Lia's Guide to Winning the Lottery (9 page)

‘He almost kissed Lia,' said Natasha.

I shushed her. Mum could burst into the room at any time. There was no way I wanted her knowing about my private life.

‘He looked after her. She fainted when she found out about the lottery.'

‘You
fainted
?' said Shaz in a horrified voice. I knew she thought I'd been a total wimp. Shaz would never faint, even if the school fell down.

‘I was just a bit dizzy,' I said, ‘it was hot in that café. Anyway, Raf was really nice and caring and walked me home.'

‘Oh, there you go,' said Shaz, eyes brightening. ‘You see. I told you. Men get a sniff of that money and they'll be flocking around you. I wouldn't trust him, Lia. It's not you he likes, it's the thought of your millions.'

‘He's not like that,' I said, indignantly, but then Natasha spotted the time and shrieked with alarm and we had to run all the way down the hill to school. We still only just arrived as the gates were closing, racing through panting and giggling as they clanged shut behind us.

There'd been scandals and celebrities at our school before – Loren Anderson got pregnant in year nine, for example, and Jayson Fernandes was suspended for letting off a firework in the playground. Lily Marshall-Fisher got through the first auditions for
Britain's Got Talent
(she sings folk songs and her grandad plays the accordion) and Tommy Christie had a trial for the Arsenal youth team.

But no one had ever got anything like as much attention as me.

All day long, a tight crowd of people followed me. Everywhere I went people smiled at me, shrieked, said, ‘Hello Lia!' very loudly, got out their mobiles and snapped my picture. I felt like HRH the Queen. Or even Cheryl Cole.

I'd held my own mini press conference in the classroom at break, in which I was infinitely more frank than I had been the day before. No, I was not going to bugger off to some private school. Yes, of
course I was going to leave school as soon as I was legally able to. Yes, there was actually more than eight million pounds in my bank account. Yes, I had spent some already. At Harvey Nicks, actually.

People were asking Jack, ‘Did you really buy her the ticket? Do you mind? Is she going to share the money with you?' I held my breath. He shrugged his big beefy shoulders, ‘Nah. I'm a really generous friend. And Lia's going to buy me a motorbike.'

And then back to me. And there was no
way
that Jack was going to be the focus of attention. ‘Yes, let's go shopping after school. Yes, anyone can come. The more the merrier! Spread the word! Yes, woo hoo, yay, we'll go to Top Shop. Yes, everyone's welcome.
Squee! Squee!
Yes.'

‘Lia, can you sit down, please?' said Miss Turner, who taught us RE. ‘You may have got lucky once this week, but that doesn't mean your luck is going to last.'

Kelly Anderson stuck her hand up. ‘Miss! Do you think Lia's jackpot win is a gift from God? Or destiny? Or just random?'

‘I have no idea,' said Miss Turner, ‘which makes me a what, Kelly?'

Kelly looked baffled. ‘A Buddhist, Miss?'

‘An agnostic, Kelly. Let's all try and settle down now.'

At lunch we dodged the crowd, and found a quiet spot by the tennis courts. Just me and Shaz and Jack. It was a relief to be away from all those eyes and voices.

I lay on the grass and looked up at the sky and imagined my money as a huge stack of twenty pound notes, reaching up to the clouds. A mountain of shoes and bags and clothes and make-up. A pile of books and DVDs, laptops and iPods and . . . and . . . stuff. As much stuff as I wanted. Stuff for everyone I knew. New stuff every week. It was dazzling. It was incredible. I'd have to buy a huge house to put all the stuff I was going to buy in. I'd have to have a walk-in wardrobe . . . a personal dresser. . .

I could have anything I wanted. I could style my life any way I wanted it. I'd be like someone in a glossy magazine, showing all the special things in their life. Unique pictures and clothes and furniture. Objects that reminded them of holidays and adventures and people. You have to have money to have stuff like that. And if you don't, then somehow you're not as real.

It was warm in the sunshine, and I was sleepy and my mind was drifting. I could hear the murmur of voices. Shaz and Jack. I was always proud that they
got on with each other, given how Shaz was kind of serious and sensible and wore a headscarf and all that, and Jack took nothing seriously at all. I was the missing link and I obviously did the job well, because without me I didn't think they'd have ever spoken to each other.

‘You know,' Shaz was saying, ‘he could be. . .'

‘Leave it to me,' said Jack. ‘I'll see him.'

I opened my eyes. ‘What are you talking about?' I asked.

‘Oh nothing,' said Jack lazily.

‘Lia,' said Shaz, ‘are you all right? You look a bit out of it.'

So I sat up and shook my curls to make sure there was no grass stuck in them, and said, ‘Who, me? I'm fine. Fine. Never been better.'

Science was the last lesson of the day. I sprayed on some Impulse. I smeared Vaseline on my lips. I applied Mum's lash-lengthening mascara. I undid two buttons of my silky cream top (The Hospice Shop, three pounds). Thank goodness we didn't have a school uniform. I was ready. Bring on the lab partner!

I glanced over towards Raf as I slid into the seat next to his. I batted my lashes. But he looked away.
His nose wrinkled. My stomach clenched. No one had looked away from me all day. His hands were bunched into fists, knuckles white against the dark wood of the lab tops. He was definitely ignoring me. OMG. What had
happened
?

Mr Pugh was the first teacher of the day to congratulate me on my win.

‘Marvellous! Wonderful! Fantastic!' he said. ‘I hope your Maths teacher is going to work out the probability for you. . . Well, Lia, the sky's the limit. How are you going to make a mark with your money?'

‘Ummm . . . I don't know,' was my feeble response.

Mr Pugh thumped his desk. ‘Scientific research!' he roared. ‘The call of the new! The possibilities! With that money, Lia, you could make a real difference! You could find cures to terrible diseases! You could find energy sources that would slow global warming!'

Oh God. ‘Yes, but Mr Pugh, I'm not very good at Science,' I pointed out, even though he'd said so himself quite recently.

‘Never mind, never mind, it doesn't matter,' he beamed – certainly not the impression he'd given at the last parent-teacher consultation evening. ‘You can
fund research, Lia. Do you know how difficult it is for scientists to get financial backing for their research? You must look into it. . . I'll give you some websites to look at after the lesson.'

The whole class was shaking with laughter. But Raf sat still as a statue in his seat. I stole a glimpse out of the corner of my eye. He had his head turned away, as though the sight of me revolted him.

What the hell was the matter with him? He'd almost kissed me . . . he'd possibly been stalking me – how
did
he know my address? He liked me, I was sure of it. What had happened between then and now? What had I done wrong?

Nothing. I'd done nothing wrong. Huh. If he was going to come over all Edward Cullen, then he could get stuffed. Stupid vampire stalker. Shaz was right. He
was
after my money . . . and now he'd realised he wasn't going to get any.

I couldn't quite work out how he'd come to that conclusion, but it didn't matter because he was correct. Obviously. Paranormal guys make really bad boyfriends, anyway, because they're so hung up on their own problems. Plus they might want to drink your blood.

I made sure all my stuff was ready in my bag so
I could leap out of my seat the minute the class was over. I stood up as soon as the bell rang, pushing my seat back and texting Shaz to tell her to meet me at the entrance. Shaz and Jack were in the top set, doing Triple Science, so I'd been able to carry on my unsuccessful pursuit of Raf away from the beady eyes of my critical friends.

I didn't even look at Raf until I'd made it to the classroom door. Then I allowed myself a little glimpse – a casual glance, taking in the whole room. He was still sitting at our desk, staring into space, making no attempt to put his books into his bag.

And then he brushed his hair away from his face and I saw it. A massive blue-purple bruise, circling Raf's puffy left eye.

Chapter 9

Keep an eye on the price tags.

There was nearly a riot going on at the school gates. A massive crowd was waiting for me, and there was a lot of shrieking – ‘Lia! Lia!' – and shoving. Shazia was failing to organise the mob. The noise level increased one hundred per cent when I turned up.

Mr Bright, the school's site manager, told me to go back and wait in reception.

‘I'm going to disperse the crowd,' he said. ‘It may take quite a while. Next time you're issuing invitations, Lottery Girl, do it off school premises.'

So I was sitting in the school foyer, all by myself for the first time in days, enjoying the quiet stillness of the moment, when Raf came walking past.

He saw me. I know he did. But he looked away. How
dare
he?

‘Oi!' I said. ‘Raf!'

He ignored me completely and strode off down the corridor. I ran after him, and grabbed his arm.

‘Hey!' I said. ‘I was talking to you.'

He shook off my hand. He was deadly pale, and his eyes were wild.

‘I can't talk to you,' he gasped, and slammed into the nearest door. The disabled toilet. Bugger. I stood as close to the door as I could, and I was sure I could hear something – a kind of moaning noise. . .

‘Lia!' It was Shaz. ‘Come on! Mr Bright's got rid of everyone and now it's just your sister and Daisy and Roo and a few others.'

‘I'll just be a minute,' I said. Was he OK? Was he ill? Was there a full moon?

‘What is it?' asked Shaz.

I gestured to the loo door and whispered, ‘It's Raf . . . he's in there. . .'

‘Oh, for heaven's sake, Lia,' snapped Shaz, not bothering to whisper at all. ‘Get a grip.'

I followed her to the gates, where ‘a few others' turned out to be about thirty girls from our year. Natasha was standing with three girls from her class – Sophie, Molly and Keira. I'd not seen them with her before, and just looking at their clothes and shiny-straight hair and accessories, I'd have said
they were out of her league, friend-wise. But they all seemed to be laughing and chatting together like real true BFFs.

I raised my voice. ‘OK, I'm going to the shopping centre and I'll buy one thing for everyone. But if you're not actually my friend' – I caught the eye of Georgia Gerrard – ‘then you have to carry either my bag or the bag of one of my friends. Until we've finished buying everything that we want.'

‘Who's actually on your friend list?' shouted Alicia, Georgia's sidekick.

‘Well, not you, Aliss-ee-ya.'

‘It's Al
ee
sham,'

‘I
know
, Aliss-ee-ya. You'll be carrying my sister's bag. Shaz, Daisy, Jasmine, Roo, Mimi . . . you can all get your bags carried too,' I said, eyes raking the crowd, desperate not to miss out anyone crucial.

‘So, for one measly designer tee we have to act as personal slaves to losers like Shaz and Roo?' said Georgia. Bitch. I'd have said she was a racist bitch if she wasn't actually black. Although, I wouldn't have actually said it at all, because she would have beaten me up.

I opened my eyes wide. ‘I don't see you offering to buy me anything, George. Fair's fair. . . And I won't
get you one at all if you diss my friends. Piss off.'

But she was already on her way. ‘Forget it, rich girl,' she flung over her shoulder. A chorus of
oooohs
followed her – but quite a few girls did as well.

In the end, there were twenty-one of us waiting for the bus – me, my twelve designated True Friends and eight bag-carriers. Three buses came and went, too full to squeeze us on. Girls were muttering. Girls were texting.