Skin Deep. Laura Jarratt

screaming is coming from me now.

      The flames touch me. I can’t move away, can’t get my arms free. They stroke my skin in a white-hot sear of agony.

       The pain . . . oh God . . . the pain.

      It goes on forever.

      A voice yells, sobs, ‘Hang on, I’ll get you out.’ A hand grabs my leg and pulls me hard and fast, away from the flames. Out from under Charlotte’s body.

      Rob yanks me out of the door. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I couldn’t get it open in time.’ One arm hangs useless by his side. He puts the other arm round my waist and half drags, half carries me away.

      I know I’m howling with the pain and I can’t stop. Nothing’s ever hurt like this before.

      He collapses on to the grass with me. Steven’s bent double beside us, rocking back and forth on his knees. Sarah’s there too, whimpering and holding her head.

      Rob looks at me. ‘Oh my God, oh . . .’ and he starts to cry too.

      I let myself slide back into the dark again as the car explodes.

Eight months later . . .

      1 – Jenna

      Ugly people don’t have feelings. They’re not like everyone else. They don’t notice if you stare at them in the street and turn your face away. And if they did notice, it wouldn’t hurt them. They’re not like real people.

      Or that’s what I used to think.

      When I was younger.

      Before I learned.

      When I was small, my mother used to take me shopping with her. Thursday is market day in Whitmere and she bought her fruit and vegetables from the organic stall there. The stallholder had a purple-red birthmark running the length of his face and across his mouth. It made his bottom lip stick out, all swollen and wet like a lolling tongue. I wished Mum would buy our food from somewhere else because I had to try to forget his face whenever I looked at the vegetables on my plate or picked up an apple.

      He couldn’t speak very well either. I assumed he wasn’t all there in the head. Somehow not looking right made me think his brain was as wrong as his face. I could never stop staring, fascinated by how my stomach turned and how worms crawled along my spine when he sucked back on that flabby lip in a nervous tic. Mum told me off for it when she caught me.

      She thought I was being helpful when I washed the fruit and veg for her at home. I never had the courage to tell her I was trying to wash him off them.

      Once I asked her if we could buy our stuff from another stall. Why did we always have to go to that one? And she explained what organic meant, about pesticides and fertilisers and protecting wildlife. But she finished with, ‘Besides, some people need our support more than others.’ I never asked again, but I thought it was stupid because ugly people don’t have feelings.

      I know better now.

      That’s why on a warm day in early September, I wasn’t there for the school photo. I was sitting on the canal bank instead. The Orange River we called it because of the iron deposits in the soil that leached out to stain the water a murky rust colour.

      I’d skipped school for the first time ever. Mum would’ve written me a note if I’d asked her, but then I would’ve had to explain and see the understanding come into her eyes. See her blink to hold back tears.

      I checked my watch. The girls would be in the toilets now doing their hair and make-up, squealing about how bad they looked. As if. Then they’d line up on the staging in the hall. Best faces for the camera.

      Oh, they’d notice I wasn’t there. But nobody would ask why. The teachers would be relieved because when they hung the photo in the school foyer, one face would be missing. I bet they’d even ‘forget’ to ask me for a note.

      Ugly people don’t have feelings. We’re not like everyone else.

2 – Ryan

      The water in this stretch of the canal was a funny colour – looked like Mum’s carrot soup. I steered the boat along, hand resting on the tiller bar. From the time since we’d last passed a town, I reckoned we must be about ten miles from Whitmere. Time to start looking for a mooring. Didn’t want to get too close. Towns meant trouble. Too many people.

      I could hear Mum inside the boat, clattering around and singing some tree-hugger shit to herself as she made dinner. Not tofu again, please. I swear they made that stuff to convert vegans to meat. Cole had agreed with me about that. Tasted like candle wax, he’d said. But then if someone asked Cole what a vegan was, he’d say, ‘It’s someone who farts a lot.’ Death by beans, he used to call Mum’s cooking. It’s not really true. We don’t fart more than everyone else, but when he met us, Cole’s stomach had some trouble readjusting after a life of eating dead cow.

      I cruised on a bit further. Nowhere good to stop yet. Too far from any roads. I didn’t fancy hauling my bike over four muddy fields in the middle of winter before I got to the nearest lane.

      The smell of bean stew wafted out of the door and I listened to the familiar sound of water lapping on the boat hull as I scanned ahead. There were some houses coming up in about a mile – looked like a village. I squinted for a better view. Only a couple of the houses seemed to be near the canal. The rest were set back. There was bound to be a road nearby so this was a possibility.

      I yelled into the boat. ‘Might have found a spot.’

      ‘I’ll be there in a minute,’ Mum called back.

      She always got a buzz when we came to a new place. Me, not so much. Maybe I used to; now it was just same old, same old. This place could be different though. I had a plan for this one. I’d not told Mum yet, but even thinking about it made my stomach churn, in a good way.

      It’d be better if Cole was still around to help me break it to her. He’d have backed me up, but he’d been gone a year now. He got tired of travelling, he said – found another woman to hook up with, one with a house and a couple of kids. Mum said I should forget him and move on. Travellers moved on – that’s what we did. But moving on in your head’s harder. I remembered stuff all the time. Things he used to say or do. Times we had a laugh together. Like when I told him about Chavez, the guy Mum was shacked up with before him.

      Cole had frowned. ‘Mexican?’

      ‘Nah, from Bishop’s Stortford. Real name’s Jeremy, but he changed it. Thought he was Che Guevara – if Che spent his life permanently stoned and bumming around on a narrowboat.’

      ‘Sounds like a tosser to me.’

      ‘They were all tossers before you.’

      He’d winked at me, then raised his voice so Mum could hear. ‘Yeah, well, you gotta kiss a lot of frogs before you meet the handsome prince, eh, Karen?’

      Mum, predictably, freaked at him, yelling about women’s emancipation and respect while we cracked up laughing. Then she threw cushions at us until Cole grabbed and tickled her, and made her laugh too.

      I spotted a copse of willow trees on the bank ahead, and a bridge across the canal – a road. Were we too near the village? You couldn’t see the houses from here and the footpath was so overgrown that I doubted anyone walked along it often. Cars going over the bridge noticing us? A risk – but the wall was high and if I pulled in just where that alder tree was, I reckoned we’d be tucked away out of sight. This might be it.

      Mum came up the steps, shielding her eyes from the sun, and I pointed to the clump of trees.

      ‘Perfect! My clever son!’

      Her hands fluttered round my face, stroking it, touching my hair. She smiled and my stomach churned, in a bad way. That smile was too bright,