4
‘Walk quietly now!’ Miss Matthews pleads. ‘No need to take your bags…’ Everyone takes them anyway. The class bursts into the corridor, stampedes towards the stairs. Kids spill out from neighbouring classrooms and I am carried along in a sea of whooping teenagers, elbowing their way to freedom.
We line up in our tutor groups on the grass at the top of the playing fields, huddled together in the drizzle. Miss Matthews checks the register, frowning.
‘Two missing,’ she sighs. ‘Dan Carney and Kurt Jones.’
It’s kind of obvious why Dan has gone missing. If I were him, I’d make myself scarce too.
Kurt’s absence is more worrying. He is a quiet, geeky boy with thick glasses and threadbare trousers that flap around his ankles.
‘I think I saw him running towards the science block,’ a plump girl called Frances McGee says. ‘What if he’s trapped in the flames? Fighting for his breath in all that thick, black smoke?’
‘There are no flames,’ snaps Lily Caldwell. ‘There was hardly a fire at all, remember? I bet Dan set off the fire alarm on his way out, for a laugh.’
‘But what about Kurt? Has anyone seen him?’
Lily shrugs. ‘Kurt’s most likely locked himself in the girls’ toilets, crying. He is such a freak.’
‘Enough, Lily,’ Miss Matthews says. ‘This is serious. If you have nothing useful to say, say nothing at all.’
Lily smirks. ‘There’s Mr Fisher, Miss,’ she points out, as the Head approaches, his face serious. ‘I bet he wants a word with you. After all, the fire started in your classroom… and now you’ve lost two of your pupils, as well!’
Miss Matthews flushes pink and turns to greet the Head, and class 8x break into little groups, chatting. I have no friends to chat with, so I lurk at a distance, hugging my satchel. That’s when I see Kurt Jones, skulking along the side of the running track, behind the lines of Year Eight pupils.
He sees me watching and brings a finger up to his lips, eyes wide above the rim of his glasses, asking me to be quiet. Well, that’s easy. When am I ever anything else?
Kurt sneaks closer, coming to a halt beside me.
‘I don’t think they’ve missed me,’ he says. ‘Have they?’
I bite my lip and nod, and Kurt’s face comes to life.
‘You know what I’m saying!’ he says. ‘Awesome!’ His smile falters. ‘Um… so, they definitely know I was missing?’
I nod again.
‘Well, no worries. It’s not like they can prove anything. Unless they actually catch me with the evidence –’
Mr Fisher’s voice booms out across the grass. ‘Kurt Jones! Come here this minute!’
‘Oops. Speaking of evidence, I’d best get rid of it – for now, anyway. Hang on to this for me – and keep it hidden!’ He pulls something out from under his blazer and stuffs it into my satchel, then strides towards Mr Fisher and Miss Matthews.
‘Where’ve you been, Kurt?’ Lily Caldwell pipes up. ‘Popped out to the charity shop for those gorgeous crimplene flares, did you? You’re so cool!’
Kurt ignores the jibe. The Head herds him away, and he looks back over his shoulder, eyebrows at an anxious slant. I hold my fingers to my lips, and he rewards me with a smile.
When they are out of sight, I delve into my satchel to see just what he’s planted on me.
My fingers slide across books, gym kit, pencil case, then recoil in horror as they touch something warm and furry.
I blink. No… no way. I must have imagined it.
I reach down again, then jump back as something soft and fast and panic-stricken darts away from my touch. Kurt Jones has put a small, furry animal in my satchel. I lift up the flap and peer inside, and a small, pale, pointy face with beady black eyes and a twitching nose stares back at me.
It’s a rat.
The really annoying thing about Kurt Jones is that he has vanished off the face of the earth, leaving me stranded with a rat in my satchel. This is not good.
I don’t even like rats – their yellow teeth and twitching whiskers make me nervous, and their tails look pink and naked. I can’t help thinking of a fairy tale Mum used to tell me, about a town plagued by rats and a mysterious piper who lured first the rats and then the town’s children away into the mountains. That story always made me shiver.
Still, this rat is clearly tame. It’s a creamy colour, with fawn and brown patches and very bright eyes. I just can’t work out what it’s doing in my satchel.
By the time the fire brigade have checked over every inch of the school for smouldering exercise books, it’s past midday. We trail back to Miss Matthews’s classroom to collect up stray bags and hand in our folders. Dan Carney’s desk is no longer heaped with flaming paper or mountains of foam, though there is a slightly charred look about it. The bell rings for lunch and I slope off to the canteen. And there is still no sign of Kurt Jones.
I think the rat is hungry, because he has eaten most of my language worksheet. It’s the one about food, which is kind of appropriate. I choose a rat-friendly lunch, heaping my plate with lettuce, tomato and cheese salad.
I find a corner table and lift my satchel flap. The rat peers out, eyes glinting, whiskers twitching. I offer him a tomato, but he just sniffs and looks up at me, reproachfully. I’m tempting him with morsels of lettuce when Frances McGee slides into a seat across from me.
‘Salad?’ she says, frowning at my plate. ‘That’s rabbit food.’
Rat food, actually, but I don’t say anything. Frances has a tray heaped high with pizza and chips, a can of Coke, a packet of crisps, a bar of chocolate and a large helping of apple pie and custard. She is obviously not a salad kind of girl.
I stuff a slice of cheese into my satchel and fasten the straps firmly. I am pretty sure rats are not allowed in the school canteen, not even tame ones.
‘You don’t say much,’ Frances comments, biting into her pizza. ‘Everyone thinks you’re either dim or stuck up, but I reckon you’re just shy. I think you’re taking everything in. Are you?’
What am I supposed to say? Yes, I’m taking it all in and I really, really don’t like what I see? That would go down well.
‘Don’t you want to make friends?’ she asks.
I take a long look at Frances. She’s kind of strange. Her crimped and backcombed hair is dyed black and crowned with a red spotty hairband, and her lips are painted neon pink. She is wearing black net fingerless gloves, black lacy tights and clumpy boots, but nothing can disguise the fact that she’s a few kilos overweight. Her school sweater looks like it would be too big for my dad, and her frilled black miniskirt only draws attention to wobbly thighs and pudgy knees.
I am not sure I really want a friend like Frances. Then again, it’s not like I can afford to pick and choose, not these days. Am I going to be the kind of girl who has only a rat for a friend? It’s not even my rat, either.
I look at Frances McGee and try for a smile. It’s a very small smile, but Frances spots it and starts to grin.
‘You can call me Frankie, if you like,’ she says.
Before I can decide whether to risk saying anything, Lily Caldwell glides up to the table, her mouth twisted into a sneer.
‘What’s up, Frances?’ she says, looking at the plump girl’s tray. Her voice drips sarcasm. ‘Not hungry today? On a diet? Didn’t fancy the treacle pudding or the jelly and ice cream? Sure you can’t fit in a plate of chicken nuggets? We don’t want you wasting away, now do we?’
Frances opens her mouth to protest, then closes it again. A red stain seeps across her cheeks, and her gaze drops to the tabletop.
‘Get a grip,’ Lily sneers. ‘You’ve got enough to feed the whole of Year Eight on that tray. It wouldn’t hurt you to miss a meal once in a while, Frances. You could live for months on that blubber.’
Lily’s hands are on her hips and her pretty face is scrunched up into a mean, pinched mask. She is telling Frances that fat girls really shouldn’t wear lacy tights and miniskirts, that seeing her shovelling in the pizza is putting kids off their lunch.
I bite my lip. Sometimes, it is very, very hard to stay quiet.
‘I’m only telling you this for your own good,’ Lily says. ‘Someone has to, right? As a friend. I’m trying to help you, Frances.’
I catch Lily’s eye, keeping my eyes steady and my chin tilted, and give her a long, hard look. It stops Lily in her tracks.
‘What are you looking at, Tanya, Anya, whatever your name is?’ she snarls. ‘If you’ve got something to say, say it!’
But I don’t have the words to argue, or the confidence, or the grammar. I know I will trip over my words, tangle up their meanings, struggle with the accent, but I am angry. I’m angry for myself, after a fortnight in this dump surrounded by wild animals. I’m angry for Frances, for Kurt, for all the kids who die a little bit when Lily and others like her laugh at them, chip away at their confidence with mean words and sneering glances.
I may not have the words, but I do have something to fight back with. I undo the straps on my satchel, lift the flap.
‘Oh, I forgot, you don’t talk, do you?’ Lily sneers. ‘Face it, Sauerkraut Girl, you don’t belong here… so why don’t you just back off and mind your own business? Go back to wherever you came from…’
Her voice trails away into silence as the rat sprints neatly over her spike-heeled boots, then pauses, twitching, to look around.
Lily Caldwell may be a mean girl, but there is nothing wrong with her eyesight. Or her vocal chords.
‘RAAAAAAAT!’ she screeches, in a voice that could shatter glass.