The Mystery of Me Read online

  For Daisy Weston (and her fairy

  godmother, Margaret Sawkins,

  who made this happen!)

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1 The same old Ketty?

  2 All eyes on me

  3 Stuff no one will tell me

  4 My lucky charm

  5 The one I can trust

  6 The key starts turning

  7 The whirlwind in my head

  8 Two things I know

  9 Tell me who I was

  Copyright

  CHAPTER 1

  The same old Ketty?

  I can’t remember dying.

  But it was only for 2 minutes, 39 seconds. Then the paramedics got my heart started again.

  I can’t remember the crash, or anything in the two weeks after it. That’s because I was in a coma all that time.

  Mum and Dad sat by my hospital bed for hour after hour, day after day, holding hands and hoping. Just hoping I’d wake up and be me, their sweet little Ketty.

  The doctor warned them that people can seem different after a head injury. A fun-loving person may turn serious. A shy, easy-going person may turn loud and get angry. She said that maybe – if I had lots of rest – there’d be no change at all. No one knows how it’s going to be.

  Everyone says, though, that I ended up the same old Ketty.

  Not that I know who the old Ketty is … I don’t really remember, like I don’t remember the crash.

  I’ve been off school the last couple of months, and my memory is creeping back in scraps and wisps. Faces, places, people pop into my mind at odd times.

  The first time Mum and Dad took me for a walk in the park, I looked at the children’s playground and I remembered sitting on the swings. I remembered the way they swayed to and fro, and the thick, cold links of metal in my hands, the giggles of girls beside me.

  “That must have been Adele and Urmi! Your best friends!” Dad said when I told him my memory.

  I’ve seen Adele and Urmi one time since the crash, but it felt like it was the first time I’d ever met them.

  When they came to the house, we were all a bit shy, and it felt weird when they hugged me. I smiled and nodded as they spoke about teachers and kids at school who sent their love, but the names they said didn’t mean anything to me. I couldn’t match the names with faces – or even with feelings – at all.

  But perhaps today it will happen at last, cos today is my first day back at Hartford Academy.

  “You’ll only be here for the morning, Ketty, so you won’t get too tired,” Mum tells me as we walk in the front door of the school.

  “OK,” I say with a nod as I stare around me.

  I do know this place. That feels good.

  Here is the corridor with the grey floor tiles, the blue sofa for visitors, the office with the smiley lady behind the glass window. There are no crowds of kids – my parents and the school thought it was best for me to come in after the mad crush at the start of the day.

  “Hello, Ketty! How nice to see you!” the smiley lady says. She gets up and comes out of a door to greet us.

  I can’t remember her name. It flutters around in my mind like a moth, but I can’t seem to catch hold of it. That happens a lot. Even simple words are in my head for one second and gone the next. My doctor says this will get better bit by bit. She says I have to try not to get frustrated.

  That’s easy for her to say.

  “Stella!” I shout out too loudly as I suddenly remember the smiley lady’s name.

  “Yes, well done!” she says. Stella and Mum smile at each other as if I’m a toddler who has learned a new word.

  I was pleased when I remembered, but that look they share makes me feel a bit stupid.

  “Now, don’t worry at all today, Ketty,” Stella says. “Everyone knows you need to take it slow. And everyone knows not to talk about …”

  Stella goes red.

  She was about to say “the crash”, but she stopped herself.

  Does she think I’ll get very upset if I think about that? Like I say, it’s all a blank to me.

  “Good luck, darling,” Mum says, and she gives my arm a little rub. “It’ll be fine.”

  As soon as she waves and leaves, I turn to Stella, who will take me to my first class.

  And then I see two girls further up the corridor. Their school shoes have stopped pitta-patting on the shiny floor, and they’re staring at me as if I have two heads and three noses. They’re whispering, and I can hear some of what they’re saying. They’re talking about me.

  Uh-oh.

  Is Mum right? Will I be fine?

  I’m not so sure.

  CHAPTER 2

  All eyes on me

  During English, Mr Hunter is up at the front of the class, talking about a poem. No one is listening. They keep turning to look at me – one by one like nervy meerkats in the desert.

  Maybe they were expecting my head to be all shaved, with a bright pink scar and big bumps where my skull had been stapled together.

  Actually, I look much the same as I did before the crash, with long dark hair and no scars showing.

  I’m not ready to have all these eyes on me. I can feel bubbles of panic rise from my tummy into my chest.

  “So, can anyone tell me what this line means?” Mr Hunter asks.

  He looks over at me. He can tell I’m on the verge of losing it.

  “Do you want to scoot off to your next lesson now, Ketty?” he asks.

  It’s kind of him. It’s way before the end of the lesson, but I’m allowed to leave a few minutes early, before the bell goes and everyone starts moving around the school, shoving and shouting.

  “Thank you, sir,” I mutter, and I push my book and pencil case into my bag and hurry to the door.

  Everyone’s looking at me as I leave. It feels good when I close the door and I’m alone at last in the long, cool corridor.

  Only …

  Only I don’t know where to go next. I scrabble in the top pocket of my blazer and pull out a sheet of paper with my timetable printed on it.

  My finger moves along the column.

  “Today is Monday,” I say to myself. “So the next lesson is Maths.”

  OK, fine. I have solved the first problem. Now my next problem is how to find the class …

  My eyes are prickling with tears when I hear a voice.

  “Ketty? Are you OK?”

  I look up and see a friendly face and a warm smile. It’s a boy I don’t know, but he knows me.

  “I don’t know where my next class is …” I tell him. “I don’t know where any of my classes are!” I show him my timetable. It’s useless.

  The boy takes it, stares at it and nods.

  “It’s cool,” he says. “I’ll draw you a map of the school so you can get to all your classes.” He pulls a book and a pen out of his bag. “It’ll be a bit scrappy, but it’ll do.”

  The bubbles of panic start to vanish. I take slow, deep breaths as he draws me a map, and I begin to feel OK again.

  “Thank you,” I say. I wish I knew his name.

  “No problem, Ketty,” he says, and he grins up at me. “And I’m Otis, by the way.”

  Otis. Otis. Otis.

  I say it in my head a few times so that I can remember.

  “Thank you. Thank you, Otis.” I say his name one more time to help it stick in my mind. His map really helps.

  CHAPTER 3

  Stuff no one will tell me

  It’s Day Two.

  It’s break-time, and I’m in the school counsellor’s office.

  I’m a bit shy, but I met her before when she came to my house on Friday, so that helps. She told me then that her name was Maryam, and I’ve remembered
. And she’s nice – she smiles a lot.

  “Good to see you again, Ketty,” she says as I sit down. “So, how’s it going so far?”

  “It’s … OK,” I say, not sure how to start.

  I’ve had so many feelings over the last couple of days, and I can’t begin to sort them out.

  Maryam told me it’d be like this, so I think she understands how I feel.

  “OK sounds like a good start!” Maryam says with another big smile. “Are there parts of school that you remember?”

  Yes, there are, I think to myself. There’s Stella in Reception, the twisty stairs in the Science block, the graffiti in the girls’ loos …

  “Yes,” I answer. I can’t explain all that to Maryam yet.

  “What about the other students and staff? Do you remember some of them?” Maryam asks next.

  There are so many faces at school it’s too much to think about them all right now. So I name just one.

  “There’s a boy called Otis,” I say. “He’s been really kind to me.”

  “That’s nice! And no one’s upset you, have they?” Maryam checks. “You know, maybe said clumsy things about the crash. If they have, they won’t mean to be rude. They’re just curious.”

  Curious.

  I’m pretty curious about the crash too.

  The thing is, I know what happened – Mum and Dad kept a copy of the local paper to show me. The headline was in big black letters:

  LUCKY ESCAPE IN SCHOOL TRIP

  COACH CRASH

  Our year group had been on a field trip. We were on our way back to school when the coach crashed into a car and skidded right across the motorway.

  The lucky escape was that no one in the coach, or the car, or anyone else on the road was badly hurt. Except for me.

  So I know the main facts.

  But why did everyone else walk away with bumps and bruises, while I ended up in hospital with a serious head injury?

  I feel like there’s stuff no one will tell me, but I don’t want to ask. I’m scared that the answers will upset me.

  CHAPTER 4

  My lucky charm

  I’m doing better than anyone expected.

  I mean, I don’t understand a lot in lessons – I’ve missed so much, and my focus isn’t great yet. But I’m still in school, and I’m coping.

  Today is Day Four, and I still come home at the end of morning lessons. But today, I asked Mum and Dad if I could hang around for lunch too, just to see if I’d be OK.

  Not lunch in the noisy dining hall though. My year group are allowed out for lunch on Thursdays. Adele and Urmi have told me we normally go out in a big gang and walk up to the sandwich shop on the High Street. They say it’s a total laugh.

  I want to have a total laugh. I want to have fun and chat and gossip.

  But now that I’ve left my Spanish class early and I’m waiting for Adele and Urmi in Reception, I’m not so sure.

  “Look, maybe it’s too much too soon,” Stella says. She’s sitting on the blue sofa beside me. She spotted me biting my nails and shivering a little, and she guessed what was wrong.

  “Everything OK with Ketty?” someone asks.

  Me and Stella look up at Otis, who’s holding a pile of folders.

  “Ketty was supposed to go out with her friends for lunch, but she’s not sure if it’s a good idea,” Stella says.

  “Do you want to come with me instead, Ketty?” Otis asks. “I’m going to have my sandwich in the park and listen to my music.”

  “How does that sound?” Stella asks. “I can tell your friends that you changed your mind.”

  “It sounds … good,” I say, and I feel the panic ebb away.

  “Go on then,” Stella says, and she presses the green button to let us out. “It’s not worth you going back to class for just two minutes, Otis.”

  Otis holds the door open for me, and his grin is as bright as the sunshine outside.

  I don’t know what Adele and Urmi will think about the fact I’ve ditched them for Otis.

  But I do know that all of a sudden I feel the happiest I’ve been since I can remember, which is basically for ever in my case.

  CHAPTER 5

  The one I can trust

  The grass in the little park next to school feels like a cool rug when we sit down on it.

  “Here,” Otis says, and he tears his sandwich in half. “Hope you like cheese and pickle!”

  “Thanks, it’s my favourite,” I say, and then I slap my hand over my mouth.

  “What’s wrong?” he asks. His dark brown eyes look really worried.

  “No – it’s great!” I say with a grin. “I didn’t remember that was my favourite sandwich till now!”

  “Does it feel good when things come back to you?” Otis asks with a little frown.

  “Yes,” I tell him. “Well, most of the time. I mean, it’s like finding pieces of a puzzle, which is exciting. But I don’t know how they fit together, and that’s kind of …”

  The word was there, and now it’s gone.

  “Scary?” Otis suggests.

  “Mmm,” I say with a shudder even though the sun is warm on my back. Even though butterflies are darting and bobbing around the nearby rose bushes.

  Butterflies …

  Oh!

  “Ketty?” Otis says. “Are you OK? You don’t look good.”

  “I just …” I begin, then I stop and shake my head.

  It was so nearly there. As I watched the butterflies, a memory came so close I almost touched it.

  A memory of something important.

  Something about the day of the crash.

  I wish I could get it back!

  “Don’t cry, Ketty,” Otis says.

  I didn’t know I was crying till Otis reaches over as if to wipe a tear away.

  But his hand brushes against my hair, and I gasp and jerk back.

  Otis drops his hand.

  “Sorry, did I hurt you?” he asks.

  “No … it’s just my hair. I don’t like anyone to touch it,” I say.

  “Sure, OK,” Otis says. He doesn’t ask why, or act like I’m mad.

  And then I feel bad – and at the same moment I realise I can trust him.

  Trust him with the truth.

  “I don’t like anyone to touch it …” I start, “cos it’s …”

  But it’s too hard to say, and so, before I lose my nerve, I slip the long wig off and let him see the real me.

  The stubbly dark hair that’s just starting to grow back after the doctors shaved it off for my operation. The vivid pink scar, the tiny bumps where the stitches were.

  “Wow,” Otis whispers. “Does it still hurt?”

  “No, the scar’s fine,” I tell him. “I just get headaches sometimes.”

  “Y’know, with your hair that short your eyes look amazing,” Otis says. “Really intense. Like Harley Quinn from Suicide Squad! Hey, maybe when it grows back, you could dye your hair white and blue and pink like hers. How cool would that be?”

  Since the accident, the doctors have looked at me as a patient.

  My parents have watched me like I’m made of glass.

  Kids at school stare like I’m an alien.

  But Otis … Otis has just seen me at my most exposed – and compared me to the coolest movie heroine in years.

  I’m so happy I could hug him – but that might be just a bit too weird.

  I like the way he looks interested, not horrified.

  CHAPTER 6

  The key starts turning

  It’s Day Five, Friday.

  I’m tired, but I’m nearly there. One week down, and then it’s the weekend and I can have a rest.

  I’m outside Maryam the counsellor’s office, and Adele and Urmi have just this second walked away.

  A voice calls out – “Hey, Ketty!” – and I see Otis hurrying over.

  “Hi!” I say, grinning at my new friend.

  “Listen, do you know Daisy Weston?” he asks.

  I think hard ab
out the name, but it’s no good. I can’t remember who that is.

  “No, sorry,” I tell him.

  “Don’t be sorry!” Otis says with his easy smile. “The thing is, it’s Daisy’s birthday tomorrow, and she’s going to have a big picnic in the park to celebrate. Loads of people in our year will be there.”

  Not me or Adele or Urmi, I think. We haven’t been invited.

  “I’m going, and I … well, I just wondered if you wanted to come with me?” Otis asks.

  I’m blushing. Is he asking me out? Or just asking me along? I know there’s a difference. A BIG difference.

  “Um, yes, sure,” I say, and all of a sudden I’m shy. “I better go in – I’m late for my appointment …”

  “No worries,” Otis says. “How about I meet you by the cafe in the park at two tomorrow afternoon?”

  “Sure, yeah,” I mumble, then I turn to knock-knock at Maryam’s door.

  “Are you OK, Ketty?” she asks as soon as I’m inside. “You look as if you’re a bit shocked about something!”

  “Um, I think I’m going to a sort of party tomorrow afternoon,” I say as I sit down. “A big picnic for someone’s birthday. With my friend Otis.”

  “That sounds fun,” Maryam says. “Seems as if you’ve settled back into school life really well.”

  “I … I suppose so,” I reply. “But, I mean, I’m so tired, and a lot of it isn’t making sense.”

  “Well, maybe you shouldn’t go along to the party. It’s great to be invited, but parties can be very tiring. Are you ready for that?” Maryam asks. “You don’t have to rush things. You’ve taken some really big steps this week …” she goes on.

  I start to zone out and then—

  BLAM!

  A picture slams into my mind. I’m standing at the top of three deep metal steps – steps up to a coach. Outside, the sun shines on a grassy meadow, and butterflies dance around. I’m standing there at the top of those steps, about to go down, and I have the most amazing sense of … what’s the word?