Mirror, Mirror Read online

  Dedication

  To my family and friends who helped

  me through my teenage years.

  And to anyone who feels lost; I hope this

  book inspires you to follow your dreams

  and to never give up hope.

  Anything is possible.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Introduction

  Acknowledgements

  Eight weeks ago . . .

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  One year ago . . .

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Nine hours ago . . .

  Chapter 12

  Twelve weeks ago . . .

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Eight months ago . . .

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Ten months ago . . .

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  The night before Naomi ran away . . .

  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

  Six months later . . .

  Q&A with Cara Delevingne

  About the Authors

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Introduction

  Growing up and making the transition from childhood to adulthood is one of the most interesting times of our lives: the chaos, the madness, the hormones, the constant changes and extremes. It’s a crucial time filled with drama and high emotion that shapes us into the adults we are destined to become.

  Most people refer to the teenage years as the best time of your life, and it’s true that it is a carefree time, full of adventure and joy. But it can also be incredibly challenging and difficult, especially if you are the sort of person who doesn’t easily fit in.

  With social media playing such a large part in our daily lives, it’s even harder to be a young person now than it has ever been, especially with the increasing pressure to appear to be perfect. It’s a world where people are quick to judge others without taking the time to fully understand them, or consider what might be happening in their lives.

  When I set about writing Mirror, Mirror I wanted to tell a story that gives the reader a realistic picture of the turbulent rollercoaster teenage years, and to create characters that everyone can relate to. I wanted it to be a book about the power of friendship, and how surrounding yourself with people that you love and trust makes you strong.

  Above all I want to tell my readers, that it’s OK if you don’t know who you are yet. It’s OK if you are different and unique because you are already perfect. As long as you learn what it is that makes you happy, and follow your heart everything will be OK. Be yourself, no matter what. Recognise your strengths and realise that within you is the power to change to world.

  With love

  Cara

  Acknowledgements

  There have been many people involved in the making of Mirror, Mirror and my deepest heartfelt thanks go to the amazing Rowan Coleman who made the writing of this book such an incredible experience. At Orion special thanks go to Anna Valentine, Sam Eades, Marleigh Price, Lynsey Sutherland, Elaine Egan, Lauren Woosey, Loulou Clarke, Lucie Stericker and Claire Keep. At HarperCollins US thank you to Lisa Sharkey, Jonathan Burnham, Mary Gaule, Alieza Schvimer, Anna Montague, Doug Jones and Amanda Pelletier. Thank you to my team at WME: Sharon Jackson, Joe Izzi, Matilda Forbes Watson, Mel Berger and Laura Bonner. Thank you to my good friend Storm Athill for the wonderful artwork on the cover.

  Eight weeks ago . . .

  The sun was rising as we were coming home, our arms interlinked, feet dragging, the heat of summer building in the air. Rose’s head was on my shoulder, her arm around my waist. I can remember the feel of it exactly, her hip and the mismatched rhythm of it bumping against mine, her skin on my skin, warm and soft.

  It was just before five; the early light fierce and golden, making every dirty street gleam like new. We’d seen this sunrise a lot on our way home after long nights out, making each moment together last until we closed our eyes. Right up until that night, life had finally felt golden, like it belonged to us and we to it, filling every second with something new, something that felt like it mattered.

  But that night was different.

  My eyes ached, my mouth was dry, my heart pounded. We didn’t want to go home, but what could we do? There was nowhere else to go.

  ‘Why now?’ Rose said. ‘Everything was good, man. She was good, happy. So why now?’

  ‘It’s not the first time, is it?’ Leo said. ‘That’s why the pigs don’t care. She’s done it before. Money, backpack full of food from the fridge, her guitar. Disappear for a couple of weeks. It’s her M.O. ’

  ‘But not since Mirror, Mirror,’ Rose said. ‘Not since us, right? Before she was into all that cutting and shit, and running off. But not since the band. She was . . . we were all good. Better than good.’

  She looked at me to back her up and I had to agree, everything had changed in the last year for all of us. Before the band, we were all lost in our own way, and then somehow we happened. And together we were strong, and cool and rock hard and in-your-face awesome. We all thought Naomi was in that place too, that she didn’t need to run away any more. Until last night.

  That night, we were out all night, all over town.

  Every place we ever went to with her, we went to again without her.

  The places we told our parents about, the places we didn’t.

  The clubs we should have been too young to get into, hot and stinking of sweat and hormones, battling our way through a heaving mass of dancers, trying to catch a glimpse of her.

  We slunk in the shadows, in alleys down the back of pubs where you could score, talking in low voices to nervous kids with shadows for eyes, who offered bags of skunk. That night we said no.

  We visited places behind unmarked doors where you have to know someone to get in. Dark basement rooms, where people still smoked inside until the air was thick with it, and the music was so loud it made your ears ring, your chest vibrate and the floor jump to the beat under your feet.

  We went to all of those places, and everywhere else. The park on the estate where we go to muck around. The riverside, alien and overlooked by millionaire apartment blocks. Vauxhall Bridge, our bridge, the one we’ve walked across so often, shouting to make ourselves heard over the traffic, that it feels kind of like a mate, kind of like a witness.

  Finally, we went to that empty betting shop with the broken door and a mattress in the back, where some kids go when they want a place to be alone. Some kids, but never me because one of the things I really hate is being alone.

  Hour after hour of that night went by, and we were sure with every moment that passed we’d find her, that she was pulling one of her stunts, the kind of thing she did when she was hurting and needed to be noticed. We were sure our best friend and band mate, Naomi, would be somewhere in a place that only
we knew. She would be waiting for us to find her.

  Because you couldn’t just exist one day and vanish the next. That makes no sense at all. No one just disintegrates into thin air, without leaving some kind of trace behind.

  That’s what we told ourselves that night we looked, and the night after that, and all the nights that followed until our parents told us we had to stop, that she’d come home when she was ready. And then the police stopped looking, because she’d run away so many times before.

  But it never felt like that to us, it didn’t feel the same as before, because she wasn’t the same as before – not that they listened, with their bored expressions and blank notebooks. What could they possibly know?

  So we looked and looked for Naomi, long after everyone else stopped. We looked everywhere.

  But she wasn’t anywhere.

  All we could find were the spaces where she used to be.

  1

  Today: Life goes on, that’s what everyone says.

  We have to keep getting up, going to school, coming home, thinking about shit like exams that are happening soon. And ‘hope, pray and trust’ and a load of other bullshit nothing they keep saying to us.

  Life goes on, but that’s a lie, because the night Naomi vanished she pressed a big fucking pause button. Days tick by, and weeks and seasons and all of that shit, but not anything else. Not really. It’s like we’ve all been holding our breath for eight weeks.

  Because I’ll tell you what they don’t say any more; they don’t say she’ll come home when she’s ready. I see her older sister Ashira at school, head down, closed off like she doesn’t want anyone to get near. And her mum and dad wandering around the supermarket, staring at stuff without really seeing it. Even though it’s Nai who’s gone missing, they’re the ones that look lost.

  And yes, once she would have run away to make everyone look for her, she would have, because once she thought that kind of psycho-drama was a big deal. But she hasn’t for a long time, and never like this. She’d never want her mum and dad to be so twisted up with worry for her, or for Ash to look like she is always holding her breath, braced for bad news. Nai is complicated, but she loves her family and they love her, it’s like this beacon that draws the rest of us round them, love-hungry moths to a flame. Theirs is a family that actually gives a shit about each other.

  You see, Naomi wouldn’t do this to them, or to us. But no one wants to hear that, not the police, not even her mum, because the thought of Naomi being a hardcore bitch is better than the thought of her being simply gone.

  Which is why sometimes I just wish they’d find a body.

  That’s how much of a dick I am. Sometimes I wish she was dead just so I could know.

  But they haven’t. They haven’t found anything. And life goes on.

  Which means today is the day that we audition for a new bassist to replace Naomi.

  For a minute, it looked like we might break up without her. The rest of Mirror, Mirror – me, Leo and Rose – we met up for a rehearsal and wondered if we should just call it quits, we even said that we should. And then the three of us just stood there, no one leaving, no one packing up, and we knew without having to say it out loud that we couldn’t let go. Letting go of the band would be letting go of the best thing in all of our lives, and it would be letting go of her, for good.

  Naomi founded the band, or at least she’s the one who turned it from some lame-arsed homework project into something real, something that mattered. Nai is the reason we all found something we were good at, because she was so good at her thing. I mean, she was a great bassist, legendary; you’d hear her lay down the beat and you’d be shook. But even more than that Naomi can write – I mean really good songs. I’m not bad and together, her and me are great, but Nai has that thing, that special thing that takes something leaden and grey and makes it shiny and special. Before Mirror, Mirror she never knew that was her superpower, but now she does, because we told her. And the more we told her, the better she got. And when you’ve got a superpower like that, you don’t need to run away.

  The day we nearly split, our music teacher Mr Smith, came into the rehearsal room. It was the summer holidays, school was mostly empty except for us. We were only allowed on site because of him, he’d got us permission and spent his holiday sitting and reading a paper while we fought and played. But this time he came and sat down, and waited for us to stop talking and look at him. It hit me how different he looked right then. Mr Smith is one of those people who fills up a room, not just because he’s tall and kind of built, like he works out and stuff, but also because of the way he is; he likes life, he likes us, the kids he teaches, and that’s rare. He makes you want to do stuff, makes you want to learn, and it’s all because of this kind of energy you just don’t see in adults that much; it’s as if he really does give a shit.

  That day though, he looked like someone had let the air out of him, like all the energy and good vibes he usually brings with him had disappeared. And it was frightening to see him that way, because he’s one of those people who is always so strong. It got to me in a way I can’t really explain; it made me like him even more. It meant a lot to see how much he cared that Nai was missing, really cared. Outside of her family and us lot, it seemed like he was one of the few people who did.

  I don’t know how the others felt but the moment I saw him that day, I wanted to help him, as much as I knew he wanted to help us.

  ‘Are you guys really thinking about splitting up?’ he said.

  We looked at each other, and for a second it felt like it did before we were friends, lonely and awkward and the idea of being back there again was terrifying.

  ‘It feels wrong without her,’ I said.

  ‘I get that,’ he said, running his fingers through his hair so that it stood up in blonde spikes. ‘But listen to me when I tell you that if you do split up now, you’ll regret it. You four . . . you three . . . I’m so proud of you, and everything you do together. I don’t want you to lose that, not for you, and not for Nai. Now there’s not much that you can do for Naomi, but what you can do is make sure people keep remembering her name until she is found. Make sure they never stop looking for her. I’ve had this idea – we’ll stage a concert, here at the school. Raise funds to help her family keep up the search, keep her story in the public eye. Make the whole world look at us, at you guys, and see how much we care about her. That’s what I want to do, kids. But I can’t do it without you. Are you in?’

  And yeah, of course we said we were in.

  It’s the only thing we could think of doing.

  We kept going, just the three of us all summer, but the concert is nearly here and we’ve realised what we have to do. We have to find a new bassist. Fuck’s sake.

  Naomi was . . . is . . . the best bassist I’ve ever played with, which is weird because she is a girl, and girls aren’t normally good at that shit. That’s not sexist, it’s just a fact. It takes a sort of single-minded determination to be invisible to really play the bass, and girls – well, normal girls – like to be looked at.

  But today must go on. I’ve got to get my shit together. Dragging myself out of bed, I look at the crumpled pile of clothes on the floor.

  It’s all right for Leo, the dude just gets out of bed and he looks on-point.

  He picks up his guitar and he might as well be God; girls worship him as if he is. It doesn’t seem fair, really, that at the age of sixteen, he can be so together, like he came fully formed and deep voiced, tall and muscular.

  Me, though, I’m still in that awkward phase. I live in that awkward phase, I am that awkward phase. If there was an emoji for awkward phases it would look like me. I fully expect to still be in the awkward phase when I’m forty-five and almost dead.

  I want to look cool, but Leo cool; plain white T, jeans, hoodie and immaculate white high tops isn’t the sort of cool that I can do. There isn’t any sort of cool I can do, except the cool I borrow from being Leo’s mate.

  Rose has als
o nailed looking good, but she is legit beautiful, and beautiful never really has to try. Dark brown hair, dyed blonde, but not all the way to the top; not skinny like some girls, Rose’s boobs and hips keep the boys of Thames Comprehensive in her thrall.

  But that’s not all, she wears a fuck ton of make-up, even though she looks prettier with none – maybe because of that. She backcombs her hair and puts holes in her tights on purpose. Rose knows what her look is and she makes it happen, charging the air with static electricity and detonating millions of little explosions all around her wherever she goes.

  Other girls try and copy her, but there aren’t any other girls like Rose, because I swear to God, Rose is the only girl I have ever met who really gives zero fucks.

  And when she sings . . . walls vibrate. Eyes turn green. Boners harden.

  Out of the four of us in our magnificent misfit family, Naomi was . . . is the one who is most like me. If Leo and Rose are the fuck-that-shit-prom-king-and-queen of the school, me and Nai are the Overlords of Geek.

  And when I think of Naomi in her thick-framed glasses that swamp her heart-shaped face and hide her soft brown eyes, I feel proud of her. The way she wears shirts, buttoned all the way, and pleated skirts a totally different length to anyone else. Her sensible shoes, laced up and polished. Behind it all, the deliberate mismatches and the odd choices, she is a completely take-no-prisoners, accept-no-bullshit original.

  Sometimes Naomi and I used to go to the library at lunch and just sit and read. We’d be quiet and still. It was peaceful. She’d catch my eye over the top of her book, and raise an eyebrow at me when some year nine try-hard went past and we’d smirk at each other, two disbelieving super-nerds who had somehow lucked out into pole position.

  And when she played . . . it was just as good, in fact better than the best bassists in the world. With me on the drums we were the heartbeat of the band, carving out the groove with rare precision.

  I can’t be arsed to think about my band look, so fuck it: checked shirt, jeans, white T-shirt underneath, that’s my usual uniform. Lumberjack-pro, Rose calls it.