Chapter 3

It was emotional for Amy going home and seeing her mother again after all this time. In her old pre-ReVerse life she had experienced years before, on that uneventful evening the girl had gone home from school and as always grumbled through a meal punctuated by complaints about not having any friends, a result of the insecurity and shyness that crippled her social life. In that version of her life, Amy never knew her mother had three years left to live. Now she did and the girl wanted desperately to make amends and if possible, find a way of changing what lay ahead.

Connie Buck was a cheerful woman who found the constant struggle with her teenage daughter’s self-obsession (for surely that was what the shyness was doing to her) wearying, even though she kept a brave face on it all. Yet here the girl was hugging her mother with tears streaming down her face, telling her mother she loved her and not to go away and she was sorry for all the pain she’d caused.

When Connie extracted herself from her daughter’s iron grip she blinked away her own tears. “What’s going on?” She asked the teenager.

“Nothing, except I know who I am now, and I am sorry for all I have done to you,” said Amy, and promptly hugged her mother again, tighter than before.

Connie wanted to know asked what had happened at school, what made her daughter change one-hundred-and-eighty-degrees. That morning Amy had as usual been miserable and resentful. Now she was utterly different.

“Um, I had a talk with a teacher at school. Mrs Barker. She noticed I was unhappy, and being shy, and she told me be more confident. So I tried it, and here we are.”

Connie doubted this was something like a talk with one person, not considering the hours and hours she had put in over the years trying to change her daughter’s outlook. But she was overjoyed to see this change at least, whatever the reason. “I must thank this Mrs Barker for her help,” she said. “The woman must be some sort of a saint.”

Amy shook her head urgently. “No, don’t! I mean, she said it as a suggestion. I don’t think she wants any fuss made. She’s not like that.”

Connie studied her daughter’s face. There was something very different about the teenager. Something behind her eyes which was worrying. It was almost as if it was a different, older person there. The woman shivered, because there had been a change in the girl she couldn’t fathom. As far as Connie was concerned, no child changed in a few hours; all developments, whether physical, emotional or mental, took time. But for now she had to accept Amy for how she was.

For Amy, the emotion of seeing her mother after so long was overwhelming, perhaps more than she had reckoned it would be. She even thought that she might say she would spend every minute with her mother for the next three years, but that would lead to the inevitable question ‘Why three years?’ and that would prompt the revelation of the car crash. All that would be too painful to contemplate, and demand too much explanation of the ReVerse.

It would, Amy decided, be far too scary for her mother to think such clinging loyalty was version two of her existing daughter. The imperfect version one was what Connie was used to dealing with. In which case, there had to be sufficient separation.

“Mum ... I’d like to stay in but ... I said to someone I’d go out. Not a boy,” she added quickly as a look of horror came over her mother’s face. “A girl at school. Pauline. She wants to meet me—”

“Pauline? The only Pauline I know of is that Gibbs girl. You hate her! She’s a bully. You have told me before about her.”

Amy shifted uncomfortably. “Yes, well, she and I ... we had a talk. Seems we have more in common than I thought.”

Connie shook her head. This was getting very strange very fast. “I don’t like it, and sorry Amy, but I don’t believe you. You spent time talking to a teacher about being shy and now you’ve spent time making up with a girl who is always in trouble for bullying others, including you? There is something odd here.”

“Mum ... it’s not weird. When I spoke to Mrs Barker, Pauline was there. She said we should talk more, not fight. I am making an effort. Honest.”

“If you want to make an effort, go and talk to your cousin Lily. She’s wanted to be your friend for ages, but you always push her away.”

Amy looked surprised. She had quite forgotten about the way the suffocating Lily irritated her. The girl was the same age as Amy but was desperate to be a close friend, yet nothing about Lily was in any way attractive. She still played with dolls and had an unappealing lisp and way of mispronouncing things; the girl called their television set a ‘tele-fishion’ and wouldn’t use the proper word even when told. Amy felt a cold chill in her, swallowed but forced a smile. “Oh, her, yes ... well, of course I will, but one step at a time, hey?”

“Seems to me that there have been lot of steps today,” frowned Connie. She took a step backward herself. “What about homework? You always try to do it as soon as you can.”

“Haven’t got much,” said Amy. “Look, I am only going out for an hour or so. Just a chat with Gibbsy—um, Pauline, I mean.”

Connie debated for a moment whether to say no, it wasn’t a good idea. Her husband Ronald was away, again, and she would have to cope with this on her own. Unless she spoke to her close friend about it. She could do that when Amy went to see this dreadful Gibbs child.

Viv Davis would know what to do. After all, she was Pauline Gibbs’ aunt.

As soon as Amy had left to go and meet her new friend Gibbsy, Connie called Viv. “Has Pauline gone out?” she asked her friend. A friendship only made when Connie had gone to see the troublesome girl’s aunt and they found they had much in common—not least of which was raising difficult 14-year old girls with social issues. Different issues perhaps, but both worrying in their own way. It had drawn the two women close; closer than they might have imagined but Connie in particular was very glad of it.

“Yes,” answered Viv. “Something about meeting a friend at the shops. Didn’t say who.”

“I know. It’s my Amy.”

Viv gasped. “What? How come? They hate each other.”

“That’s what I thought, but Amy came home from school like ... I don’t know. A changed girl. Something has happened, and I don’t know what. She isn’t herself, that’s for sure. She spoke about some teacher, a Mrs Barker, helping her get more confident. But immediately? I don’t believe it.”

“Barker ... ah,” said Viv. “I wonder.”

“What?”

“I heard Pauline talking in her sleep the other night. Heard it a couple of times. She was saying the woman’s name, Charlotte, she said. That’s Barker’s first name. But she was saying the word stockings.” Viv hesitated. “There’s more.”

“Want to tell me?”

Viv sighed. “I may as well. Pauline was saying something over and over about stroking legs. If it was a dream it was a recurring dream. So I checked on this Mrs Barker, and quite a story too. She’s a new teacher at Ashwood, only being doing it for six months. Most of the other parents don’t like her, but that’s no bad thing. It was what one of them said to me in confidence.”