Dad wasn’t quite as cool, though. He would come to see me at the weekends and he got a bit moody when I would rather be with Zoe. In some ways, I wondered if it would be easier if he didn’t come at all. It was all so weird. He rang the doorbell like a visitor and stood on the step rather than coming inside. If he did pop in for any reason, he’d just have to make a tiny little comment and Mum would go up like a nuclear mushroom cloud. They’d start screaming at each other, while I stood there as if I was invisible. I sometimes thought it wasn’t worth the hassle.
Plus, I was pretty angry with him myself, because he was living with some new woman called Ellie who I refused to go and meet. Even if I wanted to — and I definitely didn’t — I reckoned it would hurt Mum if I hung out with this Ellie, like she was just some normal person instead of the witch who broke up our family. I would find myself starting a row with Dad about nothing and I didn’t quite know why I’d done it. So all in all, it was best when I went out with Zoe instead of my dad.
I haven’t said much properly about Kerry, and it’s time I did. I’m going to say what no one says about Kerry any more. She was a total pain in the butt. There are good reasons why no one says this about her now, but it was true. Even when I made my mind up to be nicer to her, she didn’t make it easy. Most of the time, she was the last person Zoe and I wanted to see.
The whole Kerry thing was all my fault, really, right from the start. Zoe and me got pretty close, after a while. That was just as well, because being goth meant that most of the other girls treated us like something they trod on. Maxine and her gang of hanger-ons were the worst. We were their new target for snipey comments and insults. But Zoe gave off attitude like some kind of force field. When we were together, no one really messed with us.
It all started on this one day when Zoe was off school. The teacher said she had a stomach bug, but I’d noticed Zoe would take the odd mystery day off and she would never tell me much about it, even if I asked. If there were fresh bruises, she wouldn’t be persuaded to say anything about them.
So I was on my own. We were being sent out on what they called a cross-country run, although there was no countryside for miles. And we had to go in pairs. I didn’t want to be caught on my own out of school by any of the other girls and get beaten up or pushed into a skip – that did happen from time to time. And I knew that Kerry was the only other one in the class who would have no partner. She didn’t have anyone to hang about with at all. She spent her break times pestering the teachers and helping them tidy classrooms and all that little-kid stuff. I’d thought at first she had some kind of learning problems, but that didn’t seem to be true, because she got great marks in things like maths and science. She just wasn’t someone you wanted to be seen with. I’d mentioned it before, because I felt a bit sorry for her, but Zoe said she was most definitely not our problem.
So – stupid, stupid me! – I wandered up to Kerry and asked if she’d partner me for the cross-country lesson. She looked like I’d just given her a hundred quid or something.
She couldn’t have been more different to Zoe. Or me, for that matter. Kerry was a head taller than either of us and a bit plump, with a haircut that looked like her mum did it with a pair of blunt scissors. And she had a loud voice and an even louder laugh that made me want to cringe. I tried to jog beside her and keep a bit of a distance, at the same time. Neither of us were sporty types, so soon everyone else went past us. One or two girls made some comments about nerds and loonies and all the usual rubbish. One of them pelted some chewed-up gum at us. But I had some kind of a ‘Look after Kerry’ head on that day, so I swore right back at them and gave them the finger.
We went towards the little row of shops near the school and Kerry offered to go to the bakers and get us something to eat.
‘You’ve got money?’ I asked. We weren’t supposed to take money out with us, because we weren’t supposed to spend our PE lessons in the shops.
Kerry gave me a big grin and pulled out a purse she was wearing on a cord round her neck.
I laughed. ‘I haven’t worn one of those since primary school.’
Kerry pushed the purse back down her gym shirt. ‘I have to,’ she said. ‘Where ever else I put my money, someone finds it and takes it.’
‘Just keep it in your bag,’ I suggested.
Kerry shrugged. ‘People take things out of my bag, all the time.’
‘Right.’ I couldn’t think of anything else to say, because I knew what she meant. Some of those girls would grab your bag, pull things out of it right in front of you and then deny it to your face. I’d seen Maxine empty Kerry’s books out all over the floor and stamp on them, just because she felt like it. No one ever stopped her.
I could smell the bready, meaty scents from the baker’s now and my stomach growled. As we walked
