COPYRIGHT

HarperCollinsChildren’sBooks

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsChildren’sBooks 2004

Copyright © Sherry Ashworth 2004

Sherry Ashworth asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of the work

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks

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Source ISBN: 9780007123353

Ebook Edition © OCTOBER 2016 ISBN: 9780008208127

Version: 2016-10-20

Thanks to Andy, Dave, Dominic, Jenny, Michael and

all at Relaunch. And Robyn and Rachel, of course.

For Chris and Libby.

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Keep Reading

About the Author

Other Books By

About the Publisher

Everything keeps going round and round in my head, so it’ll be a relief to tell you everything, just as it happened. Not because I want to claim I’m innocent – the opposite, in fact. I think I’m as much to blame as anyone – maybe even more than anyone.

But I trust you. You can decide.

So here’s the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

* * *

It all probably began before the day Craig Ritchie walked into our classroom, but I don’t want to bore you with all the facts about me, and what was wrong in my life. Because that falls into the category of feeling sorry for yourself, and I hate girls who do that. The drama queens. They come into school all red-eyed and you have to ask them once, twice, three times what’s wrong, and they won’t tell – they enjoy all that attention. Then finally they do and you pass the Kleenex and wait to hear all about how this boy never phoned or some similar crap.

So all you need to know is that my name is Anna Hanson and I was sixteen when it started. Just like most people, I was happy some of the time, pissed off some of the time, but bored most of the time.

I was bored that morning in English. Well, it would have been English if the English teacher was there, but she was absent. On some course. She’d set work. Making notes on the first few scenes of Macbeth. Like, who the characters are and the plot and that, who was Thane of what. As if anyone was going to bother. The teacher who was sitting with us brought in piles of marking, and as long as we were quiet, he didn’t give a toss what we did. So when I felt my phone vibrate in my blazer pocket, I took it out and read the text under the desk. It was from Karen, who was sitting at the back of the class – there was going to be this big night out on Saturday at the Ritz, I was invited. I replied by saying cheers, I’d think about it.

I didn’t want to seem too pleased, too much of a loser. I wasn’t one of the girls in the class who was always up for it, but I wasn’t a swot either. I was just me, to tell you the truth. I didn’t fit into any category. Which was why I wasn’t normally included on clubbing nights. So I began to think about whether I wanted to go or not and it was at that point the door opened and one of the deputies came in with this new boy. Everybody stopped what they were doing to have a look. I felt sorry for this lad, being stared at like that. The deputy went on about Craig Ritchie joining this English set and there was a fuss about the regular teacher not being there. The teacher sitting with us was making an empty-handed gesture, as if to say, what do you expect me to do, so the deputy grabbed a book off one of the shelves and gave it to the lad.

I watched all of that. The two teachers arguing and stressing each other out, and the boy standing there, head down, shoulders hunched. He was tall and looked more than sixteen. His head was shaved, which surprised me because at our school (St Thomas’s – Roman Catholic – very hot on morality and standards and that) boys aren’t allowed to have their heads shaved. This boy wasn’t in proper uniform either. We wear this awful shade of maroon, but he had a plain black jacket on, over a white shirt. His black trousers were a shade too short for him. He was wearing trainers too, which were also forbidden. In our school they reckon wearing trainers prevents the flow of knowledge to your brain. Only joking. But we do have to wear plain black shoes.

I liked this boy’s face. He didn’t have eye contact with anyone, but looked alternately at the floor (wooden, varnished over the scratches), the walls (laminated posters of key words – simile, metaphor, personification) and the ceiling (polystyrene tiles, a fluorescent light that went on and off intermittently). But his eyes weren’t vacant – it was like there was an untapped power behind them. He made me think of a caged lion, or a cornered animal that you had to be wary of, in case he turned on you. I saw him turn his gaze on the class for just a microsecond, and in that microsecond I looked away, scared he might have noticed I was staring at him.

The teacher in charge pointed to the desk at the front by the door and the boy sat there, and then I could only see his back. I couldn’t tell, but I don’t think he was reading. I think he was just sitting there, turned in on himself, thinking about whatever people think about when they’re being private.

It was a bit unusual, I thought, joining a Year Eleven class midyear, and I tried to work out where he could have come from. Had his family moved to Calder?

His arrival had caused a bit of a stir and people had begun to chat. The teacher looked up from his marking and glared at everyone. I glared back at him and enjoyed the flash of uneasiness when he noticed. Immediately I lowered my gaze and made as if I was reading Macbeth.

I reckon it’s tough being new to a school. School is bad enough anyway – you’ve got to navigate your way through all the different groups. Paula and Janette are the girls in our year who are in charge, socially, that is. Paula’s very streetwise and mouthy; Janette is just a boy magnet. The rest of the girls follow them. Rachel and Elizabeth and some others are swots. Then there’s Saira and the other Asians. As for the lads, there’s the geeks with computers and GameCubes; the soccer-crazy ones, the skaties and the ones that tough it out at the bottom of the heap, the ones the teachers have it in for.

I was trying to work out where this new boy, Craig Ritchie, might fit in. I would have said in the last group, except most of the boys who just mess around in lessons are idiots, but this lad had a look on his face – he was no idiot. There was more to him. I wondered whether any of the other lads in the class would speak to him at the end of the lesson, but realised they wouldn’t. Not yet, anyway.

So when the bell went for break – the teacher with us had been anticipating it and had had his books piled tidily on the desk for the last four minutes – I went over to the Craig Ritchie boy, and said, “Hi.”

“Hi,” he mumbled.

“You new here?”

“Yeah.”

Not the most scintillating conversation, but he was shy and I didn’t want to come over like the Spanish Inquisition.

“Where are you from?” I ventured.

“Fairfield.”

I knew Fairfield. It was quite a few miles away, a scabby, run-down council estate. No one from our school lived there.

“Why are you here?” I asked.

“Reckon they were forced to have me.” There was a hint of a smile on his lips as his eyes met mine. I told him where the drinks machines were, and said I’d show him the way. We walked over to the dining hall, and I filled in the silence by telling him about St Tom’s. That, as a school, it was better than most, but it was still a school. And who to watch out for, and what you could get away with. I hoped he’d reciprocate by telling me stuff about him, but he didn’t for a while. We sat drinking cans of Coke in the dining hall while people gave us funny looks. They were thinking: Who’s he? Why is Anna Hanson making up to him? Is she that desperate? People are so nosy.

But to be honest, I was nosy about this boy.

“They call you Craig?” I asked.

“No. Ritchie.”

He looked awkward in his clothes. The sleeves of his jacket were too short and kept riding up over his threadbare cuffs.

“Are you going to get a uniform?” I suggested.

“No. I won’t be here that long.”

“Because?”

“School isn’t my thing.”

“Me neither.”

He shot me a quizzical look. I knew what he was thinking. I looked every bit the nice, typical, high-achieving schoolgirl. On the surface, you might even take me for a swot. My uniform is regulation. I don’t even hitch my skirt up because that is so sad – everybody does it. I don’t wear make-up and have my hair tied back. I do have my nose pierced but I can’t wear the stud in school.

“So why are you here?” I asked him.

Ritchie shrugged, then explained. “I stopped going to my old school last year – that was where I used to live. Then we moved. I was pissed off with school, I didn’t want to start all over again, but Wendy reckons education’s important. She got St Thomas’s to agree to have me if I turned up every day and did all the work. So I could take my GCSEs.”

“Wendy?” I was puzzled.

“Wendy. My mum.”

“You call your mum by her first name?”

Ritchie shrugged again.

“But even then,” I said, babbling, “it’s really hard to get into St Tom’s. There’s a waiting list, cos this is a good school.”

“Whatever,” Ritchie said. “But you haven’t met Wendy. She always gets her own way. When she has her mind set on something …”

His voice trailed away. I sensed he didn’t want to talk about his mum and I wasn’t going to pry. I hated people who did that. So I changed the subject. “Do you know anyone here?”

He shook his head. I reckoned he wouldn’t last long. I could see his eyes darting round the dining hall, casing the joint. Like a cat who’s out of his territory, trying to get his bearings as quickly as possible. When the bell went for the end of break he said he had to go to the library and do a maths test. I explained where the library was. He loped up the stairs, two at a time, and I watched him go.

“Are you going out tonight?” my mum asked.

“Yeah, later on,” I muttered, my eyes on the TV screen. Until I spoke those words, I hadn’t totally made up my mind to accept Karen’s invitation. Now I’d committed myself I felt mildly interested in my own decision. I wondered why I’d decided to go.

I suppose one factor was that I just didn’t want to stay in on Saturday night. Even though Mum was a bit more cheerful today, the idea of just being glued to the sofa all night and staying up till two or three in the morning all by myself wasn’t the most appealing of prospects. Whatever happened in town would be better than that.

But also, I just wanted to give clubbing another shot. I wanted to see if I could enjoy myself more than last time. And to tell you truth, I was grateful to Karen for inviting me. It was friendly of her. A lot of the time I felt as if I didn’t have any real friends. I get along with people without ever getting close to them. All the girls I know have one other person that they like more than me, a best friend or a boyfriend. Maybe it’s my fault and I don’t try hard enough, or maybe there’s something about me that people don’t like – I don’t know and, most of the time, I don’t care.

Mum was curled up on the sofa, reading some magazine. The sofa is under the wooden staircase that leads up to our two bedrooms. I live alone with my mother in a small terraced house in Calder. You walk in off the street to a tiny porch and then into our living room. It’s quite modern with IKEA furniture. You can walk through to the kitchen, and behind that is a small garden. Upstairs there’s just our two bedrooms and the bathroom. There’s a loft as well, and Mum reckons that one day we could convert it into an extra bedroom and maybe we could have Neil back.

Neil is my brother. He lives with my dad in Exeter. He chose to do that himself when they split up six years ago. He’s a year older than me and I get to see him every few months or so. Bit by bit we’ve stopped being close. My dad remarried and has got two small kids with his new wife. But none of this is a big deal. These are just the facts of my life and I’m luckier than a lot of people. My mum finds it hard to cope sometimes because she gets low – she’s off work for stress – but she has her good days too. Today was one of them.

“Let me read you your horoscope, Anna!” she said.

I rolled my eyes. My mum is really into all that stuff big time. As if some freak can work out from the position of the planets exactly what is going to happen to me and the one twelfth of the world’s population who happen to be Libra. And they’re written so vaguely that you can always fit what is going on in your life to what the horoscope says.

“Here we go,” my mum said. “Today is the first day of the rest of your life. Your voyage of discovery starts here. You’re itching for a fight but make sure you don’t take on someone bigger and stronger than you. Use your gift for criticism to detect a man who isn’t all he seems. And above all, be yourself.”

“Yeah, right,” I said.

“Don’t be so sceptical. I’m always amazed how uncanny some of these forecasts are. I’ve been tempted to get my horoscope read properly, taking into account my hour and date of birth. You were born at seven thirty-five p.m. on a Thursday, in case you ever need to know.”

My mother’s voice was just a little petulant and self-pitying. I know she wants me to be more like her. I can feel her tugging at me a lot of the time to be her best mate, to have girlie heart-to-hearts, to open up and all that rubbish. I would if I thought it would do her any good. Mum already opens up to a lot of people. She belongs to a therapy group and sees the therapist on a regular basis. She does hypnotherapy too, and aromatherapy – basically, if it’s got therapy at the end of the word, she’ll try it. My mum says that my character is more like Dad’s than hers and I can come across a bit shut-off. Which is crap. I’m just waiting for the right person to open up to.

“Where are you going tonight?” she asked.

“The Ritz.”

“Who with?”

“Karen, Paula, Janette and some others.”

“That’s nice.”

I forestalled the rest of the questions by giving her a set of answers. “I’ll be leaving about nine and I’m getting the bus. We’ll share a taxi back around one. I know where my keys are.”

“You know not to flag down an unlicensed minicab.”

“Yes, Mum.”

“And not to have too much to drink.”

“Do I drink?” I asked her.

“Well, no, but there’s always a first time.”

My mum worries too much and seems to think that I’d go off the rails at the first opportunity. The trouble is, she reads too much, too many magazines and newspapers. She believes all these horror stories about teenagers – you know the ones I mean. Teenagers binge-drink alcopops, rot their brain cells with weed while having underage sex and committing copycat crimes from rap lyrics. Sounds like fun. I might try it some time.

But in the meantime, I thought, I’d better go and get ready for Anna Hanson’s big night out.

A mirror is never enough, is it? You’ve got to have at least one other person tell you look OK, or better than OK, if possible. So I went downstairs to my mum and didn’t say anything, but stood there, hoping she’d comment.

“You look pretty,” she said. “Your hair is nice.”

I was wearing it loose. My hair is fair, that nothingy shade somewhere between blonde and brown.

“Why don’t you try something with a little more colour, Anna?” Mum suggested.

I was dressed all in black. On Karen’s orders. I’d rung her and she said that’s how everyone usually dressed. We had to look eighteen and get in past the bouncers. Best not to draw attention to yourself. So I put on a black shirt (three-quarter sleeve), black trousers (plain, New Look) and black trainers. My make-up was lip gloss and a lick of mascara.

“What about that floral-print blouse I bought you from Marks?” Mum suggested.

As if.

I went over to Mum and pecked her goodbye on the cheek and went out. The bus stop wasn’t far and I knew a bus was due. Dressed in black as I was, I felt reassuringly anonymous and was glad that no one at the bus stop gave me a second glance, not even the two lads waiting there. I could see the bus approaching, blazing light. I got my purse out of my bag to find my fare.

I like buses at night. You feel like you’re enclosed in a separate world, in a little community away from the darkness. I also like the feeling of not being in one place or another, but on the move. Maybe I would have a good time after all, tonight. Anything could happen.

A woman got on with two small kids. I love little kids, the way they stare at you. They came and took the seat in front of me and the little boy knelt on the seat and just looked at me. He was gorgeous, chocolate coloured with large, dark eyes. It’s crazy, sometimes I wish I was black so one day I could have a kid like that. I grinned at him and he watched me, a bit suspicious at first. I stuck my tongue out. That made him smile. Then his mum called him and he swivelled round again, and I was on my own.

We arrived at the bus station and everyone queued to get out. I could see Karen and Paula and everyone in a gaggle over by the closed newsstand. I walked over to join them.

“Hi, Anna. We’re just waiting for Janette.”

Paula and everyone were all transformed. They looked nothing like they did at school. They wore their hair up with huge butterfly clips; their faces sparkled with glitter; Karen had done up her eyes so that they dripped sex. Their perfumes competed with each other, eddies of musky scents moving around them, but overcome by the acrid cigarette smoke – nearly all them were puffing away at cigs. God, I felt dull in comparison.

And just then Janette arrived, stepping out of her mum’s Ka.

“You look gorgeous!” everyone cried.

Which was true. She did. She just wore a simple black skirt which consisted of a silky lining with see-through flouncy material over it. Janette’s top was one of those tight-laced bodices, thrusting up her boobs and leaving a few inches of exposed midriff. I don’t blame her – her stomach was flat as a board. She wore black, knee-high boots. All the other girls cooed over her and she chatted away nonstop to them. I had a choice. I could either join in or stand back and lose the sense of kinship that comes from doing the same thing as all of your mates. Because I’m a bit bloody-minded at times – and because I wasn’t sure whether I was wanted or not – I stood back.

The Ritz wasn’t far. It used to be an old cinema that they converted to a night club. It was the best place to go on a Saturday night. The shaven-headed, puffajacket-wearing bouncers gave us all the once-over as we made our way in, but stopped none of us. Karen had warned me they were being more careful since the police raided a few months ago and found the place full of eleven year olds. But it was quite easy to get in if you were female and dressed sophisticatedly. Karen linked arms with me as we entered and that made me feel better.

We paid our fivers at the kiosk and made for the ladies for a bit of extra grooming. I primped my hair a bit in the mirror and wished I’d made more of an effort. I didn’t look much different from usual. There were stubs of ciggies in the basins and damp, lipstick-stained tissues. The condom machine had a notice on saying it was empty. Karen said I looked a bit pale and put some of her blusher on me. Then she disappeared into one of the cubicles.

Paula came over to me then and said Karen had fallen out with Mandy and that was why she was hanging round with me. She was only using me. Mandy was there, and was busy fussing around Janette. I reckoned this could be true. Great. I was just a substitute.

We all left together and headed for the bar. They all bought Smirnoff Ices and Vodka Blues. I had a Diet Coke. I don’t drink. Partly because I don’t much like the taste but, more than that, I don’t like what it does to me. I feel as if I’m slipping out of my own control.

The dance floor was quite crowded. The DJ was playing some Madonna track that I forget the title of. Our crowd was still sticking together, shouting in each other’s ears stuff about who they knew who’d turned up, what they were wearing, who they were seeing, or every so often their eyes would swivel towards some bloke who’d come in. “He’s fit! … He’s cute! … He’s stunning!”

I just looked around. Karen carried on whispering stuff to me, but I could see that every so often she looked over at Mandy to see what she was up to. I began to feel more and more as if I wasn’t really there. It was a strange feeling – as if I was just a pair of eyes, observing. I saw the DJ jerking to the music; groups of lads standing round, bottles in hands; everyone eyeing up everyone else.

I followed the girls on to the dance floor. It was sticky with spilt drink. They put their bags down on the floor so they could watch them while they danced but I didn’t fancy that. I kept my bag on my shoulder and decided that I wouldn’t dance for a bit, but just look on. Some Ibiza anthem was blaring out now: loud, repetitive music with a heavy bass. The girls were dancing together, showing off their bodies, hoping to attract attention. Paula was getting right down on to the floor. Janette hardly moved. Just stubbing out her ciggie on the floor with the toe of her boot was enough to send the boys wild.

A little voice in my head said, go and join them. Get on the floor and make with the music. But it was no use; I just wasn’t in the mood. I was invisible – no one could see me. No boys looked my way. And then I noticed Mandy go up to Karen and say something to her, and Karen hugged her, and Mandy hugged her back, and they started dancing together. I knew what that meant. Bye bye, Anna.

The louder the music got, the more frenetic the dancing, the more detached I felt. Don’t think I wasn’t having a good time in my own way. I’ve said before you’re not to feel sorry for me as there’s nothing to be sorry for. I liked the way my thoughts were coming thick and fast, I liked watching people, I liked watching blokes. If you’re interested, I’ve had crushes on boys and the odd snog, but never a real boyfriend. I want one, one day. You wouldn’t credit this, but I have romantic fantasies too. Sometimes I watch old Hollywood musicals on the box, and wish I could be the girl in the long flowing dress tripping lightly down the staircase to the ball, my lover waiting in the hall. Or be the dame in one of those secret agent movies – the woman with a past who the detective falls for – walking into a sordid little office, aloof, sexy, full of passion. Or I’d be on top of the Empire State Building, up high, looking over Manhattan, the man of my dreams by my side and knowing only we two mattered.

How sad am I? I have all the wrong dreams. I know I should want to be Britney Spears or J.Lo, or have a kooky, loving family like in the sitcoms. Or get proposed to on telly or something, so the whole world knows. But when you think about it – when I think about it, I mean – today’s romance scenarios are crap. All those so-called role models – Britney, Madonna, Kylie – they’re just in love with themselves. You can see it on the videos. And everyone is completely into who they pull or have sex with – it’s that or soppy look-at-this-lovely-Valentine’s-card-he’s-sent-me! It’s either all crude or makes you want to throw up.

To prove my point to myself I looked again at the dance floor. Some lads had come up to my mates and were groping them. Hands on bums, on waists, and Paula had turned round and was draping herself all over this boy with spiky black hair. They were hoovering each other up with their mouths. His hands were everywhere. It was kind of disgusting and kind of sexy at the same time. I looked away.

Paula wasn’t a virgin. She liked chalking up her conquests much as boys do. One lad in our class – Darren – boasted he’d shagged Janette so Paula beat him up. It was the best scandal we’d had in school for ages. But it was all about point scoring, the relationships my friends had. I wished things were different. I thought when I fell in love – pow! – we’d make a new world, a world all of our own.

That crappy world of the Ritz with its bouncers and people gagging for sex they probably didn’t even enjoy, the deafening so-called music and the gallons of alcohol, was a pretty rubbishy sort of world. But it was about as good as it got in our town. It was clubbing or looking round the shops at things you couldn’t afford. It made me angry. I wanted things to be different, but how could they be? What could I do?

Perhaps I was thinking like that to cover up the fact no one had come up to me for ages. My mates were all pulling lads and I was ignored by everyone. I knew deep down if I’d made more of an effort I could be one of them, but it would mean not being me – it would mean compromise. I don’t do compromise.

I wondered if I just went home, would anyone notice? And then the idea of home suddenly became appealing. The club was hot and my shirt was sticking to me. My feet were hot in my trainers. Time was passing slowly. Outside it would be dark and cool and I would be free. Every single one of the girls I’d come with was with someone now, and I noticed a greasy old bloke staring at me. That did it. I pushed my way through the crowd of drinkers and left the club.

It was a relief. I hoped the girls would wonder where I was and maybe even worry about me. If they did worry, it would serve them right. I knew I was supposed to get a taxi home with them, but as I’d left early the buses were still running, so I’d be OK. Technically I wasn’t supposed to travel alone at night, but my mum worried needlessly a lot of the time. Most people were OK. It’s just the media that want you to believe the streets are full of paedophiles so they can whip up mass hysteria and sell more papers. Everybody’s on the make these days.

It was only a short walk to the bus station, down the High Street and then across King’s Gardens where the moshers hang out. Another place I wasn’t supposed to go at night. It was a square lined with bushes. Each street bordering it had a path that led to the middle, where there was a fountain that hadn’t had water in it for years.

Tonight it seemed empty. Maybe it was too early for the moshers – they were probably all at one of their clubs – Medusa’s or Hell’s Kitchen. I wondered if they also had to pay a fiver for entry. What annoyed me was the fact I’d wasted my money. Five quid entry, two fifty for a Coke, one fifty for the bus. Why was everything so expensive? Where did they expect people like me to get money from? I’m supposed to stay on at school to go to college and not earn money, but also go to clubs, buy the right gear, have a mobile, an MP3 player, a computer. ’Cause people know teenagers want to fit in they target us with all the consumer goods on the market. It just isn’t—

I would have said “fair”, but I didn’t have the opportunity. My conscious thoughts stopped there as in that split second someone ran at me and grabbed at my bag. Pure instinct took over. Not to run – you don’t run when someone is trying to take something from you. The instinct is to hold on tight. I did. I also filled with rage – how dare they? They? I looked at my attacker. A bloke. So I kneed him, as I’d been taught to do. Amazing! He let go of my bag and fell to the floor. I’d won.

I was still too full of adrenaline to realise properly what had happened to me. I should have run then, but in an odd kind of way I felt sorry for the bloke I’d just crippled. He was doubled up on the floor. He was wearing trackies, trainers and a hoodie. The hood had fallen over his face so I couldn’t see him.

But then he looked up at me.

“Ritchie?” I questioned.

“Anna,” he said.

Knowing it was Ritchie who’d attacked me made me feel better and a whole lot worse at the same time. I could feel myself trembling, and now the initial shock was over, anger replaced it.

“You tried to mug me!” I accused him.

I know this was stating the obvious, but give me a break – someone had just tried to snatch my bag.

“I didn’t know it was you,” he winced, clearly still in pain.

“So that makes it all right then?”

He didn’t reply. Now I began to feel sorry for him. Which was pretty crazy, really – I can be a bit pathetic at times.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

He swore, and told me he wasn’t. But slowly he got to his feet. Once he was on a level with me, the situation began to normalise. I was in King’s Gardens with Ritchie, late on Saturday night. Ritchie, the new boy in our English set. Never mind that he’d tried to rob me. It almost seemed natural that we should go and sit on a bench together, and he should take a crushed packet of cigarettes from his trackie bottoms pocket and light one, his fingers shaking. He offered me one too.

“I don’t smoke,” I said.

“I’m trying to give up,” Ritchie replied.

The few people who walked past us gave us superficial glances but then ignored us.

“Do you often do this?” I asked him. “Like bag snatching?”

“No. But I need the money. I owe twenty quid to a bloke I know, and if I don’t pay tomorrow there’ll be trouble. He’ll do me over.”

I was going to lay into him myself – verbally – for thinking the best way to get money was violent robbery, but something in his manner stopped me. The way he hung his head, the blankness in his eyes – he wasn’t mean, but desperate. Plus I was flattered that he’d confided in me. When you have someone’s confidence, you don’t want to lose it. I didn’t feel like criticising or judging him.

“Is there any other way you can get the money? Can someone lend it to you? Your mum?”

Ritchie shook his head. “No. She’s hard up at the moment, what with moving and everything.”

That was fair enough. Even though my mum was off work, we probably had more money than Ritchie and his mum. My mum would have lent me the money. She wouldn’t have been best pleased, but she’d have given it. Ritchie’s mum didn’t have the money. So if he didn’t have a job, and had no one to ask, and he was being threatened with violence, it was hardly surprising he had to resort to mugging. Or was it?

“Couldn’t you have just nicked some money without attacking someone?” I asked.

At that point Ritchie looked up at me, surprised. I understood why. I’d surprised myself. Here I was, suggesting he commit another crime – me, who’d never done anything illegal in my life. Except fare-dodging a couple of times, or noticing someone had given me too much change in a shop and not saying anything – oh, and keeping a twenty-pound note I found on a bus last year. But looking at Ritchie’s situation from his point of view, theft seemed the only logical answer. But it was wrong. Crime was wrong.

“I tell you what – I could lend you the twenty. It’s not a problem.”

“But you don’t know me,” he said. “I might just run off with it.”

“Because you’ve said that, I know you won’t.”

We both heard the urgent waah-waah of a police car – one followed by another. A typical Saturday night in town.

Ritchie spoke again. “You must think I’m a bleedin’ idiot.”

“I don’t, as a matter of fact.”

“Listen, let me tell you. My life stinks right now. First I get all the truant people on my back and my mum stressing about my education, and having to go back to school. I even thought I’d give it a try but it’s no bloody good. It’s pointless for me – I’m not going to get any GCSEs as I’ve missed too much. It’s all wasted effort. And then the guy I bought the weed from is on my back, and the crazy thing is, the weed wasn’t even for me – it was for Loz, my mate. And my other mates – the ones I used to hang out with – before going back to school – I don’t see them any more. But they were a load of nutters. Like, what’s the point?”

I was stunned. I’d never heard Ritchie utter so many words in all the few days I’d known him. I’d got him down as one of those inarticulate yobs you get (even in our school) but he wasn’t, exactly. I mean, how often do you meet a bloke who actually talks to you about his life, and not just the football?

“Look, I’ll lend you the twenty quid. I really don’t mind. And school’s not too bad.”

“You’re the only person who bothers to talk to me there. Other people just look straight through me. I don’t think I’m going to go back. What good is an education going to do me? I’ll end up working in some factory or behind a counter – like I said, it all stinks.”

“What do you want to be?” I asked him, intrigued. Even though in a lot of ways he was very different from me, I could see we thought in the same way. I felt things were pretty rotten most of the time too.

“What do I want to be? OK, then, how about Prime Minister for a start? Then I’d raze this town to the ground and start all over again, and I’d build houses that people wanted to live in, with gardens and that.”

I couldn’t help it – I laughed. I didn’t expect him to talk like that. But my laughter didn’t stop him. He seemed filled with a kind of fury and just carried on.

“Yeah – there’d be no more high-rise flats. You wouldn’t have to go to school unless you wanted to, and if you did, you could do what you wanted: paint, or play the guitar, or swim. Yeah, there’d be pools everywhere – free, of course, and free gigs every weekend. And free stuff for kids – shows, and that.”

I tried not to show my surprise at his words. I came over all cynical instead. “Yeah, right,” I said. “But first you’ve got to pay off your debts. I’ll lend you the money.”

“Yeah, but I have to meet this guy tomorrow, and I won’t see you till Monday.”

“Tell me where you live and I’ll meet you tomorrow.”

“Why are you doing this for me?” he asked.

I thought to myself, because I feel sorry for you, because I can relate to you, because by trying to mug me you’ve pulled me into the drama of your life, whether you wanted to or not. Because even though you sound crazy, I agree with a lot of what you’re saying. And because, in a funny sort of way, your life seems more exciting than mine. You take risks, you’re brave. And honest.

I said, “Why am I doing this for you? Because I want to. The end.”

“I’ll meet you outside the Fairfield community centre at one o’clock tomorrow?”

“Yeah – text me when you’re on your way there.”

His silence was eloquent. I understood immediately he didn’t have a mobile.

“I’ll be there at one,” I said.

He stood up then and our eyes met. “Thanks, Anna,” he said. “And sorry.”

“Don’t mention it,” I said.

I watched him go. He walked quickly, his shoulders slightly stooped, in the way blokes do, the ones who’ve shot up too quickly. I wondered what he was going home to, and what his life was like outside school. Normally the petty criminals, the kids who get into trouble, go around in gangs. What Ritchie did – mugging me – was well unusual. But then he was unusual too. Saying all that stuff about how he’d change the world. You wouldn’t think someone like him would think in that way. Have all those dreams.

You should never judge by appearances.

Fairfield looked better than I thought it would, but I guess that was because the sun was shining. It was still a bit chilly – I had my charcoal-grey fleece on. It’s sad, in a way, that I don’t even have to describe Fairfield to you. Not because it’s notorious, but because you’ve seen so many places like it. Assemble in your mind’s eye a few lines of maisonettes with women hanging around outside, two or three grey stone high-rises, and pubs with fat blokes sitting outside on wooden tables, supping beer. But funnily enough, there’s a kind of village atmosphere there, because Fairfield is a place a short distance from the centre of town, the nearest we have to a no-go area. So once you’re there, it encloses you. You feel part of it. I felt part of it, anyway. I didn’t even mind the women eyeing me.

I knew the community centre was a bit further down the road, a one-storey breeze-block building with bars over the windows. As I approached it, I was surprised to see stacks of withered Cellophane-wrapped bouquets of flowers and a couple of damp-looking teddy bears on the pavement outside it. I was trying to read the names on the cards inside the flowers when I heard Ritchie’s voice.

“Hi.”

I turned. “Hi. What happened here?”

“Some kids crashed a car last month. A couple of them snuffed it.”

“Oh.” I didn’t know what to say.

Ritchie was dressed in an olive-green hooded fleece and jeans. Standing there by all the dead flowers made me feel very alive, spared from something. Almost invulnerable.

“Did you know those kids?” I asked Ritchie.

“No. They weren’t from round here.”

I put my hand in my jeans pocket then and gave him two ten-pound notes. He took them and muttered some thanks. I tried to make light of it.

“No sweat. I’m always borrowing money off my mum.”

“I’ll pay you back,” he said.

“Whenever.”

There was a moment of awkwardness. I thought I ought to go back home but I didn’t want to. Ritchie looked different in the sunshine. His shaved head made him look hard, accentuated his jawline and cheekbones. But his eyes – soft, brown eyes – almost seemed to belong to a different person – a shy, uncertain one.

Just at that moment two lads arrived on mountain bikes. One leapt off his bike and stood in front of Ritchie, as if he was barring his way. Ritchie thrust the two tenners at him and he grabbed them. In a second he was back on his bike – it was all over so quickly that if you’d asked me to pick him out from an identity parade, I couldn’t have done it.

“I feel shit about taking that money off you,” Ritchie murmured.

“Why should you? You were going to rob me of it last night.”

“Yeah – but that wasn’t personal. Now it is.”

For some reason, I liked the way he said the word “personal”. I smiled, and still put off saying goodbye. I noticed he wasn’t moving either. I wondered if I should suggest we do something. Though God knew what. He didn’t have any money and neither did I.

And then the guys on the bikes returned. This time, knowing who they were, I felt my stomach somersault. Wasn’t the money enough? Were they going to beat him up after all?

But I was wrong. These were different boys.

“Hiya, Ritch!”

The first one who screeched to a halt and got off his bike didn’t look like my idea of a dealer. He wore a local football shirt and had messy blond hair.

“Hi yourself,” Ritchie said, looking pleased to see him. The boy with him looked younger – but might just have been shorter. He had a black puffa jacket.

“We’re going to Woodsy’s place,” the football shirt said. “You coming?”

Ritchie hesitated for a moment. Then he said to me, “D’you wanna come?”

You bet.

We walked to a block of flats which looked about ten storeys high. Grey stone, white window frames: not in bad nick, but not the sort of place you’d want to live in. It was dull, uniform, prison-like. I don’t know if the lifts were working or not, as the lads made straight for the stairs and ran up them. Have you noticed when lads get together they behave differently from when they’re alone? Now that Ritchie was with his mates, he was larking about, competing with them – they were racing up the stairs, calling out good-natured abuse to each other. Luckily I’m quite fit and was able to keep up with them. They – we – ran all the way to the top. I was panting by then. I knew we’d reached the top as in front of us was just a red door and a corridor to our right where the doors to the flats were. But the lads didn’t turn right. Instead, the football shirt – Ritchie called him Loz – was messing around with the red door. I didn’t see what he was doing, but finally he heaved himself against the door and it gave. It opened to a few more steps, leading to a small room with brick walls and some tanks.

Loz opened another door, and then we walked out on to the middle of the roof.

I watched the lads as they made their way towards the edge. I stayed close to the door; I noticed the place we’d come from was a bricked-in, covered area you could walk all the way round, a self-contained block on top of the roof. Ritchie and the others were at the edge now. I didn’t want to follow them. There was no railing, just a sheer drop to the bottom. A CCTV camera peered down to the ground and a couple of aerials stood forlornly.

Then there was the thump of more footsteps and another lad joined us, carrying a stereo. While they were all greeting each other I tried to get over my vertigo. I looked out over Fairfield to the shopping precinct, the covered market and the main road. I turned and could see the park. From up here the whole of Fairfield and its people were insignificant. Being up high gives you a feeling of power. Maybe it was the feeling of power that was making me dizzy. I strained my eyes further to the horizon and saw the hills: tired, worn-out flat hills with the TV mast just a faint line on the horizon. I would have expected it to be windy up on the roof but it wasn’t. I could even feel the sun warming my face, making me feel it was all right to be where I was. Bit by bit I left the wall, no longer feeling afraid, but exhilarated. Even, if you like, on top of the world.

“Who’s your girlfriend?” one of the lads asked Ritchie.

“She’s my mate,” he said. “Anna.”

Yesss! I was his mate. Ritchie introduced me properly to the lads. The little one was called Tanner. Loz I’d already worked out, and the boy with the stereo was Woodsy. I hoped I was going to remember their names. You know how it is when you meet people for the first time – you’re so bothered about what they think of you, you don’t focus on who they are. I was wondering what they made of me, and hoped they’d think I was OK. I just wanted to be accepted by them.

I was. The boy called Loz handed me a can of Carling from an Asda carrier bag.

“Cheers,” I said, and tugged at the ring pull. I reckoned I could make as if I was drinking it – the last thing I wanted to do was to say in front of these lads that I don’t drink. They’d think I was such a square.

We all sat down together, the boys sprawling all over the place, jostling each other sometimes. Loz switched on the ghetto blaster and some R&B played – nothing mainstream, I didn’t recognise it. I decided not to talk much. It’s better when you join a new crowd just to take note, not to make a complete ass of yourself.

They shared out the Carling and Loz was trying to spray some of the others. They jumped up and ran all over the place. I got a bit nervous when Tanner was close to the edge but I was determined not to show it. Once they settled down, the lads just chatted. Loz was going on about being in town last night and the pub they were thrown out of.

“I thought you didn’t have any money?” Ritchie asked.

“I gave my brother a hand in the afternoon with some jobs he was doing,” Loz said.

“A hand job, was it?” Woodsy said. Everyone liked that and tried to follow it through with some more comments. I smiled.

“Nah,” Loz interrupted. “Stop messing. We did some cars.”

“Oh yeah?” Woodsy assumed only casual interest, but you could tell his ears had pricked up.

“Some radios and stuff. I just looked out. Dead easy.”

“Nice one,” Tanner said, looking impressed.

Loz burped, as loud as he could. The others all groaned. Tanner said, “Watch it, Loz. We got a visitor.” He grinned at me. It was a friendly grin.

“Sorry,” Loz said. “Where’d you meet Ritch?”

“School.”

“That new school you’re going to?” Loz asked Ritchie.

He agreed. I noticed he wasn’t saying a lot. Was he always quiet like this, or was he just being quiet with me? Even when the conversation moved on to football he didn’t join in, but smiled when someone was being funny. Woodsy was going on about someone they knew who’d got in a fight with what sounded like a neighbouring gang. I couldn’t quite follow.

But what I noticed was that they’d accepted me. I mean, whoever was talking sort of included me with his eyes. With some of the gory stuff about the fight – this guy lost four teeth – they specially looked at me to see my reaction. No one was playing any games. I thought of Karen and how she used me, and of all the girls at school and their allegiances and bitchiness. In contrast, these lads were dead straight. They weren’t clocking me to see what I was wearing, they weren’t ignoring me, nor were they putting me in the spotlight. I know you’ll have them down as a band of yobs, petty criminals and all that, and I’m not denying that they were, but they also had good manners. They put me at my ease. And it was great up there on the roof, in the sun, away from everything small and petty. I didn’t even need the Carling to feel drunk.

Tanner was explaining how to get to someone’s house when we could hear more footsteps. This time the lads looked bothered. They began to curse and we all leapt up, realising we’d been discovered. And there was only one way down.

“Where are you, you buggers?” came a gruff, angry voice.

“Come and get us,” Ritchie taunted.

Then he pulled me round the building to the door, guessing rightly that our pursuer would chase us in the direction of his voice. The other boys followed. We ran round the building, shot back inside and headed for the stairs. As fast as we could, almost tumbling, we catapulted ourselves down the foul-smelling concrete stairwell, round and round, down and down, until we hit the lobby.

“Let’s split,” Ritchie said.

Everyone ran off in different directions. Ritchie took my hand and walked slowly away with me. I could see what he was doing – making out as if we had nothing to do with trespassing on the roof, just a boy and a girl taking a stroll. Appearances were everything.

It didn’t matter, as no one came to run after us. We walked towards the precinct, not that the shops were open. I was feeling great – adrenaline was coursing through me and it created a big surge of happiness. At the back of my mind a rather tinny voice prattled, You shouldn’t have gone on the roof. It was trespassing and it was dangerous. But I didn’t care. I thought – what harm did we do anyone else? Why shouldn’t we go on the roof?

Once we reached the precinct Ritchie dropped my hand, and commented that we were safe now. He laughed, and I could tell he was in the same mood as me. If anything, the weather was sunnier. I just wanted the day to go on and on. When Ritchie suggested the park just outside Fairfield I tried not to sound too eager.

We walked up to the main road, crossed at the lights and made our way to the park entrance.

“So they’re your mates?” I asked him.

“Yeah, they’re all right. Tanner’s all right.”

“Did they go to your old school?”

“No.”

We reached the park gates. An ice-cream van was outside with a straggling queue. I was remembering what Loz had said about breaking into cars. The slight jolt it had given me had gone. It left me curious to know more.

“So where did you meet them?”

“Around. We hang out together during the day – used to hang out together when I first moved here, before I went back to school.”

“They wagged it?”

“No. They just didn’t go to school.”

We were walking along the main path that led to the centre of the park. Ritchie turned off to the left on to a narrower path that led to the lake. The ground was slightly uneven and I had to watch my footing. Once we came to the lake, it was easier. We headed for a bench and sat there. Further down a man and a boy were fishing, a dark green tent beside them.

“But I thought everyone has to go to school by law?” I questioned.

“Yeah, but not everyone does.” Ritchie lit a cigarette, and with each drag he became more talkative.

“I hated my last school. Everyone had it in for me. The teachers, right, you can tell they have favourites and I wasn’t one of them – no way. It was quite interesting, some of the stuff we did, but then half the time some old teacher would rush through the explanation when you were copying from the board or when the class was talking, and then refuse to repeat it, so I didn’t understand what was going on. Then they tell you off more and call you stupid. And you get to believe it after a while.”

I told him that was dreadful and St Tom’s wasn’t like that, but I knew I was lying. A few of the teachers treated us as if we were pretty hopeless, thinking that would encourage us.

“So I used to wag it,” Ritchie continued, “and then everyone would be on at me, so I’d go back to school, but by then I’d missed so much I couldn’t be arsed to catch up. And even the other kids treat you funny, like you don’t really belong. So you find you’re acting even more of a prat in order to get accepted.”

Ritchie laughed to himself.

I prompted him. “Go on.”

“Like this. There was this one teacher, Conner, taught science, who kept picking on me all the time. He really pissed me off. He asked me questions when he knew I didn’t know the answers, he made jokes about the stuff I was wearing and if anyone was talking, he’d be, like, Ritchie! Get out!’ I hated his guts. So what I did, I got myself locked in the lab one lunch time and loosened the tap on the front bench. So when we had our lesson after lunch, he starts this experiment and goes, … and you have to add some water’, turns on the tap and it shoots off right up in the air, and he gets soaked with water. Completely drenched. All over his face and shirt. It was just brilliant. The class was in hysterics.”

“Did he know it was you?”

“I didn’t wait to find out. I legged it and didn’t go back. I reckon they didn’t think it was me as there was nothing on my records when I started at St Thomas’s. It was all about having to come in every day. Making a commitment, all that crap.”

“I’m still surprised our school agreed to have you.”

“You wouldn’t be if you’d met Wendy – my mum. She was the one who arranged it. All that stuff about you’ve got to give him a second chance, and he needs a good school, and look how high his SATs marks were.”

“It’s good your mum cares about your education,” I commented.

“Yeah. She cares, all right.”

“Do you get on with her?”

Ritchie looked baffled for a moment, as if no one had ever asked him that question before. “Yeah, yeah. I do. She can be hard to live with, but she’s my mum.”

I could relate to that. I was quiet for a bit and stared ahead at the lake. Then I thought it was sad that Ritchie hadn’t had a proper education up till now, and then I thought that a so-called proper education wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Half of what I was learning for my GCSEs was going to be useless to me. And so much of the time I switch off in lessons – we all do. It unsettled me, the way Ritchie was making me see things differently. I had to admit he might be right about schools. But surely it couldn’t be right to steal, and that’s what he and his mates did. You see, at that point I still felt things like stealing and vandalism were wrong.

Ritchie carried on talking, telling me about his mates. None of them went to school either. Tanner had been relentlessly bullied and the school couldn’t stop it. Loz had been excluded lots of times. Woodsy used to go to a special place for kids thrown out of school, but he even refused to go there.

I asked him what they did all day. Ritchie lit another cigarette.

“Hang out in town. And we watch what’s going on, where they’re careless about security. We’ve nicked a few things. We know some people to pass them on to.”

I could tell he was trying to impress me. There was a slight swagger in his speech. After having admitted he’d opted out of school I suppose he felt the need to show me he was smart. But I told him he’d get into trouble, and you couldn’t defend theft. He turned then and looked me straight in the eye.

“Listen. In my life what have I taken? A few packs of fags, stuff that’s been left around where any fool can see it, cash if I can find it. And what’s been taken from me? Everything. I’ve got no future – I know that. I live in a stinking hole of a flat with my mum, who was kicked out of her job because the pub landlord wanted a younger barmaid – he robbed her of her income.

“Everywhere you look, people are on the game. Businessmen, politicians, builders – everyone’s on the make, everyone’s only out for number one. Even the bloody Big Issue sellers pretend they haven’t got change if you offer them a fiver. So tell me why I should be any different?”

At that moment a toddler set up a wail near us and I heard his mother screaming at him. But his wail drowned her voice. I tried to think what I could say to argue against Ritchie and came up with nothing. Looking at life from his point of view, I could see why he’d made his choices. They now seemed perfectly reasonable to me.

“My mum’s out of work too,” I offered. “Through stress. She’s normally a practice manager for some doctors, but she gets periods of depression, ever since my dad left. He lives in Exeter with my brother. I don’t get to see them very often. Do you see your dad?”

There was a beat, and Ritchie said, “I saw him the other day.”

“Yeah?” I encouraged him.

But Ritchie’s face had darkened into an ugly scowl. I backed off. I could see I’d accidentally soured the atmosphere, and that was the last thing I wanted to do.

“Let’s drop all this shit,” Ritchie interrupted. “I’m not a loser – even though you think I am.”

“I don’t,” I said.

But the atmosphere had changed, unmistakably. We both left the bench and walked on along the side of the lake for a while, saying nothing. A few clouds had appeared, though it was still a nice day. I tried to lighten up by telling him about school and trying to make him laugh. And I succeeded, and he told me about the books he’d been reading and about the punk tapes he collects, music from the seventies. He liked The Clash and The Adverts. He said just because he hadn’t gone to school didn’t mean he was braindead. He read the papers when he could. The more we were talking, the more I was beginning to see that Ritchie was my superior – he’d lived more and even read more. He’d had tough choices and he’d thought about things. I felt shallow in comparison. But that wasn’t a bad feeling. It made me determined to be more like him – that wasn’t a conscious determination. It was just his influence working on me.

We sauntered all the way to the gates at the other end of the park, which happened to be near my side of town. I knew I ought to offer to go, and I did. I asked Ritchie if he’d be in school tomorrow. He shook his head and I felt a rush of disappointment.

“Why?”

“It isn’t right for me. Maybe when I’m older, but not now. I’ve got to get my head straight first. But, Anna, I owe you some money.”

I was glad. It was a bond between us.

“Meet me at the shops near school at four. By Music Zone.”

I told him I would, and meant it. He turned and went back through the park. I began to walk in the direction of my house but I found I didn’t want to go home. I would have like to have stayed with Ritchie. This had been the best afternoon I’d had for ages. I wanted his life, not mine. Only we were so different – but were we?

I had a lot of thinking to do.

When I got home, I could tell my mum was feeling bad again. Sundays often got her like that – Sundays are pretty depressing for anyone, but my mum beats herself up about being off work and how it’s all her fault. She was sitting in the kitchen when I found her, cradling a cup of tea, her voice nervous and weepy. She asked me whether I’d managed to get any shoes and for a moment I hadn’t a clue what she was on about, until I remembered that was what I was supposed to have borrowed the money for.

“No,” I said. “I’m going to carry on looking.”

“I should have gone with you,” she said. “I’m such a bad mother.”

I told her she wasn’t. She disagreed, and said the proof was that she was off work on sick pay. I tried to argue with her but it was no use. In this mood, she keeps knocking herself all the time. Like a dog tied to a pole, she goes round and round in circles, treading the same ground. Dad left her because she wasn’t good enough for him, she ought to work on her self-esteem but what is there to like about her, life was just a black pit and she was at the bottom, what could she do to get out?

This might sound dreadful to you and maybe you’re feeling sorry for both us, imagining I get upset when my mum gets upset. I did in the beginning, but now I find I cut myself off and I don’t feel anything. It scares me sometimes, that I don’t feel anything. I just wait for her to stop. I do try to tell her positive things but I know from experience she won’t listen. Sometimes I feel resentful and I want to scream: “I’m only sixteen – what do you expect me to do?” Or I start thinking traitorous thoughts, like, you could help yourself if you want to. For example, Mum won’t take antidepressants because she says they’re drugs and she’s scared of being dependent on them. Instead she does all this therapy stuff.

But she was crying now so I knew I had to do something. I gave her a hug and said she ought to ring Julia and have a chat. That shows how desperate I was. I can’t stand Julia. Mum met her at the therapy group. She’s got more money than sense and too much time on her hands, as her husband is rolling in it. She doesn’t go to work, and her hobby is working on herself. She not only goes to the group therapy sessions, but she’s in private analysis with the therapist, and is in training to become a therapist herself. It’s a nice little business. A lot of money changes hands.

I realised I was starting to think like Ritchie. But he was right – he was so right. Here was my mother, ill and in need of help, and – hey presto! – here were lots of people eager to help her: her therapist, her hypnotherapist, her masseuse, all charging piles of money, feeding off my mother’s problems. Julia didn’t charge Mum anything, though. She just encouraged my mother, which is in some ways worse. But that night I wanted time alone, and I thought that Mum might as well ring Julia and let her listen.

I brought Mum the phone, went upstairs, and decided to run a bath. I love soaking in the warm water, preferably with a layer of bubbles. What I do is stare hard at the bubbles and the rainbow colours in them, and imagine each little bubble is a world in itself, with millions and millions of inhabitants no bigger than atoms. I’ve done that since I was a kid. Then I smash the bubbles like a vengeful god.

I lay back in the water, replaying all the things that had happened in the last twenty-four hours. But I’m not really one for thinking about the past much; I’m more interested in the future. I was glad I’d be seeing Ritchie again. Then asked myself, why? Do you fancy him? I moved some of the bubbles over my exposed body.

I liked him, definitely. I felt we were very similar in some ways. The fact he operated outside the law was frightening and exciting at the same time. I also suspected he had opened up to me in a way that he didn’t with his mates. Opened up. Yeuch! A phrase of my mother’s. I mean, we talked a lot, and it was good. And, yes, I liked his face, and I had to admit, he wouldn’t have had this effect on me if he was a girl. Which might mean something. But now all I wanted was his friendship, and I wasn’t going to risk that by introducing all that stupid boyfriend/girlfriend stuff. Like he said, we were mates. And that was more than good enough. Anyway, it felt all wrong, me and Ritchie dewy-eyed, in luuurve. That wasn’t what it was all about.

The water was cooling now so I heaved myself out of the bath, took the largest towel and wrapped myself in it. School would be bearable tomorrow because I had something to look forward to at the end of it. I debated whether to get straight into my pyjamas even though it was only five, and spend the rest of the night chilling. But that seemed a bit of a slobby thing to do, so I went back to my room and got back into my jeans and a sweater.

It was lucky I did, because when I got downstairs, Julia was there.

“Anna darling! Come here. Let me kiss you. No – both cheeks. You look gorgeous. Anna – your poor mother. What shall we do with her? I thought rather than speak on the phone I’d come straight round and be here for her.”

I forced a smile.

Julia was sitting on the sofa with Mum, holding both her hands. It made me feel a bit sick – jealous, even – and so I let a sarcastic comment out.

“How’s your non-specific anxiety disorder, Julia?” This is what she claims to be suffering from. In plain English, that’s worrying needlessly.

“Thank you for asking, honey. I’m making progress. I understand now that it comes from caring too much – it’s the result of a caring overload.”

Oh, puh-lease!

“Anna,” my mum said. “Can you make Julia a drink?”

Grudgingly I asked the traditional questions. Tea? Coffee? Milk? Sugar?

“Do you have anything herbal?” Julia asked. “Camomile would be a joy.”

I was waiting for the kettle to boil when my ears picked up the tune of Celine Dion’s My Heart Will Go On. I was puzzled for a moment or two, until I realised it was Julia’s mobile ringtone. I made a retching motion to myself. Then I heard her chatting to Geoff, her husband, confirming my suspicions. Julia’s voice was loud and brash, and it carried. When she finished the call, she carried on making my mum feel better.

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