The sweet smell of pancakes mixed with syrup filled the kitchen, making it the first warm and welcoming room in the big desolate house. Across the counter Jackie sat huddled over her work; pen in one hand pancake in the other. Lucy sat on the counter, gobbling every pancake that passed under her nose. There was no radio to dance to but luckily they had mom, who had the voice of an angel, singing away on some old song her mother used to sing to her.
“So how was your day, Berry?” Lucy finally tired from all her pancakes lay down and turned to her sister. Jackie looked at her with such sisterly affection that she ruffled the 10 year olds hair.
“It was good, yours Bunny?”
“It was ok, no one was nice at school. But I think I made a friend. How about you, made any friends?”
Jackie started tracing the scar, a sign that she was deep in thought.
“No, I don’t think so.” But this was obviously the wrong answer because just as she said this Lucy turned over to look at the history she was doing and as fate would have it, her and Kyle’s names were scribbled over the top.
“Who’s Kyle?” With a spark of mischief in her eyes she continued. “Is he your boyfriend?”
“You know very well that he is not!” Jackie blushed. “We only arrived last night.”
“Is he a friend then?”
“He’s just someone who felt sorry for me and talked to me.”
Their mom, whose spatula had gradually dropped down during the conversation, now spoke, “What do you mean ‘felt sorry for you’?”
“They all saw it mom, I had to take my hoodie off,” she indicated her scar and continued. “He just felt sorry for me because no one else would pair up with something as hideously beastly as me.”
Despite herself the tears that had threatened in History class rolled down her cheeks.
“I’m a beast,” she cried.
In seconds her mom was next to her, cradling her once more in her arms.
“Sshh, who ever told you that? You are beautiful. You are so beautiful; I don’t want you ever to talk like that again. What happened to you was not your fault.”
“It’s the way they all look at me, mom. I don’t need them to tell me. I know it.”
She clung to her mom, steadying herself with deep breaths as Lucy made her a pancake with extra chocolate on it, just the way she liked it.
•

The noise of the house was overwhelming, he longed for the silence of his own room. Except it wasn’t his own room, it was his, Gareth’s, Mark’s and Sam’s. He threw his bag down on his bed. His bed he repeated furiously throwing Mark and Sam’s toys off it. He dropped into it and thought about his strange day. The thing that bothered him most was Jackie. What was she hiding? Why was she hiding? He recalled her face in History, the pure amusement in the beginning as she called the lamp posts attractive and as she spoke of the sea and then the hurt and the thoughtless stroking of the scar. The scar, goodness, that scar. How had something like that happened to her? Maybe it was a birth mark? No surely not, people were not born with scars on their faces, not scars like that at least. A brief knock pulled his thoughts back to reality, his dad stood in the doorway.
“Dinner’s ready.”’ He looked at Kyle a second longer then walked in to sit next to him on the bed, “What’s bothering you?”
For a moment he thought about making something up about homework and teachers, but eventually gave up the idea, his father would know. He sighed and sat up.
“It’s this girl.”
Immediately his dad’s eyebrow shot up.
“It’s not like that. She’s new and practically invisible. The thing is that she doesn’t even try to impress anyone and she’s not like anyone else. She has a massive scar on her face.”
Kyle traced a finger down his face from his forehead across the edge of his eye to his chin.
“She’s constantly hiding in her hoodie and she doesn’t even try to let people notice her. She was wearing a long sleeved shirt and a hoodie today and it was boiling outside. She’s so strange and different.”
“Well all of us are different and some people just don’t like attention. As for the scar, that I don’t know maybe she was in a car accident or something. Come your mom is becoming impatient. Don’t worry son, it’s not your responsibility to change her. Her choices in life are not your responsibilities.”