19
Frankie wants to know why I’m wearing white trainers with black tights. ‘It’s an unusual look,’ she says. ‘I’m all for unusual, Anya, but this is a little bit… weird.’
‘It’s a long story,’ I sigh.
We’re in art, making decorations for the school Christmas dance. Mr Finlay’s art room is a mess of tinsel, glitter and glue.
‘I want an ice palace theme,’ Mr Finlay announces. ‘Think icicles and snowflakes… and perhaps a giant papier-maché snowman, filled with sweets and presents?’
You can tell that Mr Finlay once dreamt of a career in children’s TV, or designing sets and costumes for the theatre. Teaching art to sulky teenagers was probably not what he had in mind. A roll of chicken wire appears, newspapers are torn into confetti shreds and buckets of thick, gloopy paste are sloshed around until the art room looks like a war zone.
‘Nice shoes,’ Lily calls over to me. She is avoiding the chicken wire and glue, and seems to be making herself a miniskirt out of silver tinsel. ‘All the rage in Poland, that look, is it?’
‘Ignore her,’ Frankie says. ‘You can wear dodgy trainers if you want to. It’s a free country.’
‘I’ve lost my boots,’ I confess.
‘How do you lose a pair of boots?’ Frankie asks. ‘And supposing you do, why not just wear shoes instead?’
I bite my lip.
‘You do have shoes, right?’ Frankie says. ‘You don’t just have one pair of boots to your name?’
‘I have trainers,’ I say brightly. ‘And pink fluffy slippers.’
‘You’re joking?’
Kurt unwinds a roll of cellophane, ready for us to slice into silvery streamers. It’s kind of like my life, unravelling, coming apart in my hands. I know one thing for sure. Staying quiet about this is no longer an option.
‘At home, money is tight,’ I say. ‘Dad’s business is in trouble. Big trouble. We might have to go back to Krakow.’
‘No way,’ Frankie says. ‘Tell her, Kurt!’
‘No way,’ Kurt echoes. ‘Things can’t be that bad!’
‘Worse,’ I tell him. ‘We have no money, and Mum and Dad are working late every day. It feels bad… like there’s a black cloud following me the whole time. And now, Kazia and I have lost our boots… and we have nothing else!’
‘Sheesh. That’s why you’re always looking after Kazia these days. Why didn’t you say something?’
Because I didn’t want pity? Didn’t want even to think about it? I can’t answer that.
‘This is pointless,’ Frankie says, throwing down her scissors. ‘Anya’s in real trouble, and we’re making streamers? Why bother? People like us never go to the Christmas dance, anyway.’
‘Maybe we should,’ Kurt says. ‘It might be Anya’s first and last Christmas here. Shouldn’t we make it one to remember?’
Frankie’s eyes shine. ‘We could,’ she says. ‘Why not? I never really had anyone I could go with, last year, but… well, we could dress up, stick together, have a laugh! What do you think, Anya?’
‘I guess…’
‘It might take your mind off things,’ Frankie says. ‘Forget your troubles for a while. Forget about Dan Carney too. He is so not good enough for you, Anya. Did you hear about this morning? He was on report, outside Mr Fisher’s office, and he just stood up and walked out of school! Everyone says he’s going to be excluded again. That boy is crazy!’
‘Dan’s OK,’ I argue. After all, he walked out of school because of me, didn’t he? I can’t exactly explain that to Frankie, though. Where Dan is concerned, she just can’t see the attraction. She’d probably accuse him of heading off to shoplift me a pair of flash shoes to replace the missing boots.
‘I just don’t think he’s right for you.’
‘Isn’t that up to Anya and Dan to decide?’ Kurt says loyally. ‘You can’t choose who you fall for, right?’ He shoots Frankie a loaded look, but typically, she doesn’t even notice.
‘Dan and I are just friends,’ I sigh. ‘And that’s all we’ll ever be, now it looks like we’re going back to Poland.’
Frankie shrugs. ‘I was just saying. Anyway, who needs boys, right, when you’ve got good friends? The three of us can stick together, go to the dance as mates…’
Frankie seems not to notice that Kurt is a boy, and worse than that, a boy with a crush on her. She barges on, oblivious.
‘We’ll have fun, dress up, have a laugh… isn’t that what Christmas is all about?’
I’m not sure what Christmas is all about, not at St Peter and Paul’s, anyhow. Across the classroom, the chicken-wire snowman is taking shape, plastered with torn newspaper, dripping with paste. Mr Finlay unveils a huge blanket of cotton wool to make the final layer. It’s kind of scary.
Frankie spots a tube of black acrylic paint by the sink.
‘Don’t worry about the whole Poland thing, OK, Anya?’ she says. ‘We can sort this. We’re your friends, and we won’t let this happen. As for the trainers… well, they’re easily fixed.’
She squeezes out a curl of black paint and hands us each a brush, and slowly the scabby white trainers turn into scabby black ones. With silver marker-pen stars, courtesy of Frankie.
‘See?’ she says. ‘They’re actually quite cool.’
As long as I don’t go out in the rain, anyway.
‘Something might turn up, y’know,’ Kurt says. ‘Strange things happen all the time.’
‘You’re not kidding,’ Frankie says. ‘Last night was the first meeting of the Lonely Hearts Club at Heaven… and Mum went! I only gave her the flyer as a joke, really, but she went, and she had a great time. She got chatted up by a really nice bloke, and now she’s saying that maybe she got it wrong all these years, and not all men are trouble. Incredible, right?’
‘Sounds like,’ I agree.
‘So don’t give up, Anya,’ Frankie says. ‘Things will work out, they always do.’
The bell rings for the end of the lesson, and Mr Finlay blinks in surprise as the kids stream past him, out of the door. His hair is stiff with paste, his fingers covered with cotton-wool fluff, his classroom looking like the scene of a small massacre.
‘Trust me,’ Frankie says, as we pick our way through the puddles of glue. ‘Kurt is good at plans. He’ll work it out. No worries.’
Kurt doesn’t look quite so confident. I’m not sure his plans are brilliant enough to overthrow a global credit crunch, rescue Dad’s business and find me new shoes by teatime, but I guess you never know.
I pick Kazia up from school, wearing my handpainted trainers with the silver stars. They don’t attract quite as many comments as the pink fluffy slippers, which is kind of a relief.
‘What will we tell Mum and Dad?’ Kazia wants to know.
I haven’t quite figured that one out. Maybe they just won’t see? They’re so tired these days they probably wouldn’t notice if Kazia and I were wearing red stilettos.
It’s dusk by the time we cross the road towards the chippy, and I don’t see them at first, the boots sitting neatly on the doorstep of the flat. It’s only when Kazia starts to whoop and yell, when she lets go of my hand and sprints ahead to see, that I realize what has happened.
They’re not our boots, of course. That would be too much of a miracle, but they’re boots, and that’s pretty amazing. Kazia’s are pink suede with a sheepskin lining and pink flowers stitched on the sides. Mine are black with a turn-down cuff, like little pixie boots. Both are the right size, and both are stuffed with tangerines and sweets and topped with a gingerbread man wrapped in cellophane.
‘He came!’ Kazia is squealing. ‘There was no snow, and maybe we were in a different place, but he found us! Maybe a day late, but who cares? And it doesn’t matter about the old boots, because now we have new ones, much better ones!’
I look over to the corner, frowning, as a movement catches my eye. I’m almost sure I can see a shadowy figure with unruly braids and angel wings, disappearing into the shadows.