Authors: Kathryn James
Gypsy Girl
For the littlest of us all, the adorable Norah-May
The wedding’s over.
My beautiful bridesmaid’s dress is soaked in blood. Bright crimson patterning the white. The hem ragged and torn. The tulle skirts missing and the strapless bodice ripped. My tiara is long gone. My hair is stiffening with dried blood, not mousse. My legs are crumpled beneath me, unable to move. I’m like a rag doll.
I’m lying in this circle of trees by the black water. They call it a beauty spot. I can’t see no beauty today. Only death. The magpies warned us, but we didn’t listen.
Gregory is beside me, his sun-streaked, fair hair red with blood, his face white as a ghost. Shocked and injured again. It’s my fault. I want to hug him, hold him close, tell him I didn’t mean to let this happen to him. But I can’t move. Anyway, he probably hates me.
In the distance, I can hear emergency sirens. Has everyone found out? Has me daddy? His name is Samson Smith. He comes from a long line of champion fighters. He’d have been able to stop Gregory from getting hurt. Not like me, even though I’m the only girl to have inherited the Smith fighting skills. Sometimes I love it, but now I hate it. I’m too fast, too strong, even in my Jimmy Choo heels. It’s brought me here, to this place of death.
It began three days ago with a fight. Seems that for me, everything always begins with a fight…
High above us the spotlights lanced down, hot and white. Anything beyond the cage was in darkness, except for the faces of the men standing at the bars, hands grasping them, mouths shouting. I couldn’t tell whether they were for me or against. Men don’t always like girls winning.
The boy beneath me had a cute face and a Maori tattoo swirling around one arm. I think he was around eighteen, a couple of years older than me. Dark hair spiked with matt-textured mousse. Nice hairstyle, but that wasn’t helping him. He’d laughed to begin with, when he saw me. Most boys do. I take them by surprise. I don’t look like a fighter girl. I don’t even look strong. I look like I get all my exercise from going out dancing or shopping for clothes, not the gym.
But now I had him pinned down. His skin smelled of Lynx Africa.
I shifted slightly, our faces almost pressed together, and got a stranglehold at last. He knew he was lost. I felt the last remaining bit of fight go out of him. He was too sweet, he shouldn’t be here. He hadn’t got the killer instinct. I wondered what had brought him to this gym, in an old warehouse. He gave a final desperate attempt to throw me off him, but I wasn’t going anywhere. This was the closest I ever got to boys. So close, wrapped around them, but only in fights. They joked about me afterwards, looking at me in my little shorts and crop top, their eyes hot. But when they were fighting me, all they wanted to do was knock me down.
I tightened my grip on the boy’s neck. He held out for a few seconds, until he ran out of breath. He tapped the mat. The roar of the supporters swept over us. I jumped to my feet, and the fight organizer was there, dragging my hand in the air, almost lifting me off my feet.
“The winner is Gypsy Girl!”
That’s what they call me, there in the back streets where there’s no rules, just fight, fight, fight. They don’t ask if you’re over eighteen years old. They don’t want to know if you’ve got into trouble because of fighting. It was the only place for me. There weren’t many girl fighters, and I was the best.
Boos and cheers echoed around me. The fight was over, and Maori Boy was getting to his feet, peering at me from under his spiky fringe and trying to grin. And my best friend, Kimmy, was coming through the cage doors with a bundle of cash in her hand and saying, “Let’s go, Sammy! I got the winnings. Come on!”
We got out of there fast. Kimmy pushed her way through the crowd, kicking anyone who tried to stop us, until we burst out into the dark car park, drinking in the chill night air. Her rusty old Golf started first time, and we roared off down the road, both of us laughing, me with me feet up on the dashboard, pulling off the black fingerless fight mitts before counting out the money. It was a good night. After Kimmy’s split, I had enough to buy me sister Sabrina’s earrings, the crystal ones that matched her wedding dress.
“I need food,” said Kimmy, as we screeched round a corner. “Chicken Caesar wrap, fries and Coke.”
“No. Take me straight home.” I was starving hungry too, but the sky over the warehouses and industrial units was getting a rosy glow. Dawn wasn’t far away. I had to get back before me daddy missed me. He’d go crazy if he knew where I’d spent the night. This was my secret.
“I know where there’s another fight tomorrow,” said Kimmy hopefully.
“I’ll see.”
It was Wednesday morning. I had Sabrina’s wedding to finish arranging for Saturday. I was the chief bridesmaid, and she’d turned into Bridezilla.
I hardly had time to crawl into bed and get a few winks of sleep before I was woken again. We live behind my father’s gym, but because Sabrina’s getting married in Langton, our trailers were packed and we were moving to the town for the wedding. So I had to haul my battered limbs out of bed and ride along beside Sabrina.
We parked up on the outskirts of Langton, where there’s a little field called Gypsy’s Acre. It’s this perfect little spot surrounded by trees on a quiet road, where the houses finish and the countryside begins.
We were there because this was the very field where our mother, Maggie Smith, stayed when she got wed to me daddy. She died two years ago, and we all miss her. So when Sabrina said she wanted to stay on Gypsy’s Acre before her wedding, we knew why. There’s wild roses growing in the hedges around the field – beautiful and snowy white. They were blooming when our mother got married, and she picked them for her bouquet. You can see them in the wedding photos. We were going to do the same for Sabrina, to add into her massive mega-expensive bouquet. That way it would be as if our mother was a little part of the wedding, even though she’s gone.
By midday our three Hobby tourers were standing neatly in the middle of the grass. One for my father, one for Great Granny Kate, and one for me and Sabrina. The rest of my married sisters either lived in the town or were staying with me aunties. Last time we came here it was lovely and peaceful, but things had changed. Behind the trees on one side there used to be a big barn that no one ever used. In fact, it looked like it was falling down. Now it didn’t. It had been repaired, just like a few other buildings built around it – the type you see on industrial parks, with flat roofs and big doorways. A wide tarmacked drive led to a yard, where several lorries were parked behind a high security fence. No one had seen us arrive, but they didn’t have to worry, we wouldn’t bother them.
Soon as we’d got ourselves settled, the dressmaker woman arrived with the wedding dress. You’d think that would make Sabrina happy. It didn’t. Straightaway she started screaming that the skirt wasn’t big enough.
I swear to God it’s six feet across and sparkling with a thousand Swarovski crystals. We could hardly get it in through the trailer door. But you try telling that to me sister.
“It’s not fair!” she wailed, as she hung up the enormous dress. We were drowning in net underskirts. They took up nearly all the space inside our trailer. “I told the woman I wanted it
covered
in crystals.”
I’m never getting married. I’m the youngest of the seven Smith sisters, so I know all about weddings and being a bridesmaid. But I’m the odd one out. I don’t want true love. Since I was little I always wanted to run off and play with our boy cousins and go to Muay Thai kick-boxing classes with them. My father says he knew I was special the moment I was born. He was desperately hoping for a boy after six daughters, so he was disappointed to begin with. But then he held out his finger, and I clutched it, and wouldn’t let go. I was so strong he picked me up like that and dangled me, and I still didn’t let go. That’s the test for a new fighter in the Smith family. Which is why I’m called Sammy-Jo. It’s the closest me daddy could get to Samson, his own name and the name of all our fighting ancestors.
Being a fighter wasn’t helping me with Sabrina, though.
“The dressmaker woman sez if you have too many crystals, the dress’d weigh too much, and you wouldn’t be able to walk down the aisle,” I told her.
She didn’t look convinced and started flouncing about, so I walked outside to get the bridesmaids’ dresses. We’d left them on the sunloungers under a tree, near the entrance to the field, and in the end she trailed after me, still moaning.
My father had gone visiting the Quinns, the family of Sabrina’s husband-to-be. So there was only me, Sabrina and Granny Kate in our little camp – unless you count the evil-looking magpie sitting on the picnic table, chattering at us.
Once we’d sorted out the dresses we were going to the high street to get our nails done and get Sabrina’s earrings. I was in my tight jeans, high-heeled boots and a little top that stopped short and showed me belly.
I gathered up my bridesmaid’s dress from its delivery box and held it in the air. It shimmered in the sunshine, its tight strapless bodice was trimmed with crystals, its waist tight and slim-fitting all the way down over my hips until it flared out into a froth of lacy tulle skirts. Sabrina grabbed the flower girl’s dress and immediately started going on about the colour of the ribbons not being the right shade of blue. That’s why I never heard the two boys coming down the lane past our field, until I looked up and found them standing by the entrance, staring at us in surprise.
They were near enough for me to hear one of them say, “Oh. My. God. Gypsies,” like you might say, “Oh my God, Martians.” He flicked a strand of his styled dark hair into place and then stood there smirking at us.
For the moment, my mouth had stopped working, which was unusual for me. I stared back, but not at the dark-haired one, he didn’t interest me. It was the other boy that had struck me silent. This one had a mop of fair hair that had gone streaky and baby-blond in the summer sun. You’d think that would mean he had blue or grey eyes, but he didn’t. He had brown eyes – not dark brown, but golden brown, like clear amber. I remembered the fair hair and the golden brown eyes from the last time we met. He was staring back at me, so I didn’t think he’d forgotten, either.
I just stood there, clutching my armful of frothing white duchesse silk and finest tulle. He leaned against the gatepost, his hands in his pockets.
“So what’re you doing here?” he asked, eventually.
“Nothing.”
It was true. We weren’t getting in anyone’s way. We were out of sight. The piece of grass we were parked on wasn’t being used for anything. The only problem was Gypsy’s Acre belonged to the Langtons. The roof of their big house and a couple of windows were showing through the trees, across the fields behind us. The Langtons were rich, and they owned everything round here.
And the fair-haired boy staring at me was Gregory Langton. Their son.
His friend was beginning to grin, thinking he could get cheeky because we’re girls and we’re Travellers. He didn’t know the Smith sisters, obviously.
“What’s your names?” he asked.
“Ignore them,” muttered Sabrina, pulling me sleeve. “You’ve got to do something about these ribbons, they’re all wrong, honest.”
I shook her off. “This won’t take long.”
“But you have to help me with the dresses!”
“Take yours inside. I’ll sort it in a minute.” I walked over to the boys. Gregory and his friend took a step back. My sisters say I have a walk like a tiger, like I’m stalking along – if tigers wore heels, that is.