Copyright

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities ie entirely coincidental.

HarperCollins Children’s Books

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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2005

Text © Jean Ure 2005

Illustrations © Karen Donnelly 2005

Cover illustrations by Nicola Slater

The author and illustrator assert the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780007161379

Ebook Edition © JULY 2013 ISBN: 9780007374380

Version: 2017-11-03

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

One

Two

The Secret Writings of Shayanne Sugar

Three

Four

The Secret Writings of Shayanne Sugar

Five

The Secret Writings of Shayanne Sugar

Six

Seven

Eight

The Secret Writings of Shayanne Sugar

Nine

Keep Reading

Also by Jean Ure

About the Author

About the Publisher

“Ruth! Time to get up.”

Time to get up. Get yourself dressed. I’m not telling you again! Every morning, same old thing.

“Did you hear me? Ruth?”

Yes, I did! I heard you.

“I’d like some kind of response, please!”

And then she’ll go, I hope you haven’t gone back to sleep?

“I hope you haven’t gone back to sleep?”

Get up, get dressed. How many more times?

Why doesn’t she just give it a rest?

“Do I have to shout myself hoarse? Get yourself up this instant!” Mum suddenly appeared like a tornado at the bedroom door. “And get your sisters up, as well. For goodness’ sake! It’s gone seven o’clock.”

Boo hoo! So what?

“Do you want to be late for school? Because you will be!”

Don’t care if I am. Sooner be late than get there early.

“All this big talk,” said Mum. “Going to be a doctor. Going to pass exams. You’ll be lucky to get a job in Tesco’s if you don’t shift yourself and make a bit of an effort!”

Mum had no idea. She didn’t know what it was like. She didn’t know how much I hated it. Hated, hated, HATED it!

“Ruth, I’m warning you.” Mum marched across to the window and yanked back the curtains. I could tell she was in a mood. “I can’t take much more of this! I’m running out of patience.”

So why couldn’t she just go away and leave me alone? I burrowed further down the bed, wrapping myself up in the duvet. I was safe in the duvet. In bed, in the bedroom. At home. I’d have liked to stay there for always. Never go out again anywhere, ever. And specially not to school.

“I mean it,” said Mum. “I can’t be doing with this battle every morning. I’ve got your dad to see to, I’ve got your brother to see to…now, come along! Shift yourself! I don’t have all day.” And with one tug she hauled the duvet right off me.

“Mu-u-um!” I squealed in protest, curling myself up into a tight little ball and clinging to the pillow with both hands. “Mum, please!”

“Enough,” said Mum. “Just get yourself up. And don’t forget your sisters!”

They were still asleep. They’d sleep through an earthquake, those two. All snuggled up together, Kez with her thumb in her mouth, Lisa on her back, blowing bubbles. Ah! Bless. Like a pair of little angels. I don’t think. Actually, I suppose, they’re not too bad, as sisters go.

They can sometimes be quite sweet, like when Kez climbs on to your lap for a cuddle, or Lisa does her show-off dancing, very solemn, with her fingers splayed out and her face all scrunched up with the effort she’s putting into it. She’s really cute when she does her dancing!

Other times, though, they can be a total pain. This is because Mum lets them get away with just about everything. Dad too. He’s even worse! Spare the rod and spoil the child is what one of my nans says. I know you’re not allowed to beat your children these days (Nan was beaten with a cane when she was young) but I do think Mum and Dad ought to exercise a little bit more discipline. I try to, but it’s a losing battle. They just cheek me or go running off to Dad.

“Dad! Ruth’s being mean!”

Then I’m the one who gets the blame, cos I’m twelve years old and they’re only little, except I don’t personally think nine is as little as all that. I’m sure I wouldn’t have been rude to my older sister when I was nine. If I’d had an older sister. I certainly wouldn’t have helped myself to her things without asking, which is what Lisa is always doing and which drives me completely nuts. Kezzy is only six, so maybe there is a bit of an excuse for her. Maybe.

Anyway, I wasn’t wasting my breath pleading with them. I just got hold of the pillows and yanked. That got their attention! Kez blinked at me like a baby owl. Lisa started wailing.

“Get up!” I said, and kicked the bed. Unlike Mum, I don’t stand for any nonsense. You have to be firm. “Go on! Get up!”

“Don’t want to get up,” grumbled Lisa. “Haven’t finished sleeping.”

“Can’t help that,” I said. “You have to go to school.” When I was nine, I loved going to school. I couldn’t get there fast enough. “Who’ve you got this term?” I said.

Lisa sniffed and said, “Mrs Henson.”

I felt this great well of envy. Lisa didn’t know how lucky she was! Mrs Henson was just the best teacher I ever had. The best. When I told Mrs Henson I wanted to be a doctor she didn’t laugh or say that I’d better not set my sights too high. She said, “Well, and why not? I’m sure that would be possible, if you work hard enough.” She made you feel like you could do anything you wanted. You could be a doctor or a teacher. You could even be Prime Minister!

“Mrs Henson is just so lovely,” I said.

Lisa said she wasn’t lovely. “She tells me off.”

“In that case, you’re obviously doing something wrong,” I said.

“I’m not doing anything wrong. She just picks on me!”

“Mrs Henson doesn’t pick on people,” I said. I felt quite cross with my stupid little sister. Fancy having a wonderful teacher like Mrs Henson and not appreciating her! If I still had Mrs Henson, Mum wouldn’t have to bawl and bellow at me every morning. I’d be out of bed like a shot! “You just get dressed,” I said. “And stop whining!”

I dragged on my school clothes, which I hated almost as much as I hated school. Black skirt, grey jumper. Ugh! It made me feel miserable before I even got there. I’d always looked forward to having a school uniform as I thought it would be something to be, like, proud of, but nobody could be proud of going to Parkfield High. (Or Krapfilled High, as some of the boys called it. I know it sounds rather rude, but I think it’s more suited than Parkfield since there isn’t any park and there isn’t any field and it’s absolutely crud. Which is why I hated it.)

Lisa was now complaining that she couldn’t find her knickers and Kez had gone and put her top on inside out, so I had to stop and grovel on the floor, all covered in shoes and socks and toys and books and dirty spoons and empty pots.

I found the missing knickers, which Lisa then screamed she couldn’t wear on account of someone having gone and trodden on them and left a muddy footprint; so we had a bit of an argument about that, with me telling her that no one was going to see them, and her saying that they might, and me saying how? – I mean, how? “Boys peek when you go upstairs,” she said, which meant in the end we had to get out a clean pair, by which time Kez had not only got her top on inside out but had put both feet down the same leg of her trousers and couldn’t work out what to do about it. Honestly! My sisters! Was it any wonder I was always late for school? Not that I cared. Nobody ever noticed, anyway.

In the kitchen, Mum was putting on her make-up, filling lunch boxes, getting breakfast, dressing Sammy. Sammy is my little brother. He’s four years old and is even more spoilt than Kez and Lisa. This is because he’s a boy. There is a lot of sexism going on in my family.

Mum said, “Ah, Ruth! There you are. About time! Just keep an eye on the toast for me, love. Oh, and lay the table, will you, there’s a good girl.”

So I kept an eye on the toast and laid the table and finished dressing Sammy and removed the raw carrot from my lunch box as I’m not a rabbit, whatever Mum may think, and put some more peanut butter in my sandwiches when she wasn’t looking, and got out the Sugar Puffs, and got out the milk, and finally took Dad’s breakfast tray in to him, being careful not to spill his mug of tea. Dad always has his breakfast in bed, then Mum helps him get up and settles him comfortably for the day before rushing off to work, dropping Sammy off at Reception and Kez and Lisa at Juniors. I have to make my own way, by bus, but that’s all right; I’m quite good at getting around London. It’s easy when you know how. Also it means that I can d-a-w-d-l-e and not get into school too early. If there is any danger of getting in too early I wander round the back streets until I can be sure that the first bell will have gone.

It’s quite scary in the playground, even in the girls’ part, as there are all these different gangs that have their special areas where you’re not allowed to go. Unless, of course, you happen to belong to them. I do not belong to any of them, so I have to be really careful where I tread. It’s like picking your way through a minefield. Any minute you can stray into someone else’s territory, and then it’s like, “Where d’you think you’re going?”

I don’t know why I never belonged to a gang. Cos nobody ever asked me, I guess. When we were at Juniors we all mixed together. My best friend was Millie and my second best friend was Mariam. I thought that when we went to senior school we’d all go on being friends. But almost the minute we arrived at Parkfield, they got swallowed up into gangs. The gangs were, like, really exclusive – if you’re not one of us, we don’t want to know you. It meant that when we were at school, all the people I’d been juniors with almost didn’t talk to me any more. There was a gang of white girls I could have joined, maybe, if I’d wanted, but there was this girl, Julia Bone, who was their leader, and she said to me one day that I looked really geeky.

“D’you know that? You look like a total nerd. Are you a nerd?”

I suppose I probably am, cos instead of saying something back to her, such as, “You look like a horse” (which she does, with those huge great teeth of hers), I just went bright red and didn’t say anything, so that everyone tittered and started calling me Nerd or Geek. I know if I’d told her she looked like a horse they would’ve respected me a bit, and might even have let me into their gang, but I always think of these things too late. At the time my mind just goes blank.

It was way back at the start of Year 7 when Julia Bone told me I looked like a nerd. All that term they called me names. Another one was Boffin. The Geek. The Nerd. The Boffin. I’d hoped they’d forget about it during the holiday, but we’d just gone back after Christmas and they were still at it. Yesterday I’d made a big mistake, I’d arrived before the bell had gone, and practically the first thing I’d heard as I crept into the playground was, “Watch it, Geek! You looking for trouble?”

I never look for trouble. I know they say you should stand up to bullies, but how can you when there’s loads of them and only one of you? I think it’s best just to keep out of the way.

I reached Mum and Dad’s bedroom safely, without spilling any of Dad’s tea, and pushed the door open with my bottom. Dad was propped up against the pillows, all ready and waiting. He said, “Thanks, Ruthie. That’s my girl! How’s school?” He talks in little bursts, all puffy and wheezy. He has this thing where he’s short of breath. “School OK?”

I said that it was, because Mum is always careful to remind us that Dad mustn’t be upset; and in any case, what would be the point? Dad couldn’t do anything. You had to go where you were sent, and I’d been sent to Parkfield High.

“Lessons OK?” said Dad.

I smiled, brightly, and nodded.

“Learning how to be a doctor?”

I nodded again and smiled even more brightly. It’s a kind of joke with Mum and Dad, me wanting to become a doctor.

“That’s the ticket,” said Dad. “Keep at it!”

Back in the kitchen, Sammy had poured milk all over himself and Kez was making a fuss because she said her toast was “burnded”. She’ll only eat it if it’s, like, blond. Lisa was snuffling and wiping her nose on her sleeve. She’s always snuffling – she can’t help it. She has what Nan calls “a weak chest”. But she doesn’t have to wipe the snot off on her sleeve – that’s disgusting! At the breakfast table.

“Where’s your hanky?” I said.

“Haven’t got one.”

“Well, get one!”

“Don’t know where they are.”

“What d’you mean, you don’t know where they are? They’re where they always are! Th —”

“Oh, Ruth, just go and get her one!” said Mum. “And scrape Kez’s toast for her while you’re at it.”

I’m frequently surprised that my legs aren’t worn to stumps. I know Mum can’t do everything, but I do occasionally wish that I could have been Child Number Two instead of Child Number One. I don’t think that being Child Number One has very much going for it.

In spite of fetching hankies and scraping toast and collecting Dad’s breakfast tray and getting the tiresome trio into their shoes and coats while Mum saw to Dad, I still managed to reach school before the bell. My stomach did this clenching thing as I turned into Parkfield Road and saw it there, waiting for me, like a great grey prison.

There’s this wire mesh stuff over the windows, to stop them from being broken, and the walls are always covered in graffiti. Every term the graffiti’s removed and every term it comes back again. I think some graffiti’s quite pretty and I don’t know why people object to it. But the stuff on our school walls is mostly just ugly, same as on our block of flats. If Mum’d seen them she would’ve known why I hated school so much, but Mum had enough to cope with, what with Dad, and work, and the tiresome trio, so she hardly ever went to parents’ evenings. Actually, I don’t think many other parents did, either. They would’ve found it too depressing, not to mention a total waste of time. You know those tables that they print, saying which schools have done best and which have done worst? Well, my school was one of the ones that did worst. It always did worst. It was the pits.

I was about to go slinking off down a side street and give the playground time to clear when someone called out, “Hi, Ruth! Wait for me!” and Karina Koh came huffing up the road. I obediently stopped and waited, cos it would’ve been rude not to, and also I wouldn’t have wanted her to feel hurt, but I can’t say that my heart exactly leapt for joy.

Out of the whole year, Karina was the only one who called me Ruth (rather than Geek or Nerd) and the only one that ever wanted to hang out with me, so you might have thought I’d be a little bit grateful to her; maybe just at the beginning I was, when she first, like, came up to me in the playground and sat next to me in class. It’s horrid being on your own and I did think that Karina would be better than no one. I even hoped we might become proper friends, but the truth is, I didn’t really terribly like her. She’d been thrown out of Julia Bone’s gang, which was why she’d latched on to me. She said we could be a gang all by ourselves. “Just the two of us! OK? And we’ll take no notice of the others cos they’re just garbage. They’re all garbage, and we hate them! Don’t we?”

She was always wanting me to hate people. Usually I agreed that I did, just to keep her happy, but it was a lie, cos I didn’t. Not really. I hated school. I think perhaps I hated school so much that I didn’t have any hate left over for actual people. Not even Julia Bone, who Karina hated more than anyone. She told me all sorts of things about Julia Bone.

“She smells. Have you noticed? I always hold my breath when I have to go near her. I don’t think she ever has a bath. I don’t think she even knows what a bath is for. She doesn’t ever wash her hands when she’s been to the toilet. I’ve seen her! She’s rancid. She lives in a bed and breakfast. Did you know that? She has to live there cos her dad ran off. Her mum’s, like, on drugs? She’s a real junkie! And her sister’s a retard. The whole family’s just garbage.”

Karina knew everything about everybody. But only bad things; that was all she ever told me. Like that morning, on the way in to school, when she told me that “Jenice Berry’s mum’s gone into the nut house.” Jenice Berry was best friends with Julia Bone, so naturally Karina hated her almost as much as she hated Julia.

“They took her off last night. Came to collect her. She was raving! I know this cos we live in the same block.”

She sounded really pleased about it. I said that it must be frightening, having your mum taken away, but Karina said that Jenice deserved it.

“They’re all mad, anyway. The whole family.”

Sometimes I thought that Karina wasn’t really a very nice person. Then I’d get scared and think that maybe I wasn’t a very nice person, either, and that was why nobody wanted me in any of their gangs, which would mean that I was even less of a nice person than Karina, since she’d at least started off in a gang. I hadn’t even done that.

Other times I thought maybe Karina had only become not very nice because of everyone rejecting her, in which case I ought to be more understanding and sympathetic. So I tried; I really tried. I wanted us to be friends and she kept saying that we were, but every time I felt a bit of sympathy she went and ruined it. Like now when she said in these gloating tones that “People like Jenice Berry always get what’s coming to them. Her and Julia Bone…they’ll get theirs! It’s only a question of time.”

We walked through to the playground just as first bell was going. Julia caught sight of us and yelled, “Watch it, Geek! We’re out to get you! And you, Slugface!”

I won’t say what Karina shouted back as it was a four-letter word, which I didn’t actually blame her for as it’s quite nasty to refer to a person as a slugface, even if they’re not that pretty (which Karina is not!). And I wasn’t really shocked, which I would’ve been once. Everybody used four-letter words at Parkfield. All the same, I did wish Karina wouldn’t answer back; it only made matters worse. Although maybe that’s just me being a wimp. I suppose it was quite brave of her, really.

As we set off across the playground I caught sight of Millie, who used to be my best friend. I waved at her and she twitched her lips in a sort of smile but she didn’t say hallo or anything. Her gang was one of the toughest. They weren’t as mean as Julia’s lot, but only because they would’ve thought it beneath them. They were, like, really superior. Like anyone that wasn’t black wasn’t worth wasting your breath on. It was hard to remember that this time last year me and Millie had been sharing secrets and going for sleepovers with each other. She wouldn’t even give me the time of day, now. Nor would Mariam, though I think Mariam would’ve liked to, if it hadn’t been against the rules.

All the gangs had rules. The main one was that you didn’t go round with anyone who didn’t belong, which was why nobody went round with me – except Karina. Even the people that just hung out in little groups kept away from us; I dunno why. Karina said it was because I was a boffin. But I didn’t mean to be!

The bell rang again. By now, the playground was almost empty.

“I s’ppose we’d better go in,” I said. I didn’t want to, but when it came to it I wasn’t actually brave enough to do what some of the kids did and bunk off school. I think I still believed that school was a place where you might be able to learn something.

We trailed together across the playground and up the steps, keeping as far away from the rest of our year as we could.

The main corridor was full of bodies, all bumping and banging, and everybody shouting at the top of their voice. One of the teachers appeared at a classroom door and bawled, “Stop that confounded racket!” but nobody took any notice. A couple of boys barged into us from behind and a big yob called Brett Thomas caught my glasses with his elbow as he belted past. I went, “Ow!” I felt the tears spring into my eyes. It’s really painful when someone smashes your glasses into your face. “That hurt!” I said. But I didn’t say it loud enough for Brett to hear.

Karina said, “They’re animals.” But she didn’t say it loud enough for Brett to hear, either. Not even Karina was brave enough to say anything to Brett Thomas. He’d told Mr Kirk, our class teacher, only yesterday, “No one messes with me, man!” and even Mr Kirk had backed down. Brett Thomas did pretty well whatever he wanted.

“He’s on drugs,” said Karina. “And his mother’s a—” She put her mouth close to my ear. “She goes with men.”

I felt like yelling, “SHUT UP!” I didn’t want to hear these things – not even about Brett Thomas. I didn’t even know whether they were true. According to Karina, practically the whole of Year 7 was either on drugs or had mothers who were loopy or locked up or going with men, or fathers who had run away or drank too much or beat them. Some of them (according to Karina) had fathers that were in prison. I wasn’t sure that I always believed her. On the other hand …

Well, on the other hand, maybe she really did know these things. Maybe they were true and the whole of Year 7 was mad and dysfunctional, and that was why they behaved the way they did. It was a truly glum and gloomy thought and it filled me with despair. Sometimes I just couldn’t see how I was ever going to survive another five years of Parkfield High.

But that was before Shay came into my life.

It was that same morning, when Julia yelled “Slugface!” at Karina, and Brett Thomas mashed my glasses into my face, that Shay arrived at Parkfield High.

Mr Kirk was at his desk, bellowing out names and trying to mark the register, which wasn’t easy with all the hubbub going on. Brett Thomas and another boy were bashing each other in the back row, and some of the girls were shrieking encouragement. Mr Kirk would bawl, “Alan Ashworth?” at the top of his voice and someone thinking they were being funny would yell, “Gone to China!” or “Been nicked!” and everyone would start screeching and hammering on their desk lids.

Karina had told me last term that sometimes the teachers at Parkfield High went mad and had to be taken away in straitjackets, and for once I believed her.

Well, almost. I didn’t think, probably, that they went actually mad, but you could definitely see them getting all nervous and twitchy. Some of them got twitchy cos they were scared, like Mrs Saeed who taught us maths. She was so tiny and pretty looking, and Brett Thomas was like this huge great ugly hulk looming over her. I used to feel really sorry for Mrs Saeed.

But Mr Kirk, he twitched cos he was frustrated. What he’d really have liked, I reckon, was to hurl things. Books and chairs and lumps of chalk. Only he knew that he couldn’t – he could only hurl his voice, and nobody took any notice of voices, least of all Brett Thomas. Karina said that Mr Kirk went home and beat his wife instead, but I think she may just have been making that up.

Anyway. The door opened and Mrs Millchip from Reception came in. She had this girl with her and everyone suddenly broke off yelling and hammering and turned to look. Even Brett Thomas stopped bashing, just for a moment. Mrs Millchip walked over to Mr Kirk, but the girl stayed where she was, leaning inside the door, with her hands behind her back, and this kind of, like, bored expression on her face.

If she hadn’t looked so bored and so…supercilious, I think that’s the word, meaning above all the rest of us, like we were rubbish and she was the Queen of England (except the Queen would be more gracious, having been properly brought up). Even as it was, with this scowly kind of sulk, you could tell she was totally drop dead gorgeous.

She looked the way I look in my daydreams. Tall. (I’m short.) Slim. (I’m weedy.) Heavenly black hair, very thick and glossy. (Mine is mouse-coloured and limp.) Creamy brown skin and a face that has cheekbones, like a model, and these huge dark eyes. (My skin is like skimmed milk, plus I wear braces, not to mention glasses.)

Mrs Millchip left the room, but the girl just went on leaning against the wall. Into the silence, Mr Kirk bellowed, “This is Shayanne Sugar, who’s just joined us. I’d like you to make her feel welcome.” Just for once there wasn’t any need for him to bellow, but I expect by now he’d forgotten how to talk normally. I didn’t really believe that he beat his wife when he got home, but he probably did bawl at her. She’d say, “You don’t have to shout, dear, I’m not deaf,” and Mr Kirk would bellow, “I AM NOT SHOUTING!” Well, that’s what I like to imagine.

He told Shay to find herself a seat, while he went on with the register. Immediately everyone lost interest and went back to what they were doing, which was having private conversations and rooting about under their desk lids, eating things, or, in Brett Thomas’s case, bashing. Shay stood there, letting her gaze move slowly about the classroom, like she was summing people up, deciding which would be the best person to sit next to.

There were several spare seats as it was the second week of term and the people who usually bunked off had already started. There was a spare seat next to me, but I knew she wouldn’t choose that one. Why would a person who looked like a model want to sit next to an insignificant weed with braces on her teeth? And glasses.

“Talk about picky,” muttered Karina. (She was sitting next to me on the other side.) “What’s her game?”

“It’s important,” I said, “where you sit.”

There was a seat next to Millie, and another next to Jenice Berry. I’d choose Millie any day, but that’s because she used to be my best friend. The new girl might look at her and think she was just someone who was a bit plump and podgy and go for Jenice, instead. She wouldn’t know that Millie was clever and funny, and that Jenice (in spite of looking like an angel) was as mean as could be.

Karina was still buzzing in my ear. “Why’s she started so late, anyway? Why didn’t she come at the beginning of term?”

I never really found out why Shay started so late. There were lots of things about Shay I never found out. Of course, she might go and sit next to one of the boys, if she wanted to be different. I wouldn’t! But then I spend my life trying not to be different. Unfortunately it seems that I just am. I hate it! All I want is to blend in and be the same as everyone else. I don’t know why I can’t be, but it’s always like there are people going, “Oh, her,” or, “Well, of course, Ruth Spicer.” Like, she would, wouldn’t she? You have to be bold to enjoy being different. Like Shay. Shay was the boldest person I’ve ever known.

Just for a second, her eyes met mine and my heart went bomp! inside my ribcage.

I really thought she was going to come over and sit by me. But she didn’t. Instead, she stalked off to the back row and settled herself in solitary splendour, not next to anybody. The nearest person was Brett Thomas, right at the far end.

The rest of the row was empty, as Mr Kirk had made everyone move further down to the front. (Everyone except Brett Thomas. Nobody moved him anywhere.)

I waited for Mr Kirk to tell Shay to come closer, but he was still busy bawling his way through the register and didn’t seem to notice. Karina sniffed and went, “Huh! Who’s she think she is?” I didn’t bother answering. I was thinking to myself that once Shay got put in the register we would be next to each other…Ruth Spicer, Shayanne Sugar. I wondered if Shay would notice this and think it was neat. Sugar, Spicer: Sugar and Spice! It made us sound like a TV programme!

Our first class that day was English, with Mr Kirk. After he’d banged on his desk with a book and got a bit of peace and quiet, he started handing back last week’s homework, which was an essay on “The Night Sky”. As usual, most people hadn’t actually done it. When Mr Kirk demanded to know why, one of the boys said he couldn’t be bothered, another said it was a waste of time, and Arlon Phillips, the boy who’d been fighting with Brett Thomas, said what was the point? Brett agreed with him. He said that it was a girl’s subject, anyway.

“What’s to write about? The night sky is black. Wiv stars. And sometimes the moon, when it ain’t cloudy. That’s about all there is to say.”

“So why didn’t you say it?” said Mr Kirk.

“Just have,” said Brett.

“Would it have been too much trouble to write it down?”

Brett said yeah, it would. “I don’t do homework, man.”

“Well, I’m happy to tell you,” said Mr Kirk, “that some people do. And that some people have found rather more to say on the subject than you have. For instance, how about this from Ruth Spicer —”

Oh, horrors! He was going to read it out! This is what I mean about being different. I don’t ask for my essays to be read out. I don’t want them read out! Already I could hear the sounds of groaning. That Ruth Spicer! There she goes again. I knew if I turned round I’d see hostile eyes boring into me.

“Ruth has very creditably managed to write two whole pages,” said Mr Kirk.

Oh, no! Please. I felt myself cringing, doing my best to burrow down into the depths of my prickly school sweater.

“I’ll give you just two examples of imaginative imagery…the clouds drifted past, like flocks of fluffy sheep.”

Behind me, Julia made a vomiting sound. Pleeurgh! Jenice Berry immediately did the same thing. I could feel my cheeks burning up, bright red and hot as fire. Please let him stop! Why did he have to do this to me?

“The other example,” shouted Mr Kirk, above the rising din of sniggers and vomits, “ARE YOU LISTENING? The moon hung in the sky, like a big banana.”

It sounded completely stupid, even to me. I’d been so proud of it when I wrote it! I’d thought it was really poetic. Now I just wanted to curl up and die.

“Moon’s not a banana,” yelled Julia.

“Can be.”

Heads all over the room turned, in outrage. Who would ever dare contradict the great Julia Bone?

“Crescent moon,” said Shay. “That’s a banana.”

Julia glared and muttered. Mr Kirk said, “Precisely! Very nice piece of writing, Ruth.” (Cringe, cringe.) “As for the moron who wrote this—” He held out a sheet of paper with just the one line on it. “The night sky is too dark to see.” He scrunched the paper into a ball. “I have only one thing to say to you, and that is, grow up!” And then he handed me back my essay and said, “Excellent!”

When I was at juniors I would’ve prinked and preened all day if Mrs Henson had said excellent. But at Parkfield High it wasn’t clever to be clever. It was just stupid. Now they would call me names even worse then before. I could already hear the two Js, sitting behind me, making bleating sounds under their breath.

“Ba-a-aa, ba-a-aa!”

I did my best to ignore them, but I’m not very good at blotting things out, I always let them get to me, and then I want to run away and cry. Fortunately I do have a little bit of pride. Not very much; just enough to pretend that I don’t care, or haven’t noticed. I’d be too ashamed to let my true feelings show in front of people.

At the end of the lesson Mr Kirk set us some more homework. The subject was: My Family. He said he wanted it in by the day after tomorrow.

“Thursday. OK? I will accept no excuses! Anyone says they forgot and I shall send them for a brain scan. You have been warned!”

I muttered, “Send some people for a brain scan and you wouldn’t find any brain.”

I know it wasn’t very nice of me, since people can’t help not having any brain, any more than I can help having to wear glasses, but I don’t think it’s very nice to make fun of someone who’s just trying to fit in and be ordinary. I didn’t ask Mr Kirk to read out my essay. Unfortunately, Karina caught what I’d muttered. She gave this huge shriek and swung round in her desk.

“D’you hear what she said? Send some people for a brain scan and you wouldn’t find any brain!”

If looks could have killed…well, I’d be dead, and that’s all there is to it.

“Big banana moon!” said Julia.

“Ba-a-aa,” went Jenice.

They carried on all through break.

“Why d’you have to go and tell them?” I said.

Karina tossed her head. She hates anything that she thinks is criticism.

“Not much point saying things if you don’t say them to their faces!”

I expect she was probably right; I just wasn’t brave enough.

“Look,” said Karina, “there’s the new girl.”

Shay was leaning against the wire mesh that fenced us in. As well as wire mesh we had big gates with padlocks and brick walls with bits of broken glass on top. Most schools have security to keep people from getting in, but at Parkfield they had it to keep us from getting out. Well, that’s my theory.

“Look at her! What’s she doing?”

Shay was just watching. I saw her eyes slowly swivelling to and fro, same as they had in the classroom. She caught me looking at her and I very hastily turned the other way and began to study some interesting clouds that were drifting across the sky. They did look like sheep. Flocks of fluffy sheep. I felt my cheeks begin to burn all over again. If Mr Kirk was going to keep singling me out I’d just have to stop doing his stupid homework. Either that or do it so badly-on-purpose that he’d be rude about it and treat me the same as everyone else. One or the other. But I couldn’t go on being humiliated!

The bell rang and we trundled back into school. First lesson after break was maths, which isn’t one of my favourite subjects, though I do work quite hard at it, as far as you can work hard at Parkfield High. I used to think that I’d need it if I was going to be a doctor, cos of having to measure things out and knowing how much medicine to give people; but in fact, after one term at Parkfield I’d pretty well given up on the idea of being a doctor. I could understand a bit better why Mum and Dad had laughed when I’d first told them. Dad had said, “Well, and why not be a brain surgeon while you’re about it?” Mum had said that I could always be a nurse. But I didn’t want to be a nurse! I wanted to be a doctor. Well, I had wanted to be a doctor. Now it seemed more likely I’d end up in Tesco’s, with Mum. But I still struggled and did my maths homework.

At least Mrs Saeed never embarrassed me by making comments in front of the class. Even when I’d once – wonder of wonders! – got an A-, she just quietly wrote “Good work!” at the bottom and left me to gloat over it in private.

Most people crammed as far back as possible for maths classes because Mrs Saeed was too nervous to make them move closer. Me and Karina were the only people in the front row. We didn’t have to sit in the front row; there were empty desks in the row behind. But I liked Mrs Saeed and it seemed really rude if nobody wanted to sit near her. She might wonder why not and start to think that there was something wrong with her. It’s what I would think, if it happened to me.

Shay didn’t arrive until the last minute. This was probably because no one had bothered speaking to her, or told her where to go. Including me. I told myself that it was because she looked so superior and, like, forbidding, but really it was because it had never occurred to me. Even if it had, I still wouldn’t have done it because I’d have thought to myself that I was too lowly and unimportant to go up and start talking.

“Here’s Miss High and Mighty,” hissed Karina. “D’you think she’s looking for her throne?”

She was looking for somewhere to sit. Her eyes flickered about the room, as they had before. And then, to my surprise and confusion, they came to rest on me. Next thing I know, she’s plonking herself down at the desk next to mine. She said, “Maths, yeah?”

I said, “Y-yeah.”

“My favourite subject, I don’t think!”

“Mine neither,” I said.

“Well, there you go,” said Shay. “That’s one thing we got in common.”

I was, like, really flattered when she said that. I couldn’t have imagined having anything in common with someone as bright and bold as Shay.

After maths we had PE, in the gym. PE was one of those lessons that I absolutely dreaded, the reason being I’m just so bad at it. Karina was every bit as bad as I was, which meant we usually spent our time skulking in the corner, trying not to be picked on, while people like the two Js barged madly about, swinging to and fro on the ends of ropes and hanging off the wall bars, shrieking. Today, Miss Southgate, our big beefy PE teacher, made us all jump over the horse thingy. Oh, I hate that! I really hate it!

I always end up bashing myself or going flump across the top and not being able to get over. And then everybody sniggers and Miss Southgate tells me to try again.

“And this time, take a real run at it!”

So I do, but it isn’t any use cos I still can’t get over. Most probably what I do is catch my foot in the edge of the coconut matting and go sprawling on my face.

And then my glasses fall off and I hear them go scrunch underneath me, and Miss Southgate sighs and says, “All right! Next person.” If the next person is Karina, she’ll go flump just like I did. But if it’s the two Js, they’ll go hurtling over with about ten metres to spare and land on their feet the other side.

Until now they’d always been the star performers when it came to PE; them and a girl called Carlie who was in Millie’s gang. They all belonged to the junior gym team and could bend themselves double and walk on their hands and balance without any signs of wobble on the parallel bars. Karina, in her sniffy way, said who’d want to?

“It’s just stupid! Just showing off.”

I didn’t say anything to Karina, cos she’d only have got the hump with me, but I’d have given anything to be able to show off. Sometimes I had these dreams of hanging at the top of a rope, right up near the ceiling, and everybody being madly impressed and going, “Look! Look at Ruth!” Unfortunately I’m scared of heights, so it wasn’t really very likely to happen. All I could do was watch, in a kind of awe. I wouldn’t have minded if I never got an A- again, if I could only have whizzed up a rope or done the splits, like Julia. Cos she was absolutely THE BEST, it has to be said.

Until now. I couldn’t believe it when Shay started up. She’d been doing her leaning thing, against the wall bars, silently observing everyone. And then it was her turn to run at the horse and she just, kind of, loped up to it, sailed over like it wasn’t even there, and did a somersault with a handspring on the other side to finish off.

Everyone gaped, including the two Js. Karina muttered, “Who’s she think she’s impressing?” but it wasn’t like Shay had done it to impress; more like it was just something that came naturally to her. “This is the way you jump over a horse.” I got the feeling she didn’t care one way or the other what anyone thought of her. She was Shay, and that was how she was, and they could take it or leave it. Which is the way that I’d love to be!

Afterwards, as we were leaving the gym, I heard Miss Southgate talking to her.

“Well,” she said, “it looks as if we have a new recruit for the gym team! How about it? Would you like to join us?”

To my utter astonishment, Shay shook her head and said no. I couldn’t believe it! How could she say no, just like that? To a teacher!

I could tell Miss Southgate wasn’t pleased. She said, “Well! That sounded pretty definite,” and her voice was all sharp and prickly. I thought Shay would apologise, but she didn’t: she didn’t say anything. I asked her later – I mean, like, weeks later – why she hadn’t wanted to join, and she just said, “Not worth it.” She was such a mystery!

That evening, after tea, I shut myself away in the kitchen to do my homework. The kitchen was the only place that was warm enough since the central heating had been turned off. Mum said we couldn’t afford to heat the whole flat, so now we just had it on in the front room, but I was allowed to have the oven on low in the kitchen. It wasn’t exactly quiet out there cos I could hear the television blaring in the next room, and the person in the flat that joined ours had music on, really loud, but I didn’t mind that so much as the way Sammy and the girls kept crashing in and out.

“We’re playing!” yelled Lisa.

When I complained to Mum she said that it was nice the girls played with their little brother, and then she sat herself down at the kitchen table to ring one of my nans on her mobile. They started to talk and I really couldn’t concentrate cos of listening to what they were saying. After a bit Mum put her hand over the mouthpiece and whispered, “Get Sammy off to bed for me, will you? There’s a good girl!”

Well. That was easier said than done. It wasn’t a question of “just getting him off to bed”. First you had to catch him. Then when you’d caught him you had to fight to get him out of his clothes and into his pyjamas, and then another fight to get him to clean his teeth, and another fight to actually persuade him into the bedroom. (Actually Mum and Dad’s bedroom, as we only have the two.) I finally got back to the kitchen to find that Mum was now working her way through a mound of ironing.

“If you did that in the other room,” I said, “you could watch television at the same time.”

“Too much hassle,” said Mum. “Go on, you can work, I won’t interfere with you.”

I took out a sheet of paper and wrote MY FAMILY in big letters across the top. What could I write about my family?

“Look at this!” Mum was holding up one of Lisa’s school blouses. “What on earth does she get up to?”

I nibbled the top of my pen, searching for inspiration. (Bang, went Mum, with the iron.) Maybe I could just write one line, like the person that wrote about the night sky.

“My family is so ordinary I cannot think of anything to say about them.”

Then Mr Kirk (bang, thud) would read it out and tell me to grow up and everyone would laugh, only they wouldn’t be laughing because I was a geek or a boffin, they would be laughing because I’d dared to be cheeky. They might even start to respect me a little.

What if I did the spelling all wrong, as well?

“My famly is so ornry I cannot thing of anythink to say abowt them.”

Yess!!!!

“Know what?” said Mum. “This iron’s giving out.”

“They are jest to bawrin for wurds. Wurds canot discribe how bawrin they are.”

I was really getting carried away, now.

“My mum is bawrin my dad is bawrin my sistus is bawrin my b —”

“Well, that’s it,” said Mum. “That’s the iron gone.”

“ —my bruthr is bawrin. This is an egg sample of the bawrin things that happen in my famly. My mum has jest sed to me that the ion has gon but she duz not say were it have gon. Maybe it have gon to the Nawth Powl. Maybe it have gon to Erslasker. I wil aks her. Were has the ion gon, I wil say.”

“What are you talking about?” said Mum.

“The iron,” I said. “Where’s it gone?”

“What d’you mean, where’s it gone? It’s broke! Why don’t you make us a cup of tea and bring it in the other room? You’ve done enough scribbling for one night.”

I made the tea, but I didn’t go into the other room. I stayed in the kitchen, writing my essay. I found that once I’d got going, my pen seemed to carry on all by itself and I just wrote and wrote, making up all these funny spellings. Tellervijun and sentrel heetin and emferseema, which is what my dad has got that makes him run out of breath. (It’s really spelt emphysema. I learnt it, specially.) In the end, I wrote five whole pages! Even longer than my essay about the sheep and the bananas. I felt quite proud of it.

But then, guess what? I got cold feet! I woke up in the middle of the night and I knew I couldn’t really hand in five pages of silly spelling. I just wasn’t brave enough. But it was too late to write anything else, and even if it wasn’t I couldn’t bear the thought of Mr Kirk singling me out again. Specially not if it was about my family. I’d just die of shame! So I tore up my five pages, even though I thought they were funny, and on the bus next morning, on the way to school, I wrote down my original sentence: “My family is too ordinary for me to say anything about them.”

I wondered, as I got off the bus, whether Shay would sit next to me again. I did hope she would! It had made me feel a bit special, when Shay sat next to me. But I really couldn’t think of any reason why she’d want to.

This school is a DUMP The kids are RUBBISH. The teachers are PATHETIC. It is all GARBAGE.

Well it’s OK, I won’t be there for long. Not if I can help it! They’re all a load of drivellers. Some stupid woman wanted me to join the gym team. Purlease! I’m not joining any of their ridiculous little teams, I’m not joining anything at all, NO WAY, full stop, finish. THE END. Sooner I get moved on the better. And I will! They’ll soon get sick of me. BUT NOT HALF AS SICK AS I ALREADY AM OF THEM.

There’s only one girl out of the whole stupid lot that’s not a total thicko. Her name’s Ruth and she looks like she’s made of matchsticks.

Anything but a thicko! Ha ha. All the dorks and drivellers gang up against her, so I might kind of cultivate her and see what happens. Just out of interest. I certainly don’t want her as a friend! Don’t want ANYONE as a friend. I can manage on my own, I can! I don’t need anyone. So I might not bother. I’ll think about it.

Thinks …

I s’ppose it might give me something to do. Take away some of the boredom. WHILE I’M THERE. She hangs out with this girl that’s a real slimeball. A right maggot mouth. But that’s no problem! I can deal with her. She’s just scum, like all the rest of them. Old Matchsticks has at least got a brain; sort of person I could do something with. P’raps I’ll give it a go. See what happens. If she’s not interesting, I can always drop her.

The creep that takes English said to write an essay on My Family. What a stupid subject! My mum’s a vampire. She sucks blood…yeah, and my dad’s the invisible man!

One term. That’s all I give it. After that – who knows? Maybe they’ll just give up on me. Save us all a lot of grief.

Gonna write my essay now, about the vampire. Har har!

On my way into school next morning, I was ambushed by Brett Thomas. He must have seen me coming and laid in wait, cos he sprang out from behind a tree as I walked into the playground. It was quite scary. I jumped and gave this little pathetic bleat. Brett said, “Where ya goin’, Goofball?”

I said, “Going into s-school.”

I mean, where else would I be going?

“Wotcha got in yer bag?”

“N-nothing!” I clutched my bag very tightly with both hands. “I haven’t got anything in it!”

“Wotcha mean, you ain’t got anyfink in it? Wotcha carryin’ it for?”

“It’s just s-school stuff.” I cast round, desperately, but the playground was empty. I’d done my usual trick of arriving late, after the bell. It was just me and Brett Thomas!

“Give it us.” He reached out and grabbed the bag from me. There wasn’t anything I could do; I had to let him have it. Brett Thomas was a real hard nut, he’d bash your head in soon as look at you. Even Karina, who didn’t mind giving a load of bad mouth to Julia Bone, wasn’t bold enough to stand up to Brett Thomas. Nor was Julia, come to that. Nobody was.

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