“You should talk to Luna about this, Jem. I appreciate her advice can be a little…out of this world. To say the least. But, anyway, the point is, we can all go on this health kick together. Me, you and Jasper.” Dad squinted at the recipe book. “Pink Himalayan salt?” He tutted. “What’s so special about the Himalayas?”
“Well,” I said, “the Himalayan range is almost fifteen hundred miles long, it’s spread across five countries, and contains the highest peaks in the world, including Mount Everest. It has one of the largest deposits of snow and ice on the whole planet, after the Arctic and the Antarctic, obviously. In fact, the name Himalaya means ‘the abode of snow’.” I thought for a moment. “I guess the salt’s pink because of the mineral content.”
Dad stared at me. “I don’t know where you get it from.”
I shrugged. “Probably Waitrose?”
Dad walked over and rubbed my head. “I meant you and your encyclopaedic knowledge! How did you get to be such a genius, hey?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Must come from Mum’s side of the family.”
“Ha! Probably!”
Without thinking, I said, “Hey, guess what? Our school is—” Then I stopped. I looked down at Dad’s signature on the letter – confirmation of how totally unsuitable I was for Brainiacs. It was best not to even tell him about it. “Erm, doing Mary Poppins for the Christmas production. Miki’s auditioning.”
“Good for him! You’ll have to get us some tickets. Now, herbs!” he said. “Back in a minute.” He opened the back door and went over to the little herb garden Auntie Luna planted a few summers ago.
I stared out of the window for ages, feeling like a satellite orbiting a planet. Totally alone. Realizing that the only thing that was ever going to matter about me was my size. It was only Friday night, but already I was dreading school on Monday. Everyone at school had probably already shared stuff about Fat Club. I wished I could stop time. Stay sitting at the kitchen table for ever. Just ideally not with the smell of kale soup in the background.
At dinner, Jasper was telling us about how brilliant he was at everything. I corrected him, so he said, “Jemima, you don’t know it all! I bet you can’t even tell me three facts about” – he held up his soup spoon – “kale!”
So I told him that, one, it’s green because its cells contain chlorophyll; two, it was used as a medicine in Ancient Greece; and three, he had some down his T-shirt.
Afterwards, I went up to my room and watched the sky. It was full of grey cumulonimbus clouds. They’re the really massive ones. It’s the cloud type that most resembles my brother’s head. Orange street lamps were dotted along the promenade, and I could see the green neon glow of the Sphere on the Pier, this fairground ride that spins round really fast. The floor drops away and you stay there, stuck to the wall. Jasper calls it the Vomit Comet. The sign says Experience zero gravity! which is false advertising. What you’re actually experiencing is centrifugal force. But, believe me, the people who work on the ride do not care about that.
I could hear Dad laughing loudly at the TV, followed closely by Jasper. I pulled on my jumper, walked downstairs, and out the back door to where Auntie Luna’s cabin glowed in the moonlight.
The wooden steps creaked as I walked up to her door. The sign said: You say I’m a witch like it’s a bad thing.
Jasper says she should change it to BEWARE OF THE WITCH. But he never says it when Luna’s around. Jasper always says stuff like that when no one’s listening. Sometimes he calls me fat even though he’s not allowed. If I tell Dad, Jasper just says I’m lying, and Dad always believes him. No one believes you if you’re the youngest.
Auntie Luna isn’t a witch, by the way, she’s a psychic. She tells fortunes using tarot cards. And reads auras. An aura is this special kind of energy that surrounds your body. Only psychic people can see it. There are loads of different colours your aura can be, depending on your personality. I only half-believe in auras because there’s no scientific evidence. And because Luna said mine’s yellow and I wanted a purple one like Emma Watson.
Hermione meowed as I knocked on Luna’s door. She’s supposed to be my cat, but Luna sort of adopted her. I don’t mind that much. She used to pounce on me in the middle of the night and any time she left a dead mouse outside the back door, Dad always made me put it in the dustbin, even though I told him I could catch the hantavirus.
I opened the door and went in, sneezing from the dust. Luna says there’s no such thing as dust, only particles of Mother Earth. Each one of them is sacred and she needs them to channel her psychic energy. That excuse for not cleaning your room does not work on my dad.
Luna was sitting on a cushion in the lotus position with her eyes closed. Her hair was pinned up in big curls around her face. It was the colour of cinnamon and it reminded me I wanted to dye my hair as soon as possible. I looked at the books piled next to her bed. One was called Astral Projection: How to leave your body and travel the universe. I picked it up and turned it over. A step-by-step guide to leaving your body. It sounded like the exact book I needed. I checked Luna’s eyes were closed, then shoved the book up my jumper.
Luna slowly opened her eyes. They glowed silvery-blue like a wolf’s, and her gold eyeliner glittered in the fairy lights. She was wearing a T-shirt that said GOOD VIBES. It’s the name of her friend Jupiter’s crystal shop.
“Tonight is the full moon,” she said. “It’s time to bathe in her light and harness her feminine energy.” Luna stood up, took my hand and we headed outside.
“Jemima,” she said, after we’d wrapped up in blankets, “I can feel something blocking your energy.”
I swallowed and tried to reposition my body so she couldn’t see the outline of the astral projection book up my jumper.
“Tell me what’s on your mind.”
I looked up at the grey clouds partially covering the full moon. I thought about telling Luna about the letter, but the last time I told Luna about being called Jemima Big at school, she told me to rub lavender oil into my skin for inner peace. The next day, Caleb Humphries told everyone I smelled like a granny. I changed the subject.
“I wish I had psychic powers,” I said, even though I didn’t fully believe in psychic powers. “Then I could work at psychic fairs with you and I wouldn’t have to go to school.”
Luna tilted her face towards the moonlight. “You never know, Jemstone. Sometimes psychic powers get awakened later on in life. Some people get them in their thirties or forties.”
I sighed. It was so annoying. What was the point of getting psychic powers when you were too old to even use them?
“I’m sorry, Jemstone,” Luna said, squeezing my hand. “I wish I could make things better for you at school. But, you know, everything you’ll ever need is already inside you.”
Sometimes I forgot how weird Luna could be.
I lay there for a while, looking out into the expanding universe, as Luna told me our skin was absorbing the full moon’s powerful feminine energy, just like it absorbed sunlight. Although how moonlight got through all the layers and blankets we were wearing, I don’t know.