‘Trust you,’ said Zoe. ‘Clot.’
Kerry shrugged. ‘I know, I’m so clumsy. My mum keeps saying that too.’
She wanted to know what was in the big canvas bag Zoe was lugging over her shoulder. It was bulky and kept making little clanking sounds. Zoe kept shifting it about as she carried it.
‘It looks really heavy,’ Kerry kept saying. ‘Go on, what is it?’
‘I’m moving house,’ said Zoe, with a dark frown on her face. I could tell Kerry was getting on her nerves again.
‘No, but really, what is it?’
‘Just some books and stuff I’m giving to Anna.’
‘What books?’ Kerry wasn’t letting this go. As usual, she was too dumb to know when she was being really irritating.
‘Shut up,’ I said. ‘They’re nothing. Just leave it.’
Kerry slowed up and lagged behind us. Zoe strode ahead. I kept glancing behind. ‘Come on, Kerry, get a move on, I’m freezing and I’m soaking wet. I want to get inside.’
‘Why won’t you tell me what’s in the bag?’ Kerry’s voice was whiney. ‘You two are always having secrets from me.’
Zoe stopped dead. Kerry and I were so surprised we stopped walking too. Zoe turned around, slowly. The wind whipped at her hair and rain spat down on her face. She didn’t flinch. Then she dropped the bag down onto the ground, where it landed with a wet slap. She bent down, pulled at the zipper and put her hand inside the bag. And when she stood up she was holding a knife.
11
Blade
I jumped and Kerry put her hand over her mouth. Zoe said nothing. She just held the knife up straight, clutching at the black, twisted handle. It had a vicious-looking double-edged blade. The rain was getting heavier, its huge drops soaking Zoe’s hair and her black coat. For just a second or two, it looked like a scene from a horror movie. In that moment, which passed in a lightening flash, I half expected Zoe to cut Kerry’s throat.
Then we heard the slapping sound of footsteps running through the slushy lane. Zoe shoved the knife back into her bag and snatched it up from the wet ground. She turned away from us and marched out of The Cut, towards school, as a couple clutching their coats and hoods against the weather ran past us in the other direction. Kerry and I followed Zoe, much more slowly because Kerry couldn’t seem to help slipping and slithering around and I had to grab her arm a few times to stop her from landing face-first in the mud.
‘Why does she have a knife?’ Kerry asked in a half-whisper, as we scuttled along.
‘I’ve no idea.’ I said.
‘But she said she was giving that bag to you,’ Kerry argued. ‘You must know –’
‘No, I honestly don’t,’ I said, gritting my teeth. ‘I’ll talk to her, all right? But just don’t go on about it or you’ll get on her nerves.’ And mine, I thought, but didn’t say out loud.
Kerry went quiet. After a minute, I added: ‘And don’t tell anyone else.’
Kerry said nothing.
I elbowed her, quite hard. ‘I mean it. Don’t tell a soul. You’ll get Zoe into a load of trouble. She’s only just about forgiven you for dropping her in it with her mum. I wouldn’t do it again if I were you.’
‘All right, then,’ Kerry said, but she paused far too long. I wasn’t convinced she meant it.
We ended up late and missing registration. There was every chance we would’ve got detention. But Kerry told the teacher that she’d made us late, by falling down and getting wet. The teacher had no problem believing that. She waved us away.
‘Thanks, Kerry,’ I said.
Zoe frowned at me. She didn’t see I was trying to keep Kerry on side, in case she felt the urge to blurt out something that would get us all into deep trouble.
Guess who ended up lugging the bag home after school. Zoe was under instructions to go straight home, she said. She handed me the thing – I couldn’t believe how much it weighed – and told me to put it somewhere my mum wasn’t likely to go. ‘You can look in it, obviously, Anna,’ Zoe said. ‘But no one else, OK?’
‘But what is it for?’ Kerry started pestering again.
Zoe bared her teeth at her. ‘You don’t need to know.’
I managed to get the bag upstairs before Mum caught me. I shoved it into the bottom of my wardrobe, and put a pile of clothes on top. When I was sure Mum was busy making something to eat, I closed my bedroom door and went to the wardrobe. I ran my fingers across the bag and found the zipper. For some reason, I found my fingers were trembling and clumsy. All of me felt cold, though the radiator in my room was on its top setting. I put my hands inside the bag, slowly and cautiously. I didn’t want to slice my fingers with that knife and I still couldn’t understand what Zoe was doing with the thing – or where she’d got it. I put my fingers round something smooth and lifted it out, expecting some kind of ornament. Then I gave a little squeal and dropped it again. It was a skull. Without really meaning to, I took a jump backwards. The skull grinned at me from the floor. I gave a few deep breaths. No. It couldn’t be real. I picked it up again, although it was like little zaps of electricity were going through my fingers and the rest of my body. I reckoned it had to be a replica of some kind, although it looked and felt pretty convincing. Good job Zoe hadn’t got that thing out of the bag in The Cut this morning. Kerry would
