15
Two days later, Kurt comes into school wearing skinny black cords and a silver studded belt, and Frankie just about faints with shock.
‘Anya!’ she hisses, grabbing on to my arm. ‘Look at that!’
‘New trousers!’ I breathe. ‘It’s a miracle!’
‘He looks so… different!’ Frankie says. ‘I mean… not so geeky. Not so lame.’
Some of the Year Seven girls must think so too, because they give Kurt a double take as he swaggers past, then fall into a huddle, giggling and pink-cheeked.
‘So,’ says Kurt, ditching his rucksack at our feet and giving us a little twirl. ‘New kecks. What d’you think?’
‘Just call me a genius,’ Frankie says. ‘Seriously, I should be a stylist or something. Good to see you’re taking my advice at last!’
‘It’s cool,’ I tell Kurt. ‘Already you have some admirers, I think!’
Kurt looks back at the group of Year Sevens and shrugs. ‘Maybe,’ he says carelessly, then spoils the cool act by pulling a terrified face. ‘They’re not laughing at me, are they?’
‘Laughing?’ Frankie huffs. ‘They’re smitten. Their little hearts are racing. They think you’re cute… so shut up and don’t spoil the illusion! What is this moth-eaten jumper you’re wearing?’
Kurt has topped his spindly-legged look with a huge, black, drooping handknitted jumper. It really is moth-eaten too… there are several darns in the wool, and one of the sleeves seems to be unravelling slightly.
‘My gran knitted it,’ Kurt says.
‘She’s a bit short-sighted, isn’t she?’ Frankie says. ‘You could fit all three of us in there. It’s practically down to your knees.’
‘She didn’t make it for me,’ Kurt says. ‘It was my dad’s.’
Frankie’s mouth opens, then closes again. How can you criticize a jumper that looks like a potato sack when you know it belonged to someone who died when he was barely out of his teens?
‘I like it,’ I tell Kurt gently. ‘It’s… different.’
‘Well,’ Frankie says carefully. ‘It’s that, all right. I suppose it has a certain quirky style of its own. Like, retro goth, maybe. I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of Robert Smith of The Cure?’
‘The Cure were my dad’s favourite band,’ Kurt says.
Frankie’s eyes open wide. ‘Seriously?’ she asks. ‘Your dad liked cool music?’
‘Well, yeah,’ Kurt shrugs. ‘He named me after Kurt Cobain of Nirvana, after all.’
‘He… what?’ Frankie stutters. ‘Why… what… how come you never mentioned this before?’
‘Does it matter?’ he frowns.
I think it does matter, to Frankie. I can see her changing her picture of Kurt’s long-gone parents even as I watch. Not just lentil-eating hippies with animal rights tendencies then. More lentil-eating grunge-goth fans and serious students of cool.
The bell rings for lessons, and Dan Carney, Lily Caldwell and the scally boys amble past. I know Dan acts tough and cool at school, and I try not to care. I try, but it’s not quite working.
‘Hey,’ Dan says as he passes. It isn’t much of a greeting, but it makes his friends frown. It makes Lily Caldwell frown a lot.
But it makes me smile.
Frankie McGee doesn’t do PE.
‘It’s bad for you,’ she tells me, sitting on a bench in the changing rooms while I struggle into billowing grey shorts and a shrunken white T-shirt. ‘All that running around and stretching and straining. It jiggles your insides about. You could do yourself an injury.’
‘It is good to run,’ I tell her.
‘No, Anya, that’s just a rumour put about by PE teachers,’ Frankie insists. ‘Exercise makes you red and sweaty and out of breath. How can that be good?’
I’d like to tell Frankie that exercise keeps you fit and slim and full of energy, but I know she won’t listen. She is clutching a note from her mum, excusing her from the lesson.
‘What is it this week?’ I ask her.
‘Tummy cramps,’ she says. ‘Or is it migraine? I can’t remember.’
Whatever it is, Miss Barlow accepts it with a resigned sigh, and Frankie gets to sit in the changing room flicking through yet another magazine while I line up with the other girls. Miss Barlow herds us out on to the school playing fields, shivering.
‘It’s too cold to be outside, Miss,’ Lily Caldwell says. ‘Can’t we do something indoors?’
‘Not today,’ Miss Barlow says. ‘I’ve planned a cross-country run, twice round the playing fields and through the woods. You’ll run in pairs, working as a team! Choose a partner, please!’
Everyone pairs up… everyone except me. I’m not invisible any more and everyone is friendly enough, but they all have their own special friends. And my friend, Frankie, is toasting her toes by the radiator inside.
On the edge of the group, I can see Lily Caldwell, arms folded, face like thunder. She has no partner, either. She doesn’t really have girl friends, I realize. She’s kind of a loner, when she’s not with the scally boys.
Miss Barlow frowns. ‘Anya, Lily, you two can go together. Keep each other out of trouble. Now, is that everyone?’
Lily scowls at me, the way she did in the cafe the other night. I feel like something slimy and disgusting that you might find under a stone.
‘Follow the white markers!’ Miss Barlow yells. ‘I’ll be timing you!’
She blows her whistle and we lurch into a jog. After two circuits of the fields, my legs are aching, my breath coming in short gasps. The runners head into the woods that skirt the school grounds, with Lily and I trailing along behind. We dodge puddles, jump ditches, clamber over fallen logs. My trainers squelch with ditchwater and there are twigs in my hair. I am beginning to think that Frankie has a point about PE lessons.
‘Stuff this,’ Lily says, stopping short. She looks around, then disappears off through the trees.
‘Lily!’ I yell. ‘We are a team! Don’t go!’
I push through the bushes and find her sitting on a fallen log. She takes out a ciggy and lights it, taking a long draw.
‘Lily… this will mean trouble!’
She looks at me, her grey eyes cold. ‘Push off then,’ she says. ‘Like I care!’
‘We are a team,’ I repeat, but Lily just laughs.
‘I’m not in a team with you, OK?’ she says. ‘Not now, not ever. I don’t even like you.’
My cheeks darken. ‘Why?’ I ask. ‘What have I done?’
Lily rolls her eyes. ‘Come off it, Miss Perfect,’ she snarls. ‘You turn up here, all little-girl-lost, with your cute accent and your big blue eyes and your long blonde hair, fluttering your lashes, acting all shy. Well, you don’t belong here, OK? You can’t just barge right in and make yourself at home. Go back to where you came from!’
I bite my lip so hard I can taste blood, but I will not cry in front of Lily Caldwell. I will not.
‘I cannot go back,’ I say.
‘How come?’
‘My father has a business here,’ I tell her. ‘In Poland, there is nothing for us now. No home, no work, no money…’
‘Right,’ Lily sighs. ‘There’s nothing for you there, so you come over here and take our jobs, our homes. You get an education for free in our schools, then make friends and try to muscle in on our lads…’
I will never get through to Lily – she doesn’t want to know. She’s a bully, mean and sour and spiteful, and nothing I can do or say will ever make her like me. I wish that didn’t matter, but it does, somehow.
‘My father did not take the job of an English man,’ I tell her. ‘He gives people jobs, and my mother does a job no English person wants to do. The place we live is cold, damp, ugly. I don’t want to be here, but I have no choice, Lily, OK?’
‘My heart bleeds for you, Sauerkraut Girl,’ she says, blowing a perfect smoke ring into the November air. ‘You and your loser friends.’
I’d like to slap Lily Caldwell, wipe the smirk off her cold, cruel face, but that would make me as bad as she is. I turn, looking for the white markers, the way back to school, and I break into a run, leaving Lily behind.
Miss Barlow is not impressed. ‘You were in pairs!’ she tells me, as if I didn’t know. ‘Besides, the others were back ages ago! Where is Lily?’
Blowing smoke rings in the woods, I think, but I don’t say that.
‘Ridiculous!’ Miss Barlow huffs. ‘Didn’t you understand a word I said?’ She makes me stay behind and tidy up the gym cupboard, and I’m still sorting through crates of tennis balls when Lily strolls back into the changing rooms ten minutes later.
‘Lily!’ the teacher yells. ‘Where on earth have you been?’
‘Looking for her,’ Lily says smoothly. ‘She ran off and I didn’t want to come back without her…’
‘Typical,’ the teacher says. ‘Get changed, Lily, and run along.’
Miss Barlow walks away, and Lily flings a lazy smirk over her shoulder at me. ‘One thing,’ she says, and I hold her gaze steadily, a part of me still hoping for something that won’t happen, for a friendship that will never be offered.
‘Yes?’
‘Dan Carney,’ Lily says in a whisper. ‘Stay away from him, OK? He’s way out of your league.’
‘League?’ I echo, frowning. ‘I don’t understand…’
‘He’s mine,’ says Lily. ‘Hands off. Dan Carney is mine.’