Page 24 of The Inn on Bluebell Lane
“I’m not hungry anymore,” Jess mumbled, pushing her plate away from her. As she got up from the table, Ava began to cry.
“Daddy…” she wailed, and Josh patted her clumsily on the shoulder, while Ben grabbed Jess’s uneaten slice of toast.
“There’s nowhere to go,” Jess complained, and then, with a theatrical sigh, she stomped into the living room, slamming the door behind her so the whole house shuddered. As long as no more floors fell through, Gwen thought with a sigh, and turned back to the counter to make more toast.
CHAPTER 13
JESS
Everything about life in Llandrigg was absolutely awful, Jess thought as she threw herself on the sofa, her phone clutched in her hand.
School had been absolutely terrible, even worse than she’d feared, and now her dad had a broken arm, and the house was wrecked and, who knew, the ceiling might fall on her at any minute… What had her grandmother even meant, about the joists being wobbly? What even was a joist? Just one more thing in her life that sucked.
Jess took a shuddering breath before burying her head in her arms. She hated it here. Hated it, hated it, hated it. There had to be some way she could get away. Some way she could get back home, because that was where she needed to be. Where she had to be…
After a few minutes of struggling not to cry and yet at the same time wanting to give in and have a really good sob, the kind of snotty, full-body gasping cry part of her craved, Jess rolled onto her back and held her phone above her, squinting at the screen. No new Snapchats or Instagram messages from anyone. Nothing from her so-called best friend. Chloe had started school yesterday, and she hadn’t messaged Jess even once since she’d begun. All Jess had seen was the public post Chloe had put up of her and Emily by the bus, and her stomach had clenched as she’d scrolled through the comments, all from the coolest people from their grade, the people she and Emily had never, ever been friends with.
What was going on? Why was Chloe suddenly hanging out with the cool crowd, the kind of people they’d both agreed they didn’t want to be friends with, because they were so shallow and stupid? Those hair-flicking girls with the fake laughs and the constant selfies? She and Chloe weren’t like that. They never had been; they’d decided not to be.
But now it seemed as if Chloe had forgotten about her best friend completely, and meanwhile Jess was stuck here in the middle of nowhere, in the worst school in the world, without a single friend and not likely to find one anytime soon, or ever…
Tears smarted in her eyes again as she recounted the endless miseries of the day. First off had been looking like a complete nerd when she’d boarded the bus; she’d seen some girls exchange snickering glances and her cheeks had burned with mortification. It didn’t matter that she’d quickly pushed her socks down and shortened her tie as best as she could, even though she barely knew how to knot one, or that she’d walked off the bus holding her backpack like a bag instead of over her shoulder, the way all the other girls did. The damage had already been done. Jess knew that full well.
It had only got worse as she’d started school. The well-meaning teacher who was in charge of new students wittered on to Jess’s “shadow”—the year nine girl who looked like she was there on absolute sufferance and yet was meant to show her around—making Jess cringe in embarrassment. “Now, Bronwen, I know you’ll be friendly to Jessica and introduce her to everyone,” the teacher had said in the kind of tone usually used with a six-year-old. “She’s come all the way from America, can you imagine?”
Bronwen had given the teacher a flat-eyed glare, utterly unimpressed.
“And,” the teacher continued determinedly, “she might have a tricky time fitting in with everyone, so make sure she feels really welcome and that everyone else is kind to her, okay? Can you do that, Bronwen?”
Bronwen had given the smallest, most unenthusiastic nod ever.
Wow, thanks, Jess had been tempted to say to the stupid teacher. Didn’t she realize she was making everything a thousand times worse with her comments? Now instead of Jess just feeling like a saddo, she really was one—and the teacher clearly thought so, too, judging by all her advice.
Bronwen, meanwhile, had rolled her eyes, sauntering ahead as soon as the teacher had gone, deliberately ignoring Jess as she walked her to the first lesson, and then ghosting her for the rest of the day, not even sparing her so much as a glance.
The result of that had been that Jess had stumbled from class to class, trying to find where her lessons were, late for everything, having to slink into a seat at the back, much to her teachers’ annoyance; a few had tried to be kind about it, but others had snapped at her, not caring that she was new, and several times Jess had, to her own humiliation, been far too close to tears.
At lunchtime, she’d tried to pay for her sandwich, drink, and bag of potato chips—or crisps, as they called them here—with the money her mother had given her, and the dinner lady had barked that everything was on a Parent Pay system, whatever that was, no cash allowed. She’d sounded as if Jess had been trying to annoy her on purpose, and she’d made her go back and return all the items she’d wanted to buy to their various shelves or trays. Everyone had stared and some had whispered as Jess had fumbled to do it all and then left the line, trying once again not to cry. Why was everyone so mean?
Jess had ended up spending the rest of the lunch break hiding out in an empty classroom, her stomach growling as she’d tried to avoid anyone and everyone, feeling utterly miserable, except then it had gotten even worse. A teacher had poked his head into the classroom and told her, quite sternly, that she shouldn’t be hanging about in classrooms and would have to go outside with everybody else.
Outside, all the other students were clustered together in tight knots, and there was no way she was going to be able to speak to anyone. No one was even looking at her, which was both a relief and a deep, dragging disappointment. Ben, she saw out of the corner of her eye, was kicking a soccer ball—football—with half a dozen other boys on the field. Why was it so easy for boys, Jess had wondered miserably, and so excruciatingly difficult for girls? At least girls like her.
She’d sat on a bench by herself, trying not to look as if she minded being alone. She knew students weren’t allowed phones during the school day—that had been drilled into her in every lesson—and so she couldn’t even hide behind a screen, pretending to look engrossed in whatever interesting and important messages someone was sending her. So, she’d sat there miserably for fifteen minutes, staring into space and trying to look as if she were deep in thought, before the bell rang and everyone shuffled back inside.
By the time the day had ended, Jess had just wanted to get home and hide in her bed, the pillow over her head, her duvet up to her chin—and she couldn’t even do that, because of the stupid ceiling caving in. She couldn’t bear to think about having to face another school day again tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that…
It was too, too horrible to contemplate. She couldn’t stand it, she really couldn’t. She had to get out of here. Somehow, some way…
Her phone pinged with a text, and with relief she saw it was from Chloe. Finally.
How was school?
Terrible, Jess texted quickly, thumbs flying across the screen. I hate it SO much.
Belatedly, she wondered if she should have pretended she was having a good time, since Chloe so obviously seemed to be, back home with Emily. But why should she have to pretend with her best friend? She already knew her mom was going to be desperate for her to have had a good day, and she’d give her that mingled look of guilt and disappointment when Jess told her she hadn’t. Even if she was able to fake it for her mom’s sake, which she wasn’t even sure she wanted to, she needed to be honest with someone.
Chloe sent a flurry of sad face emojis. Soorrrry. Miss u.