Saving Daisy Read online

  PHIL EARLE

  Saving Daisy

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Phil Earle was born, raised and schooled in Hull. His first job was as a care worker in a children’s home, an experience that influenced the ideas behind Being Billy and Saving Daisy. He then trained as a drama therapist and worked in a therapeutic community in south London, caring for traumatized and abused adolescents.

  After a couple of years in the care sector, Phil chose the more sedate lifestyle of a bookseller, and now works in children’s publishing. He lives in south-east London with his wife and children, but Hull will always be home.

  www.philearle.com

  Books by Phil Earle

  BEING BILLY

  SAVING DAISY

  This book is dedicated to my friend, Jonny John-Kamen, who closed all the boxes …

  and to my incredible parents, Neet and Ray, who sealed them shut.

  PRAISE FOR BEING BILLY:

  ‘BEING BILLY WAS A TOTAL PAGE-TURNER

  – AUTHENTIC AND GRITTY.

  ‘A WONDERFUL BOOK’

  – MORRIS GLEITZMAN

  BILLY’S VOICE DOESN’T FALTER … SPIKY, BRAVE AND COMPASSIONATE’

  – JENNY DOWNHAM

  ‘A FREQUENTLY HEART-BREAKING ACCOUNT OF ONE BOY’S ROUTE – KICKING AND SPITTING – THROUGH THE CARE SYSTEM’

  – BIG ISSUE

  ‘MOVING AND POWERFUL, I LOVED IT’

  – SOPHIE MCKENZIE

  ‘LIKE KEN LOACH FOR FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLDS, WITH ALL THE HEART AND HUMOUR AND COMPASSION THAT THAT IMPLIES’

  – TRANSMITTER

  ‘POWERFUL, HEART-BREAKING HONEST AND HOPEFUL – A STRONG, THOUGHT-PROVOKING DEBUT’

  – CATHY CASSIDY

  ‘COMPELLING EMPATHETIC AND HOPEFUL’

  – SUNDAY TIMES

  ‘REMAINED WITH ME LONG AFTER FINISHING THE FINAL PAGE; THE TRUE MARK OF A GOOD READ’

  – PHILIP ARDAGH

  ‘LIFE-AFFIRMING, REDEMPTIVE AND REALLY JUST RATHER GOOD’

  – GUARDIAN

  ‘IT’S FRIGHTENING WHEN A DEBUT NOVEL IS AS GOOD AS BEING BILLY’

  – MARCUS SEDGWICK

  ‘EARLE HAS CREATED A COMPLEX AND MEMORABLE CHARACTER IT SOON BECOMES IMPOSSIBLE NOT TO ROOT FOR’

  – KEITH GRAY, SCOTSMAN

  ‘PHIL EARLE WRITES STARKLY BUT SENSITIVELY ABOUT DAMAGED CHILDREN IN THIS BRILLIANT PAGE-TURNING NOVEL IT MOVED ME TO TEARS’

  – JACQUELINE WILSON

  All the other girls here are stars, you are the northern lights

  Josh Ritter, ‘Kathleen’

  My name is Daisy Houghton.

  I’m fourteen years old.

  Six months ago I killed my dad.

  It wasn’t premeditated or bloody. I didn’t even have to lay a hand on him.

  Speaking to him was enough.

  He didn’t know what was coming. How could he? All he was doing was protecting me. Doing what any parent would do.

  I should have realized, though. Seen the danger in what I was doing. That what I had to tell him was too great for anyone to carry.

  If only I’d kept my mouth shut. If I had done, he’d still be around, and I’d be at home.

  Instead I’m here.

  In a room with plastic windows and a bed that’s bolted to the floor.

  It’s not prison, but that’s where I deserve to be.

  I know what you’re thinking by the way.

  Where’s your mum? Why aren’t you home with her?

  That’s the problem.

  I killed her too.

  Chapter 1

  You can tell how good a party is by the time that the walls start sweating. I’m not an expert or anything, far from it. It’s just something I’ve noticed. Probably because this is the eighth Friday in a row that someone from our school has opened their house to everyone on Facebook. You’d think after seeing the results once they’d think twice, but nope. Here we were again.

  From the moisture sliding down the walls, this party was a ten. In fact it was turned up to eleven. The bass was bouncing off the walls, the floorboards squeaking and swaying, threatening to give in well before eleven o’clock approached. As I watched the sea of bodies bounce in front of me, beer spraying everywhere in celebration, I had to rein myself in. Remind myself what I was doing here.

  I took a sip of beer. Well, it had been beer to start with, but as I’d slowly siphoned it down my throat I’d popped back to the kitchen a few times and topped the bottle up from the tap. It didn’t taste great, but it kept up the illusion.

  That’s the secret, you see. That’s why I’m here at all. It’s all about showing your face. Do that and you’re fine. Ironically, it’s when you’re almost invisible that the trouble starts, because that’s when you become a target. From there they start digging around for stuff that they can throw back at you, personal stuff, the stuff you try to bury, out of reach of anyone, yourself included.

  I think I’ve got it mastered now, the balance. I don’t miss a party, even if I have to blag my way in, and while I’m there I get around, speak to as many people as I can. I’m not averse to dancing or anything either, but not if the lads involved are anything like fit. I don’t need that kind of complication. Neither do they.

  I just work the room, building on the conversation from last time, giving them a bit more info without ever throwing them anything too juicy, nothing they can latch on to.

  God, it sounds terrible, doesn’t it? Makes me sound so cynical. Like the kind of people I hate. But it has to be done.

  I’ve chatted to half a dozen people tonight, or tried to. It’s almost impossible to make yourself heard over the music rattling your senses, but I enjoyed what I heard. In fact, maybe a bit too much. I think I drank the first third of my beer too quickly and gave more away than I should’ve. Still, a trip to the tap soon rectified that problem and since then it’s been fine. All in hand
.

  People kind of know what I am.

  The kooky one. The one who loves the cinema, never shy of an opinion on what they should and shouldn’t be watching. And I’m comfortable with that. There’s a cool, a kudos to it that buys me immunity from the harsher kids homing in on this month’s victim.

  Looking around the place, I made a call. The house was bulging and I knew it would be forty-five minutes tops before a neighbour called the police in. So I decided to give it another five before sloping off home.

  After a quick dance with a couple of girls in my year, I motioned to my empty bottle and walked in the direction of the fridge. They’d never know I was heading for the door instead.

  I was only three paces from it when someone got in the way, derailing my best intentions.

  Rob Stearn. The best and worst person possible. If there was anyone I could lose control in front of, it was always going to be him. I pulled my shirt sleeve down, keeping everything in place and hidden, before sliding a lick of hair behind my ear. A single movement that made me look both stupid and up for it at the same time.

  ‘All right, Daisy. You off?’

  I heard him, but because of the music made out that I hadn’t, buying some time as he repeated himself.

  ‘Yeah,’ I yelled in his ear, leaving him to recoil slightly. ‘Got to meet someone.’

  ‘What, your dad picking you up?’

  It was a loaded gun of a question. Answer wrongly and I’d be labelled as a kid on a curfew, enough of a reason for people to start zeroing in. So I pulled on my slyest grin and fired back at him.

  ‘Not my dad, no. Right gender, but definitely not related.’

  The lie stuck to my teeth, but he seemed to buy it, a flash of disappointment in his eyes. He recovered quickly, shoulder-bumping me gently before telling me to have a good night. ‘I’ll see you Monday,’ he added, before disappearing back into the crowd.

  Watching him go, I felt a stabbing regret that I’d said what I had, knowing he’d find someone else in there happy to entertain him for an hour or two.

  I pulled my coat on, feeling like it weighed fifty kilos, and squeezed through the front door, head down. Nobody seemed to see me go.

  The wind slapped my cheeks as I turned the first corner towards home, but I barely felt it. I’d done it again, ghosted through the night exactly as I’d wanted to. A small prickle of pleasure passed through me, but I didn’t listen to it, I just let it pass. There’d be plenty more nights like that to come.

  Chapter 2

  The classroom was buzzing with stories of Friday’s party when Mr Hobson made his first entrance.

  In fact he could’ve been stood there for five minutes, soaking up what was being said before any of us noticed he was there.

  ‘OK, everyone. Throw your attention this way, will you?’

  Excited chatter gave way to surprised whispers, all of them asking who this was at the front of the class. Whoever it was, it certainly wasn’t Miss Addison. There was no smell of cats or questionable blouses in sight, and the other girls in particular looked delighted.

  ‘Thank you very much. As you can tell, I’m not who you were expecting. Miss Addison has unfortunately been taken ill. It’s unlikely she’ll be back this term, or even before the summer break, so in the meantime you’ll be having me instead.’

  ‘I wish,’ whispered a voice beside me, loud enough to start a ripple of giggles. That was the thing about Donna Riley. She had a line for every occasion. Funny or cutting, it didn’t matter. She’d provide it, and as a result she was every teacher’s worst nightmare.

  I looked up at the new guy and tried to work out if he could withstand a broadside from her. There weren’t many who could.

  Leaning back in my chair, I swivelled towards her, waiting for the attack, but it didn’t come. This wasn’t her normal strategy. Usually she was the first one to get stuck into the new blood. I’ve heard her bombard teachers with question after question, usually before they’ve had time to write their names on the whiteboard.

  But with this one?

  Nothing.

  At first I wondered if she had a different game plan. Maybe she was bored of the obvious approach, but as the minutes went on, and the introductions were finished, there wasn’t a peep out of her.

  But she was definitely checking him out.

  In fact, she couldn’t take her eyes off him. She even laughed at some lame gag he cracked, which drew confused looks from the rest of the class, who were also waiting for her to pounce.

  ‘How old do you think he is?’ she whispered to me.

  I didn’t have a clue, but begged my mouth not to say something daft. She wasn’t the sort to make a prat of yourself in front of, unless you wanted to be humiliated as well.

  I checked him out properly. He was at least ten years younger than any of the other teachers we had. He had short, scruffy hair and looked reasonably smart without trying too hard. One of those guys who could get away with a jacket and jeans without looking like an embarrassing relative.

  ‘Don’t know – early thirties or something?’ I whispered, hoping it was the right answer.

  ‘Nah, he’s younger than that. He can’t be more than twenty-five.’

  With that, she lifted herself off her chair, craning for a better view as he wrote on the board.

  ‘What are you doing now?’ I laughed.

  ‘Keep it down, will you? I’m checking out his hand.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘To see if he’s wearing a ring.’

  The snort was out of my mouth before I could stop it, prompting Mr Hobson to turn on his heel and leaving Donna to look like a complete goon.

  ‘Sorry, Miss … er?’

  All eyes fell on her, and for the first time she didn’t have an answer. Not one that was funny anyway.

  ‘Er … It’s Donna, sir. Donna Riley.’

  ‘And did you want something, Donna? I’m all for respecting teachers, but you really don’t need to stand in my presence, you know.’

  Poor Donna. She looked gutted. Especially at the sneers and giggles from the others. I cringed at what would come next. With her back to the wall, she could be pretty damned venomous, and I hoped none of it was coming towards me.

  ‘Was just checking out your …’

  She wasn’t going to come clean, was she?

  For the first time, he looked mildly impatient.

  ‘My what, Donna?’

  ‘Your … handwriting, sir. Miss Addison’s was a mess.’

  Mr Hobson glanced over his shoulder, as if only half-believing what he was hearing.

  ‘And is it legible?’ He sighed.

  ‘Looks tidy to me, sir.’ Donna grinned, a semblance of confidence returning to her face. ‘Very tidy indeed. Keep up the good work now, won’t you?’

  She sat back down with a smile, happy she’d not made a complete prat of herself.

  ‘Oh, he’s a feisty one, isn’t he?’ she whispered, before leaning even closer. ‘And no ring either. So do us a favour, will you, Daisy? Keep an eye on him for me.’

  ‘Eh?’ I mouthed. ‘Why?’

  ‘I want to know if he’s checking me out, that’s why!’

  She was insatiable, but I knew I had to do as she said. I’d be stupid not to.

  So for the rest of the lesson, I forced myself to check him out. Or rather, check out where his gaze was aimed.

  And do you know what? Donna was right. Well, partially.

  Because every time I raised my eyes, he was checking someone out. Or at least I think he was.

  But it wasn’t Donna he was looking at.

  It was me.

  Chapter 3

  My heart always quickens when I come home from school.

  Silly really, that I still feel like this at the age of fourteen, but every time our front door comes into view, for a split second, I think that she
’s going to be inside. Waiting for me.

  For as long as I can remember, it was always about the three of us.

  Me.

  Dad.

  And Mum’s shadow.

  When I was younger, I used to get really carried away making up rules, stuff that if I kept to, then she’d be there when I closed the door.

  If I can get home without standing on a pavement crack, she’ll be there.

  If I reach the gate before that bus passes, she’ll be waiting for me, arms open.

  But no matter how carefully I stepped, or how quickly I ran, she never was.

  And I was always disappointed.

  I can’t help myself even now. My mind still wanders occasionally into stupid games, no matter what I tell it. It’s just the games that have changed.

  If I can open the gate as the song on my iPod finishes, then maybe …

  I think it’s the window above the front door that gives me hope.

  Don’t laugh. I’m not going mental. It’s true.

  Because it’s Mum’s window. The one she made herself.

  She was a real ‘doer’ apparently, my mum.

  So when she and Dad moved into the house, she set about putting her stamp on the place.

  Starting with the front door. Or rather, a piece of glass that sat above it.

  ‘It was the first project she took on when we moved in,’ Dad had told me. ‘It didn’t matter that the wallpaper was peeling off the walls, or that the hot water didn’t work. She just got fixated on that bloody piece of glass.’

  ‘I don’t get it,’ I’d replied.

  ‘That was just the way her mind worked. She reckoned that we’d decorate the walls a hundred times while we lived here. But that piece of glass? Well, once it was done, it would be there forever. It was like she wanted to leave her legacy as soon as she arrived. Like she knew she wouldn’t be here for long.’

  I loved that window more than anything else about our house. The time she must have spent putting every shard of multicoloured glass in place. I had images of her in my head, sat up until dawn, fingers cut to ribbons, until the sun was complete.