The Secrets Club (6 page)

On Monday morning Lissa strolls into
class, digs her hand into her bag and pulls out a pile of pale pink envelopes.

‘One for you, one for you, one for
you …' she says, doling them out to Ali, Tash and me.

‘What is it?'

‘Open it and see.'

Tash tears open the envelope and pulls
out a pretty pink card with a cupcake on it. ‘PARTY!' she squeals in
delight. Lots of heads turn our way including the Barbies'.

‘Is it your birthday, Liss?'
asks Chantelle sweetly.

‘Certainly is,' says Lissa.
‘I'll be twelve. I'm ancient compared to most of you
lot.'

‘You're ancient compared to
me. I'm not
twelve till next
July,' I agree and examine the card. ‘Trust you to have a cake on the
front.'

‘Mine's next month,'
says Georgia. ‘I'm having a party too. You're invited,
Lissa.'

Lissa ignores her and waves an invite in
front of Tori's nose. ‘Wanna come?'

‘Yes please!'

‘When is it?' asks Zadie,
but Lissa doesn't appear to hear her.

‘Here's yours,
Ella.'

‘Thanks!'

‘And yours, Nisha.'

‘Thanks, Lissa!'

‘And one for you two.' She
drops an invite on the table in front of the two clones, Chloe and Emma (known as
Chlemma because they're always together).

‘Thank you!' they
chorus.

‘When did you say your birthday
was?' repeats Georgia.

‘A week Saturday.'

My heart misses a beat. ‘A week
Saturday?'

‘Yep. But the party's this
Friday evening. It fits in better for my mum.'

Phew!
‘Cool,' I
say. ‘Can't wait.'

‘Dress code optional,' she adds. ‘Or in your case, trouser
code.'

‘Ha ha!' I pull my funny
face at her, the one where I cross my eyes and stick my tongue out of the side of my
mouth and she pulls it back at me.

‘By the way,' she says to
Ali. ‘It's OK to bring Austen along.'

‘Really?' says Ali, looking
surprised but pleased. ‘OK, I'll ask him.'

‘And bring Ajay too if you want,
Tash,' she says, like it's an afterthought.

I roll my eyes.

‘What?' she says.

‘You are soooo obvious.' I
can't believe she's still carrying a torch for Ajay.

‘He's Tash's
boyfriend, not mine!' she says, laughing.

‘He's not my
boyfriend!' says Tash automatically.

‘That's all right then,
he's up for grabs!' retorts Lissa. Then, as she sees the look of alarm
on Tash's face, she adds kindly, ‘I'm only teasing. We all know
he's crazy about you. Tell him to bring a good-looking mate for me instead.
Here, give him an invite.
There's plenty more where these came from.'

Georgia sidles up to her. ‘So, um,
Lissa? What time did you say the party started?' Behind her, Chantelle and
Zadie smile at us ingratiatingly.

Lissa turns to face them. ‘I
didn't.' She makes a deliberate show of tucking the remaining envelopes
away in her bag. ‘Sorry, girls, I've run out of invites.'

Georgia looks furious, while Zadie and
Chantelle immediately start squawking things like ‘Cheek!' and ‘I
never wanted to go anyway!' and ‘Who wants to go to her house?
She's a snob!' They sound like a pair of demented chickens and I
can't help laughing out loud. It's pretty mean of Lissa but they deserve
it. The Barbies are trouble-makers, all three of them, and full of gossip. Like the
rumour they spread about Tash's mum. They get away with it because
everyone's afraid of getting on the wrong side of them.

Except for Lissa. She's not afraid
of them. Good old Lissa.

‘What are you laughing at?'
Georgia snaps at me suddenly.

‘Nothing!' I say and she
flounces off. Typical!
Lissa's
rattled her cage but it's me she's having a go at.

So? I'm not scared of Georgia and
her cronies either. It was me that called them the Barbies in the first place
because they're empty-headed dolls that all look the same. They can't do
anything to me.

The Barbies are the least of my
worries.

I am going to be super-fit!

Either that or I'm training myself
into an early grave! It's not just football training on Saturdays, it's
hockey practice at school. Every day!

Mrs Waters has had me out on that mucky
field practising skills all this week, both lunchtimes and after school. Can't
wait for the all-weather pitch! It couldn't have been worse weather and the
ground is really soggy, but she won't let up. She's determined to see if
I'm up to the standard for Junior Development training.

Tash says I'm Mrs Water's
protégée
. It's a French word (another one – move over, Madame
Dupré!), meaning I'm her special discovery who she wants to make as good as
her or even better. Tash's vocabulary is amazing. I hope I do get to be as
good as my teacher at hockey one day.
It's a great game, though not as good as football of course.

Lissa and Tash and Ali have turned out
with me too. Tash can't make every after-school practice because sometimes she
has to pick up her little brother Keneil from nursery but she comes when she can and
she makes all the lunchtime sessions. Ali comes to everything, even though
she's not even in the Year Seven team, and so does Lissa. I think
Lissa's still hoping that Mrs Waters will put her in for training too.

Georgia doesn't come at all, even
though she is in the team.

‘She's a good player but if
it's not about her she doesn't want to know,' remarks Lissa as we
shower and change at the end of after-school practice on Thursday. Actually,
that's what I used to think Lissa was like but she isn't when you get to
know her, she's just competitive.

‘You can't be like that if
you're a member of a team, you've got to pull your weight,' I say,
rubbing my hair dry.

‘I reckon she's still
sulking because Lissa didn't invite her to her party,' says Tash.
‘Oohh, I can't wait for tomorrow!'

Tomorrow night, Ali, Tash and I are going straight to Lissa's after school
and getting ready there. I can't wait to see Lissa's house; Ali's
the only one of us who's been there and she says it's awesome.

‘I still don't know what to
wear,' says Tash and we all groan. She changes her mind every day. ‘No,
really,' she protests, ‘I can't choose between my little white
lace dress which I wear absolutely everywhere –'

‘I've never even seen you in
a little white lace dress,' I say, but she ignores me.

‘– or my skinniest jeans with a
vest top and fur waistcoat combo –'

‘Fur!' shrieks Ali.
‘You can't wear fur!'

‘It's not real
fur!'

‘That's not the point. So
long as you wear it, whether it's fake or not, you're signalling to
people that it's OK to kill animals for their pelts –'

‘For their what?' interrupts
Lissa.

‘Their pelts. Their coats. The
only creature that should wear a leopard-skin coat is a leopard.'

‘It's not leopard
skin.'

‘What is it then?'

‘I don't know, it's just fur.'

‘See? You don't even care
enough to know what animal has been killed to make your waistcoat.'

‘Aargh! No animal
has
been killed, it's fake!'

The two best friends glare at each
other: quiet, gentle Ali, whose alter ego is fierce environmental campaigner, and
Tash, who, beneath her superficial, fun-loving exterior is actually kind and
thoughtful.

‘OK,' concedes Tash,
‘I'll wear my little white lace dress
again
,' and Ali
flings her arms round her.

‘I LOVE that little white lace
dress.'

Lissa rolls her eyes.
‘That's decided then. Now, what are you wearing, Dani?'

But she doesn't wait for a reply
because she's joking. Everyone knows I'm not into fashion.

I'll just be tomboy Dani in my
jeans and T-shirt.

Friday lunchtime, before we go to
Lissa's, we do another hockey practice. With the bad weather we've had
all week, the ground is like a bog. By the time our PE teacher has finished with us
we're soaked through and filthy dirty. I can't tell you how many times
we slip and fall on our backsides in the mud but she won't let up till the
bell goes for afternoon school. Sadist!

There's no time to shower so when
we change we get mud all over our uniforms. All afternoon we have to sit in lessons
listening to the Barbies making witty comments (not!) like: ‘Pooh!'
‘It stinks in here!' ‘It's like a pig-sty,' ‘Who
let the dogs out?' and the slightly more droll ‘Good body hygiene is
soooo important, don't you think?' from Georgia who always smells like
the perfume counter at Boots.

So I say, ‘Didn't you know, Georgia? Mud is good for the complexion;
you should try it,' which is a bit mean because she just happens to have a
rather prominent zit on her nose. It raises a laugh and makes up for us having to
sit there all afternoon, mucky, damp and cold.

‘Never mind,' says Lissa
when we finally get out of school. ‘You can all have a nice bath or shower
when you get to my house,' and we cheer up.

From outside Lissa's house looks
tall and posh. Like her. It's one of those Georgian houses that has a little
front garden with pots of miniature ornamental trees and spiked railings. The
windows are divided into small panes and the front door is black and solid with a
shiny brass knocker and you know that absolutely no one would ever be allowed
through it except by invitation only.

The door swings open and Mrs Hamilton is
standing there. She must've been waiting for us.

‘Come in! Come in!' she
says, and even though she's smiling it's more like an order than an
invitation. We shuffle in obediently, taking our shoes off in the hallway like Lissa
does.

Inside it's A-MAZ-ING! Ali had said it was like a house in a magazine, the
ones you get in the doctor's surgery, and it really is. It's all carpets
and soft lights and expensive furniture. There are floor-to-ceiling bookcases and a
piano and soft sofas and a huge table in the dining room with matching chairs, and
flowers everywhere. Everything is immaculate.

Lissa's mum offers us drinks and
there's a choice of fresh juices or a variety of teas, most I've never
heard of, or filter coffee with cream and sugar, or hot chocolate with cream and
marshmallows. We all plump for the hot chocolate.

‘Are you sure?' she says,
looking at Lissa. ‘Wouldn't you prefer some juice, darling?'

‘No!' says Lissa. ‘I
said chocolate, didn't I?' which is a bit rude I think. Her mum serves
it in a kitchen that's like one you see advertised on TV. I wish my mum could
see it. We all sit at a big unit in the centre which Mrs Hamilton calls ‘the
island', on high stools with little backs to them, and sip our hot chocolate
out of tall glasses, fishing the marshmallows out with long spoons. And you know
what? It's made of real chocolate, not powder, no wonder it tastes so
delicious! And there's a big
plate of crunchy oat biscuits with chocolate chunks to go with them, and
they're delicious too.

I wish Mrs Hamilton was my mum. (Only
joking, Mum!)

But when Lissa helps herself to a second
biscuit, Mrs Hamilton says, ‘That's enough, Melissa,' and whisks
the plate away from her. My mum would never do that to me in front of my friends.
Lissa goes bright pink but she doesn't say anything. Mrs Hamilton offers the
plate to the rest of us but now no one wants to look greedy so we refuse politely
and she takes it away, even though we're all dying for another one and there
are loads left. It's dead awkward.

Actually, I'm glad Mrs Hamilton
isn't my mum. I prefer my own.

‘Would you like to clean up a bit
and get ready for the party?' she asks, looking at my muddy nails. I hide them
quickly in my lap. ‘There's plenty of hot water.'

‘Yes please. You go first,'
I say to Ali, feeling a bit shy.

‘No, you go first,' says
Ali, obviously feeling a bit shy too.

‘
I'll
go first!' says Tash who's never felt shy
in her life.

‘We can all go first,' says
Lissa. ‘No one needs to wait.'

When Lissa said we could all have a bath
or a shower at her house I didn't realize she meant all at the same time!
She's got not one, not two, not three, but FOUR bathrooms! There are only four
people in her family: Lissa, her brother and her mum and dad. That's one
each!

‘Imagine having a bathroom to
yourself,' squeals Tash as she dives into Lissa's en suite. ‘You
are soooooo lucky!'

‘Bags me this one,' says Ali
and disappears into what I think is the family bathroom.

‘Whose is this?' I ask,
peering into a bedroom. It's massive.

‘My mum and dad's,'
says Lissa and I shut the door quickly. ‘I'll use that one. You can have
my brother's if you want.'

Lissa's brother is captain of his
rugby team at school and that's all I know about him.

‘He's not going to walk in
on me, is he?'

‘No, of course not. He's
gone to his mate's to avoid you lot and he's says he's not coming
home till you've gone. Take your time.'

Mrs Hamilton appears carrying a big pile of neatly folded towels and hands me a
couple. ‘Here are some fresh towels for you, Danielle dear. I do hope Rupert
has left everything tidy for you.'

Rupert! I'd forgotten
Lissa's brother's name was Rupert. The only Rupert I've ever known
apart from him is one that wears a red jumper, yellow check trousers and a matching
scarf, and sits on Keneil's bed. Now I have a vision stuck in my head of
Lissa's brother looking like Rupert Bear.

I sort of assume his room is going to be
immaculate like the rest of the house but it's not, it's normal-boy
messy. The curtains are still drawn but in the gloom I can make out an unmade bed, a
computer with a dirty cereal bowl and mug next to it, and lots of discarded T-shirts
and jeans and (avert my eyes!) boxer shorts on the floor. There's also a
lingering warm sour boy smell.

Rupert may be posh but he's no
different from any other boy. No yellow trousers or scarves or red jumpers.
(Tee-hee!)

I skip quickly into the en suite which
has towels on the floor and tubes of toothpaste and
zit cream and other stuff left open. It feels weird being in some
random boy's private space. It's not as if he was expecting anyone so
it's all left out on display. There's probably really personal stuff
here like … Don't go there, Dani. Take a deep breath.

I lock the door, slip off my clothes,
play about with the shower control until it's the right temperature and step
into the enclosure. Wow! It's a power shower and it's so strong! I stand
underneath with steam rising round me, loving the sensation of hot water blasting my
skin and no one rapping on the door telling me to get a move on. I'm never
going to meet him (not tonight anyway), so I help myself to Rupert's shower
gel, Rupert's body scrub and Rupert's shampoo and conditioner, and then,
when I'm scalded and scrubbed to within an inch of my life, I turn off the
shower, step out and wrap myself in the biggest, softest towel I have ever seen in
my life.

I wind a smaller one round my hair in a
turban, cover myself from face to toe in Rupert's moisturizer, pick up my
uniform off the floor and stuff it into my bag. Then I pick my way daintily through
the bedroom, taking particular
care to
avoid the discarded boxers. I open the bedroom door and peek out. No one about.

Carrying my bag full of clothes and
wearing nothing but a towel and bright pink skin, I go in search of the
others.