Sweet Erin

By Sian Turner

Have you ever trodden on a snail and watched it lie there on the pavement, its shell all cracked to pieces and its body oozing and unmoving, waiting to die? Well, I’m that snail. I mean, I’m not actually a snail, I’m a girl, and I’m not literally dying, although that’s what it feels like, you know, on the inside.

Erin is struggling. There are problems at school, and at home her work-obsessed parents rarely seem to notice her at all. Then an extraordinary app introduces Erin to a girl named Carys and the pair begin an inexplicable – in fact utterly impossible – friendship. While both girls are struggling to face their own demons, Carys makes an astonishing announcement which brings a new dimension to the girls’ already unique friendship. Will Carys help Erin find the fresh start she desperately needs, and can Erin help Carys restore her crumbling relationship with her father? Sweet Erin is Sian Turner’s fifth novel in the genre of magical realism. It’s about hopelessness and hope, endings and new beginnings and about enemies, friends and family; a book for anyone who has ever been eleven years old.
"This is an author who knows how to grab her audience and hold them there until the very last. With a fine array of characters – all so different and yet so ordinary, this is a very cleverly written novel." (GraceJReviewLady)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sian Turner
• Release date: Feb 9, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215588703

Sian Turner

I've lived most of my life in East Sussex, but was born in South Wales.My early career was in finance and administration. Then I worked as a secondary school teaching assistant for three very rewarding yet challenging years. I began writing fiction in 2010 and am a member of Shorelink Writers.Having started my self-publishing journey with two historical fiction novels based on a true story, I now write magical realism/speculative fiction novels (contemporary stories with a paranormal twist). Go to my website to sign up for my monthly newsletter and get free book offers. I'd be happy to hear from readers via social media or email too.People rarely review books, so I would be extremely grateful for any positive reviews and ratings. Thank you!

Book preview

Dedication & acknowledgements

This book is dedicated to young people everywhere who have had their lives and expectations turned upside down and inside out because of Covid-19.

Thank you to my husband Martin, who is endlessly supportive in every possible way. Huge thanks also to my daughter Abi, who designed my cover and who always provides me with invaluable advice and assistance when it’s time for me to write the dreaded blurb.

I would like also to acknowledge Sally Gardner and the many talented members of Shorelink Writers in Hastings, who offer me both constructive feedback and kind comments. Special thanks to those brave few who ‘beta-read’ the book for me. I hope we will all be able to meet as a group on Monday evenings again very soon.

Finally, thanks to Emily Hetherington, whose proofreading and copy editing services have enabled me to publish free of some truly embarrassing mistakes.

I’d like to send a truly heartfelt thank you to any reader who spends a few minutes giving this, or any of my other novels, a positive review on retailers’ websites.

Connect with me via my website: https://sianturnerauthor.wordpress.com/

Find me on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/SianTurnerAuthor

See me on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/SianTurner1066

I hope you enjoy the book.

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

Thank you for Reading

Other Works by this Author

Dedication & Acknowledgements

Chapter 1

Have you ever trodden on a snail and watched it lie there on the pavement, its shell all cracked to pieces and its body oozing and unmoving, waiting to die? Well, I’m that snail. I mean, I’m not actually a snail, I’m a girl, and I’m not literally dying, although that’s what it feels like, you know, on the inside. Anyone looking at me would see an ordinary 11-year old girl with skinny legs and dull, brown hair, one of a colony of ants dressed in boringly matching school uniform who pour out of Roselands Academy and onto their bus home every day. Only by looking deep inside me would anyone truly understand what my life has come to. On the inside, in my heart and my soul, I’m broken, downtrodden and waiting for my fate. I’m cracked and oozing like that miserable, hapless snail. It isn’t great, is it?

At least I’m out of school, which is more of a relief today than usual, if that’s possible. Last period, during what the P.E. teacher laughingly called a ‘teambuilding game’, year seven mega-bully Monica Francis purposely launched a basketball straight at my face. Everybody laughed when it hit me – including the teacher – and I stood there and took it because I didn’t know what else to do. Shame flooded through me and filled me up until I was sure it would flow over into tears. At this point, I came to my senses enough to run off to the toilets. I locked myself into a cubicle, sat on the cold toilet seat and waited.

After a few minutes, it dawned on me that the teacher was not going to come to see if I was alright and I was suddenly glad I’d had the foresight to pick up my uniform and shoes on my way through the changing rooms. Slowly and mechanically I changed back into my regular uniform, trying to ignore the house-sized lump in my throat.

On my way out of the loos, I caught a glimpse of myself in the row of mirrors above the sinks. My left cheek was still red from the impact of the basketball. I touched it and it was hot.

Now, with the school corridors still deserted, I am able to slide out of the building unnoticed. A glance at my phone tells me I ought to be able to catch the early bus home, so I speed up and say a quiet, Yes! under my breath as I reach the stop and spot the bus trundling towards me. I stick out my hand and am soon on board, climbing the stairs to my usual seat.

As I stare out at the grey road ahead, misery overwhelms me. From deep in my belly, sobs are bubbling up wildly and it takes all my willpower to hold them back. I won’t cry in public. I won’t!

The bus rumbles its way into the stream of traffic, carrying me away from Roselands Academy and the bubbling sobs fade as if someone turned off my internal kettle.

Aaa-choooo!

A spray of saliva droplets hits the back of my neck and I instinctively ball my hands into fists, clenching my teeth together hard. I ought to turn and ask the man behind me where he left his manners, but he’s a grown-up and I’m just a kid, so instead of standing up for myself I shut my eyes and take a deep, shuddering breath. Silently I seethe, not even expecting an apology, which is a good job because none is offered. I wish I wasn’t what my year six teacher called ‘one of the quiet ones’, but I can’t flip a switch and change who I am, can I?

When the bus reaches the Collington Lane stop, I hop onto the kerb to continue on foot. Behind me, the ancient bus clatters away belching clouds of diesel fumes and I move off quickly before the vile, stinky haze reaches me.

Catching the earlier bus home means not being subjected to horrid comments from fellow students like, ‘Hey, miss double-barrelled smartarse, is the chauffeur too busy to drive you home today?’ which I often have to put up with while waiting for my bus. I never ever get a lift, but I quickly gave up trying to argue that point because that lot don’t listen. I’d have to deal with it on the bus too, except everyone else at my school lives in the opposite direction. I still haven’t figured out how Mum got me a place at Roselands when others from my area are refused and sent to Valley View.

Why does my life have to be like this? Where did it all go so horribly wrong?

One thing that stands out as part of the problem is my name. I hate it. I mean Erin is fine: plain, simple and unassuming – a forgivable name, but Fitzwilliam-Beaumont? Really? It’s the type of surname that makes people assume things about you.

Thank goodness no-one at school knows my middle names: Millicent Bronwyn Octavia, for Christ’s sake. I keep my middle names secret. Thankfully, Mum left them off the secondary school admission form because she completed it in a hurry. She’s always in a bloody hurry, my mother. I bet there wouldn’t have been enough space on the form for a thirty character long string of forenames anyway.

As soon as I’m an adult, I’m going to change my name by deed poll and become ordinary Erin Beaumont, which should stop me getting noticed by loudmouths and bullies. I’ll finally achieve the anonymity I want and a regular name that won’t label me as a posh, self-important snob.

Sadly for me, I’m eleven years old and, according to the Internet, a ‘minor’ can’t change their name without their parents’ permission. They must wait until they turn sixteen, which for me, is a whole four years, two months and six days away. Yes, I am counting.

I’ve thought about asking Mum and Dad if they’d let me become Erin Beaumont without waiting until I ‘come of age’, but I don’t want to be a disappointment to either of them, especially my mum: Dad’s fancy, hyphenated surname was at least 49.9 per cent of the reason she married him (helped along by the fact that his first name is Rich - a financial status she’s been clawing her way towards since long before the two of them met). Status is important to her; very important. In fact, we really couldn’t be more different.

Chapter 2

Lawndale Park Rise. Mum describes it as ‘the most exclusive road in Finchcombe Common’, but I just call it home.

Our modern, four-bedroom detached house is tucked away in the far corner of the cul-de-sac, set back from the road up a sloping driveway made of resin-bound gravel. Next door sits a virtually identical home with a red and white For Sale sign planted in the garden.

I pause beside the three-metre-tall monkey puzzle tree at the bottom of the drive and glance towards the haven that is my bedroom, sandwiched between the garage and the solar-panelled roof. Our house is too fancy for my liking and larger than three people need, but it’s still home.

Sweat is beginning to soak through the untucked blouse beneath my warm coat. I’m eager to get inside so I march purposefully onward, rooting around in the front pocket of my bag to find my key.

Hi, I’m home, I call, hopping across the threshold. Yanking my Bluetooth earphone out, I listen intently for a response, even though I’m certain none will come. I say certain, but one time when I called, my heart skipped a beat or two when an echoey voice from the downstairs loo replied with a forlorn ‘Hey Erin’. It turned out Dad had come home sick after a curry takeaway gave him a dreadful case of… well, I’ll leave the details to your imagination.

Today there is no reply, but my voice has shattered the eerie silence that filled the building. Relief floods over me, as it always does when my greeting banishes the monster that my active imagination believes lurks in dark corners, owning the shadows and the quiet. Once or twice, it has even invaded my dreams and I’ve woken up reaching for the switch to turn on my bedside light. I’d probably have died of fright if I’d discovered a huge, hairy beast with red eyes and rows of long, pointed teeth slavering all over my duvet, but I’m not totally convinced that I’m glad it exists only inside my head.

When I first experienced being at home alone, it was truly awful. I felt lost and scared in the silent house. I’m embarrassed to admit that I had no idea what to do with my new-found independence and couldn’t function properly without the enforced structure I was used to both at home and in school. I’ll never tell my parents I felt that way, of course.

Then, early in the third week of term, realisation struck.

Hey, I said out loud, startled by the sound of my own voice. I can do any ****ing thing I like. Anything. Including swearing without getting told off.

So I went into the kitchen to find myself a suitably sugary snack, but there wasn’t really anything I fancied. That was the day I invented squashed sugar sandwiches. Take one slice of bread, sprinkle sugar on half, fold the empty side over the top and squash it down hard until it’s all squishy and doughy. Oh my god, it’s delicious! The chocolate spread version was amazing too, but when I squashed it, soft, nutty chocolate oozed out all over my hands and the worktop. It took me ages to clear up, but so what? They say you live and learn, don’t they, and the school of life is much more fun than classrooms full of kids and droning teachers.

As well as the sugar sandwiches, I like swigging cola straight from the big bottle Dad keeps in the fridge. He calls it his ‘occasional treat’ and I’m forbidden to drink it. Dad read an article somewhere about carbonated drinks increasing the risk of arthritis in women, which sounds dumb to me, especially when I’m only eleven. He drinks his cola literally every evening – I hear the sharp release of gas when he opens the bottle after I’ve gone to bed. I don’t know why he’s so secretive about it when he could be doing way worse – such as glugging down vodka shots every night like Maya’s dad.

The final and probably most fun of my forbidden activities is using a streaming app to listen to music my parents would doubtless consider not age-appropriate. Their toes would curl at some of the lyrics, assuming they even understood them.

Mum is under the impression that I eat buttered bread or toast and only drink water or low sugar fruit squash while I sit passively in my room listening to nice, ‘safe’ music. I’m careful to keep my junk food diet and my true taste in music secret so that I don’t get banned from doing my favourite things.

I pull the balled-up blazer from my bulging schoolbag, then heave the burden off my shoulder and toss it across the laminate floor. It does a slow spin like a curling stone, coming to a halt at the bottom of the stairs and missing Mum’s precious, reproduction (expensive but fake) Japanese vase by a hair’s breadth. Maybe sending my P.E. bag the same way isn’t a good idea. I drop it next to the shoe rack.

My feet are hot and sweaty, so I remove my shoes and lean against the wall to peel off my white socks. On impulse, I give them a sniff that has me simultaneously wafting the air and gagging, then shove them into my inadequately-sized skirt pocket.

Standing on my toes I hang my coat and the hated blazer on the cluttered row of hooks, using my palms to brush out the worst of the creases from the blazer. I don’t want Mum moaning about me not taking care of it again.

The head teacher’s son, Elvis, is the one student who doesn’t take his blazer off the second he leaves the grounds – and even he has been known to sling it casually over his shoulder on milder days. Why must schools invent such impractical rules? I’ve heard wearing a blazer is torture during the summer months and disappointingly few of the teachers will let us bend the rules: it sounds like Hell on Earth, it really does.

My stomach growls, then churns like a tumble dryer. It’s hours since lunchtime and I’ve been looking forward to my favourite sugary treat all the way home, so I make a beeline for the kitchen.

Punching a string of buttons on my phone to make my streaming music play through the speaker, I turn the volume up high to fill the room with confident noises. My mouth contorts into an edgy pout and I nod and sway in time with the beat.

Soon I’m playing air guitar too, but something isn’t right. Realising what it is, I reach round to release my unruly mop of mousey hair from the elasticated, regulation brown hairband and shake it out like I’m in a shampoo advert. The sense of freedom is amazing. Liberated from school and in my element at last, I break into song, harmonising distinctly unharmoniously with the male singer on the bass-heavy track. My voice is awful, but it makes me happy and with nobody around to criticise, I’m pleased to note I don’t give a damn about the quality of my vocals.

Strumming my way across the kitchen, I open the fridge, extract an almost full two litre bottle of cola and take a long, ice-cold swig. The sickly sweet liquid fizzes on my tongue and fills my mouth with carbon dioxide. With a single gulp so big that it hurts, I swallow the liquid, gas and all, only to bring back the gas in a loud and satisfying manner seconds later.

Wow! I exclaim, impressed with both duration and volume. I aim a thumbs-up gesture and an approving grin at my distorted reflection in the polished, stainless steel kettle, then it’s time to move on to the bread bin.

Once I’ve prepared my squashed sugar sandwich, I pour myself a glass of Mum’s ‘trendy’ coconut milk (to prove a point to myself, but I’m not sure exactly what that is) then squeeze my phone into my breast pocket. A gentle pop confirms the top stitches have finally given way, which they’ve been threatening to do for a week or more. I give a frustrated tut; Mum’s rubbish at sewing, so I expect I’ll have to fix it myself. Later.

With the beat of the music pulsating against my chest, I ascend the stairs.

This is the part of the day when I’m meant to do my homework but all I have at the moment is a boring piece of English work which isn’t due in until the middle of next week. It can wait another few days I decide, pushing open my bedroom door with my elbow.

The next track isn’t one of my favourites and I don’t really want to listen to it. I turn the music off and the sudden silence rings in my ears then settles like heavy dust sheets over the furniture.

I deposit my plate and glass on my bedside table, but I need to do something confident to tell the silence I can deal with it, so I remove my already loosened tie with a flourish worthy of a bullfighter and toss it onto the bed. The tie lands in a long s-shape and I imagine it snaking across the covers to shelter under my pillow.

Without warning, a memory sweeps out from beneath the bed and fills the room: I’m sitting on the floor with Maya, tucking eagerly into a batch of chocolate chip cookies we made at school.

Did you see Amy’s? Maya asked, giggling. They were so awful. My cat has thrown up more appetising hairballs.

That’s a bit mean. Maybe there was a problem with her oven, I suggested.

Maya gave an incredulous snort. The problem was the idiot using it. She’s as thick as a milkshake.

Maya had a bit of a cruel side, and didn’t mind having a laugh at other people’s expense, but she’d been my friend since we started Reception together. We’re no longer friends, though.

Now we’re in different schools, she has new friends and doesn’t have time for me, despite the fact that she lives less than five minutes’ walk away from me.

Her mouth fell open when I told her Mum had applied for me to go to Roselands and I waited, expecting her to wrap her arms around me and console me with an, Oh, no, poor you. Instead, she said in a monotone voice, Snobby people with rich families go to Roselands. While I fumbled around for a helpful reply, she continued, her voice now bitter and full of spit. You think you’re better than me, do you, because your parents can afford this fancy, expensive house?

No. No, of course I don’t. I don’t want to go to their shitty choice of school; I want to go wherever you go, I protested. Roselands isn’t any better than Valley View either; it’s not a private school or anything.

But my protestations made no difference. Maya had decided what kind of person my parents’ choice made me long before the email arrived confirming my place at Roselands Academy. Weeks before our primary school prom in June, Maya had already gravitated towards a new bunch of friends and I’d graduated from being her closest friend to becoming the butt of her jokes.

Sadly for me, the one other kid in my school moving up to Roselands was Elvis who, given that he is a boy and the head teacher’s son, is somebody to be avoided at all costs.

Loneliness is hard, but after getting rejected by Maya like that, I figure it’s safer to be lonely than to get attached to a friend only to end up getting dumped like an old apple core. I won’t pin my hopes on a friendship made at school again.

Heaving a sigh which reflects the depth of my unhappiness, I flop onto my bed, bury my face in the pillow and scream.

Chapter 3

When screaming gives me no relief from my sorry state of despair, I roll onto my side and glare futile daggers at my curtains. Christmas at school was no fun without friends and the New Year isn’t looking any better.

I try to make myself feel better by reminding myself that at least I don’t have to put up with the horror of the previous afterschool arrangement any more. No Auntie Jen and no Freya and Scarlett.

Freya and Scarlet are my cousins. I prefer to call them The Monsters because they’re so mean, selfish and generally nasty. They learned from the master, after all (that being their mother, who is my mum’s younger sister).

Travelling home on my own is fine by me because I’m in secondary school now and am old enough to do that stuff. I don’t want to be treated like a toddler who needs her hand held. Between you and me, I sometimes enjoy the walking element of my journey home. Weird, right?

Getting a bus and then walking by myself is miles better than being bundled into Auntie Jen’s Honda Civic and forced to endure perfect(ly awful) Freya kicking the back of my seat all the way to their house, which is what I had to put up with while I was at primary school. Freya started her kicking ‘game’ as soon as she grew tall enough to reach and unfortunately for me she has legs like a crane fly and a mother who’d probably do exactly the same thing to me if she had the chance.

Once we arrived at Auntie Jen’s, I would go and sit in their conservatory, counting the minutes until it was time for Mum to collect me.

For that post-school hour and a quarter, The Monsters could have been doing anything for all Auntie Jen knew. She’d settle down in the living room with a mug of tea and a custard doughnut, glued to her regular string of afternoon quiz programmes and her mobile phone. I swear if the twins had fallen through the ceiling and landed in her lap, she’d have simply glared and told them to play more quietly.

Freya and Scarlett’s games never included me either – not that playing what passes for a fun game for babies like them featured on my list of entertaining pastimes anyway. On the plus side, I read loads of great books out in their conservatory.

This is how life continued until the month before I started secondary school. Then, in the middle of the annual summer holiday nightmare family barbecue, I was piling my plate full of crisps and sausage rolls when Auntie Jen squawked at my mum, "I’m far too busy for traipsing all over town after school now the Angels are growing up."

Between you and me, she’d have had a shorter journey if she’d collected me before her two. But no, she couldn’t keep her darlings waiting, so I was left until last. It made me feel like an unwanted afterthought when she picked me up, muttering about traffic problems and ‘people taking liberties’.

Mum’s face turned an amazing shade of purple as she stared, wide-eyed at Auntie Jen. I worried for a second that Mum was choking on a piece of sausage. Then she grabbed me by the arm and stormed off to find Dad and tell him what her sister had said. Mum is normally the peacekeeper in the family, but this was too much, even for her. I don’t think she was too pleased when Dad gave a half-hearted shrug and said, Don’t worry, love, Erin can get a bus like all the other kids. It will be fine.

But she’s… she’s… Mum puffed, spreading her hands wide.

Growing up, yes, said Dad, giving me a wink that made me grin.

Mum’s shoulders drooped in despair and resignation and that was the end of it. From my point of view, it had been a positive result.

The silence in the house invades my thought processes and is beginning to creep me out a bit when my phone, which has been drooping precariously from my damaged pocket, drops out and lands beside my hand. As if on cue, it gives a chirpy Ping pong!

I mutter a swear word which would have got me sent to my room if a) either of my parents were here and b) I wasn’t already in my room. I ignore the alert. It will most likely be Mum asking me to pop to the shops or to defrost sausages for dinner or something mundane like that.

What if she worries when she doesn’t receive an answer, though? What if she thinks I’ve had an accident and calls the hospital, then leaves work early to come and check, only to find me sitting on my bed playing loud music and eating a squashed sugar sandwich?

I flip the phone over and use my thumb firstly to swipe the screen and then to bypass the requirement for a security code.

‘Hello? Who are you? Who’s there?’ says the message. It’s on an app called ‘Distant Friends’ which I’ve never heard of before and certainly never installed.

I re-read the message. That’s a really odd thing to say, isn’t it? I squint at the bottom of the screen to read the name of the sender. ‘Carys Bowen’, it tells me.

I don’t know you. Leave me alone, can’t you? I mutter under my breath, exiting the messaging app.

Another notification alert comes in answer to my grumbling.

Go. Away, I growl, swiping at the screen to check what it says anyway.

‘You’re scaring me now. Please talk to me – you aren’t dead, are you? Please don’t be dead; I’ve no idea what I’d do if you were.’

The urgency in these words sends a wave of empathy coursing through me and I’m compelled to reply.

‘I’m not dead.’

My words fly off into the ether before I’ve had time to think, but after it’s done, I immediately regret sending them. The peculiar message could be from one of those awful girls from school who has decided it would be fun to prank me, but how would any of them get my number?

‘Oh, thank goodness,’ comes the immediate response. ‘I’ve no idea what I’d have done if you’d been dead. It’s not like there’s anyone else around to help.’

She sounds like a child, but I’m still wary that she might be a bully from school or some random weirdo. I need to be on my guard and not do anything foolish; Dad tells me horror stories about kids who get themselves into trouble speaking to strangers. He says social media is full of them.

But what if she’s in trouble?

‘Are you by yourself?’ I ask.

‘Yes, until I found you,’ she says. ‘I don’t normally meet people up here’.

Ignoring the ‘up here’ part for now because it doesn’t make any sense at all, I ask, ‘How old are you?’

This time, the reply takes longer.

‘I’m ten,’ she says, eventually.

She’s lying, whispers the paranoid voice in my head. She could be anyone, Erin. Be careful.

Scrabbling to a cross-legged sitting position, I put my phone on my lap.

‘Oh, you’re a child too,’ she sends.

Now that’s creepy. There’s no way she, if it even is a she, could be outside looking into my room. There’s nowhere nearby where a person could stand to see in.

‘I’m not a child,’ I tell her. ‘I’m thirty years old.’

‘Don’t be silly. You’re no older than thirteen or fourteen. You haven’t seen a woman wearing a brown coat have you? I’m looking for her.’

‘No,