Adam stared at her. He didn’t move. His face had gone as white as a ghost’s.
“It was all Kylie!” Jaz said and laughed again.
She pointed at me. She was talking to the crowd now and laughing so much she could hardly get the words out. “She—she told him that she heard these voices called Them, and that They would make her hurt herself if he didn’t do things for her … I am a haddock, I am a haddock! ”
Everyone stared as Jaz walked over to me.
She put an arm around me. “Well done, Kylie!
You’re an amazing actress!”
No one said a word. Then slowly some people started to laugh. The laughter grew louder and louder, until everyone had joined in. In the middle of it all, Adam just … stood there. Not saying a word.
Stop laughing, it’s not funny! I wanted to scream. I couldn’t get the words out. It felt like my feet had become roots and were dug into the ground.
58
Adam turned and looked at me and at Jaz …
and his face grew hard as he took in the utter guilt on my face. Without saying anything, he scooped up his broken box and walked away, out of the school.
59
Chapter 8
Edward
The bell rang, and everyone started to head inside. Jaz still had her arm around me and she squeezed me tight as we went in. “Kylie, that was awesome. How did you get him to stamp on his stupid clock? God, I wouldn’t have missed that for …”
Something hot and angry exploded inside of me. I shoved her away. “Shut up!” I shouted.
“Just shut up!”
Jaz looked back to see if there were any teachers around, then she pushed me into the girls’ bathroom. Izzy followed right behind.
60
“What’s up with you?” Jaz wanted to know.
Warm, salty tears started to pour down
my face. “I didn’t know you were going to—to announce it to everyone like that!”
Jaz looked shocked. “But that was the idea, wasn’t it? To get back at him for being so stuck-up!”
“No! I mean … I mean, I don’t know.” I looked away and wiped my eyes with my hand.
Jaz put her hands on her hips and looked hard at me. “For God’s sake, Kylie! It was your idea in the first place!”
My chin snapped up. “It was not! It was both of us—”
“No, you’re the one who thought of making him do things,” put in Izzy. She couldn’t hide her smirk of delight. “It was your idea, and now you’re acting all goody-goody.”
Jaz shook her head. She sneered. “I thought you were OK, Kylie, but I was wrong. You’re as much a loser as haddock-boy, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, with a face like a haddock, too,”
crowed Izzy. She was loving this, you could tell.
61
The second bell rang. It echoed through the girls’ bathroom, and Jaz and Izzy left. Jaz gave me a look as she went out the door that told me I’d be haddock-girl forever as far as she was concerned.
I would never be in her group now. Never.
I didn’t care anymore. I propped myself up against the sinks and stared into the mirror. I remembered Adam’s face as he had looked at me.
What had I done?
Suddenly I pushed away from the sinks and walked out of the school. The school secretary was busy with a parent who was asking her about something. Even if she’d noticed me, I’d have walked out. The main doors swung shut behind me, and I ran down the steps.
Cars whizzed past me as I walked slowly down the street. I knew without thinking about it where I was going. And sure enough, Adam was there, digging in the ground like he was trying to stab it to death with every push of his garden fork.
“Hi,” I said, not sure what to do. I stayed by the gate of the gardens.
62
Adam glared at me. “Come to tell me about some more voices, have you?” His voice shook. “What’s the problem now, huh? Are they telling you to go throw yourself off the roof or something, unless I smash something else of mine?”
Next to him on the ground, I could see what was left of his clock. It was totally flattened.
Gone forever.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered as I went on staring at it.
“Yeah? Well, not sorry enough.” He turned back to his digging. He jammed the fork into the ground with his foot. His jeans had dirt all over them.
“I still want to be your friend,” I said. I don’t know where the words came from, but I knew they were true the moment I said them. Adam ignored me.
“Adam?” I took a step forward. I wished that he’d look at me.
He threw the fork down with a clatter. His face was red, near tears. “Just get lost, Kylie!
Go back to Jaz and laugh at me some more, why 63
don’t you!” He stopped. He didn’t even look at me. “Better yet, go jump off that roof that They were telling you about.”
I backed off. I was shaking, and I turned and ran home. I couldn’t face going back to school again, not now.
Our apartment felt empty and silent. I sat on the couch and stared out the window. I had to make it up to him, somehow! But the problem was … there was nothing I could do now. His clock was gone. I couldn’t bring it back. And I couldn’t take back the sound of everyone laughing at him after he’d smashed it.
He had done it to help me. The thought made more tears start running down my cheeks.
Stupid tears! They weren’t going to make anything better. I wiped them away.
I was still sitting there when Mom got home with Jenna. She stopped short in the doorway and stared at me. “Kylie! You’re back early. Is something wrong?”
Jenna ran past me into our bedroom. She was singing to herself. My mouth felt dry. I licked my lips, and blurted out, “Yeah. Dan called yesterday.”
64
A look of shock passed across Mom’s face. I hadn’t meant to say that, hadn’t meant to tell her. But now I had to. I took a deep breath, and told her every word of the phone call.
She pressed her fist up to her mouth. “How did he get our number, how? ”
I shrugged. There was no use getting Jenna into trouble. Mom let out a breath, and sank down beside me on the couch.
“Does—does that mean he can find us?” I could hardly get the words out.
Mom said softly. “I don’t know. I hope not.”
“Is it true, what he said?” My hands were tight fists. “Will you go back to him?”
Her chin jerked up. “No! Of course not!”
“But he said that all he had to do was say sorry, and—”
“Oh, Kylie … how could you think I would ever—” Mom stopped. Her eyes filled with tears.
“After coming home and finding you like that, and seeing what he’d done to you …”
I swallowed hard. “Then—then you don’t blame me for having to leave him?”
65
A look of deep sadness touched Mom’s face.
She shook her head. “No. No, Kylie. I blame myself, for staying with him for so long.”
Could she really mean what she was saying?
“But you seem so unhappy here! I thought …” I said.
Mom touched my hair. She stroked it with her hand. “I’m sorry. It’s been a hard time for me. I’ve had to go back to work again and take care of the three of us … but I’m doing it. He can call all he likes. He can even turn up here and say whatever he wants, if he tracks us down. But we’re still never going back to him, Kylie. That’s a promise.”
I leaned against her and closed my eyes. She put her arms around me, and we held each other for a long time. Suddenly I said, “I was bullied at my old school.”
Mom sat up. She looked upset. “Kylie! Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I guess I was embarrassed.” I stared down at the couch, my face going red.
She rubbed my arm. “Well … is everything OK now? Has changing schools helped?”
66
/> I didn’t answer at once. After a while, I said,
“Sure. Everything’s fine.”
After about ten more minutes, Mom went
back to work. Jenna came out of her bedroom and turned on the TV. I sat and watched her stupid shows with her. I wasn’t really watching them at all. I had too much to think about.
Adam was right. Mom was really brave. She was making a new life for us. Going back to work to keep things going. I was such a coward next to her! I couldn’t even stand up to a bunch of schoolgirls.
Suddenly everything felt different. I felt strong and brave for once. I sat up, grim and ready to fight back. I wasn’t going to be a coward. I’d show Adam how sorry I was for what I’d done.
I knew what I had to do. It was awful … I didn’t want to do it. But it was the only thing that might work.
***
Adam didn’t come back to school the next
day, or even the day after that. It took two days for him to walk back into school and when he did, 67
he didn’t look at anyone. He didn’t say a word.
But plenty of people talked to him. They punched him on the back and laughed. “Hey, haddock!
Made any more clocks while you were away?”
Ha, ha.
He didn’t talk to any of them. He avoided me most of all. I tried to get him to notice me a few times during the day, when I saw him between classes. I’d been hoping that he had forgiven me, somehow, and that I wouldn’t have to do what I’d planned to make up for how awful I’d been to him.
Jaz and Izzy and the others had been
ignoring me. They turned away any time I came near them. Izzy had hissed haddock-girl at me a few times. Because Jaz was who she was, the rest of our class ignored me too. It was as if I had some awful disease that they could catch if they so much as looked at me.
And now they were about to think I was
totally nuts. I was scared. Could I go through with my plan?
When lunch came around, I waited for the teachers in the line to get their food and go off to the staff room. Then I climbed up on a chair at 68
the back of the cafeteria. I knew the kitchen staff wouldn’t do anything. They only get involved if there’s a riot.
“Hey, everyone! Look at me!” I cried. My voice came out as a strangled squeak. No one noticed me.
“LOOK OVER HERE!” I called again, louder this time. That did it. People started nudging each other and whispering. Some of them got up and walked over to me. They began to grin. Jaz stared at me with narrow eyes.
Across the cafeteria, Adam had looked up from the table where he was sitting by himself.
He watched me. He was frowning.
“Um … I want to make a public apology,” I said. My face felt like it was on fire. “You all know what for, right? I just wanted to be friends with Jaz. I wanted to be her friend and for her to like me, because—well, because I was stupid. I acted like a jerk, and I lost a good friend because of it.”
I looked Adam in the eyes, my face burning.
“Adam, I’m sorry.”
69
He didn’t say anything. I heard Jaz laugh, but no one joined in, for a change. A sea of serious faces looked up at me.
I swallowed hard. I was trying not to cry.
“But saying ‘sorry’ isn’t enough, and I know that. That’s why … that’s why I brought this.” I reached into my bag and pulled out Edward, my old teddy bear. A couple of people snickered.
I felt clammy and sick. Oh God, I don’t want to do this! I thought. But I had to. It was the only thing I could do.
I coughed. I held onto Edward. “I—this is—
this is a teddy bear my dad gave me. It’s the only thing I have from him … My dad’s dead. That means Edward’s kind of like Adam’s clock was for him. Something really, really important.”
Without looking at anyone, I bent down and took a pair of scissors out of my bag. I heard a gasp as suddenly everyone knew what I was going to do.
“What a loser,” I heard Jaz mutter. The rest of the crowd just went on staring at me. They couldn’t take their eyes off Edward.
70
Holding him up by one paw, I opened the scissors and moved them towards his neck. My mouth was trembling, but my arm was steady.
I snipped the scissors open and shut around Edward’s neck and began to cut. One of his seams popped. Another one. Tears started to run down my face, but I kept cutting.
“No!” shouted a voice. Adam jumped up. He pushed people aside. “Kylie, stop it!” He got to my chair and grabbed at my arm. Then he pulled Edward away.
“Stop it,” he said again. I saw his glasses had been repaired and his face wasn’t so red and swollen. His blue-gray eyes stared firmly into mine.
“I have to do this!” I choked out. “Because of what I did to you … your clock …”
“Well, this won’t make it come back! Come on, get down.” Adam took the scissors from me and helped me off the chair.
Someone began to clap. Then all at once the rest of the crowd started. A few people even cheered. I stared around me and blinked. People were smiling at me. At both of us.
71
“Way to go, Adam!” shouted someone.
“That took a lot of guts,” I heard someone else say.
I saw Jaz looking around her. Her face was cold and mean. She and Izzy glared at me, but I hardly noticed.
“Come on, leave the two lovebirds alone!”
shouted someone. The crowd drifted away back to their tables until Adam and I stood by ourselves at the back of the cafeteria.
I was so embarrassed I couldn’t speak. I hugged Edward. His neck had a deep cut in it, with pieces of fluffy white stuffing poking out.
Adam was blushing. He touched the cut
gently. “Can you fix him, maybe?”
I nodded and wiped my nose with my hand. I was still crying a little. “Yeah, I—I guess I could try sewing him.”
Adam took a deep breath. “Kylie, that was …
that was really a stupid thing to do. A really, really stupid thing.”
“I wanted to do it,” I said. “I knew I could never say ‘sorry’ enough … I had to show you.”
72
A slow smile grew across his face. “Yeah, well. It was still pretty stupid of you.”
I started smiling, too. We stood there like a pair of idiots, not talking, just smiling away at each other. In the end, Adam said, “Come on, lunch is almost over … let’s sit down and eat.”
I nodded. “OK. But Adam, listen—I’m not into science, you know. Or reading, or … well, anything that you’re into, probably.”
Adam grinned. “That’s OK,” he said. “I’m not into teddy bears. We can still be friends, can’t we?”
A warm, happy feeling swelled up inside of me, like sunshine. “Yes,” I said. “We definitely can.”
73
They are the most popular
girls in school.
If you’re in, you’re cool.
If you’re out, you’re nobody.
How far would you go to get
in with Them?
One unlucky boy is about to
find out …
Cover photograph: istockphoto Cover design: carrdesignstudio.com Stoke Books
www.stokebooks.com
First class short teen fiction, accessible to all
Document Outline
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
Chapter 1: Home Sweet Home
Chapter 2: Getting In With Jaz
Chapter 3: The Voices In My Head
Chapter 4: I Am A Haddock
Chapter 5: More Proof
Chapter 6: Talking Back
Chapter 7: Smash Up
Chapter 8: Edward
Back Cover
bsp;
Them Page 4
