‘I feel sick,’ said Zoe and suddenly she did look a very odd colour.
‘That’ll be all that booze, you muppet,’ I said. ‘It looked like the sort of stuff people who live on park benches drink. I don’t know why –’
Zoe lurched away from me and held her hand over her mouth.
‘If anyone sees us like this, we’ll be in deep you-know-what,’ I said, more to Kerry than Zoe.
She nodded. ‘Shall I go back and get Jodie?’
I hesitated. ‘If you like.’
A few minutes later, Jodie was helping Zoe back into the lift. ‘I don’t think she should go back to your flat, though,’ I said, trying to think straight. ‘It’s too – you know – it’s quite smoky. And she might end up getting more to drink.’
‘I’ve an idea,’ Jodie said. ‘I’ve got a key to one of the empty flats. My mates moved out a couple of weeks ago. Zoe can crash there until she feels a bit better.’
Jodie could be so nice, sometimes, I thought. Even if she was a bit strange and her boyfriend was a total creep.
We found ourselves on the very top floor of the flats, with me clinging on to Zoe, trying to keep her upright and walking and telling her to hang on for a few more minutes. When Kerry tried to help, Zoe pulled away.
We let ourselves into Flat 1413. It was chilly and smelled damp and mouldy, like Jodie’s place. There were no carpets or anything on the floor, just a sort of a dark brown tile. It’ll be easy to clean if Zoe is sick, I thought.
Zoe leant against the wall, then slumped down onto her backside. ‘Ouch.’ She sniggered. Then she leaned forward and threw up.
Kerry clapped a hand to her mouth. Usually, just the thought of someone being sick makes me retch too, but maybe because it was Zoe, I was able to hold her hair out of her face and keep my other arm around her until it was all out of her system.
‘Kerry, job for you,’ I said. I handed her several tabs of minty chewing gum, warm from my pocket. ‘First. Eat this. Then go home and find a couple of clean tops we can borrow and get them back here as soon as you can. Oh, and some body spray or deodorant or something. And – and – a bottle of water, if you can get it. Try not to get spotted. Go on, don’t just stare at me like that!’
Kerry darted off. To give her her due, she was pretty quick, although it was a good job Zoe was in no fit state to comment on the T-shirts she brought us. For one thing, Kerry was much bigger than either of us and I swear one of them had some sort of teddy bear print on it, but at least the clothes didn’t smell of cigarettes or sick. She’d brought a big bottle of water, some of which I persuaded Zoe to drink. Then I helped her change into Kerry’s clean top before putting one on myself. I looked at the T-shirts we’d been wearing. ‘These are pretty well ruined,’ I said. ‘We might as well chuck them away.’ I rolled them up and shoved them into a corner. I fanned Zoe’s face with my hands.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ she said, batting me away.
‘Feeling any better?’ I asked. She just groaned.
‘Kerry. Well done, girl,’ I said and squeezed her arm. ‘You might have just saved our skins tonight. If we’d gone back home in that state we may not have lived to see the end of the summer holidays.’
Kerry beamed. She tried the tap in the bathroom and it worked. ‘I thought the water would be off,’ she said. ‘Look, it’s working.’
I soaked my other top with cold water and I cleaned up Zoe’s face and hair.
‘Let’s risk going back now,’ I said. ‘And try to get up the stairs and cleaned up properly before we have to get into conversations with our mums.’
Somehow, we made it. Kerry was a bit more savvy than I’d thought, after all. I flung myself in the shower, got changed and shoved my clothes in the washing machine, which of course made Mum suspicious when she came downstairs.
‘All right, what’s going on? Usually I have to prise your clothes out of your room when they’re about to walk down the stairs themselves.’
‘That doesn’t make sense. If they were about to walk down themselves, why would you have to –’
‘Don’t get smart. What did you not want me to see?’
I looked at the floor. ‘I got pasta sauce down my T-shirt. Sorry.’
My mum turned on her domestic-goddess act and started telling me that I was supposed to steep it in cold water first and that the stain would probably never come out now. I just acted dumb and kept saying sorry. I kept thinking I could still smell cigarettes and cider, but I must have just imagined it, because if there was even a trace of them Mum would have picked it up like a tracker dog.
I didn’t sleep well again, of course. Being exhausted seemed to count for nothing on these long nights. There was a faint smell lingering in the room from the afternoon’s ritual. I supposed it had to be the incense, gone a bit stale. But it reminded me of sulphur. My eyelids felt like someone had pushed stones onto them and I let them close.
Something scratched at my face and I leaped up with a shriek. I scrabbled at the wall for the light switch. The light came on for a split second before the bulb blew with a loud snap, leaving me blinking in the black dark again. Panting, with a thumping heart, I fumbled on my bedside table for my phone and in my panic I
