One In A Billion (16 page)

She gathered up her things, joined the tail end of the crowd, and went to find out exactly what all the fuss was about.

'You fucking gypsy', Pike shouted, and spat on the ground. 'I'm going to tear your fucking face off.'

Dan Pike was so big he looked like he'd been genetically modified. From where she'd joined the watching ring of testosterone fuelled men and slutty girls who'd just discovered they liked that kind of thing, she couldn't see who the insult was directed at, until Pike moved towards his victim. Toby.

'Fuck', Alice said.

Toby already had a reddened cheek, rapidly developing into a swollen eye. His school bag had been upended, and all of his things had been dumped out onto the field and were still being kicked about by Pike's underlings. Alice desperately wanted to help, but if she did, she knew she'd be doing so on her own, and doing something on your own, was the last thing you did at high school.

Toby'd had a rough ride of it since they got here. For Alice, it hadn't exactly been a walk in the park, but at least she knew how to play the system a little bit better that Toby, or at least bothered to try. Toby just sort of did his thing, which she admired him for, but it always landed him in trouble, either with the teachers or with everyone else. She knew for a fact that he'd never tell the teachers he was being bullied for example, because he was far too embarrassed by it.

'Go on fuck him up', someone from the crowd said to Pike. Alice eye-balled him and he scowled back at her. 'What the fuck are you looking at bookworm?'

Alice shook her head. 'Nothing', she said.

Toby didn't have a chance against this monster. He had some fight in him, but every attack he made was worthless. Pike just baited him, and then landed punches so fiercely on each side of his head, Toby just ended up on the ground every two seconds. He wouldn't give up though. Every time he was knocked down, his face reddened even more, or Pike ripped his shirt, Toby just came back at him, a ball of pent up energy and anger.

'Teeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaacher', someone shouted.

Alice turned around to see Mr Hardwick jogging across the field to them. When she turned back to the group, everyone had already begun to disperse.

'That's not it, gypo', Pike warned Toby, and then ran as quickly as he could away from the mess he'd created.

The only people that weren't moving immediately were her and Toby. Toby sat down on the ground, exhausted. His nose was bleeding, so he wiped it with the back of his sleeve.

'What the hell is going on here?' Mr Hardwick said.

Alice was already collecting up the spilt contents of Toby's bag.

'Alice?' Mr Hardwick said. 'What's going on. Have you been fighting again Toby?'

'I've been trying', Toby said.

Mr Hardwick put his hands on his hips. He was a maths teacher with a goatee beard, long hair, and a collection of different coloured tank tops. He had a sweat problem, and wasn't very popular.

'Get to Mr Dixon's office now', Mr Hardwick said.

'Mr Hardwick it wasn't-' Alice begun to say.

'Now', Mr Hardwick cut her off.

Toby got up, snatched his bag from Alice without looking, leaving her to collect up the few remaining papers that had been turned out and trodden into the mud, and walked slowly across the field in the direction of the principals office.

'I'm disappointed in you', Mr Hardwick said to Alice, and left her there at the end of the field to think about what she'd done.

Alice made sure she'd collected everything that had been upended so effectively from Toby's bag, and walked back towards the school.

'What happened to your boyfriend?' Lisa Dart asked her when she got to the geography block.

Lisa Dart was one of the most popular girls in school. She was fiercely intelligent, hugely manipulative and had eyebrows that looked like slugs. Alice had already worked out that being on the right side of Lisa Dart was essential to ensuring her survival through high school. She formed part of the crowd of girls that other girls were desperate to be like and liked by, and that boys were desperate to be with.

'He's not my boyfriend', Alice said.

'That's not the rumour that's going round', Lisa said.

'Yeah well, the rumour's not true', Alice said.

'That why are you carrying his things?' Lisa said.

Alice looked down at the handful of muddy papers she had in her grasp.

'Mr Hardwick told me to collect it for him', Alice said, thinking quickly.

'Do you do everything that Mr Hardwick asks you to?' Clare said. She was like Lisa Dart's right hand girl - the muscle to the brains.

'No', Alice said. 'Of course not.'

'Then throw them away', Lisa said.

'These', Alice said, holding up the papers. 'What if they're important?'

'I knew you were in love with him', Clare said.

'That's not good for your reputation you know', Lisa said, tidying up her nails with an emery board. 'Being friends with the enemy is kind of like being the enemy yourself.'

'I used to like Alice', Clare said.

'Oh me too', Lisa said. 'Shame she was a dick about that gypsy boy.'

'He's not a gypsy', Alice said. 'You know that don't you?'

'Dur, I think he is actually, it's pretty fucking obvious. His trousers don't reach his ankles and he smells like shit. His parents are gypsies which pretty much means he's a gypsy too. It's not rocket science. Why, are you a gypsy too, Alice?'

'No', Alice said.

'Good', Lisa said. 'Now prove it and throw that stuff away.'

Alice looked at the two girls. Clare blew a big bubble of bubble gum, and Lisa widened her eyes to lift up the caterpillars that graced them. Reluctantly, Alice walked to the bin and threw away a large portion of Toby's sketch journal.

The girls giggled. 'Well done, bookworm', Lisa said. 'The sooner you forget about Toby, the quicker people will like you.'

'We're only trying to help', Clare said. 'We wouldn't want to have to beat you up to knock some sense into you.'

Alice watched her mash her fist into her palm menacingly

'Thanks', she said. She'd seen Clare pull one of the year seven girls to the ground by her hair, and kick her in the ribs just because she was Indian. She definitely didn't want to get on the wrong side of her.

Lisa beamed. 'You may pass', she said.

Alice walked past them towards the classroom with her head down.

'Oh Alice', Lisa said. 'If we see you with Toby again, we won't be so helpful next time.'

***

'What do they care?' Toby said, throwing sticks off the side of the tree house into the blue bell woods beyond. His eye had already swollen up, and his cheeks were still red and sore. Half a cigarette stuck out from between his middle finger and ring finger - an affectation he'd picked up from his father - from which he took long drags from time to time, like a seasoned smoker.

'I don't know', Alice said. 'I think they like me, but can't be seen with me if I'm friends with you. They just told me if I was friends with you, I'd get beaten up.'

'That's a bit fucked up isn't it?' Toby said.

'Yeah.'

'So tell them to fuck off', Toby said.

'Why are you fighting all the time?' Alice said, changing the subject slightly to avoid answering his question.

'I'm not fighting all the time', Toby said, defending himself.

'Er, yes you are. Every time there's a fight at school, you're involved.'

'He said something about my dad', Toby said.

'So what?' Alice said, 'ignore him.'

'Is that what your going to do about Lisa and Clare?' Toby said, turning around.

Alice was silent for a moment. 'It's a different thing', Alice said.

'No it's not, it's exactly the same fucking thing', Toby said. 'I thought we were supposed to be friends.'

'We are friends', Alice said.

'It doesn't feel like it', Toby said.

Alice reached into her school bag and pulled out the drawings she had rescued from the dustbin after school had finished. Doing so had meant she'd missed the school bus home and had to call her mum for a lift. Toby had tried to get it to wait, but the driver was being an ass-hole and left without her. Toby had missed her on the journey home, feeling the emptiness of the seat next to him, reflected in the hollowness of his heart. 

'I picked these up for you', Alice said, handing the drawings over to Toby. 'They were all over the school field.'

Toby took them from her, folded them in half and put them to the side.

'Maybe we shouldn't spend so much time together at school', Alice said.

'What the fuck, Alice?' Toby said. 'Don't let them bully you too.'

'I'm scared', Alice confessed. 'I'm not as strong as you are.'

'Yeah well maybe I'm not as strong as you think I am.'

'And maybe you're stronger than that too', Alice said.

'I'll protect you', Toby said.

'Yeah you did a good job of protecting yourself today.'

'Thanks', Toby said sarcastically.

'Look, it would just be at school, that's all. Just for a while until things calm down', Alice said.

'You're giving up on me', Toby said.

'I'm protecting myself', Alice said. 'That's all. I'm not giving up on you.'

She reached out for Toby's hand, but he pulled it away.

'You're a coward', Toby said.

'It's just at school', Alice protested. 'I'll still be your best friend.'

'Yeah, in secret', Toby said, 'where no-one can see you hanging out with the gypsy kid.'

'Don't say that.'

'Yeah, well, it's true isn't it?' Toby said.

His cigarette was finished, stubbed out much harder than necessary into the aged wood of the tree house. Toby was finished too. He climbed down without saying goodbye.

'Where are you going?' Alice said.

'I'm making your life easier', Toby said. 'You don't have to pretend any more.'

'Toby, wait', Alice shouted, but he had already disappeared through the trees.

Next to the stubbed out cigarette were the drawings Alice had rescued from the bin and Toby had left behind. She opened them up, looking at them for the first time. They were illustrations, all of them incredible, but one of them caught her attention more than the others. It was a picture of Toby and Alice in the tree house holding hands, with a thought bubble shared between them and a heart inside it. The drawing was titled, 'My best friend.'

After that day, Alice and Toby began to spend less time together, either by choice or design, both inside school and out of it. Alice began after school music and drama classes, and on the two days of the week that she did take the bus home, she always seemed to sit in a different seat to Toby, barely even sharing a few words when the bus dropped them off in their village. Eventually she couldn't work out who was avoiding who, and the distance that developed between them became the normal and not the unusual. No one was happier about this, of course, than Alice's parents.

When Miro died, Alice found out from Katy, and when she offered her condolences to Toby, writing a poem she'd spent hours constructing in a card she'd made with a photo of the three of them on the front of it, he said nothing.

Alice lost herself more and more in her books, while at school, she sided herself with the popular girls, to avoid their wrath. Alice found that it wasn't difficult to be liked by them if you played their game, and soon enough realised that she had qualities the other girls admired. She was intelligent and attractive, and had got the attention of quite a few of the popular boys at the school, kissing Daniel Stein on one memorable occasion behind the bike sheds, while the rest of the girls giggled and watched on, while they were supposed to be keeping look out.

Toby watched all of this with a sadness deepening in his heart like a bottomless trough. He had no idea how things had developed this way, and losing Alice was the worst thing that had ever happened to him. Worse than all of the hurtful words people said to him on a nearly daily basis.

He understood why she had done what she did, but the fact that she had, and the gap that had now emerged between them, really hurt. The one thing Toby wanted was to be friends with Alice again, but that seemed as distant a hope as reaching out and touching the moon. Alice thought Toby was still angry with her for betraying him and destroying their friendship. She wanted nothing more than to spend the evening at the tree house in the woods, making shapes out of clouds, and laughing like maniacs, like they had done when they were younger. She didn't know it, but she held the key to both of their fortunes. Alice was popular enough now to change public opinion on Toby, and if she wanted to, she could have convinced everyone else to leave him alone. The problem was, she wasn't strong enough yet to take that risk.

***