards me. All l could think about was all the other mouths that lipstick must have touched. Stranger spit and germs all over it.
“Nuh!” I said, and moved to push Bash away. The posh foundation slipped from my hand. The smash as it hit the floor was so loud I was surprised people across the street didn’t throw themselves to the ground, thinking it was a bomb.
“Man!” Skye said, looking furious. “See what you done?”
Her new white trainers were splashed with make-up, but you could barely see the difference. That foundation was so damn pale. The floor was darker though. The foundation really showed up and it looked like there was more make-up on the floor than there ever was in the bottle.
“You need to pay for that.”
It was the security guard. He was smirking, like he’d been waiting for this to happen. The make-up girl was by his side. Her face said “Don’t worry”. Her mouth said nothing at all. I looked for Skye and Bash. They were gone.
The thing is, I almost said sorry to the make-up girl. It was an accident, but the bottle slipped from my hand and smashed. Maybe the shop was gonna take it out of her wages. But I kept my mouth shut because the security guard came up so close to me I was sure I could smell what he had for lunch. I knew he wanted me to know for sure that he was taller than me.
The security guard said, “Did you hear me? You need to pay for that.”
I laughed. Not because of his comic vibes. He didn’t have any. It was because
I stayed exactly where I was. I knew the guard wanted me to step back and act all timid. I took a quick glance round the shop. Yeah, I was checking for escape routes but also looking for my friends.
I saw Skye. She was pressing her nose against the shop window outside. She grinned and waved like all this was still jokes. Bash wasn’t nowhere. Her parents don’t like her hanging out with us. They think me and Skye are trouble. When crap like this happens, it’s like it proves her parents right.
An older white lady had appeared by my side. “I saw everything!” she said. She was wearing a hot-pink tracksuit and had an owl tattooed on her wrist. I sort of wished she was my social worker. “It was an accident, wasn’t it, love?”
I nodded. I didn’t dash their posh make-up to the ground on purpose. Anyone could see that.
The security guard hit the white lady with a stink-eye. “So will you pay for it, madam?” he asked.
My new friend seemed to make herself taller. Seriously, I’m sure I heard her calf muscles stretch when she was doing it. She and the security guard were eye to eye. I hoped both of them had good spit control or they’d be splattering each other’s faces when they talked.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” the lady said. “You have insurance for that. I’m sure that if I’d dropped it, you wouldn’t be so harsh.”
A crowd gathered round us. I could see folks looking all confused. The security guard was as Black as me. They couldn’t understand why he should be treating me different. But the world doesn’t always unroll all smooth. When you’re a Black girl in care, there’s bumps and twists.
“An accident?” the security guard said, laughing. “She isn’t even sorry.”
The lady smiled down at me and said, “Of course you are, love, aren’t you?”
I looked at her and the waiting crowd. I glanced outside at Skye and down at the pale make-up and smashed glass on the floor. It would be easy. All I had to do was say that word.
“No,” I said. “It wasn’t my fault and I’m not sorry.”
Chapter 2
Sleep should have made me feel better. It didn’t. It wasn’t helpful that my empty stomach was gurgling all night. I even turned my light on at 2.30 this morning and added another three rows to Kandi’s blanket. Now it’s 7.15 and I just want to stay in bed all day, but Annie’s gonna keep on knocking on my door until I get up.
I was thinking about my friendships too. I haven’t been here long, so it’s not like me and Bash and Skye go back to Nursery, but I thought we were mates. I’m gonna have to talk to Bash about running off and leaving me like that. When we were messaging last night, it was easy to pretend that everything that happened in the shop was a laugh. Bash reckoned she left because she was worried that her parents would find out and ban her from seeing me and Skye. I still think she should have stayed and taken the blame. Instead, I was the one who ended up in the shop manager’s office and Annie had to leave work and come over.
But I do love it when Annie turns up in places for me – just to see how folks react. I don’t know what they expect my guardian to be like, but a tiny white woman in yoga pants isn’t it.
Annie strode into that shop yesterday looking like she could tear it down with her bare hands. She was wearing her posh trainers but stomping like Shrek. Annie told them people that they should feel shame for bullying a child like me. The security guard tried to say something about me not being a child. Annie put him right on that, saying “A fifteen year old is definitely a child unless you can damn well show me the law that says I’m wrong.”
Annie said loud and clear that I wasn’t stealing from them. I wasn’t abusing no one. If the security guard wanted to pick a public fight, Annie could direct him to the gym below her yoga studio. He’d find a whole room full of macho body-builders he could choose from. If I hadn’t been so stressed, I would have cheered.
Another knock on my bedroom door. I need to forget about that and think about school now.
“Charlene!” Annie calls. “I cannot be late this morning!”
I sigh. I know she had to cancel one of her yoga classes when she came over to the shop yesterday. Maybe I’ll knit her a bag for her yoga mat to say sorry. I push off the duvet and make myself sit up.
“I’m coming!” I call back.
I manage a speedy shower and smear way too much edge-control gel across my head. These baby hairs are still gonna be smooth when I’m a grandma. I pull on my school uniform and carefully roll up Kandi’s blanket. I stash it in one of Annie’s old tote bags along with the extra wool and go downstairs.
Annie puffs out her breath. “At last,” she says.
She’s laid out breakfast things on the table. Yoghurt, a fresh fruit salad and there’s even bread in the toaster. My stomach reminds me that it hasn’t seen food since the Twix I had after school yesterday.
“What’s in the bag?” Annie asks as I sit down.
“Kandi’s blanket,” I say.
“Are you planning on taking it to school?”
I fill a bowl with fruit salad and spoon yoghurt over the top of it. I mix it all up together. The kid at the place I used to live before Annie’s said I made it look like sick. I got moved from there when I heaped a load of apple on my spoon and flicked it at them. I nod at Annie and put a spoonful of breakfast in my mouth. The juice to dairy to banana balance is just right.
Annie says, “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to take pointy things to school today, Charlene.”
“You mean my needles?” I say, and lay down my spoon. “What do you think I’m gonna do with them?”
“I think you’re going to knit with them,” Annie says. “Or that’s the intention. But you’re not in the best of moods.”
I push my bowl away and stand up. “What are you trying to say?” I ask.
“What I am saying, Charlene, is that taking metal knitting needles to school isn’t a good idea at the best of times,” Annie says. She’s using her yoga voice – the one where you’re done bending yourself double and need to calm down a bit. “What if you’re happily knitting away and some other student pulls your blanket from you? What if you act before you realise?”
“You reckon I’m gonna be violent?” I say.
“No, Charlene, I don’t. But I do think there are students who would try really hard to provoke you.”
I don’t say nothing. I know there are kids like that, but I’m not gonna admit it to Annie.
“Or even worse,” Annie says, “someone might steal your needles and do something bad with them. Who do you think might get the blame?”
That hurts, mostly because I know she’s right. Anything bad is gonna come right back to me even if it’s not my fault.
I drop the tote on the kitchen floor and march out the door. Then I come back in, clear away my breakfast stuff and march out again. Annie looks like she’s trying to hide a smile but doesn’t say nothing.
*
Bash and Skye are waiting for me by the school gate. Skye says that her older sister used to get stopped by that security guard all the time, even when she wasn’t nicking stuff. Skye hopes that Annie’s gonna get him sacked. Me, I don’t tell my friends how much they upset me. I didn’t like it when all them people were staring at me and I had to style it out and pretend I didn’t care. I don’t tell them about the woman in the hot-pink tracksuit who came to help me. How she was all on my side at first until I refused to say sorry. Then her face went as hard as the rest of them.
Bash holds out a box with some cake. It’s got bright yellow icing on top and a lump of sugary ginger. Bash knows I love ginger.
“Sorry, hun,” Bash says. “But you know what my mum’s like.”
I don’t. I’ve never been to her house. I’ve never met her mum. But I take the cake anyway.
Skye puts her arm around me. “At least I stayed,” she says.
I raise my eyebrows.
“You saw me, Chaz!” Skye says. “Checking through the window.”
“Through the window?” Bash snorts. “You almost knocked me over trying to get out so fast!”
