Then She Was Gone - Lisa Jewell Page 0,6
on top of it and drummed them absentmindedly. “Good girl,” she said. “You are such a good girl.”
Ellie watched her questioningly from the corner of her eye, waiting for a signal that their lesson was about to begin. But none came. Instead Noelle stared blindly at the homework.
“Tell me, Ellie,” she said eventually, turning her unblinking gaze to Ellie. “What’s the worst thing that ever happened to you?”
Ellie shrugged.
“What?” Noelle continued. “Like a hamster dying, something like that?”
“I haven’t had a hamster.”
“Ha, well then, maybe that. Maybe not having a hamster is the worst thing that ever happened to you?”
Ellie shrugged again. “I never really wanted one.”
“Well, then, what did you want? What did you really want that you weren’t allowed to have?”
In the background, Ellie could hear the TV in the kitchen, the sound of her mother vacuuming overhead, her sister chatting to someone on the phone. Her family just getting on with their lives and not having to have weird conversations about hamsters with their maths tutor.
“Nothing, really. Just the usual things: money, clothes.”
“You never wanted a dog?”
“Not really.”
Noelle sighed and pulled Ellie’s homework toward her. “Well, then, you are a very lucky girl indeed. You really are. And I hope you appreciate how lucky you are?”
Ellie nodded.
“Good. Because when you get to my age there’ll be loads of things you want and you’ll see everyone else getting them and you’ll think, well, it must be my turn now. Surely. And then you’ll watch it disappear into the sunset. And there’ll be nothing you can do about it. Nothing whatsoever.”
There was a moment of ponderous silence before finally, slowly, Noelle slid her glasses onto her nose, pulled back the first page of Ellie’s homework, and said, “Right then, let’s see how my best student got on this week.”
“Tell me, Ellie, what are your hopes and dreams?”
Ellie groaned inwardly. Noelle Donnelly was in one of those moods again.
“Just to do really well in my GCSEs. And my A levels. And then go to a really good university.”
Noelle tutted and rolled her eyes. “What is it with you young people and your obsession with university? Oh, the fanfare when I got into Trinity! Such a big deal! My mother couldn’t stop telling the world. Her only girl! At Trinity! And look at me now. One of the poorest people I know.”
Ellie smiled and wondered what to say.
“No, there’s more to life than university, Miss Smarty Pants. There’s more than just certificates and qualifications. I have them coming out of my ears. And look at me, sitting here with you in your lovely warm house, drinking your lovely Earl Grey tea, getting paid a pittance to fill your brain with my knowledge. Then going home to nothing.” She turned sharply and fixed Ellie with a look. “To nothing. I swear.” Then she sighed and smiled and the glasses came up her nose and her gaze left Ellie and the lesson commenced.
Afterward Ellie found her mother in the kitchen and said, “Mum. I want to stop my tutoring.”
Her mum turned and looked at her questioningly. “Oh?” she said. “Why?”
Ellie thought about telling her the truth. She thought about saying, She’s freaking me out and saying really weird things and I really don’t want to be alone with her for an hour every week anymore. How she wished she had told her the truth. Maybe if she’d told her the truth, her mother might have been able to work it all out and then everything would have been different. But for some reason she didn’t. Maybe she thought her mother would say that it was a silly reason to want to stop having the lessons so close to her exams. Or maybe she didn’t want to get Noelle into trouble, didn’t want a situation to develop. But for whatever misguided reason she said, “I just honestly think I’ve gone as far as I can go with Noelle. I’ve got all the practice papers she gave me. I can just keep doing those. And it will save you some money.” She smiled, winningly, and waited for her mother’s response.
“Well, it does seem a bit strange, so close to your exams.”
“Exactly. I think there are other things I could be using the time for now. Geography, for example. I could really do with some extra study time for geography.”
This was a 100-percent untruth. Ellie was totally on top of all her studies. The extra hour a week would make no difference to anything. But still