Me Myself Milly (13 page)

I glanced round at the other girls. They all looked either bored or annoyed, except Effy who looked shocked.

‘You must have had girls like that at your old school. There’s always one,’ I said.

Effy swallowed. ‘No, not that bad,’ she said. ‘There were girls who were mean and stuff, but if they’d behaved like that,’ she nodded in Amy’s direction,
‘they would have been “asked to leave’’.’

At lunch we sat with Katy, Harriet and Molly again. They were talking about the project and they asked us what we were going to write about.

‘I suppose it would have to be when my dad went bust and told me he couldn’t afford to send me to St Bart’s any more,’ said Effy. ‘Of course the positive spin on
that is you guys,’ she said, looking round at us all. ‘I’d never have met you if I’d stayed at my old school.’

There was a silence after that and I wondered if Effy had embarrassed the others, but when I looked up I realised they were all staring at me expectantly.

‘Come on, Emily,’ said Molly.

‘Yeah, what was your worst day ever?’ said Harriet.

I swallowed. The piece of sandwich I was eating wouldn’t go down. I was sure I’d gone red with the effort of holding back my tears. What if I told them? What if I came right out with
it now? Just said it. Told them about Sunday, April 20th.

‘I don’t think Emily’s decided yet,’ said Effy. The look she gave me showed me she knew there was a problem and she changed the subject. ‘So, what do you lot do at
the weekends? Do you want to meet up with us in town on Saturday?’

I gave myself a mental shake and tried to concentrate on being Emily, having lunch with her friends and planning the weekend. Which reminded me of last weekend and the disastrous trip out with
Devlin. If it wasn’t for Sunday, April 20th, last Saturday would be way up there on the list of worst days.

And then, just so that I could join in with the conversation, I told them about Devlin. Not the disastrous day out, that was kind of embarrassing, but about the fact that an American boy had
moved in upstairs.

I never expected the reaction I got. They went wild. It was like I’d said Justin Bieber had moved in upstairs or something.

‘Oh my God, is he really good-looking?’ said Molly, and before I could answer Katy said, ‘How old is he? Has he got a girlfriend?’ and Harriet, who was bobbing up and
down in her seat said, ‘We’ve got to meet him! Invite us all round . . . No! I know, have a party!’

‘Oooh yes, a party!’ said Molly and Katy together.

I couldn’t help laughing. Yeah, right. A party with five girls and Devlin. He’d love me for that. Especially as three of the girls were practically drooling at the thought of
him.

‘He’s just a boy,’ I said. ‘He’s pretty ordinary-looking really and I think he’s a bit shy.’ I was tempted to tell them he was also rude and
uncooperative and downright unfriendly, but I didn’t because I thought it might be just me that he didn’t like. In fact, if I introduced him to some other people, I’d be able to
tell if it was just me that he was unfriendly towards. The trouble is I couldn’t have a party; I couldn’t have people over to the flat. Not with Mum the way she was at the moment . . .
and I hadn’t told them about Lily and I wanted to keep it that way.

‘I know,’ said Effy, ‘bring him into town on Saturday and take him to the Posh Nosh café and we’ll all be in there and you can introduce us to him.’

‘Yeah, good idea,’ said Molly.

I wasn’t so sure. For a start, how was I going to get him to come out again when he’d made it so plain last time that he was not enjoying himself?

But I didn’t want to tell them it was never going to happen and I wanted to go out with them on Saturday even if he didn’t.

‘Okay,’ I said, ‘I’ll see if I can get him to come and I’ll meet you all in there at eleven o’clock.’

I’d just go on my own and tell them he was busy and couldn’t make it. There was no way I was going to ask him along.

‘You haven’t told us what he looks like,’ said Molly. ‘Does he look like Zac Efron?’

I must have looked completely blank. I hadn’t got a clue who they were talking about.

‘You know,’ said Harriet, ‘Troy from
High School Musical
? You must have seen
High School Musical
!’

‘Um . . . no,’ I said.

‘Okay,’ said Kate, ‘does he look like Taylor Lautner or Robert Pattinson?’

‘You must know who they are,’ said Harriet. ‘You have seen
Twilight
, haven’t you?’

‘I’ve read it,’ I said, relieved.

‘Oh my God,’ said Molly. ‘Have you seen anything? Please tell me you’ve seen
Mean Girls
. It’s my favourite film ever!’

I had to admit I’d never seen
Mean Girls
. Or
Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen
or
10 Things I Hate About You
, which were all, apparently, classics which I
absolutely had to see.

‘Right, that’s it,’ said Katy. ‘The girl needs educating. How about you all come round to mine on Saturday, after the café, and we’ll have a film night? You
can all stay over if you want.’

I did want. I wanted to very much but I couldn’t. Not for the night. Not with Mum . . . well, not just now. I knew if I asked her she’d say yes, she’d be pleased for me, but I
just couldn’t. Not yet.

‘I’d love to,’ I said, ‘but I can’t . . . not for the night.’

‘Tell you what,’ said Effy, ‘we’ll come, but I’ll get my dad to pick us up late.’

The others looked disappointed but they didn’t argue. I was secretly pleased that Effy wasn’t going to stay over. I didn’t want to feel like the odd one out.

And all the time they were chatting and all through the rest of the day there was a little voice in the back of my mind going, ‘The worst day, the worst day, tell them about your worst day
ever.’ I thought about my journal and how I had started to write about it and suddenly I wanted to get home and finish it. Could I stop going to Ted’s if I managed to write about what
happened? Perhaps I could ask him next time I went. But would that seem rude? It might sound like I hated going there and would do anything to get out of it. I was sure he’d understand
though. He’d know it was because I’d had enough and I just wanted to be normal again.

The bus pulled away. Lily, Archie and I stood on the pavement next to the bus stop. Lily was watching the boys as they walked down the street.

‘What now?’ I said.

One of the boys, the one in the blue hoodie, turned round and looked at us. Lily smiled at him so I poked her in the ribs with my elbow. Why did she have to be so obvious?

I looked around. The side of the street where we were standing had houses dotted along it and I could see a pub halfway down. It was called The Badger and Stoat. For a moment it made me think
of Mark in Cornwall and how Lily had tricked him. There was a sign outside the pub with a painting of a badger on it and a stoat winding between its feet. If we were animals, I thought, I would be
a badger and Lily would be a stoat.

Across the road was a long stone wall, about a metre high. On the other side of the wall was a wood. The trees were covered in the first, bright green leaves of spring. Opposite the bus stop
where we were still standing was an old, rusty iron gate. Someone had made a sign and hung it on one of the bars with wire. The white paint had gone green, but the lettering was still
visible.

It said No Admittance.

The boys had nearly reached the pub. For one awful moment I thought Lily was planning to follow them in there. But she crossed the road and slung her leg over the rusty gate.

‘Come on,’ she shouted over her shoulder at us, as she climbed over. Archie and I crossed the road.

‘Lily, we can’t go in there, it says so,’ I told her, pointing to the sign.

‘Well I’m going,’ said Lily, crunching her way into the trees. Archie started to climb the gate. I glanced down the road towards the pub. The three boys had stopped outside
the pub door. They were watching us. The boy in the blue hoodie was talking to his mates and pointing in our direction. He had takena few steps towards us and it looked like he was trying to
persuade the other two to follow him.

Archie had reached the other side and stood there waiting for me. I quickly climbed over, grabbed Archie’s hand and dived into the trees. I didn’t know if we were being followed
or not. My heart was racing by the time we caught up with Lily and I suspected it was fear rather than exertion that was causing it to beat so fast.

‘I’m hungry,’ said Archie.

I saw Lily looking around for somewhere to sit so we could eat our picnic. I was listening hard to see if I could hear the boys coming through the woods after us.

‘Let’s have it later,’ I said, leading them further into the woods.

There was a sort of path that we were following but it had been blocked by a huge tree. The tree had fallen over and its vast trunk lay across the path. There was a faint track veering right
which seemed to go round the end of the tree.

‘Wow, cool,’ said Archie, staring up at the huge circle of roots and soil and stones which had been pulled up when the tree fell. Lily bent down and picked up a stone.

‘Mum’s going to love this,’ she said, showing it to me. It was a large phallic-shaped piece of flint. I grinned.

‘Let’s see,’ said Archie.

‘It’s just a stone,’ I told him.

He grabbed it. ‘It looks like a big willy if you ask me,’ he said.

Lily and I fell about laughing. Lily took the flint back and we carried on.

Just as Archie was beginning to complain, the trees stopped abruptly. There was no fence or wall and we found ourselves staring out across a huge field.

The field was bordered by hedges, beyond which were more fields. The field on the right had cows in it andI was relieved to see that the gate between our field and theirs was closed. I
didn’t like cows very much. I didn’t like the way they stood and stared and I’d heard about people out walking their dogs who had been trampled to death by them. The field on the
left was bare and had been ploughed into stripes of brown soil.

‘What’s that?’ said Archie.

We looked to where he was pointing. On the other side of our field the ground rose slightly into a bank. It looked circular and at the top of the bank on one side was a brick structure. We
crossed the field towards it.

As we got closer we could see that the whole thing was bigger than it looked from the other side of the field. The grass bank rose steeply and we couldn’t see what was over the top. The
brick thing was square with a concrete slab on the top of it. We could see graffiti all round the edges.

‘Let’s have our picnic up there,’ said Lily and started scrambling up the bank. When she reached the top she stopped suddenly. ‘Whoa, come and look at
this.’

Archie got there first. ‘Eew, yuk!’ I heard him say. I crawled up the last bit and looked over the top.

On Saturday morning I told Mum I was going into town to meet up with some friends. Lily sat on her bed and watched me getting ready but we didn’t talk. I didn’t
want to tell her anything about my new friends and I guessed, from her silence, that she didn’t want to know.

We were only going to Posh Nosh and then round the shops so I put on a pair of jeans and my favourite top. I was about to shut the wardrobe door when I caught sight of myself in the long mirror
on the inside of the door. The truth is, ever since The Incident, I’ve tried not to look in the mirror if I can help it. It’s as if I don’t want to come face to face with myself
any more. As it was, I wasn’t looking myself in the eye. I was just looking to see if my jeans and top combo would do. I decided it wouldn’t; it needed something else.

One of Lily’s Indian scarves had fallen to the bottom of the wardrobe. I picked it up and put it on. I didn’t look in the mirror again so I didn’t know if I looked good in it
or not. But I thought Lily always looked nice in it, and if she did then I should too. I turned round fully expecting Lily to tell me to take her scarf off but she didn’t. She just stared at
me so I said ‘Cheerio’, and walked out of the room. I was about to go into the sitting room to find Mum and tell her I was going, when there was a knock on the door.

‘Are you ready?’

It was Effy. I hadn’t arranged that she would come round and pick me up. I was about to tell her that I’d spoken to Devlin and he couldn’t come when Mum walked in.

‘Are you off then, girls?’ she said.

‘Yes, we’ve just got to pick up Devlin first,’ explained Effy.

Damn. Now it was too late. Mum would know I hadn’t talked to Devlin about going out.

‘Have fun,’ said Mum. She came over to me and started fussing with the scarf round my neck. I tensed up but then she kissed me and said, ‘Take care.’

When we got to the top of the basement steps I said to Effy, ‘Look, I haven’t actually asked Devlin if he can come or not.’