?
Everyone thought it’d been an unlucky accident, but the article said that Ty and Chris had been having a fight — that’s how Chris fell into the road.
WHAT?????!!!!
Yeah. It came as a bit of a shock. Penny took it pretty badly.
Who she?
Chris’s girlfriend. Her and Ty had always been pretty tight, but after the accident she was the only person he hung out with. But they had a massive blow-out at school when she saw the paper and after that she stopped talking to him. She’d leave the room if he walked in, stuff like that.
So they were like an item? OMG thats AWFUL! He pushed his friend under a car & started shagging the girl he left behind!
And because Katie isn’t interested in the truth, because she wants to cast me in the worst possible light, that is where she has cut the screen. I’d like to think Mandy would have defended me, but who knows? Maybe that’s what everyone at Bart’s really thought. It’s then that I see the photocopy of the full article on our classroom pinboard. I think of the overstuffed noticeboard I passed on the way in. I’ll lay money Katie’s posted those around the whole school. In fact I’ll be disappointed if she hasn’t.
I walk over and sit at my desk and look at Hannah. She’s staring at me like a puppy on death row. Anj looks pretty tragic too and Gideon is practically steaming at the ears, but it’s Katie whose gaze I meet.
Her expression is totally impassive. She’s watching, waiting, seeing just how far she’s really pushed me.
The door opens and in walks Mrs English.
HANNAH
Mrs English doesn’t really know what she’s looking at. She asks Aaron to explain since his was the name she identified.
Thirty-five pairs of eyes turn to see how he’ll react. Thirty-five pairs of ears prick to hear what he’ll say. One heart (mine) threatening to break if this goes wrong.
“The class has just found out why I left my last school.”
She looks confused. Does she know? Aaron’s dad must have told the teachers something… You see her glance nervously at the board, her eyes widening as she takes in all the information for the first time.
“Can someone tell me who put that up there?”
AARON
Mrs English isn’t looking at anyone in particular — there’s more than one Katie in our class, and it’s not like our form teacher is able to identify the right one from an inch-square picture of cleavage.
Katie is looking at Hannah and at me as if daring us to say something, but even as Hannah opens her mouth someone else says, “Yes.”
For a moment no one knows where to look, but I recognized the voice right away and I’m looking at Rex as he stands up off the desk he was leaning on.
“Katie Coleman did it. I saw her fiddling with the projector when I came in.”
Katie is horrified. The colour’s drained from her face.
“Is this true?” Mrs English is looking at Katie for an answer but it’s the person behind her who speaks up.
“It is. She asked to borrow my laptop — I didn’t realize she was going to use it for this.” Marcy doesn’t even deign to acknowledge Katie as she speaks.
HANNAH
I watch Marcy turn, the way I knew she would. Katie used to be her boyfriend’s best mate’s girlfriend. Now she’s worth no more to Marcy than I was — now she’s fair game for Marcy’s preferred brand of humiliation.
Katie gambled everything on this — and lost.
Serves her right.
AARON
I owe Anj and Gideon an explanation. It’s very hard, telling them, explaining what happened when Neville died — how Hannah saved me. I tell them what I told her, joining up the dots that Katie’s little PowerPoint presentation had set out. Anj is hurt, but she listens and, when I finish, she hugs me just as hard as Gideon. They tell me that they understand how hard it must be and that they’re here for me, that I’m their friend.
Neville, Hannah, Gideon, Anj… I can’t believe I deserve them, but I’m grateful nonetheless. So grateful it hurts.
SUNDAY 2ND MAY
BANK HOLIDAY WEEKEND
HANNAH
My antenatal classes are crammed into a bank holiday weekend that should have been spent in the garden trying to force extra facts into my brain before the exams start. Now I’ve got something else to revise for. Hurrah.
Yesterday I sat through four hours of questions about baby prep that we should all totally have figured out by now, but the midwife running the class felt we needed to go over. She wasn’t wrong — half the people in there make me look organized. I can only assume their older brains are worse affected by all the pregnancy hormones. And they had so many questions. Dear God, it was like they thought we had all day. Don’t they know that when it comes to revision lessons, the faster you let the teacher tell you stuff, the more likely you are to get out early? Don’t they have better things to do with their weekends than sit in a room that’s all windows, melting in the heat as the midwife answers yet another question about the first stage of labour. THE FIRST STAGE. We didn’t even get to the second — the important bit — before the end of the session.
That’s what we’ll be talking about today. Giving birth.
Yuck.
I lean forward and nab a cup of lukewarm water and three biscuits. I need to keep my energy up. Five a.m. wake-up calls from my bladder are better than any alarm invented by man and if you sit me down somewhere warm there’s a ninety per cent chance I’ll sleep — I already snatched five minutes in the taxi over.
I don’t want to be here. Mum came with me yesterday, but Lola’s sick today and Robert’s away on a business trip. I couldn’t ask Mum to come with me — not when I could hear retching echoing from the toilet bowl. Poor Lolly. I called Gran, but she can’t sort it out at such short notice.
So it’s just me. Fifteen, pregnant, single mum. All the others are a sensible age, with jobs that give them maternity leave and husbands that know more about pain relief than the anaesthetist who’s going to be giving it. I can’t help but feel resentful towards all of them — hey, I’m fifteen, I’m meant to be angry at life, right? Isn’t that what people twice my age think it’s like to be me? Isn’t that what they remember themselves being? Only I’m not them and I’m only angry because I want what they have and I don’t understand why I can’t have it. Why can’t Jay be un-shit? Why can’t he be the boy I’ve been in love with all my life? Why can’t he just man up and deal with this? It’s not like I want him to marry me. All I want is for him to come clean so I can stop lying to everyone.
I gnash my teeth to distract myself from the thoughts running riot around my brain. The woman next to me must have heard — she’s looking at me oddly.
“Hannah, isn’t it?” the midwife asks me and I nod. “Is your birth partner on her way?”
Birth partner? Lame.
“My mum can’t make it today. My sister’s sick.” I bite my nail and stare at her, daring her to say anything more. I can almost see her thinking that my mum’s a single parent and look where it got me… “My dad’s on a business trip.”
I can’t believe I just said that. I just called Robert my dad. The rush of love I feel for him overwhelms me. I do love Robert. Loads. I moan about him all the time. I’m jealous of how he’s always boasting about Jay and Lola’s school stuff… But I’m starting to get how he loves me too: when he gave me the money for new clothes; how he’s never once said a word about me supporting myself or moving out; that time he came with me for a midwife appointment I’d forgotten to tell Mum about; driving me and a vomit-covered Aaron back from the Duchess. I think about the closed account in my heart that used to belong to my father and I realize that without noticing, I’ve been transferring all that credit to Robert — and some.