Sugar and Spice (17 page)

When we went back to school after half term, I told Shay thank you for my chain. Shay said, “You’ve got to wear it all the time, it’ll bring you good luck.”

“I can’t wear it to school,” I said, shocked. The very thought! Wearing my precious chain to Krapfilled High!

“I’d wear my earrings,” said Shay, “except they’d probably make me take them off.”

“You got them?” I said. “You got your earrings?”

“Thought I might as well. Seemed silly not to. But I don’t reckon they’d let me go round with parrots in my
ears…don’t s’ppose they’d mind a chain, though.”

“But someone might steal it!”

“Not with me around.”

“No, it’s too beautiful,” I said. “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever had and I shall cherish it always. But Mum—” I added this bit reluctantly. “Mum says you mustn’t go spending your money on me.”

Shay gave one of her cackles of laughter. “Tell your mum she doesn’t have to worry!”

“She really means it. I don’t think she’d let me take anything else. She nearly made me give my chain back.”

“That’d be daft. What’d she wanna do that for?”

I shook my head. I sort of understood how Mum felt, but I didn’t want to say anything that might sound ungracious.

“It’s what being friends is all about,” said Shay. “I don’t see why I can’t give you stuff if I want.”

“Cos I can’t give you stuff,” I said. “I haven’t got anything!”

Shay said what did that matter? “It’s not important!”

“It is to me,” I said. “I’d like to give you something.”

“Yeah?” She considered me a moment, through narrowed eyes, like she was trying to decide whether I was serious. “Maybe, in that case …”

“What?”

“We’ll see what we can do.”

She wouldn’t say any more, so I was left not knowing what she meant. I kept trying to think of anything at all I might have that Shay would like, but I couldn’t. All my stuff was old, and chipped, and tatty. Most of it had come from jumble sales. The only really valuable object I possessed was my silver chain.
Silvery
chain. I knew it wasn’t real silver, but it was still my most treasured possession.

I now went round with Shay all the time at school. It was just something that seemed to have happened. Karina had drifted away, and hardly ever spoke to me. Millie never had spoken much, and since half term she wasn’t speaking to me at all. She’d been quite huffy when I rang her. I knew that I was the one who was in the wrong, which was why I was willing to say sorry, but I wasn’t the one who’d broken our friendship by going and joining a gang, so I really didn’t think she had any right to take offence. Not when I’d
apologised.
And to tell me I was disloyal, going out with Shay instead of with her, that was just, like, totally unfair. I wouldn’t ever have hung out with Shay if Millie and me had still been friends.

“I’ve got to hang out with
someone,”
I said. “If it weren’t for Shay, I’d be on my own!”

“She’s got you right where she wants you,” said Millie. “She’s only gotta call and you go running!”

We didn’t actually have a bust-up, cos I just hate,
hate, HATE quarrelling with people, but the telephone call became very frosty, so that I could almost hear the ice crackling as we talked. And now she wasn’t just not speaking to me, she wasn’t even looking at me any more. Mum seemed to think it was all my fault. She said, “All this talk about gangs! We had gangs at my school. It didn’t stop us being friends.”

Mum didn’t understand, and it was no use trying to explain. She had no idea what it was like, at Krapfilled High. She said, “You’re so impressionable! You’re far too easy to manipulate. That Shay has just mesmerised you.”

Everyone seemed to have it in for Shay and I didn’t know why. Karina sidled up to me one day, looking all sly and secretive and practically on the point of bursting with self-importance. She obviously had something she was dying to tell me, but I still remembered the early days, when she’d dripped poison in my ears, like about Mr Kirk beating his wife and Brett Thomas being on drugs, so I turned and walked away from her, hoping she’d get the message. She didn’t, of course, or if she did, she ignored it. She really was one of those people it’s impossible to snub.

“Hey!” She poked at me, from behind. I turned, rather irritably.

“What?”

“D’you want to hear something?”

I said, “Not particularly.”

“I think you ought to,” Karina said.

“Why?”

“Cos you ought to. It’s something you ought to know. It’s about your
friend
…Shayanne.”

I should have told her to just shut up, or go away, but I’m not very good at being rude to people. Shay used to say that I was too polite. “It won’t get you anywhere.” It is true, I think, that there are times when you have to be a bit blunt. I did try! I said, “I don’t listen to gossip,” and marched off across the playground. But with Karina you would most likely have to bash her over the head with a brick before she took any notice.

“It’s not gossip!” She came scuttling after me, like a big spider, all eager to spit venom, or whatever spiders do. “It’s the honest truth! Did you know—” She lowered her voice to a squeak. “
Your friend
was chucked out of both the schools she used to go to?”

Sniffily, pretending like mad, I said, “That’s supposed to be news?”

Karina’s face fell. “She told you?”

“Like you said, she’s
my friend.
”

“I bet she didn’t tell you why she was chucked out!”

I hesitated.

“She didn’t, did she? D’you want me to?”

I tried to say no, but I wasn’t quick enough. Karina just went rushing on.

“She
did
things. I can’t tell you what things, but they were
bad
things.
Really
bad things. Now there aren’t any more posh schools that will have her, which is why she’s ended up here.”

Karina looked at me, triumphantly. I said, “How do you know about it?”

“Cos I do. I know things.”

It was true, Karina did know things. She made it her business to pry into other people’s affairs and “know things” about them. She’ll probably grow up to be a professional blackmailer.

“I just thought I ought to warn you,” she said, smugly. “I wouldn’t want you getting into trouble, or anything. Cos that’s what she does…she gets people
into trouble.
You
think she’s all lovely and sticking up for you, but what she’s really doing is —”

“Stop it!” I said and I stamped my foot. I was so angry! “I don’t want to hear. Shay is my
friend.”

I ran off as fast as I could. Karina’s voice came shrieking after me: “You’ll be sorry! You’re making a big mistake!”

I tried to put out of my mind the things that Karina had told me. And the things that the girl in the shopping mall had said.
And
the uncomfortable feelings I’d had, once or twice. Shay was my friend and I owed her everything. I was doing my homework in the library, I was getting good marks – nearly all As! – and no one was bullying me or getting on my case. I wasn’t going to listen to malicious gossip. Cos it
was
gossip, no matter what Karina chose to call it. It was gossip, and it was mean.

Sometimes, if Shay wasn’t around, or even if she was, me and Varya would smile at each other and nod, just to be friendly. We still didn’t actually talk, but I kept thinking of things that I might say to her, like “How did you get on with your maths homework last night?” or “Ugh! Yuck! Double PE this afternoon.” Unfortunately, at the last minute, I’d either get stupidly tongue-tied or a teacher would appear and bellow at everyone to “Stop that confounded racket!” But I was determined that sooner or later I
would
try and start up a conversation.

It was like since meeting Shay I was getting something I’d never had before – confidence.

Like Julia and Jenice had a go at me one morning; they took advantage of Shay not being there.

“Look what the Geek is wearing!”

“That is just
so
cool!”

And then they both went off into these loud guffaws, like something out of a comic strip. If it had happened at the beginning of term I’d have been
mortified.
Well, I still was mortified to tell the truth, cos I knew I looked really stupid. My school shoes had got big holes in them and my trainers were falling to pieces, and Mum had said I’d better wear my wellies “just for today, as it’s raining”.

She’d promised to get me some new shoes for tomorrow, but tomorrow was too late. I wished I could have stayed at home! I couldn’t, because Mum wouldn’t let me, and suddenly I just felt so
angry,
I turned and shouted. I shouted, “SHUT UP, you
pair of blithering morons! You haven’t got a brain between you!”

Julia said, “Ooh, blithering morons!” and Jenice gave a little titter, but after that, to my huge surprise, they left me in peace. I think they were just so taken aback that I’d dared to say anything. I was, too! But it did feel good.

One Saturday, a couple of weeks later, Shay suggested we go and have a look at the Elysian Fields, which was this huge out-of-town shopping centre that had just opened. It sounded like a really fun place, but I couldn’t think how we’d get there. Shay said no problem, she’d get her dad to take us. “The Invisible Man”, as she called him.