‘Maybe she had the right idea.’
‘Kit, that’s an awful thing to say!’ I protest. ‘Paul’s being bullied. That’s not right.’
Kit sighs. ‘Hannah, don’t hook up with this kid,’ he tells me. ‘He’s trouble. If the lads are picking on him, it’s because he’s asking for it. Murphy, Tom and Fergus aren’t exactly thugs, are they? They’re not bullies.’
They looked like bullies this morning, tipping books and pencils and cheese-and-pickle sandwiches down the stairwell, but I don’t say that. Kit doesn’t want to know.
‘It’s just a bit of joking around,’ Kit says. ‘Paul’s making too much of it. What a saddo.’
Some of the disappointment and disgust I’m feeling must leak out of my eyes, because Kit sits down on the bed and pinches my cheek. I smile sadly and remember the days when I thought my big brother was the coolest boy in the world. Not any more.
‘Look, Hannah, I’ll speak to the lads,’ he says. ‘Get them to back off a bit. OK?’
‘Thanks, Kit,’ I whisper. ‘They’re out of order, seriously.’
‘Maybe.’
Kit checks his hair in the mirror, grabs a jacket and heads out of the door, on his way to another evening of hanging out by the chippy in Kirklaggan with Joey. He flicks off the light switch as he goes, leaving me alone in the dark.
Aliens came and took my brother, Kit, and swapped him for this vain, grumpy lookalike. The real Kit, the nice Kit, the one who once had a scrap with Murphy because he was pulling the legs off a spider, is probably stranded in cyberspace, eating vitamin pills, wearing a silver catsuit and having his brain scanned for signs of intelligence every few days. Maybe, while they were at it, the aliens took Joey too? It would explain a lot.
I drift over to the window, press my face against the cold glass. I am not in a sci-fi movie – this is real life. My best mate and my brother have deserted me for the Planet Slush, and nobody but me seems to care. If Krusty was here, curled up round my neck or slinking around my feet like a small, furry alarm clock, it wouldn’t be so bad.
I pad back to my room, put on a Good Charlotte CD and dig out an old notebook. I fill two pages with sketches of a blissed-out, furry, bin-hopping kitten called Krusty before crashing out, fully clothed, on the rumpled quilt.
CHAPTER 13
Paul Slater gets on the school bus with two dinky little plaits tucked behind his ears. Even I do a double-take, and a bunch of S1 lads at the front of the bus erupts into snorts of disgust. There are a few catcalls from the back, but when I look round I see that Kit is trying to silence the hecklers. Trying, but not very hard.
‘Hi, Hannah,’ Paul grins, clattering into the seat across the aisle.
‘What’s he playing at?’ I whisper as Joey flops down beside me. ‘Plaits? Tell me you didn’t encourage him, Joey. This boy has enough problems already.’
Joey shrugs. ‘Don’t blame me,’ she hisses. ‘Why can’t he have plaits? It’s a statement, isn’t it?’
Yup, it’s a statement, all right. It might mean take-me-as-I-am, in a cool, goth-guy kind of way. It might mean I-don’t-care, forget-the-rules, I’m-not-like-you. Or it might mean pick-on-me cos I’m a wuss, a girly, a hippy-dippy gimp.
I think I know how Murphy and his mates will read it. They’ll make mashed potato out of Paul Slater, probably before morning break. It’s like sending a toddler to play in the traffic.
‘We have to talk about Paul,’ I say to Joey. ‘He’s a living, breathing disaster area. He needs our help.’
‘You think?’ Joey asks. Plaits on a boy are not a problem for her. Who knows, maybe even horns and a tail on a boy would be OK in her book.
‘I think,’ I say ‘Seriously. After hockey? Can you shake free of Kit for a while?’
‘Guess so,’ Joey shrugs. ‘No problem.’
After hockey, when we’re pink-faced and perspiring and our shins are black and blue from the assault of a dozen enemy hockey sticks, we trail back up the field, mud-spattered, mauled, but not defeated.
‘How come boys don’t play hockey?’ I ask, my breath coming in ragged gasps. ‘Why should we be the only ones to suffer?’
‘Boys have no stamina,’ Joey pronounces. ‘They have to stick to lightweight games like footy. It’s not their fault. Girls are the superior sex – we’re brighter, cooler, smarter, stronger.’
A little coven of blonde gigglers from the enemy team glance back at Joey rolling their eyes and nudging each other.
‘What happened to your hair, Joey?’ asks Karen McKay the nastiest of the crew. ‘An accident with the ketchup, was it? You’re just so cool, Joey. I wish I had your style.’
Karen turns away doubled up with laughter.
‘OK, not every girl,’ Joey admits. ‘Karen didn’t do so well with the brighter, cooler, smarter bit.’
‘How about blonder, meaner, dimmer?’ I suggest.
As we get up to the playground, the bell rings for break and a sea of kids spills out of the building.
‘Hey gorgeous!’
My brother is waving at Joey across the playground, blowing wolf whistles because she is just so irresistible when splattered with mud and dressed in a grey wraparound gymskirt.
Joey laughs, but Karen McKay seems to think the whistles are aimed at her, because she tosses her hair and sticks out her chest and starts wiggling her bum. Joey and I choke back the giggles as Karen flicks a little wave at Kit and his mates.
He’s almost up level with us by now, and he casts a bemused glance at Karen as she licks her lips and flutters her eyelashes at him. She hitches her skirt a bit higher, displaying a few extra inches of orange, fake-tanned, goose-pimpled thigh. Attractive.
It happens so fast that even I don’t catch on that it’s Joey. I just see Karen hit the grass in a tangle of hockey sticks and legs and swearing. She’s broken a nail and her knees are muddy and green, and she’s screaming at Joey, calling her a stupid, clumsy, stripy-haired little cow.
‘Hang on,’ says Kit, ‘watch what you’re saying. It was an accident. You should have looked where you were going’
‘Yeah, you seemed a bit… preoccupied,’ I point out.
Karen gets to her feet, brushing gobbets of mud off her skirt and scowling at Joey. ‘You know what you did,’ she hisses. ‘And I’ll get you for it, you sad little freak.’
Joey shrugs. ‘Like Kit says, it was an accident, Karen,’ she says, smirking. ‘Sorry. I guess I’m not too good at keeping my hockey stick under control.’
That’ll be why she just scored four goals in today’s match, then.
‘No hard feelings?’ Joey asks, and then fakes surprise as Karen storms away, limping slightly.
I stare at Joey, eyes wide, and she shrugs and grins and winks when she thinks nobody’s looking. You don’t mess with Joey Donovan. I remember the Primary Two Christmas party when Santa handed her a pressie that turned out to be a big box of Liquorice Allsorts. She marched back up to Santa and demanded a swap.
‘You made a mistake,’ she told him bluntly. ‘You know I don’t like Liquorice Allsorts. I want chocolate truffles, like Hannah, or I’m not going to believe in you any more.’
She stared very hard at Santa, who was really Mr Gillespie, the janitor, until he coughed up with the last box of chocolate truffles. He was scared of her for years afterwards.
‘I’ll wait for you by the tennis courts,’ Kit says to Joey now. ‘Hurry up. And watch what you’re doing with that hockey stick!’
Joey hooks Kit round the neck with her stick, drops a little kiss on the end of his nose, then turns away.
‘I’m busy this breaktime,’ she says. ‘Girl stuff. I’ll catch you at lunchtime, maybe?’
‘If I’m not busy’ Kit shoots back. ‘Hey, if you see Karen McKay, tell her I’m down by the tennis courts…’
‘Don’t even think about it,’ Joey says sweetly. ‘I have a ruthless side, y’know.’
We run up to the changing rooms and grab a shower before the water runs cold, then g
et dressed quickly. Karen McKay hangs about for ages by the mirror, applying mascara and sparkly lipgloss while her friends fuss with their hair.
They sweep out of the changing rooms together. ‘Saddo,’ Karen whispers as she goes, and Joey gives her the finger behind her back before moving up to the mirror to slick on black lippy and eyeliner.
‘I’ll break both her legs next time if she tries that flirty stuff with Kit again,’ Joey sniffs. ‘Do you think it was Karen who sent Kit the valentine? She doesn’t care whose boyfriend she goes for.’
‘A KitKat and a tattoo?’ I say. ‘Not her style. Not that she’s got a style, exactly.’
‘Tell me about it,’ Joey laughs. ‘As if he’d be interested in an airhead like that.’
‘As if,’ I echo, but with less conviction. Joey Donovan happens to be just about the smartest girl in S1, but she’s not smart enough to notice that lads very rarely pick out girlfriends for their IQ.
‘Anyway,’ says Joey ‘you wanted to talk about Paul.’
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘He’s in big trouble, Joey. He needs our help.’
But before we get any further, the bell rings out to signal the end of break, and Joey rolls her eyes. ‘Breaktimes are getting shorter, I swear,’ she huffs. ‘We’ll meet up at lunchtime, OK?’
‘Suppose so,’ I agree, but I can’t help wondering if Paul Slater will be mince and tatties by then, plaits or no plaits.
CHAPTER 14
At lunchtime, we hide out in the French classroom. Joey, who always gets top marks for French, volunteers to clear away the textbooks and collect in the worksheets. ‘Close the classroom door on your way out,’ Mr Marlow says.
‘We will,’ Joey says sweetly. She forgets to mention that we won’t be leaving till lunchtime is over, but then again, Mr Marlow doesn’t ask.
I munch on a sad cheese triangle and a bunch of Ritz crackers, while Joey gets stuck into some kind of wholemeal quiche with rocket and cherry-tomato salad. ‘So?’ she says.
‘So. Paul is being bullied,’ I tell her. ‘Kenny Murphy and Fergus Brown and Tom Greenway. They’re trashing his stuff, pushing him about, calling him names. I saw them yesterday, and it’s serious stuff, but Paul won’t speak out.’
‘Are you sure about this?’ Joey asks. ‘Murphy, Fergus and Tom aren’t bullies, are they? They’re OK. They’re popular. They don’t need to push anyone around. Maybe you got it wrong?’
‘Joey, I didn’t get it wrong. They’re making Paul’s life a misery.’
‘The best way to deal with bullying is to blank it,’ Joey says. ‘That’s what I do. You pretend you don’t care, act like you couldn’t give a stuff. Most bullies will get bored and give up.’
I know that this tactic works for Joey, but she’s a tough cookie. Anyone who really tangles with her is asking for trouble, as Karen McKay discovered. I’m not sure if Paul has that same streak.
‘Paul has been ignoring it,’ I explain, ‘but it’s just getting worse.’
We’re sitting by the window, and looking down we can see the playground spread out below us. Murphy, Fergus, Tom and Kit are playing footy with a gang of other S2 lads. Paul walks past them, at a safe distance, eating chips from crumpled paper. He’s still in one piece, in spite of the plaits.
As we watch, though, the football slams into him, hard, scattering chips across the playground.
‘That was probably an accident,’ Joey says quickly.
‘It probably wasn’t,’ I correct her. ‘Come on, Joey. Don’t kid yourself.’
I look to see whether Kit is saying anything to Murphy and the lads, but I can’t tell. If he has told them to back off, it’s not exactly obvious.
‘Maybe he should just stay in the art room,’ Joey says.
‘Yeah, right!’ I protest. ‘He can’t stay holed up forever! He has to go to lessons; he has to see these losers in the playground, in the corridors, on the footy field. He has to find a way to handle it, and plaits aren’t the way I’d have picked. It’s kind of like asking for trouble.’
Joey frowns. ‘Look, if Murphy and his crew are hassling Paul, it’s not because of the plaits, is it?’ she points out. ‘They were doing it before. He’s just – well, different, isn’t he? He doesn’t care about fitting in. Why shouldn’t he look the way he wants? Stand out from the crowd, be individual?’
Joey has a point. Paul is getting bullied anyhow, so maybe the plaits won’t make any difference.
‘He’s a big boy, Hannah. He makes his own choices,’ Joey says. ‘We’re all in charge of our own lives, aren’t we?’
Maybe. But Paul didn’t choose for his mum to disappear, to be taken into care, and yet it seems like he’s stuck with it.
‘People just don’t like him,’ I say ‘Kit doesn’t, Murphy doesn’t. I don’t get it – he seems OK to me. He’s thoughtful. He’s kind. What’s not to like?’
‘It’s not that simple,’ Joey shrugs. ‘Paul is great – you know that and I know that – but he’s complicated. Messed up too. People pick up on that. He spooks them out, like with Kit that time. How weird was that?’
‘Weird,’ I admit.
Joey bites into a slice of Eva’s carrot cake, brushing the crumbs from her frayed black skirt.
‘We’re his mates,’ she announces. ‘You and me and Kit. Well, you and me, anyway. We can look out for him, but we can’t change him. If he wants to have plaits, maybe that’s a good thing. Better than trying to be like everyone else and ending up different anyway.’
‘Maybe.’
Joey looks out of the window again, her gaze following Kit as he sprints around the playground in pursuit of a football. Her eyes go all soft and mushy. ‘Am I being a rubbish mate just now?’ she asks me.
‘Totally rubbish. Hopeless.’
She laughs. ‘OK, you can lie a little bit, y’know, to save my feelings.’
‘You’re not so bad,’ I admit. ‘It’s awkward, because it’s Kit, but I’m trying to understand. I guess I never imagined we’d get tangled up with lads just yet. I didn’t expect it.’
‘I decided to get it out of the way now,’ Joey says. ‘Dating and stuff. Later on, I’ll be busy with Standard Grades and Highers and university and I won’t have time for boys.’
‘D’you think it works like that?’ I ask, amazed.
‘It’s an experiment,’ Joey says. ‘So far, I like it. But I could give it up any time I like.’
‘That’s what Kenny Murphy says about smoking,’ I point out.
At this moment, Mr Marlow comes into the classroom with a mug of coffee and a large Danish pastry.
‘Girls, what are you still doing here?’ he barks gruffly.
‘Tidying up, sir,’ Joey says sweetly. ‘There was a terrible mess round Karen McKay’s desk. Sweet wrappers, old chewing gum, used tissues, false fingernails. Yeuww. We’ve cleared it all up, though, as you can see.’
Mr Marlow looks doubtful, but he says nothing as Joey and I leave the classroom, dropping our lunch wrappers in the bin as we pass.
‘You’re a terrible liar,’ I whisper to Joey as we go.
‘I know,’ she grins. ‘But, hey, I could give it up any time I like…’
CHAPTER 15
This is a seriously bad idea.
It’s Saturday morning and I sit on the washing basket in the bathroom at Beachcomber Cottage, trying to distance myself from the whole thing. Krusty is batting the lid of the dye bottle around the bathroom floor, getting under everyone’s feet, while Itchy and Scratchy are curled up among the towels on the shelf, purring.
‘Is it working?’ asks Paul, his head over the sink. Drips of thick green sludge snake down his neck and plop on to the floorboards beneath. One lands on Krusty, and I wipe it off quickly before she ends up with emerald polka dots.
‘Of course it’s working,’ Joey scoffs. ‘I’m an expert, aren’t I? You’re in safe hands.’
One safe hand, encased in a pink rubber glove, grips Paul firmly round the neck while the other directs the shower head
at his scalp. He wriggles and yelps.
‘It’s too hot!’ he protests. ‘You’ll burn me!’
‘Don’t be such a wimp,’ scolds Joey. ‘Stay still. We have to rinse until the water runs clear. Or until you faint, whichever is sooner.’
She adjusts the water temperature and Paul survives until the water runs clear.
‘Better change your top,’ Joey says, noting the big water stains on Paul’s long-sleeved T-shirt. ‘It’s soaking.’
‘Nah, it’ll soon dry’ Paul shrugs, tugging the sleeves down so they cover his hands. It’s a habit he has, something he does when he’s nervous. We troop through to Joey’s room to finish off with the hairdryer. Paul’s hair is very, very green.
‘Excellent,’ Joey says. ‘That’ll make ‘em sit up and take notice.’
‘And that’s what you want, is it?’ I ask.
‘Doesn’t matter what they think,’ Paul says. ‘I like it. C’mon, Hannah, it’s cool, admit it.’
Paul makes two green plaits to hang down either side of his face, then pulls the rest of his hair back in a scruffy ponytail. I liked it better when it was toffee-coloured and loose, but I don’t say so. Paul is playing with the eyeliners and shaders on Joey’s dressing table.
‘How do girls do all this stuff?’ he asks idly. ‘I’ve always wondered. I bet you need a steady hand. Think I need a more dramatic look to go with the green?’
‘No,’ I snap. ‘It’s girly enough already. Murphy’s lot will have a field day with this, you know they will.’
Paul puts down the eyeliner and pulls a face. ‘I can’t be a mouse all my life just in case I upset that loser,’ he says.
‘No way,’ Joey says. ‘Show ‘em you don’t give a stuff. Let’s see what Jed and Eva think, yeah?’
Downstairs, Jed and Eva are making a driftwood mirror on the kitchen table. Jed arranges the bits of wood and glue-guns them into place, and Eva adds spirals of frayed rope, seashells and seaglass. If they’re surprised by Paul’s hair, they don’t show it. After Joey’s experiments, they are probably shockproof.
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