It hadn't ended there. Throughout the rest of the afternoon Loren had been subjected to hissed name-calling, masticated paper pellets aimed at her whenever the teacher's back was turned and pathetic take-offs of her London accent. Fortunately, Seraphina appeared only to have a small coterie of friends to enjoy the tormenting; most of the other pupils were friendly and curious about her in a good way.
She managed to make a friend of another girl from Hollow Bay, a shy little thing those name was Tessa Windle. They had connected when Tessa had helped Loren pick up the remains of her lunch after Seraphina had tripped her. She was the same age as Loren, but seemed a year younger; her Devonian accent was slight and her manner gentle. By the end of the school day, she and Loren had become firm friends.
•
With an exaggerated flourish the driver drew back the blue people-carrier's passenger door.
'All aboard who's goin' aboard,' he called out to the mass of blue-uniformed pupils spilling out of the school gates. Members of his boarding party broke off from the main crowd, skirting round waiting mothers and fathers, arriving at the minibus in groups of two and three, eight of them in all for the journey home to Hollow Bay. Loren, with her new friend Tessa, waited as three boys ahead of them climbed into the vehicle, while the driver looked her over with an unattractive grin. His teeth were yellow, each one isolated from its neighbour by a discernible gap that emphasized their crookedness. Long, lank hair fell to his narrow dandruffy shoulders and he scratched an unshaven chin as he appraised the unfamiliar passenger.
'You'll be the new 'un, will yer?' He scrutinized Loren's face as if suspecting her of carrying some contagious disease that might infect his regulars. 'Laura Caleigh, 'ennit? I was told to expect an extra passenger this afternoon.'
'Loren.'
'Eh?'
'My name's Loren.'
'Laura, Loren. Same thing.'
She wanted to tell him it wasn't—her name was Loren, not Laura; there was a difference, but she didn't like the smell of his rank breath so didn't want to open up a dialogue.
She made to move past him but he said, 'My name's Frank. You can call me Mr Mulley, all right?' Awroit. 'In yer get then. No messin' about when I'm drivin', okay?'
Loren was about to follow Tessa into the bus when a stocky arm blocked her way. Seraphina Blaney glared at her.
'After me, grockle.' She gave Loren a shove.
Grockle, Loren knew, was a derogatory term for tourist or outsider. The girl with Seraphina gave a chortling snort, while Seraphina herself gave Loren a tight-lipped contemptuous smile. Loren chose not to respond and waited as the big girl and her friend climbed aboard. She followed them in, another breathless, older girl arriving and climbing in behind her.
The minibus was not fulclass="underline" the three boys took up the back seats, an empty double-seat in front of them where the last girl to arrive sat; Seraphina and her friend occupied the next seats right behind Tessa. Loren took the seat next to her. Nobody, apparently, wanted the seat closest to the driver. Loren and Tessa balanced their school bags on their knees, Loren glad that the school day was over; it would almost be a relief to get back to Crickley Hall.
Frank Mulley pushed the passenger door shut with a loud sliding thud, then walked round to the driver's side and got in. Wrists resting over the top of the steering wheel, he craned his head round and silently counted off his passengers, lips mouthing each number. When his eyes met with Loren's, he gave her a smirky wink and, although she shuddered inside, she returned a polite smile. He engaged gear and the people-carrier pulled away from the kerb and soon turned into the town's main thoroughfare.
'What yer sittin' next to her for?' Seraphina dug stiff fingers into Tessa's shoulder. 'She yer new best friend? Like grockles, do yer?'
Tessa shrugged her shoulder away from the other girl's touch as Loren glanced round.
'What yer lookin' at, skanky?' This time the fingers jabbed at Loren's shoulder. 'Think yer better than us, do yer?'
Tessa leaned into Loren and whispered, 'Take no notice. She's even worse when her brother's with her. Quentin's on suspension for two weeks for fighting. It's usually Seraphina who gets him into trouble.'
They both giggled together, more out of nervousness than pleasure.
Seraphina wasn't pleased about that. 'You laughin' at me?' She dug into Tessa again, harder this time, using her knuckles.
Tessa shrugged her shoulder away once more, but the girl behind persisted, this time punching Loren's shoulder.
'Please don't do that,' Loren said, half afraid, half annoyed.
'Please don't do that,' Seraphina mimicked in a whining voice. 'Why?' Woy? 'What yer gonna do about it?' Her head did the Bombay shuffle, her neck flexing first to the right, then to the left and then to the right again, head held upright throughout.
Loren turned her back on her and stared ahead. They were passing through the outskirts of the town now, leaving shops and offices behind, many of the dwellings on either side of the road made of flint or quarry stone. Loren feigned interest in the landscape, which was beginning to open up, fields of heather and bracken glimpsed between breaks in the high hedges, with low sullen hills and clouded skies brooding above it all. Raindrops spattered the windows, but there was not much force to them. Throughout the day the rain had seemed to tease, falling in thick flurries one minute, drizzling lightly the next. The gloom that came with the inclement weather somehow nurtured the despondency she felt. It had been a rotten day, even more rotten that she had expected it to be, and it was Seraphina Blaney who had made it worse.
Loren clutched her bag and tried to ignore her tormentor. Those in the bus were aware of what was going on—the taunting of this newcomer, an outsider, a grockle—and some, namely the boys on the back seat and the girl sitting alongside the bully, laughed along with Seraphina's snide remarks; others, though—Tessa and the girl who had entered the minibus behind Loren—looked out of the windows and tried to ignore what was happening. As for Loren, she wanted to cry.
She felt more nudging on her back, each nudge harder than the one before, but she refused to retaliate. She calmed herself with the thought that it was only a short journey, no more than fifteen minutes or so, and soon it would be over and she'd be back with her family… in Crickley Hall. The thought of the cold, shadowy house failed to elevate her mood: it depressed her even more. But she felt the mood turning to anger. The bully's jibes were now including a fresh victim, Loren's 'spazzie' little sister. Loren began to burn.
But it was her new friend, Tessa, who snapped.
'Just stop it, Seraphina Blaney. Leave Loren alone. She's done nothing to you.'
The boys on the back seat laughed aloud and for a moment the tormentor was stunned into silence. Then she rose from her seat, stretched herself over Tessa's shoulder, grabbed Tessa's school bag and emptied the contents into the bus's narrow side aisle. The books spilled out onto the floor and under the seats, pages flapping and pens and pencils clattering, then rolling. Tessa was aghast—and frightened.
And now it was Loren who snapped.
There was no need to remind herself of her father's advice regarding bullies—what took place seemed to happen naturally (and if she'd taken time to think, then probably it wouldn't have happened at all).
Seraphina was still standing between seats, a broad gloating grin on her face, her friend beside her snickering into her hand, the boys behind uncertain and quiet. Her head had just began to turn towards Loren, her small, deep-set eyes glittering with malice, when Loren's balled fist, thumb on the outside, bent level with the knuckles, smashed into the pudgy part of Seraphina's nose.