LIVE LIKE YOUR HEAD’S ON FIRE
A novel by Sally-Anne Lomas
The extract below is taken from Chapter 4. The narrator is fourteen year old
Pen Fairweather. Pen had never thought about being a dancer until one day she
surprised herself and her classmates by going crazy in the regular school dance
class. Since then Pen has been working with her teacher Mrs Hadley to create a solo
for the dance show. Pen’s mother is agoraphobic and unable to leave the house on
her own and her father is working away more and more often. As tensions at home
and at school increase, Pen pours her emotions into dancing.
EXTRACT FROM ‘LIVE LIKE YOUR HEAD’S ON FIRE’
I was dressed in the tracksuit and t-shirt I’d worn for rehearsals and I wished I
could do the dance in them. Wearing a leotard and tights made me feel as if it was
my body and not the dance that was on show. My hands trembled as I took off my
tracksuit bottoms and pulled on the black footless tights. I wriggled into the leotard
underneath my jumper. The room was bright with electric strip lights and the wall of
windows projected an identical classroom onto the school lawn. I climbed up on a
chair and stepped barefoot onto the desk. I pulled my jumper over my head and
stared at myself in the dark glass. Something terrible had happened to my body. My
skinny legs and bony elbows should have made hard sharp lines but dressed like
this I curved. I looked like Mrs Hadley, for God’s sake. Things stuck out, breasts
jutted from my chest, my thighs had ballooned into ovals, and my stomach, hips and
bottom were circles. This tight black sheath had stolen my body and replaced it with
someone else’s. I wanted more than ever to get under Daisy Morris’s desk and hide.
I couldn’t go through with the dance, not looking like this.
I was getting down from the desktop when Vivienne came back.
‘Live Like Your Head’s On Fire’ Sally-Anne Lomas 2017
‘Mum and Dad are at the front in the middle. I couldn’t see your parents but
the hall’s completely packed. I think every seat is taken.’ Then she noticed the
leotard, ‘Wow Pen.’
Trust Vivienne Cooper to make me feel a hundred times worse. I hurried to
pull my jumper on and Vivienne managed to stop herself from saying what she was
going to and instead said, ‘you’ve changed,’ as if she was trying not to comment on
the fact that I’d grown another head.
I sat down on the chair.
‘I’m going to be sick.’
Vivienne went all Florence Nightingale, fluttering around me.
‘Ok, put your head between your knees, it’s just nerves. I get them before a
show. Take deep breaths.’ She put a hand on my shoulder.
‘Don’t touch me,’ I shook her off. ‘Just leave me alone ok. I don’t need you
fussing around me.’
Vivienne had her sad puppy face on. ‘Alright, I was just being kind. Please
yourself.’ The music for the first performance had started. ‘If you don’t want me here
I’m going to watch the dancing.’
She went out leaving the door to bang again. I walked to the window and
pressed my hot cheeks against the cold glass. I could run now, just go, disappear.
The square of garden in front of the school entrance was dimly lit by the
outside light and looked like an empty stage. I imagined the cool damp grass under
my feet and the fresh air on my skin. My black leotard would be camouflaged by the
night sky. The dance was raging around my body like a trapped animal. I wanted to
dance but out there on the lawn not on a stage.
‘Live Like Your Head’s On Fire’ Sally-Anne Lomas 2017
As I was staring out of the window I saw Mum, Dad and Thomas making their
way along the drive. I couldn’t believe it, Mum had actually managed to get out of the
house and was walking up the steps into school. She was clutching Dad’s arm and
Thomas held her other hand but she was here. There was no way I could chicken
out now. No matter how scared I was I had to dance for them.
Somehow I got myself to the wings of the stage five minutes before I was due
to start. A group of year eights were finishing their comical routine. They were
dressed up like robots in outfits made out of cardboard and silver foil. One moment
the audience were clapping and then it was my turn.
I walked out into the centre of the dark stage and knelt in my starting position.
My heart was crashing in my ears. I couldn’t remember anything, not a single move.
With my eyes closed I began to hear the sounds of people in the hall, voices
murmuring, chairs scuffing and squeaking across the floor. I prayed to be beamed up
to another planet. Inside I was trembling as if a trillion tiny feelers had been set to
vibrate. My nostrils flared as I drank in the dark earthiness of the wooden
floorboards. I looked down at my hands spread out underneath me and was
surprised at how steady they were.
The music started and a spot light caught me in a bright circle. The music was
my life raft and with every part of my body I listened. My brain had jammed stuck but
my muscles began to move by themselves. Like a dog trained to respond, at the first
trill of notes I swayed my head and then in the silent pause that followed I began to
arch my back. Rolling forward on the next musical phrase I came up slowly to stand
facing the audience. With the spotlight beam directed straight into my face I couldn’t
see anything just total blackness. Out there hundreds of eyes were fixed on me but I
couldn’t see them.
‘Live Like Your Head’s On Fire’ Sally-Anne Lomas 2017
My mind turned inwards and settled. In the centre of my belly was the ball of
fire. This was my dance; and I would dance it just for me. I let out a long slow
breath and as the fierce music kicked in I erupted. Lava flowed through my veins
from the soles of my feet to the roof of my scalp. I’d never felt so much energy.
Every move that Mrs Hadley and I had invented was waiting to be expressed.
I kept to the pattern and punched out the story. The stabbing motif that we’d woven
through the dance marked the discords in the music; arms, knees, feet, elbows, even
chin, every part of me played a version of the theme. I was fighting for my life. I was
trapped. I was dying. I was the chosen one, the sacrifice. Anger poured out of me
into the dance. I was doing the moves as I’d never done them before, higher,
sharper, deeper, right out of the centre of me.
When the frenzied section of the music ended and the orchestra played the
final strong, slow phrases I came to the front of the stage, and stood again in the
single spotlight reaching up and out. I felt mighty and humble at the same time, as if
I’d cracked open and the sun had risen inside me, a glowing ball of scarlet, gold and
palest pink. My body tingled with life and my brain had rocketed into the sky.
The lights went off and the applause was immediate and louder than even the
loudest parts of the music. There was stamping and whistling. Someone I think it
could have been Mr Cooper shouted ‘Bravo’. I ran to the side of the stage. Mrs
Hadley was there and she grabbed hold of me. ‘Curtain call,’ she said and pushed
me back onto the stage.
That was the absolute worst moment. All the stage lights were on full,
giggling year sevens and eights were watching from the wings, I could see everyone
in the audience looking at me and I had to walk to the front in my leotard and bow.
‘Live Like Your Head’s On Fire’ Sally-Anne Lomas 2017
‘Live Like Your Head’s On Fire’ Sally-Anne Lomas 2017